Primary Colors

Sometimes when I read through the various philosophers for my human nature classes, I wonder "have I really learned anything since I was a little kid?"  Sure, now I can tie my shoes and navigate Microsoft Word and understand a good number of Shakespeare references, but have I learned anything?

I guess when I read through the arguments for the nature of the universe and God (and God's existence) I visualize a huge room full of people giving their opinions all at once, not really listening to each other very well (but that's not my point), occasionally I'll chime in with my beliefs as they stand.  But have I really learned anything new?

I've felt and experienced new things.  I've gotten over fears and prejudices and played for the team I used to root against occasionally.  I've gotten more sensitive to how my actions affect other people, but I've always known that my actions affect other people, ever since I was a baby and I'd cry for a bottle (I assume I did this, based on my observation of every other human baby.)

The same arguments are being repeated.  Whenever I seem to hear a new argument I like to investigate it and look up the big words I'm hearing for the first time.  When I do this it's like I'm pulling the mask off of the Wailing Goblin that's been terrorizing Bloomington and finding out that it's just Old Man Whintey trying to "get at the money that's rightfully his" (if you're lost just forget that last sentence).  It seems like it's the same questions that are being asked and argued over.

Sometimes it feels like learning might be as hopeless as finding a new primary color, or, even harder, imagining a new sensory organ.

Dominos

My will is not free, it’s a great work of fiction.

I am the sum of my past and the past of the earth.

Every yell in the park, every dream in the dark

Every domino falling is just a part of the picture.

The wall full of writing has a cause that it follows.

The road was less taken ‘cause the other was crowded.

Our cognitive powers are simply illusion.

When we think that we’re learning, we’re really just falling

From the cliff of eternity carved out by the wind.

But despite this inevitable fate I am set in

I reflect on the chain of unstoppable movements

And I see that this series of inflexible agents

Has created a mind which now trusts its own judgments.

How moronic this mind is to think that it thinks!

It’s merely a perpetual sorting machine

That orders this world into asinine sections

To prove to itself that its discernments are valid.

And despite these abysmal yet "logical" musings

I can’t help but feel I should call it a night.