nowhere to be found

my DON'T PANIC button, that is.

due to stupid superbowl sunday, productions for the guardians is moved ahead to saturday. which means that now i have to have a strip done by saturday afternoon, and i'm entirely out of ideas.

if writers get stuck with writer's blocks, artists get stuck with artist's blocks, and scientists get stuck every two minutes or so, i get stuck with the lack of ideas. on better days, i get stuck with the lack of funny ideas, but today i can't even come up with ANY idea. i think it's the lack of sleep combined with the continous hours of studying i've done in the past few days. all work and no play makes e1n a dull boy.

sam and his dad went to mexico yesterday on a business/pleasure trip. both aspects are probably true for his dad, but for sam i believe it would be entirely pleasure. the only business involved would be if he had to pay someone to give him some sort of pleasure. remember, sam: play it safe, don't do anything stupid, and don't die. this is not hongkong.

ayumi hamasaki's HEAVEN is playing on my ipod right now. it has never failed to fill up my mind entirely with black and white portraits of ayumi in that underground subway station. when that happens, however, i have problems thinking and doing what i'm doing, which is probably the reason why it took me about the entire length of the song (4:19) to finish just this one paragraph.

currently sitting at roundtable, eating lunch while watching serie A game between lecce and intermilan. i've been here for the past hour and everytime i look up from my powerbook screen onto the TV, all i've been seeing is someone getting carded, getting treated for injuries, free-kicks, throw-ins, goal-kicks, and other dead balls situation. never once in the past hour there had been one instance where i saw the ball moving except for when the replay was on. there was a stereotype that serie A is boring because the flow of game stops every twenty-seconds... let me rephrase that. there was a stereotype that serie A is boring because the game does not flow at all since it stops every twenty-seconds due to fouls or ball out of play that i refused to believe. it is therefore once again proven that stereotypes exist because they are true, or used to be true for a significant period of time in the past. people are not THAT creative.

one midterm down, no more to go. branson's quantum class only has takehome exam, which would be bad, but at least i get to do it at home, probably while watching monk or quantum leap.

i just looked up again and there was a replay on a goal for intermilan, scored by the used-to-be-famous portugal dude, luis figo. i looked up again and someone from lecce got red-carded. still no ball movement for me. this is ridiculous. they might as well be playing rugby and no one would be able to tell the difference.

*looked up*

foul again, i'm going to give up and go to class. screw this.

FINAL #15

15. What was Kant's most significant contribution to philosophy? In what ways does a Kantian notion of truth alter the way religionists (of any persuasion) see or view ultimate reality? Use Kant to back up your point.

i believe that kant's most significant contribution is his categorical imperative. that is, categories that one can use to test one's action to determine whether it is moral or not. in general, kant's categorical imperative says that an action is only moral and should be done if one can apply the moral principle behind such action to be true for everyone else. principles that "survive" this test are the ones that form a person's duty, to which that person is obliged. the categorical imperative says "act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." in other words, an action is only moral if it can be universalized. kant incorporates the notion of universality, which is the meat of his argument.

in explaining the ultimate reality, kant claims that human beings are unable to know the noumenal world (the ultimate reality) because our knowledge are limited to what is known as the phenomenal world, the physical world as we see it. kant also claims that it is impossible to concieve the world in terms of god, immortality, justice, and freedom, but human beings do know that such things exist. kant's view on the ultimate reality is somewhat similar to that of saint augustine. while kant did not really incorporate god into his theory as much as augustine does, kant also admits that human beings ---though they believe that god exists--- do not have the knowledge to perceive it. this is similar to augustine who proposes the idea that the wisdom of god is beyond human reasoning and no matter how much they try, human beings can never fully understand the wisdom of god.

FINAL #14

14. Why was LSD so important in the word of Stanislav Grof?

grof seems to regard highly the ability of LSD to do many different things. at JHU, he did a test on LSD to see its potential in treating different disorders such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and depression. aside from these medical purposes, grof claims that although LSD does not always cause spiritual experiences, but he is certain that his experiences were nonetheless spiritual. in fact, he continues on to proclaim that LSD has helped him reach somekind of a "spiritual equilibrium." grof also makes a remark that "he knew many religious teachers from different traditions whose deepest spiritual experiences were drug-induced." another reason that makes grof considers LSD as important is that its ability to give the user a vision of his/her previous life. he claims that one of his LSD trips brought him to a place where he finds himself in "another century, another culture, identified with another person." the details of these visions were so rich and clear grof claims that they cannot be possibly induced by imaginations only. he also believes that LSD can help a person recall his/her birth, due to the number of tunnel visions that many LSD users experience. he gives an example about an autrian psychologist who had a vision of his own birth and a strong smell of leather, which was later confirmed by his mother that he was born in a shop that made lederhosen.

FINAL #13

13. Write a 700 word story using 6 philosophers from LOOKING AT PHILOSOPHY which discusses the issue of whether "man can know ultimate truth." You can create any fictional story you wish, but you must be accurate in describing how a philosopher may argue. For instance, don't have Nietzsche arguing FOR God and Saint Augustine arguing AGAINST God. Your discussion or fictional story is a way for me to see if you understand 6 different philosophers (of your own choosing) and their respective take on truth and man's capacity to know it. TAKE A RISK.

like bill and ted in "bill and ted's excellent adventure," i decided to go back in time and kidnap six philosophers from different era and bring them to my kitchen table to have a cup of tea together. and maybe some philosophical discussions. so i took with me heraclitus, plato, epictetus, st. augustine, immanuel kant, and friedrich nietzsche. some of them looked at each other with admiration, but some with contempt and disgust. i myself made six cups of tea and had them all seated. nietzsche seems to be getting agitated, so i started the conversation.

me: so gentlemen, i gather you all here tonight for some discussion regarding the ultimate truth. can us men know the ultimate truth?
augustine: that is not possible. only god holds the ultimate truth.
nietzsche: preposterous! surely men can.
plato: now, nietzsche, calm yourself down. i'm with you on this one, but i doubt we'll agree as to how.
kant: i have my doubts. and just how would you propose that man can know the ultimate truth?
nietzsche: man has the will to power. this world is pretty much the survival of the fittest; only those who are strong can survive. one simply has to strive and evolve for the better because only after one reaches the state of the ubermensch can one know the ultimate truth.
heraclitus: i'm sorry, what is ubermensch?
nietzsche: ubermensch is somewhat like a superman. it is the final evolution stage of a human being who has successfully carry out his will to power and gain domination over nature.
augustine: you seem to be forgetting about the concept of god.
nietzsche: god is dead. enough said.
augustine: what? how dare you--
nietzsche: my apology, augustine, but the christianity concept is for the weak. you christians are scared to face conflict. your teaching to "love thy enemies" are a concept against nature itself!
heraclitus: nietzsche is right. everything in this world happens as a result of creation and destruction process. there is no such thing as living peacefully. such a style of living will render the society stagnant.
nietzsche: thank you. and you yourself, augustine, why would you think that us men have no ability to know the truth? are you afraid to face the fact that we have free will and thus we do not need god?
epictetus: be careful with what you mean by free will there, nietzsche. you yourself believe that nature should be held with a high regard. are you not convinced that if freedom unites will and ability, then the only way for you to be free is to act accordingly to nature?
augustine: that is if you regard nature as the highest of all, epictetus. but that is where you are wrong, nietzsche. our free will was given by god. free will is a product of divinity. man may have free will and may act accordingly to his will, but no matter how hard man tries with his rational mind, he will never be able to understand the ultimate truth, the divine knowledge of god. the wisdom of god is beyond human rationality.
kant: i would have to agree with augustine on that. my synthetic apriori theory shows that there is a realm, a somewhat ultimate reality, beyond our physical world, that is just not perceivable by our mind. this ultimate reality is beyond our mind, but we know that it certainly exists.
plato: but how about the soul? socrates successfully had a slave boy finishing a complicated mathematical problem without giving the boy more education than just some simple logical questions. this proves that the boy KNOWS beforehand such knowledge. that inside his mind, the answer to the problem exists, he just doesn't know that it exists inside his mind. socrates' series of questions brought this answer out from the boy's mind and the boy becomes enlightened. i am certain that if we can bring out the truth from our minds, then we can eventually arrive at the ultimate truth.
augustine: but again, you are forgetting to take into consideration the concept of god. where do you get this ultimate truth hidden in your mind in the first place if not a divine being?
nietzsche: the concept of god contradicts what nature holds for us. nature teaches us to follow our passion, yet christianity tells us to not to. how can a concept that defies the course of nature can be correct?
epictetus: the ultimate truth that people seek is most likely to be in the form of happiness. now, even conflict is not needed to obtain such ultimate truth. if one is able to practice stoicism with a disciplined mind, and wanting simply what one has already have, then happiness, the ultimate truth, will be easily obtainable.
augustine: see, nietzsche. the concept of christianity does NOT defy nature in any way. like i have mentioned before, the wisdom of god is beyond our knowledge. we cannot use rational thought to justify things that god decides upon. this is where faith comes into play. you need faith if you want to understand the ultimate truth.
epictetus: now, i am not quite so sure about your god, augustine, but i agree upon the idea. there are things in nature that are within our control, but there are also ones that are beyond our control. our free will exists so that we can change those within our power, but for those beyond our power, all we can do is accept and understand the fact that we have no control whatsoever over those events.
nietzsche: that is ridiculous! men have domination over nature. the will of power will definitely allow men to force nature to bend accordingly to man's will.

at this point, i realized that nietzsche and augustine were not going to give up or give in. while the other philosophers seemed to be enjoying their tea, nietzsche and augustine seemed like they are ready to bring the fight to the next level: deathmatch. trying to avoid any unpleasantness, i stopped the discussion and used the time machine to bring these philosophers back to where they belong. maybe it would be better if they had never met.

FINAL #12

12. Are drugs and mysticism connected? Yes or No? Either way use thinkers from Rational Mysticism to support your answer.

even after finishing rational mysticism, i am still not convinced that the visions that people are experiencing whenever they use drugs or hallucinogens are spiritual experience. hallucinogens produces hallucinations, just like the name says, and despite all the report from the studies of these drugs, i am still not convinced that these hallucinations are more than just hallucinations. i have never tried one myself, but if some people who use these hallucinogens are seeing objects that they cannot perceive completely, then maybe what these people are seeing is not much different than the little toy telescope that has an changing pattern whenever the objective lens is twisted. as for the case of those who did see clear and rich details (as in the case of stranislav grof), it is still possible that the LSD probably acts just as an enhancer to one's imagination.

regardless of my personal opinion, john horgan makes it clear that a good number of people do believe that drugs can propel human beings into a higher state of spirituality. horgan claims that indians from the native american church consume peyote cactus as sacrament, and ayahuasca also serves similar purposes for some sects in brazil. huston smith claims that drugs can help people experience such a state of spiritual experience that it will lead the user to strengthen their faith in their religion. but these people who regard drugs highly also have oppositions like ken wilber who claims that meditation proves to be a much safer method to reach enlightenment, yet able to bring one to the level of spiritual experience no drugs can induce. then there are people like steven katz who claims that drugs users do not experience mysticism; they are experiencing their "own consciousness."

personally, i would agree with katz that people who ingest drugs are experiencing drug experiences, not mystical experiences. if they take that to be something mystical and use such experience to better themselves, then good for them. but otherwise, drugs and mysticism are not related. the closest relation drugs and mysticism can have is that drugs, especially hallucinogens, enhances the imagination of the user and lets the user experience something of abstract nature and open to interpretation. this experience is then usually interpreted as a mystical experience.