As I was sitting listening to Dr. Graham go on and on about Aristotle's ethics I kept thinking about the point of the material. Why am I learning what I am learning? We talked about the different types of knowledge that Aristotle proposes that we have. We have the arts, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophical wisdom, and intuitive reasoning. I think it is cool that he outlined some different categories of knowledge that we have but which wisdom am I most concerned with? I think that in my past days I really wanted to learn scientific knowledge. I didn't care about the actual doing of anything. I just wanted to know that I could do it. I think that I am scooting towards the arts. I like to be able to do whatever I think I can do. The problem that arises in the doing is the loss of excitement for the journey as soon as I pick up the desired task that I'd like to accomplish.
In philosophy we learn about arguments and objections. What I have come to find out is that anything that doesn't really change behavior is not really worth arguing. So someone came up with a theory. What is wrong with the theory? In the first place... what does that theory have to do with life? That would be my first question. Aristotle created syllogistic logic. Descartes gave us a method for the government of our minds. I guess that both of these are practical when I think about it. If we were to live by all the rules that Descartes gave us for learning and using our intuition I believe that there is nothing we couldn't master as long as we can maintain our desire. One thing that he leaves out is emotion. His method is defined on strict robotics and automation. Why is the syllogism important? It is used to explain connections to those that do not know them. In my life the people that I will have to explain the most to are my children. One of the facts that I keep forgetting is that people are a lot more humble than I am. They like to learn from others while I like to learn from experience. Whenever I am with someone I prefer that they don't teach me about things unless I ask. This is a horrible way of thinking. I already proved that this method of learning is quite worse than putting the information into a collective whole and learning from each other. The simple implication is that we would all have to have the same experiences to reach the same conclusions. But a lifetime can only learn so much and we would never get past the first generation of knowledge, even that knowledge that Adam had pertaining to all things. We would never have grown as a society and collection of human essences and patterns.
So there is actual application to what I am learning. What about in my other classes? We are learning about logic and computability in meta-logic. What purpose does that serve? From what I can deduce we are trying to learn how to figure out difficult concepts. Will this promote discoveries of future concepts and collections of knowledge? Will we solve problems unanswered? So what if every recursive function is Turing computable. What does that solve? The only practical application that I can think of is that that means our computers are limited, but can solve any equation dealing with identity, zero, successor, addition, subtraction, multiplication, exponent, factorial, sum of... and other arithmetic operations.
The practical application of our knowledge is to strengthen the world. Whenever we make an argument against an essay of a perceived point of view we are trying to get down to the nitty griddy. We are trying to discover what makes this world tick. Maybe that is my attraction to philosophy. Maybe that is the reason that I love thinking about this stuff even if I don't like reading about it.
The next problem is how do I retain this remembrance in my mind when my brain starts getting tired in class? How can I remember that what I am learning is important because I can apply it to life? Expression. I need to express myself. I need to work on that concept of expression. What I have can contribute to life. It can make others see more clearly. It can help define the world. It will be able to help my children not just in the financial support that they will need but in the information that they must learn to operate and function in this society. I must remember that practical application.
In other news... I need to do some more creative writing.
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