After i wrote that long note at the top of this blog, to feed my megalomania. . I realised that i have been writing less meaningful, 'draw people out and shake them, till the world is topsy turvy again' kinda posts ( sometimes colloquialisms are appropriate). I realised that people (those who read my blog({phi !}), and people in general) are settling back into the rabbit's fur(Sophie's world: Jostein Gaarder = brilliant book) and feeling comfortable with their lives, and settling into their private ruts again.And that, my friends, does not work for me. I need to reate conflict and argument, debate and discussion, which funnily enough is at odds with another fundamental part of my psyche, conflict mediation( But this scenario actually goes quite well with my megalomania: I create a conflict, mediate it, and get to be the good guy in the end ! Woah !! I just figured myself out ! "Shh...say no more. . We'll talk later. At the crossroads, when it is neither night nor day") anyway, if I'm done digressing, I'd rather get on with my 'serious' post.
The other day, i was 'relieving myself' ( I love to indulge in highly transparent,subtly vulgar euphemisms. Note that I could have used 'Rearing butt cobras' or 'Making nutty chocolate', but i chose to go with the classic ' relieving myself' so as to not offend my more 'delicate' readers(I, for one enjoy toilet humour almost as much as I did as a child. .), though retrospectively, I realise that by writing this sentence, I have completely defeated that purpose :D . . . Back to the main text..) when a revelation made itself available to me. Now this may seem funny to some of you, but the fact is, that you have a choice in your 'revelations'. Your mind gets the whiff of a revelation and your mind must follow it through till the end for you to actually have the epiphany. I myself recall countless occasions when I found myself at the brink of an epiphany, only to blow it off to pursue some more hedonistic pleasure.Fittingly, one can never seem to recall what that stimulus was that caused you to start upon the path to enlightenment, and one is left wondering whether it was really an epiphany, or just something that seemed like one whose only purpose was to torture one with the thought of having passed it by. In the case that this were true, my theory of epiphany-choosing would undoubtedly be false, and the only 'proof' i have against that is that, at the point of choosing, the choice is very real and consious. (Of course the world still may be deterministic in the sense, that being the person I am, i would never have chosen otherwise and any thoughts to the contrary are just products of plain human stubbornness(No more on that..Read for more: http://blogsareegomaniacal.blogspot.com/200 9/06/further-justification-for-blog-name-are.html))
As I was saying (!), I had an epiphany. I was just wondering, apropos sometihng that had happened to me recently, whether I was really all that good and moral as i purpoted myself to be, and at that moment it struck me: What seems good and moral to a person could very
well seem naive and foolish to another.What one person sees as bad, disgusting and immoral, would be seen as shrewd and infinitely smart to another. And for the life of me , I could not find any way to prove the superiority of one of these viewpoints over the other.The only obvious reason was that the former conforms to modern social norms, but since when does the widespread nature of one view constitute proof of it's superiority over another ? Our norms have changed several times over the centuries, and they are no means of judging right or wrong.(Another causal factor in the creation of social norms is the distribution of power in society and the views of these 'powerful' individuals, but this is not a consideration worth discussing, hence the parentheses :P)
What then ? What is right ? What is wrong ? Does our moral compass have a magnet stuck to it somewhere, a magnet, that someone else hid there(or scarier still, we hid and forgot about)? One option that immediately comes to mind is that, one of the two groups ( Naivete as opposed to conventional morality(in an alternate universe, without loss of coherence, Naivete could be immoral)) are just faking their belief in their morality paradigm and in truth are driven by other immoral 'forces' to behave, and believe that they are right ? The questions raised by this assertion are : a) What immoral forces ? b) Is 'universal' acceptance and belief a good enough measure of morality ? and c) Which of the two views are right ?
Point (c) points to the fact that even if a way can be found out of the multiple paradigms'impasse', the basic question still remains.Point (a) simply calls to one's attention the fact that the final, true system of morality, would be internally coherent, but not necessarily objectively true, and Point (b) asks us the questions ' What is morality ? What is truth ?' Clearly, this argument would be, (if at all) secondary to an argument that can resolve suitably the questions raised by it, for they are fundamental to this analysis of morality and truth.
The only way out of this horrenduous predicament, in my opinion, or atleast the one that is most clear and describes things, at least upto a certain depth in totality, is to adhere to the 'magnet attached to the magnetic compass' theory. You choose a path, by going over the different possible systems of morality, and suitably attach a magnet ot your compass. You then follow the compass, making suitable adjustments to the magnet, as and when you feel the need to change your path entirely. The fixing of the magnet as a default option gives one time to observe ones surroundings, interact with them, and steer (:D). However one must be aware of the fact that there is a magnet, and that the path we are on is not a predecided, universally prescribed one. After all, isn't everybody free to choose one's path.
Analogically, one's moral system is typically personal and must be treated as such.The only thing we can seek , as a parallel to the morality that we pursued in the paradigm where morality was absolute and universal is internal coherence. For example, on the path ( piecewise defined :P) that one has chosen, one can always agree with others on the same path that it is very scenic and beautiful, more so than any other that could have been chosen,in fact the 'beauty' of the path would be one of the parameters that contributed to it's selection over others in the first place.
Apt ....
!!
PS: Of course, all this could still be deterministic ....a la the post, the link to which i have pasted somewhere in the middle of this one : what the heck : http://blogsareegomaniacal.blogspot.com/2009/06/further-justification-for-blog-name-are.html (:P)
PPS: Is beauty really subjective ?
PPPS: The actual analysis of the different systems of morality would be an extremely involved, though interesting task....Maybe another time ....
Whenever I read your posts Sumedh, the first thought that comes to my mind is...."What a waste of talent! Why is this guy doing Engineering? He's just such a gifted writer.I wish he'd use that talent a little more than he does."
ReplyDeleteI know that you must be excelling in your chosen field as well but I still feel that there's a philosopher and a writer within, that's literally bursting out of you. Even after you become an engineer, I hope that you will think about pursuing writing in some form or the other. If you choose not to, the world would definitely be deprived of reading about what you have to say.
Talent like this shouldn't be just restricted to a blog. It should be out there, so that everyone who loves a good read has the pleasure of enjoying the words that are put down in your very characteristic style.
Keep writing Sumedh coz you've truly been blest.
-Ms. Lynette
If it is not too much burden try to italicise the sentences where you digress from the main topic. Sometimes it gets very confusing and difficult to hold on to the prime idea of the blog that you are arguing.
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