what exists?
The young professor of philosophy from Germany, Markus Gabriel, explains that our personality's is a kind of art. And this a theme in modern painting and theater: We are also our own painters and actors. Men is a living creativity. Creativity, fantasies and originality show the personality of man and they can to be thought away from humankind.
So unicorns exist, at least in fiction and songs.
His answer to the question; "Who am I?" is; What ever holds my mental life together. But there are much less unity of my mental life then I will think it is. there is not a unity my mental life that is "me".Most of us are not schizophrenic and we can separate from other people and from our fantasies, at least to some extend.
But as I have claimed; what holds us together is our stories about ourselves, our story about history and so on. And as we have a quite bad memory the stories will never be completely true.
We also tend to emphasize our good moments, at least when we tell our story to others.
Gabriel has another claim that also may explain why Gabriel doesn't think that there is any unity in he me:
We move in the spheres of spirits. Science explains the things it can explain; a molecule, the sun
darkening, a logical fault i a sentence.But materialism cannot explain us.
No metaphysics, but ontology that means -no overwhelming idea can explain everything but many
things exists. There are no superstructure, something that philosophers, science and religions has wanted to find for centuries.
Buddha must be an exception, according to me. He didn't want to speculate so much, he didn't need a God. his aim was to help people to be more satisfied and gave us Tools as meditation.
There are many "sensefields" that don't belong together; what have the neurons in our brain and and our dreams and thought in common. Nothing according to Gabriel. The ideas about democracy and equal rights cannot be explained by the brain.
so there are many facts, but no hard facts.
Science can be good at explaining some things, for instance why the sun is bigger than the earth though it looks smaller if we look at it. That's a fact. But if we ask science what the sun really is, it will be energy or atoms. So there must be other perspective towards the sun too. There is no "naked" sun, it's always in different sensefields (a word that Gabriel seems to has invented)
And the claim that it is evil to kill another human being is also a fact. And I will add; the same goes for all other animals.
Ideas, like the beauty of Jesus Christ or Democracy has of course meant a lot and causes structures as Christianity, parliaments end free speech.
Values are very important, they are facts. Nihilism, a heritage from Nietzsche is important for postmodernism. Gabriel wants to replace postmodernism with newrealism. For a postmodernist only different perspectives are important, and no one can claim to have the right perspective.
We just construct the "truth" and use language to do it.
Both the world with spectators and with no spectators are real. A mountain exist even if no one sees it.
But what about values, they are facts too - it's for instance evil to kill children. Gabriel; If you don't know that you have no cognitive problems, but it means that you are an evil person.
So I guess the five mindfulness training must be a fact too (here in the context of ecology). They are written by Thich Nath Hanh and in a Buddhist context - but you don't have to be a Buddhist to follow them.
Though you better fist examine them and see if you agree:
His answer to the question; "Who am I?" is; What ever holds my mental life together. But there are much less unity of my mental life then I will think it is. there is not a unity my mental life that is "me".Most of us are not schizophrenic and we can separate from other people and from our fantasies, at least to some extend.
But as I have claimed; what holds us together is our stories about ourselves, our story about history and so on. And as we have a quite bad memory the stories will never be completely true.
We also tend to emphasize our good moments, at least when we tell our story to others.
Gabriel has another claim that also may explain why Gabriel doesn't think that there is any unity in he me:
We move in the spheres of spirits. Science explains the things it can explain; a molecule, the sun
darkening, a logical fault i a sentence.But materialism cannot explain us.
Why?
To explain this we first has to look at Gabriel's extraordinary conclusion. The world doesn't exist....
So what does he mean by that? Hid definition of the world is "all that is". well the matter in the universe exist but nothing that include all things as our thought, ideas, our art and so on. So no overwhelming theory can explain everything exists. He supports the idea of pluralism (as in the view of the many pieces of "me").
No metaphysics, but ontology that means -no overwhelming idea can explain everything but many
things exists. There are no superstructure, something that philosophers, science and religions has wanted to find for centuries.
Buddha must be an exception, according to me. He didn't want to speculate so much, he didn't need a God. his aim was to help people to be more satisfied and gave us Tools as meditation.
There are many "sensefields" that don't belong together; what have the neurons in our brain and and our dreams and thought in common. Nothing according to Gabriel. The ideas about democracy and equal rights cannot be explained by the brain.
so there are many facts, but no hard facts.
Science can be good at explaining some things, for instance why the sun is bigger than the earth though it looks smaller if we look at it. That's a fact. But if we ask science what the sun really is, it will be energy or atoms. So there must be other perspective towards the sun too. There is no "naked" sun, it's always in different sensefields (a word that Gabriel seems to has invented)
And the claim that it is evil to kill another human being is also a fact. And I will add; the same goes for all other animals.
Ideas, like the beauty of Jesus Christ or Democracy has of course meant a lot and causes structures as Christianity, parliaments end free speech.
Values are very important, they are facts. Nihilism, a heritage from Nietzsche is important for postmodernism. Gabriel wants to replace postmodernism with newrealism. For a postmodernist only different perspectives are important, and no one can claim to have the right perspective.
We just construct the "truth" and use language to do it.
Both the world with spectators and with no spectators are real. A mountain exist even if no one sees it.
But what about values, they are facts too - it's for instance evil to kill children. Gabriel; If you don't know that you have no cognitive problems, but it means that you are an evil person.
So I guess the five mindfulness training must be a fact too (here in the context of ecology). They are written by Thich Nath Hanh and in a Buddhist context - but you don't have to be a Buddhist to follow them.
Though you better fist examine them and see if you agree:
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