Inherited strength & Arrogance in religion, science and elsewhere.

Nowadays we often talk about the arrogance of people in various fields. Arrogant scientists do things simply because they can do them, without thinking about the consequences. Arrogant priests are almost celebrating that they quit the church and "moved on". Arrogant managers in companies behave unacceptably without any empathy for colleagues or customers. And the list goes on and on for ever. Many reasons lie behind such behavior. But few are the important ones. One being the most basic of them all: The ease with which we inherit power and knowledge. An ease that is increasing as the years go by and we 'progress'.

You see the scientist today does not toil for what he knows. He just reads everything that his predecessors have discovered and by standing on the shoulders of giants he makes his own discoveries. By finishing university he already knows everything that the leading scientists of the last century knew without even sweating. With such power he feels intoxicated. He gets excited. He can go further! To create something else! It does not matter what! He does not even think about whether or not he should respect some limits because he did not go through years of difficulties to get where he is; time that would increase his humility at the same time his strength also increased. His knowledge increased exponentially along with his arrogance. Similarly, the priest today does not bother to be a 'saint' or does not spend years of pain and efforts to reach at new spiritual heights that will allow him to humbly guide others. He reads everything that the Fathers of the Church have written and in a few years he is ready to play his role, spreading the wise thoughts of old sages to his followers. The greatest difficuly he ever experienced? The exams at his school. And if he gets bored, well, he just leaves. But the holy people of the past went through hell to become what they became. For them it was not a matter of reading at a university but a matter of living. For them, it was a matter of life or death. And how can you give up your life or deny your death?

The examples do not stop here. As said above, we could go on listing cases of modern people following the easy path, accepting inherited power and being arrogant because of that. The right president of a company has gone through a lot until he reached his position. Years spent in low positions, years of effort and difficulties. He won his place. For such a president it does not even make sense to ask him if he is thinking of leaving and going elsewhere. Such president makes a great president. But to-day, people are just selected to be CEOs. In the same way you select to buy a gun from the super market. And with that gun you can kill. But the karate teacher who has learned after years of practice to kill with his hands, he never does kill anyone. Because the years that he spent to acquire this power made him the right person to use it wisely.

Alchemists had a reason for requiring years of silent apprenticeship to reach a minimum so as to begin doing your own experiments. Pythagoras the same. Be afraid of the easy way. It leads to monsters. Learn what you learn on your own. And only when you work hard enough to make it your own, dare to talk to others about it.

Until then...

Discard your inheritance.

And shut up.

(Inspiration for the post from Ian Malcolm's speech in Jurrasic Park novel, written by Michael Crichton)

Post-Covid philosophy: The illusion of Freedom. (And why you are addicted to it)

In the face of the Covid pandemic (coronavirus) many countries imposed nation-wide lockdowns. We are now at the phase of easing those lockdowns. Businesses start operating gradually again and life is beginning to regain its momentum.

During one of the previous days and as part of this 'going back to normal' phase we are all in, I visited an electronics shop. I needed something to buy and I had postponed it a long time now. While I was walking in the store I suddenly discovered many other nice things I could use and I was immediately tempted at buying them. It was only after careful recollection and - I must admit - due to my degraded consuming reflexes because of the two-months quarantine, that I decided at the end not to buy them.

I returned home only with what I wanted. And it felt weird. I really felt like a junkie who had just denied himself the most exquisite of drugs just because - for a funny weird reason - he just did not want them?!

What had happened to me?
Why did I change like that?

Well...

As in all great questions, the question itself was wrong!

I should better be asking...
What had been happening to me all this time before?

Because you see...
I was already changed!

And as weird as it seems, that big change, the coronavirus pandemic, the lockdowns and the overall slowing down of life itself, had simply led me (and many others, as I understand) back at what we once used to be.

Just wander for yourself.

Did you always drink coffee in the morning? Were you always addicted to cell phones? Did you always need to login into dozens of sites to read news? Were you always addicted to buying things just because you have money to do so?

Our life is not our own.
And yet, we claimed ownership a long time ago.
Trying to impose our self on us.

The greatest illusion of them all - the greatest conspiracy in which we all abide, is the illusion that we are free men. Free to do as we want. Free to buy or not buy things. Free to sell things. Free to find a job, free to quit a job.

But we are not.

We do buy coffee every morning. Not because we want it, but because we have learned to do so. We do buy more and more things every day. Not because we will die if we don't, but because we have been trained to do so. We sell things when we wish so. But only because of wishes that have been imposed on us by others. We are "free" to get a job. But only the jobs we have been told that are the ones worth it.

Many people have wrongly attributed the lockdowns to a global conspiracy to keep us at home. But this is the opposite of the greatest conspiracy unfolding before our very eyes: The conspiracy to be out and wander free, doing whatever you want.

Because feeling free is the greatest drug of them all. And when you take it, you never think that you might be not. The freedom is not what you really need. The illusion of grandeur that you feel is your true drug.

But remember Zen.
Seek less, to have more...

Staying at home.
Not buying things.
Being with family.

Those things that seem like 'nothing'.
Are the ones which are everything.

These are the things that we used to do back in the days when we did not know that we could do "whatever we want". And inside our "prison" we did feel happy. With no obligation to do things we did not want or to buy useless things that just make the void in our soul bigger. For while a "free" man can buy a coffee he doesn't need and then come out of an electronics shop with two bags of things he "wants", a a man in prison can dwell on the outer skirts of the universe by reading a book...

Now we will start going out again.
The "prison" doors are open.
But don't be so happy being miserable.

Just ask the obvious...

- Sir, would that be a single or double espresso?

Coronavirus: Selecting who will die. Playing God. Hubris. Punishment.

Many talk about the coronavirus. Many have opinions. Many theories. And one theory that is starting to gain a lot of followers is the one that England has decided to apply: Let's sacrifice some to save others. Let the vulnerable groups and old men die and let the rest live. If we don't do it, everyone will be destroyed.

A very progressive view. A very advanced view. A very scientific point of view (yes, scientists were consulted on this decision - see more on herd immunity theories, impact analysis on the economy, etc).

A view - as cliché as it sounds - full of malice and evil. Malice for the fellow who dies. But what do I care for that? I will survive. Malice for those who will suffer. But what do I care about that? The economy will still be standing!

Religion has been saying it again and again but nobody wants to hear it: The biggest trick of the devil is to convince man that he does not exist. In the past, human life was priceless. Every man was a son of God. Now human life is measured in economic terms and sacrificed in front of the needs of the... fit for survival. Darwin would be very proud of England today, which puts into practice the Theory of Evolution in the most gruesome way.

But for Christianity, every human being is potentially God. We are all part of Him. And with proper preparation we can become one with Him. As Nietzsche had said, now man has killed God. And now we are just counting dollars and calculating cost-benefit differences. If the equation is solved, then it is easy for us to kill our grandfather and grandmother because this will save "businesses" or the "GDP".

At the end, England's policy may succeed and those who live may gain immunity and their economy potentially will not be destroyed. But it will be an economy built on death and blood. At the end, those most capable for survival may survive. But they will no longer be able to taste the fruits of their victory.

And when the noise subsides and the night comes...
The greatest punishment will not be from cries and vengeance...
But from the sweet gentle touch of your grandmother when she put you to sleep.
And from the sweet goodnight she whispered you.

Right before you killed her.

There are some new awesome tiles! (On the shallowness of modern era)

I was sitting today with friends for a coffee.

Under the beautiful Greek sun, the discussion at some point turned towards the soul of man, the debate whether humans are animals, Darwin, the theory of evolution et cetera. We were discussing these very interesting topics for some minutes only when...

New friends came over.

They introduced themselves, the sat, ordered and then started talking for... tiles! Without being at all interested in what the others might be talking about before they came, they started advertising to us some new tiles their company was bringing to Greece from Italy for bathrooms, how fascinating that was, how beautiful the tiles were, how inexpensive...

And so simply, the quest for man's soul was buried under those beautiful fascinating tiles... It would be really funny if it wasn't so tragic...

Ah!

And did I mention that they look like marble?!?

Yes, Harmonia Philosophica will die at some point. I will die. You, my dear reader will soon be no more. And yet, those tiles will still be here!

Philosophy Wire: Morality and Rationality. An unlikely bond in the mind of modern unethical people…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-08-28]: While some people rely more on reason and evidence than others when deciding on their beliefs, a new report from psychologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Exeter suggests people can also come to see a reliance on reason and evidence as a moral issue - to see the rationality of another's beliefs as indicative of their morality. [1] We worship logic. We love evidence. And yet true love is based on nothing. True love is irrational. We tread on dangerous paths. And the road is already slippery.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: City DNA. In ATMs…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-08-20]: The microbes found on the ATMs can provide a repository to offer a picture of a city's DNA. [1] Once upon a time the same thing could be said for the city’s cathedral. Now we have just changed temple. We used to offer everything to God. And even though we had nothing we felt like we had everything. Now we demand everything from... ATM. And even though we have everything it feels like we have nothing. Do you need receipt? No. Other transaction. No. Balance is zero. Please take your card.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

God is Dead. Along with some babies. The era of Enlightenment as an Era of Evil.

'We promised our little boy every single day that we would take him home',

said the mother of little Charlie. We want to give him a bath at home,

put him in a cot which he has never slept in but we are now being denied that.

We know what day our son is going to die but don't get a say in

how that will happen' [mother of Charlie - source]

An article written in the occasion of the Charlie Gard case...

The cosmos is an evil place.

This is the harsh reality today. And anyone not admitting it, is either lucky enough to have temporarily avoided that evil, stupid or part of that evil.

We live in the age of death. Not death in the sense of physically dying. This was always the case. And all we had to do was to accept it. But a spiritual death.

We are in the age of euthanasia justified by the notion of "human dignity". As if all those people who die every passing minute have non. We live in the age of killing babies, where the murder is named "termination" and the "right to my body" is misinterpreted as a right to destroy another person into pieces and suck him into a vacuum only because you prefer drinking mojitos at Mykonos without anyone annoying you. We live in the age of childless leaders, who prefer to adopt dogs rather than human children who suffer. We live in the age of society destroying the notion of family, thus sentencing the souls of young child into a life of misery, just in order to be regarded as "progressive". And this happens at the same time when pedophilia is starting to be considered acceptable in the name of the "enlightenment" of our "modern" society. We live in the age of hospitals and courts deciding who lives and who dies, all in the name of some nicely named "right". We live in the era where people believe in science, which in turns believes humans as spiritual beings do not exist...

God is dead.

He used to Be among us. But we killed him.
Because we were part of Him as well.
And we could thus kill Him with our own actions if we wished so.

God is dead.

And no, this is not something to celebrate about.
Charlie is in his cot now. Don't cry anymore...

Philosophy Wire: Spies. Modern stupid world.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-05-12]: UK spy agencies 'broke privacy rules', says tribunal. [1] The world of political correctness cannot handle the (hash and non-“correct”) reality. Who will guard the guards? A centuries-old question. Which one simply cannot expect to be answered by a court… Because nothing correct ever came out from “correct” arguments.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…