Results for 2004-09
What light from yonder dung doth shine?
'Tis feces, glorious feces that doth usher forth
and fall heavy on the cheeks of sorry youths.
Oh, why hadst thy waste forsaken this Yorkshire sun?
These are wondrous times indeed, when such verbal beauty can be transmitted electronically via an instant messaging protocol.
Of course, I plan to change this title, since I'll want to leave some room for the essay itself.
Ten pages. The story of my life isn't ten bloody pages! Sometimes I wonder if I really have a future in philosophy. I seem to be unable to churn out the mindless filler material that everyone else expounds with apparent ease.
On the bright side, I'll be reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture Of Dorian Gray in this seminar, which should prove fairly interesting.
All is well hitherto, although I must confess that I am exhausted by the accursed beurocracy here -- everything has to go through advisors, managers, cousellors and clerks. Even the most trivial issues require a form signed in triplicate and explicitly approved by some beurocrat.
Hah! Got you there, didn't I? I'm only joking, of course. The truth of the matter is that I am in fine spirits and very much enjoying the courses I'm taking, with the notable exception of the course "The Philosophical Problems of Religion", which might be more aptly named "The Neverending Series of Logically Invalid Proofs for the Existence of God". I gives me great pleasure to pick on religious people and their ridiculous, superstitious nonsense. I signed up for the course under the maxim "Know thy enemy", but this stuff is really more nonsense than anyone should have to tolerate, even in a philosophy class. Here's one of the proofs we were doing today -- St. Anselm's ontological argument:
God is a perfect being, the greatest of all beings
If God were lacking the attribute of existing, he would be inferior to all beings that existed and therefore not greater than all beings.
Hence, God must exist.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you have just been submitted to what is basically the most powerful argument the Christians could come up with for the existence of God. Awful, isn't it? Can you tell where the logical fallacy is?
As any modern logician can tell you, existence is not an attribute of things. They either exist or they don't -- however, assigning an attribute to something already postulates its existence. Thus the conclusion of this argument is granted by the first premise.
It is also interesting to note that the book I'm reading for this highly academic and rigorous course contains a transcript of the famous BBC debate between F. Copleston, the Jesuit scholar, and Bertrand Russell. The professor for the course had the gall to proclaim that the argument "got them nowhere", when it is self-evident to anyone remotely endowed with rudimentary powers of reasoning that Russell systematically tears to pieces every piece of metaphysical Platonic nonsense expounded by the Catholic. Good Lord, I despise Christians!. Hah!
That's it for now.
Address:
Sveinbjorn Thordarson
PO Box 720-206
University of Guelph
50 Stone Road East
Guelph ON Canada, N1G 2W1
Phone Numbers:
Residence Phone Number: 519-824-0022
Residence Phone Extension: 78336
Mobile Phone Number: 861-0584 (emergencies only)
In regard to news, not much happening. I'm attending classes -- the workload is significantly higher here than at the University of Iceland so I find my self surprisingly busy.
Bertrand Russell on the value of philosophy:
"...we must free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men. The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind. [...] It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the value of philsophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time."
"If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian or any man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as your are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philsophy and becomes a seperate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called "the mathematical principles of natural philsophy". Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been seperated from philosophy and has become psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philsophy is more apparent thant real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy."
"The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. [...] Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves."
Wanted! Dead or alive.
A most peculiar thing happened last night. I returned from a concert in downtown Guelph in a state of modest inebriation and sat down on a grassy hill near Watson Hall to rest my tired legs. I had hardly been there for more than a few minutes when some fat guy and his friend walked by. I pulled out my camera and took a photo of them. At this, the fat guy walked up to me and offered to take a picture of me. I handed him the camera, and lo and behold, he starts running off with it. I sprang to my feet, caught up with his fat carcass and punched him as hard as I could in the back of the neck. At this, he tossed away the camera and ran off, while I retrieved it from the undergrowth. That stupid sack of shit must know I have his photo -- If I see him around again, I shall most certainly confront him.
One Eyed Jack's: Those familiar with the "Twin Peaks" television series will recognize the name as that of the decadent gambling and prostitution joint on the American-Canadian border in the series. Interesting to see that there's actually a place with that name -- no doubt inspired by the series. I definitely want to check this place out sometime when it's open.
I also have a new girlfriend which I'm going out with tonight. Her name is Stella and she's from Belgium:
I am now firmly settled here and I'm slowly becoming acquainted with the University grounds. Guelph isn't as large as I had anticipated, with pretty much everything I need within managable walking distance. The university has about 15 thousand students, a third of which live in student housing. I get free access to to public transportation as a student at the University. The prices here are very reasonable and people are very friendly. So friendly, in fact, that my naturally-bred Icelandic reticence is thrown off-track.
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