Who are you?
You were brought up by your parents or one of them, or by someone else. These people moulded your behaviour, your responses, your likes and dislikes, your prejudices. You probably had teachers for years. To what extent did their attitudes influence you?
Is it possible that you see the world the way you want it to be? What about aspects of the world about which you can have no direct perception; things such as the atoms and molecules you are made of?
You only know of this level of reality because other people tell you it exists. You have no direct experience of it. You can learn through studying or reading or listening to people, that there are processes going on in your body that change the food you eat into a different form through the breaking up and reorganising of molecules. Whether you know it or not, such things on and are the basis for life.
Who do you think you are?
Who is the you able to contemplate and respond to these questions? Is it separate from your mind? Does it dwell in your mind? If your mind is you, how do you relate to your feelings and emotions?
Who do you think you are?
Descartes is often quoted for his famous “I think, therefore I am”. Is it the thinking that creates me? Is the fact that I think, proof of my existence? Interesting questions.
Did you manage to solve the puzzle in the last post? Did you have to change your thinking to solve it? If you did not manage to solve it and you now look at the solution presented above, can you discover something in your thinking that stopped you? Did you find an entirely different solution?
Is the education we offer our young people equipping them for a fulfilling life? There is too much knowledge available to impart it all. How do those who set the curriculum choose what should be taught? The pool of knowledge is growing exponentially; however, the pool of useful questions is much more manageable.
There are some very worrying indications that most people have given up thinking. Andy Bilchbaum and Mike Bonanno, who some years ago made up ‘the Yes Men’1, gave addresses to august bodies, including the WTO (World Trade Organisation). In their presentations they made outrageous suggestions and claims, and those in the audience responded with nodding heads and even acclaim. No-one in the audience was thinking – no-one asked questions or challenged the impersonators.
In my blogging, my essays and much of my other writing I urge the reader to think.
Thinking can be scary, as can answers we come up with. What is the use of thinking, anyway? Haven’t all the important questions been asked? Haven’t most of them been answered? How can we come up with anything new or important?
It is easy to imagine that we are self-sufficient in our adult lives, making our choices independently of others and believing that we don’t need anyone else for our survival. However, very few people actually are self-sufficient.
I have been reading a number of books recently, in order to write reviews (one review has already been posted1). All four of these books deal with issues of public importance in the area of health. They deal with electromagnetic radiation1, mobile phones2, vaccination3 and milk4.