Human matter

A case for science

When I applied to graduate school, I was often asked what I was interested in studying. Initially, being naïve and uneducated about the nature of (graduate) education, I often answered the truth and began to enumerate the endless list of my interests: I am interested in studying humans, our psychology, our belief systems, how we operate, how we think, what we mean by soul, how religions affect our life, behavior, decisions, and actions, how compatible philosophy…
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A sketch on racial hysteria

Having attended U.S. educational programs for the past few years, it became clear to me that in racial issues, this nation is completely upside down at a system level. I have never seen as much artificial, unnatural, forced, and pathetic effort to love, respect, accept, and include minorities as in this country. As if Americans, troubled and ashamed by their racist history, today wanted to compensate for the past by pushing ethnic minorities into the…
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Beyond perfection

A few days ago, I stumbled into the live broadcasting of a traditional Catholic Latin mass on Facebook. Without specifics, let it suffice that this type of structured liturgy specifically stipulates when silence must be observed and when music is to be sung. The broadcasting choir director, however, did systematically stop singing before the music was supposed to end, causing long periods of awkward, liturgically inappropriate silence. As the show was publicly broadcast, I did…
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Meditations II

We obsessively strive for objectivity. We say that objectivity is the guarantee of the most accurate definitions, findings, and conclusions. How true is this? Science is so obsessive with objectivity that if you are not absolutely objective, you are directly labeled unscientific, in other words, an unreliable and unserious liar. Whence this objectivity-issue? For long centuries, Western thought was strongly biased, and excessively subjective. Whatever we thought, concluded, or said, was filtered through the current doctrines of Christianity….
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Meaning

Every religion is characterized by the presence and ultimate influence of the religion’s deity or deities. These deities or gods show different characteristics, depending on the religion’s cultural background. But despite this variety of divine characteristics and religious aspects, one common theme emerges among all religions and all gods: meaning. Even though different gods display different characteristics and do different things, they all provide an ultimate meaning to those who believe in them. Thus, human…
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Education of what exactly?

The three major weaknesses of most American educational models: They do nothing to make students master as many languages as they can. They avoid high-quality training in arts, music, and philosophy. They despise and reject everything that is not quantifiable. As a result, up-growing generations are hermetically cut off from true human growth. Rather, they are offered a math-and-reading-based pseudo-education which is good for nothing but to be quantified.

The map of afterlife

If I were to ask a representative sample of all peoples of the world about their beliefs concerning the afterworld, they would most likely give me an answer based on their religious convictions. Consequently, if then I were to draw a map of the answers, a fairly clear geographical distribution of otherworldly beliefs would emerge on the paper. Roughly, it would appear that what happens to people after their death depends on where exactly they…
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Material time

While most people would like to think about time as a physically ungraspable, abstract concept, the truth is that time is of matter. It is made of matter, in fact, it is matter itself. There is no time without matter just as there is no matter without time. In other words, time and matter are the same one thing, and time is synonym for matter as well as matter is synonym for time. There isn’t…
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Knowledge and wisdom

I find two types of “knowledge.” One is traditionally called knowledge and refers to biologically stored material information that dwells in the brain. This knowledge is cognitive or empirical in nature, and it is either developed through learning or memorization, or biologically inherited in form of instincts. It is imperfect, and it will always remain imperfect since matter (the brain) is imperfect and finite. No perfection, full understanding, full discovery, or full revelation can be…
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Money, happiness, and the human body

When I ask myself whether money is good or bad, or is related to happiness, I come up with the following reflection: Money is neither good or bad, it is a simple tool. Money is not related to happiness. What it buys is. In other words, let us see why we need and use money in the first place. I can’t speak about other civilizations, but in the Western culture, money is the only guarantee…
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A rough existential sketch

We (want to) believe that only what can be cognitively grasped exists. We cannot name one thing, idea, or phenomenon that could potentially exist without being materially cognized, for in the moment we cognize it, it is materially existing – at least in and by our material brains. Consequently, we come to the conclusion that for existence, material cognizance, or, matter, is needed. In other words, matter originates existence. But how could matter exist without…
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The qualitative gap

Let us consider what exactly distinguishes man from the rest of the natural world. Without intending to collect all aspects, I will focus on the most obvious ones: certain phenomena similar to (biological) emotions (e.g. the ability to smile or cry), abstract thought (e.g. language, arts, religion, philosophical reasoning), self-awareness (e.g. altruism). Why does not the rest of the natural world have these features? Maybe because man is the most developed natural being (animal)? That…
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