movies. philosophically good.

some philosophical movies!! :D
Rain Man (1988)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
The Book of Life (1998)
A Brief History of Time (1992)
Children Underground (2001)
City of Joy (1992)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The Last Kiss (2006)
Orlando (1992)
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser(1974)
THX-1138 (1971)
The Corporation (2004)
Devil's Playground (2002)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Gattaca (1997)
Groundhog Day (1993)
I Shot Andy Warhol (1996)
Kadosh (1999)
Garden State (2004)
The Matrix (1999)
Memento (2001)
Mindwalk (2005)
The Quarrel (1991)
The Rapture (1991)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
The Truman Show (1998)
Waking Life (2001)

actually, i've watched some of them and i never thought those movies would be classified as philosophical films.

sigh* semester break reading. NOT?!

LOL! okay- so i've been chatting with my fellow thinker - AP (through e-mails that is). and he recommended me SOME!!!!! readings that are relevant to my random wonderings - which if listed will be something like this>>

*hermeneutics - gadamer
*semi communist (social and political philosophy) - marx
*- deleuze
*technology - heidegger
*- tony fry's work
*the whole series of "introducing...." - icon books (esp. on heidegger, marcuse, wittgenstein, and...)
*duration - bergson
*- einstein's books
*things persist - philosophy dictionary/encyclopedia
*postmodernism
*epistemology - theory of knowledge and how we know
*design research - peter downton
*metaphors we live by - lakoff and johnson


damn. was he really thinking or was he just chucking random people's name and books at me? : D it sounds like it!!! lol! anywho - happy"joy" all the way.

philosophers and their philosophies.

so..after a week and a half of thinking - so are all the experiments that TODAY'S PEOPLE ARE performing - all the questions that are raised by the people today are wrong? because what i understood from what adam was saying to me..that the question was stupid because!!! the thinkings and strategies that might involve = today's brain results - not back then. i totally understood this reason. so does it mean every thought about anything that happened 100 years ago = waste? does it mean we shouldn't think about the past and start thinking about the future? because to me, past is past and we can't change them anyway? but how can we think about the future without a past? i mean- future it self is just too vague. now, = 1 sec ago's future. doesn't it mean that we're actually living in the future of ourselves 1 second ago? again - this leads back to what defines time. i still don't understand it. what is time!?

ALL THESE WONDERINGS. ALL THESE THINKINGS. SICKENS ME. of course i love questions. and simply because questions will lead into more questions with fruits of the unexpecteds - which is very exciting at times because you'll never know what you'll end up to - but it's not that exciting if we kind of drift off to the same spot and just running around in circles. and then it makes me think about the importance of answer (and this links to the importance of true answer). why can't we have answers? how do we have answers? okay- by thinking and reading stuff about it. but doesn't it mean that i as an individual will get different answers from you - who basically is very different from me - thinking differently which most probably believe in very different things from me. then which one is right / wrong? i know if we were fed by answers each and every single day, life wouldn't be as educational as it should be, right? because answers are given and somehow it stops us from thinking and pushing thoughts to its' boundaries. but how can i get answers? all i did was just wondering about random stuff and found no answer.

i believe that almost everything that are related to personal values (which is almost applicable to anything that are happening to us across the board) are very deeply argueable. so what's the truth? i always think that philosophers are a line of people that we can look up to and somehow we seek when we need something to believe in. but philosophers were once normal humans too. they're just like anyone of us. but they think more - and..maybe smarter than us - or simply just thinking about the unthinkable - which somehow defines something outside the box. but what they've written = human thoughts too. and this means that what they've written actually what they think is the truth - and that's what they believe in - while i don't understand what exactly truth is yet. and yet some people truly believe in them. i mean, who are we to believe what they've written which are most probably their opinions - and who are they to be believed in? don't you think we all - to a certain extent - can be called as mini-philosophers? to be one, i guess it's pretty simple really - just think of something that others might not think about - make them say 'ah-- that makes sense' , convince them that you're so right and hypnotise them if you need to and there you go. philosopher. ah- for a split second i thought that i've gone too far. okay- lets get back to dictionary.com and seek for a definition. (by the way, who made definitions anyway? robots? humans? i mean - geez - who defines apple starts with an a - and not e? why do i always believe in dictionary.com anyway????!!!)

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philosopher (dictonary.com)
noun
a person engaged or learned in philosophy, esp. as an academic discipline

philosopher (thesaurus.com)
noun
thinker, theorist, theorizer, theoretician, metaphysicist, metaphysician; scholar, intellectual, sage, wise man

philosophy (dictionary.com)
noun
the study of fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence, esp. when considered as an academic discipline.

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okay- so definition that they've got is not as complicated as i have anticipated. funny thing actually- i think...philosophy means us - humans. individually. don't you agree?

philosophy = nature of knowledge, reality and existence = i = me.

ARE we the philosophies?

FREEDOM

aha! how ironic. i've been writing about truth and how people demands more freedom as the society's mindsets evolve around us. and now, after i've submitted all the readings stuff and responses and reflection - i feel joyful. i feel very very free. is this what freedom is like? of having nothing else to do but sleep and bum around the house and stalk people on myspace? i wonder what would happen if i live 500 years ago and have the same amount of workload as i am today - how would i feel? would my mind demands less freedom back then than i am today? simply because 500 years ago, i assume that the society would be more conserved and very traditional and not as strict and critical as today.

but! i've once watched a tv series called -------


*put a typical mind hurting conversation with adam here*

______ have no idea what to say.

this 1/8 exploration plan will end up and most probably is a 'fantasy' because i only have a 1987 - 2007 brain. not *back then*
but! society changes. history creates history. i mean- wt.. :| it does make sense. but. don't how to describe it.

what's the use of truth response

after having read the book, my vision of truth hasn’t been altered much as it doesn’t give me a definite answer of what truth really is and why it means so much in today’s society. but the interesting points came up when they started to discuss this matter. an interesting case study was put into place in journalism subject. journalists seem to claim themselves as professionals and declare that they have such high code of work ethics yet some of them made stories up and spread the untruth. journalism is a pretty important information media for it directly relates to the public – and not a few would actually depend their knowledge on these type of media – so if there are no truthfulness in writing the news up, then it is very possible that many people might be fooled by the news coverage.

truth is a norm in society. the concept of truth is very subjective and personal; truth is like our expression of agreement into a statement or our justification upon certain things. the justification of what we consider of being true is the most important aspect in defining truth. the truth has become the new norm and the goal of life that is pretty impossible to fulfil. what we believe to follow and what we believe as true – but a belief is correct if and only if . but if all these statements are the real definition of truth, then we can say that there is nothing more than truth; there are no hidden meanings, no metaphysical matters about it and it’s simply just another word in the English vocabulary. if truth has nothing more to offer than just an instrumental value, how could the virtues of truth, being trust, sincerity, exactness, honesty, reality, even exist?

there is a slight obligation in our lives to seek for truth and that is an intrinsic value or goal of one of the serachings in life. but this doesn’t mean that there’s an obligation to say or believe the truth all the time – which would be an abnormal behaviour. the truth is very normative; it is a norm of assertion as a form of moralism. it is very easy to be confused between the aspects of the truth it self such as the definition of truth, the concept of truth, the virtues of truth, what is considered to be truth and the manner of truth – as this is the state of mind that i’m in right now. but, from all these randomness and subjectivity around truth and all its virtues, i might be able to say that this matter is infinite and arguable – it is very personal. i thought i would get a definite answer from reading this book as it was my original intention of purchasing this book.

but regardless of the unexpected ending (conclusionless) this book does triggered me to think about other things and start making links into some of my previous thoughts and opinions about truth and our ability to control over our lives. there are no such thing as definite facts of truth. it’s undefinable. and i must agree that it actually has become the today’s society’s norm – with if we look at it as a bigger picture, might create chaos and deep confusion in life – which perhaps are really happening right now. almost anything that are happening right now can be linked into one thing called ‘truth’. truth has made us have the will to seek more, to think more, to read more and become more sensitive to the matters around us. truth is so vague that we’ve lost its meaning – thus, perhaps people started to neglected it and think no more of it. but how could we live without knowing what the truths in life are? so what are we living for right now? and on what basis are we living on?


i guess this is one of those ‘good’ books where the ending or the conclusion is left for us to solve – as an on going thought.

waking life response

this movie is very interesting. graphically and philosophically. almost all of the thinking that are laid through the entire movie are extremely interesting for me. here are just some of them.

“life is yours to create” - “all action basically for survival.” - “so many options, and that’s what life is about.” – this is a very arguable point yet it closely related to who created our life – and it is religion and it involves god. for those who believe in god and put faith in him, then of course, everything has it’s own path and that means god took control over us – and it would oppose the quote. but if something’s bad happened to us – does it mean god wanted us to suffer? i know, there’s always another meaning to it – but literally, is it a nice thing to know that god let us to suffer – and just wait for that bad thing to actually happen to us? god must’ve known in advance of whatever things that might happen to us, and how could my life be mine if – somehow – god has ‘written a story’ about our individual lives? science won’t match with religion. and our life, our body and our mind are only a combination of physical laws. if our lives aren’t as flexible and as ‘surprising’ as it could be, then we have no control over our own lives and there won’t be much freedom to choose what to do with our lives. life is all about possibilities. options are there just to take us into more possibilities and so on – to sort of direct us into a slightly narrower conclusion. decision makings always take place in life. without us being required to decide what to do with our lives, pretty much we’re lifeless. but that leads back to the argument whether we have control over our lives or not.

“words are inert. they’re just symbols.” – sometimes i kept thinking about words. how can we communicate? through language. how do we send our message across? through words and expressions. but where did language comes from? how could i know that that is an apple? how do i speak? how do i know if yes means yes? how can we understand what other is saying?

“maybe i only exist in your mind” - “dreams are real only as long as they last. couldn’t you say the same thing about life?” - “seems like everyone’s sleep-walking through their waking state, or wake-walking through their dreams.” – how can we differ what’s real and what’s not? i’ve had a couple of dreams where it felt so real – i can feel everything – and sometimes they felt too real. but the funny thing is that i felt these ‘reality-ness’ when i’m half asleep – a moment before waking up. and then i started to realise and make known to my mind that that was just a dream. but how could it be so real? and felt so alive? existentialism is a pretty hard topic to write about as we’re talking about ourselves and reality. imagine if life is not real. imagine that this very moment is not real. human minds are created with their own level of imaginations – is it possible that we’re just creating stuff up? maybe we’re all hallucinating even though we had enough sleep every night. i’ve met quite lot of people throughout my life – and every time i met someone new, i felt that i’ve met that person long time ago – or simply their face looks familiar. has this have anything to do with human genes? the fact that we came from the same ancestors and the inherited genes are actually swirling around in circles that i’ve just now met someone that looks like someone that i’ve met months or years ago? or are they just not real? or could my eyes be creating all these tricks?

český sen response

this is a very controversial reality documentary. but - as much as we argue about the appropriation or the effect to the czech society – this film must be seen as a wake up call for all of us. this film is a really good learning material as it depicts how media could manipulate and basically lure us into whatever they promised the society with – which are happening right now – almost anywhere in the world – no matter what type of country we live in (developed country or developing country) there will always be some people who live in manipulation and manipulating the public through media.

as i understand it, czech republic is still considered to be a developing country so i assume that their level of education won’t be as high as the developed country such as united states or australia (it was also ruled under the communist government for almost 40 years). approximately 4,000 of people in Prague bought the český sen hoax – convinced by their advertising strategy and promotion materials. they were pissed in the end – because they felt that they’ve been tricked by the 2 czech movie directors. but that’s the whole point. people has been easily fooled yet more people are thinking of taking advantages of this demographic. people have become more desperate and more desperate of materials. but is this what the human race have become? to fool others – bending the norms – unrevealing the untruth – creating an ill environment that we have to live in, witness and experience? is that the only advertising strategy that we have to live with – edited billboards and posters – faking almost half of it?

do we have any idea how these concepts and power of advertising could actually affect our society? let’s take a look at celebrity profiles. they’ve become teenagers’ idols – yet these teenagers might not know when or where to stop. thus, it creates another social ill. these kids might have not known about what has been faked behind those posters that they have on their walls. the digital manipulation and edit to the photos are absurd. they want to like the celebrities – dress like them – have their god-knows-how-expensive their products are and be physically like them. the similarities between this example and český sen is that there are a lot of people who are gullible – who are not critical enough for the modern society – where most of the people are only thinking about money, money, money and how to get more money.

but who are there to blame? the government? the advertising company? or it’s the society’s own fault? the society created it’s own norm. which at today’s world can’t be drawn as a straight – thick line. some people might say that corruption is okay under circumstances – but some people would say it’s dead wrong and there’s nothing right about it and it shouldn’t be done. the practice of it has been covered by the system and it has become the new norm. if this happens in almost aspects that shape the society and it’s situation, what are we holding on to, then? what’s right and what’s wrong? how can we live without definite rules? but is this shift in society has something to do with the generation y with their demands of full freedom?