Philosophy

I am interested in ideas of consciousness, existentialism, religion and death. In high school I was active in debate, which introduced me to famous thinkers and ideas in moral philosophy. Once I came to university, I spent abundant amounts of time listening to the famous debates and talks by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, William Lane Craig, Christopher Hitchens and others from the new atheist movement. Recently, I'm engaging with more ideas related to philosophy of mind.

I am interested more in the truth of ideas than ideas that feel good or are helpful guides to living.

Reflections on some books:

• Justice: What is the Right thing to Do? Nothing is clearly correct or wrong. Moral frameworks are inherently subjective.
• The Myth of Sisyphus. One must imagine Sisyphus happy- absurd. This confused me a lot and I had to re-read and think about it carefully. My takeaway: He does not expect to be happy. Happiness is not something he cares for. And in that absence of consideration, he is “defined” to be happy. Instead, he pursues rebellion from the God’s intentions of despair, defeat, meaningless.
• The Courage to Be Disliked. Adlerian Psychology says that humans are social creatures that are goal oriented. Even symptoms (like anxiety or avoidance) serve a purpose
• Denial of Death. People have an innate fear of death that they’re both always feel of and also try to suppress in the conscious mind. Intuition: greatest “courage” is sacrificing one’s life for something immortal that goes past their life. Concept of “heroism”.
• Death with Shelly Kagan
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Man’s search for Meaning. Those who died in the Nazi concentration camps were those who lost their will to live, who didn’t have meaning. logo therapy. While Freud emphasized pleasure and Adler emphasized power or superiority, Frankl argued: The primary human motivation is the will to meaning
• Plato's Republic
• German Ideology