I’m quite busy at the moment because I’m preparing for final round interviews at a boutique management consulting firm. I’ve realized that doing philosophy and the interview process for consulting are very similiar.

Recruiters at consulting firms employ what’s called “Case Interviews” to evaluate potential applicants. In a case interview, the applicant is given a prompt and asked to analyze the situation. Prompts include

• Your client is a US auto manufacturing firm that has lost profitability. How would you advise them?
• Your client is a consumer products group that is interested in entering the cleaning product market. Should they enter and if so, how?
• If you were to redesign the NYU Public Library System today, how would you do so?

The applicant must then ask clarifying questions, produce and test hypotheses, perform quantitative analysis, and finally provide recommendations about what the client should do and why. All on the spot, in the span of 20-30 minutes.

So how is this like doing philosophy? Consider what we said in our manifesto about the 7-step method about doing philosophy :

Define the question, find, intuit and test your starting point, do logical progression, investigate inconsistencies and revise the starting point. All in the name of action. Consider the similarities between the two processes.

• Both involve asking good questions
• Both involve hypothesis-driven investigation
• Both involve digging deeper into an issue or situation
• Both involve thinking for the sake of doing

Once this is over, I’d like to write a longer post than this, but suffice to say philosophy and case interviews both try to convert fuzzy ideas into clear, logical thinking to drive action.

“A category of philsoophers is on the rise: I shall be so bold as to christen them with a name that is not without its dangers. As I divine them, as they allow themselves to be divined (for it is part of their nature to want to remain a riddle in some respects), these philosophers of the future might rightfully — perhaps also wrongfully — be described as experimenters. And this name too is ultimately only an experiment, and, if you like, a temptation. Are they new friends of ‘truth’, these approaching philosophers?” - Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Whether you like it or not, you are an experimenter. You are doing the tests. You are watching society live out both the true and the false. You are a living hypothesis surrounded by tangential theses. The only question is, are you taking notice? Are you learning from it and implementing what you’ve learned? I can think of nothing more useless than a scientist carrying out experiments without analyzing his/her data.

Success-Driven Philosophy in action today…

I’m currently studying somewhere around 9 hours a day for my anatomy final. Its miserable to say the least. If I didn’t have a strongly held SDP, if I hadn’t fully explored my values, I would quit, and I would later regret that decision.

When I watch television or movies, I always consider the fact that it’s art imitating life. Of course it’s exaggeration, but there is some significance to every story. We find in comedy, the humorous parts of life. We are able to take ourselves less seriously. We find in drama, the depth of our being. We find in horror, that there is more to fear than fear itself. We find in romance, the importance of human interaction, and sometimes it’s pitfalls. We find in reality television that, “hey, maybe I am crazy, but at least I’m not as wacked out as New York, Flava, or EVERY cast of Real World.”

I’m not sure what you would classify Grey’s Anatomy as. I do know that I hate every single character on the show. They are all people consumed with their own petty dilemmas. The catch is, they should know better than anyone else how unimportant their problems are, and how unhindered their tasks of living have been. This weeks episode had people with the following disorders: aortic aneurism (often fatal), malignant pancreatic cancer (usually fatal), hepatic cancer with severe metastasis (definitely fatal), severe chronic headache lasting SEVEN YEARS, and I’m sure a couple of others.The bulk of the episode is centered around these things, and the fact that the main character cannot decide whether or not her boyfriend moving in with her means she should tell her roommates to move out of the house. Are you seeing the stark contrast I’m seeing.

My issue, is that these people, surrounded by misery, pain, death, all of the unfair aspects of life, seem completely unable to keep their own petty concerns in perspective. Is this art imitating life? Perhaps. Perhaps it reflects our inability to remain unincumbered by the festering inanities we allow to become human drama. Still, it makes me a little ill.

No matter how bad off you are, no matter what happened to you today, I assure you, somebody had it worse. Stop getting caught up in the drama. It’s not real. It’s fiction, and you are not being paid millions of dollars to act it out. I’m not saying life is always sunshine and rainbows. More often than not, it isn’t, and you absolutely have the right to be upset with the perils of reality. But put your life into perspective, hold it up next to a seven year chronic headache, and I’m sure you’ll find things to be less daunting than they seemed prior.

Optimistic Existentialism (Everything Matters):

A commentary on the meaning of an infinite universe: “Albert, the universe is an infinite sphere. The center is everywhere, the circumference is nowhere.” - Bernard Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman)

Comment on connectivity:

“Stop, look, listen. Throughout infinity your energy recycles into every possible relation to everyone else’s energy, even Brad’s. You’ve been predator and prey with him. Friends. Enemies. Brother. Sister. Mother. Child.” - Bernard Jaffe

“You and me and the air are actually tiny particles that are swirling around together…If you look close enough, you can’t tell where my nose ends and space begins…because they’re unified.” - Bernard

The meaninglessness and paradoxical meaningfulness of human suffering: “Nothing’s okay, so it’s okay.” - Bernard

Nihilism (Nothing Matters):

The pessimistic view of the universe: “Betrayal embodies the universal truth, you see. Cruelty, manipulation, meaninglessness.” - Catarine Vauban

This line is particularly pertinent to the formation of a practical philosophy. It highlights the fact that even though we formulate our thoughts and our beliefs, we will inevitably falter from time to time. It’s what you do after that matters: “It is inevitable that you are drawn back into human drama, desire, suffering, everything that exists in this imperfect world….An absurd theatrical we must play out back and forth from pure being to human suffering.” - Catarine

Our connection isn’t our being, but our misery in being:

“Sadness is what you are. Do not deny it. The universe is a lonely place, a painful place. This is what we can share between us. Period.”

I’m just going to accept my loneliness. And I’m gonna go to an even darker place of nothingness from an even farther, more extreme nothingness, on my own. - Tommy

The Middle. Common ground between the two distinct views of infinity.:

“You don’t have to get so threatened. I can mix your thing with their thing.” - Albert

“[It liberated you from the Brad.] Or did it bond me to Brad in the insanity of pain until I saw that I am Brad and he is me?…You’re too dark (to Catarine…nihilism) and you’re not dark enough (to Bernard and Vivian…optimistic existentialism).  You three were close, right. Maybe too close, and then it went sour. And it propelled you into one extreme and you into another extreme. So voila! Two overlapping fractured philosophies were born out of that one pain.”

Albert visits the religious family who houses the Sudanese refugee that spurred his interest in coincidence and his seeking the advice of existential experts.

Mom: Albert, what brought you to the philosophical club?”

Albert: You mean the existential detectives?

Dad: Sounds like a support group.

Daughter: Why can’t he use the church?

Mom: Well, sometimes people have additional questions to be answered.

Daughter: Like what?

Albert: Um, for instance, if the forms of this world die, which is more real the me that dies or the me that’s infinite? Can I trust my habitual mind or do I need to learn to look beneath those things?

Dad: Sounds like we got a philosopher.

Daughter: We don’t have to ask those questions do we Mom?

Mom: No, honey.

Dad: What happened to the cat Albert?…The cat was killed by curiosity.

Albert: Oh.

The End…or is it the Beginning?
Albert Markovski: She used me to teach US about the inevitability of human drama.

Tommy Corn: So, is that where you get off the ride?

Albert Markovski: Hell no.

Tommy Corn: I didn’t think so. Looks like you saw some truth

Albert Markovski: Looks like YOU saw some truth.

Tommy Corn: What’d you see.
Albert Markovski: The interconnection thing is definitely for real.
Tommy Corn: It is! I didn’t think it wasn’t! It is!
Albert Markovski: I know, I can’t believe it, it’s so fantastic!
Tommy Corn: It’s amazing!
Albert Markovski: I know.

Tommy Corn: But it’s also nothing special.

Albert Markovski: Yah, because it grows from the manure of human trouble. See the detectives just wanted to gloss right over that. But in fact, no manure, no magic.

You will find, in creating a practical philosophy, that you have to reconcile several ideas of other stonchly extreme philosophers. Finding your own way, finding middle ground, creating new knowledge of the surrounding world — these are the greatest revolutions of thought to which one can be apartied. It’s a success you can reach as many times as you want. A feat that has no foreseeable end and affords limitless possibilities. The potential is as overwhelming as it is exciting. Don’t be bogged down by the vastness and interconnection of topics. Take it one step at a time. Consider things most pertinent to your current life, the things that will and can actually change you and be the most rewarding. The cat wasn’t killed by curiosity, it was killed by a car. Curiosity is in your nature. Foster it. Use it to your advantage. Grow from it.

“He says that philosophy requires a certain rare and innate ability — the ability to step outside yourself and observe your own mind in the act of thinking.

I just finished the book The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. It’s a memoir/lessons-learned book of life long learner and peak performer who mastered both the disciplines of chess and tai chi. Josh was the top-ranked chess player in the US from ages 10-18, and won several national and international Tai Chi Push Hands competitions in his twenties. Not only is the book a fascinating account of this incredible person, but it also reveals a number of lessons that he’s learned about competing at an extremely high level.

Beginner’s Mind

Josh became fascinated with chess the first time he saw men playing chess in a nearby park - and spent hours and hours as a young boy playing or watching chess. This open and curious mind helped him become such a dominant player.

After feeling alienated from the high-powered chess world, Josh spent time studying eastern philosophy - especially Taoism - and got interested in practicing tai chi. He fell in love with this totally new discipline in which he was again a complete beginner.

Own the Fundamentals

Unlike many successful younger players, Josh did not memorize intricate opening sequences, but instead studied simple variations of the end-games. King vs King and Rook. King vs King and Knight. Through his mastery of the end-game, he was able to beat many of his opponents because of his mastery of the fundementals.

In Tai Chi, Josh spent two years simply studying basic tai chi manuevers before he was even introduced to the martial art aspect of it. When he began facing off against other fighters, his advantage lay in his extended study of the basic movements and mindset of the tradition.

Nurture Your Gifts

As Josh became a better and better chess player - he was faced with a choice of two chess teachers. One teacher was convinced that Josh needed to adopt a more defensive, “Karpov-esque” style of play. The other felt that Josh was better suited to developing his natural gifts as an aggressive attacking player. After struggling under the unnatural style the first teacher, Josh returned to his roots and began winning more matches.

Overcoming Adversity

In both chess and tai chi, Josh had to put up with a lot of dirty fighting - kicking under the tables, groin and throat attacks, and much more. By learning to channel his anger into focused performance, he was able to overcome these challenges and still win the match.

Involve the Spirit

For Josh, both chess and tai chi were forms of spiritual practice. He poured his soul into his training and his competition. It sounds strange to hear him describe losing chess matches as “having your heart ripped out” but when it was such an integral part of his life, I guess it makes sense.

Tai Chi was first and continues to be a form of physical meditation for him - the movements brought him peace and awareness that he’s been able to bring into most of his waking hours. He suggests several breathing exercises in the book to experience this feeling.

Overall, Josh presents a life philosophy that is based on keeping an open and child-like mind towards all things and mastering the basics of the disciplines you wish to succeed in while harnessing your natural strengths. Through intense and passionate training, you can overcome physical, intellectual and psychological challenges while invigorating your spirit. It’s a great book and I definitely recommend it. It’s one of those books you’ll want to read a few times to fully appreciate it.

I found a website called The Philosopher’s Magazine, which in addition to publishing a philosophy journal (readable online), also hosts a number of games/quizzes relating to philosophy.

Two of my favorite are:

Staying Alive - A 3-part choose-your-own-ending game that asks you to make decisions and analyzes your version of personal identity. I apparently took unnecessary risks, but survived.

Morality Play - A 20-question quiz on various moral questions to determine how morally parsimonious (consistent) you are. I scored slightly above average with a score of 69%.

Take a look. Hell won’t freeze over if you have a little fun with philosophy!

In Israel, I met a man named Avraham, a kabbalist, in the city of Tzfat, a very holy city. Avraham had once been Robert and had graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Michigan before he went on to study painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. He said the word “awesome” more times in a half hour than I thought possible, but he did so in an attempt to impart upon my friends and I just how amazing 4000 years of history and culture truly are. The man seemed completely baked, and though he was speaking passionately about an age-old, mystical study, I could have sworn I had heard the same rantings at four in the morning regarding the greatness of mixing Cocoa Puffs and Cinammon Toast Crunch. In his brief speech on Kabbalah, he mentioned tikkun olam, which roughly approximates to heal the world. He explained a painting with two of the same hebrew letters (hey) in black and white, one above the other, looking like a sort of Jewish yin-yang. He said that at one time man was completely good (the white area), but that somehow we had let parts of that goodness fall away, leaving black behind. Now it is our task to heal the world, by lifting the fallen hey back to the white area, in order to perfect society. “That’s really lovely, Avraham,” I thought, “but how?” Avraham almost eerily responded to my internal query by saying, “all we have to do is wake up in the morning and not think, ‘what can I do to make my life better today?,’ but instead wonder,’what can I do to make the world better today?’”

I recently came across a similar quote from Nietszche:

“The best way to begin each day well is to think upon awakening whether we could not give at least one person pleasure on this day. If this practice could be accepted as a substitute for the religious habit of prayer, our fellow men would benefit by this change.” — Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Volume 1

I don’t always agree with Nietzsche’s outward disdain for religion, but can you imagine how awesome the world would be if every person skipped church, synagogue, or mosque and went to do community service instead? What if the money for multi-million dollar worship centers went more directly to doing good (more money for schools, the poor, the elderly, for parks, for research)? What if, like the Dalai Lama says, it really was as simple as making kindness our religion? Wouldn’t a benevolent God be okay with that?

I admire the ideas Avraham espouses, but wouldn’t he be adding more to tikkun olam if he spent his time simply feeding the poor, or more complexly working to break down arab-israeli hostilities, as opposed to using his aliya (emigration to Israel) to study the spiritual origin of his name (which he said you could actually spend a lifetime doing).

Everyday since I met Avraham, I’ve woken up to the quote on my corkboard, “Do something good today.” There are actually several things on the board, but this is the only one I seem to need to remind myself of daily. Nobody taught me to think this way, so I have to work to engrain it, that way I don’t get complacent and forget to contribute things bigger than myself. Most nights I go to bed and ask myself if I achieved that goal, if I did my small part to heal the world. When I have, I sleep easier.

Aside, of course, from how badly you need to mainline a thermos of coffee, what was your waking thought this morning? What will it be tomorrow?

Note: This post is about religion. Read ahead only if you are prepared to read views you may disagree with, and remember that real philosophers question everything.

One of my friends, lets call him Steve, is a Catholic, and he believes a number of things, including that Jesus was God’s son, born of immaculate conception who died on the cross for our sins and was resurrected. That Jesus is also our Lord and Savior and accepting this can bring salvation. That the Bible is true and the word of God and that the Pope is the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church.

Sanjay, our mutual friend and a Hindu, asked Steve if he also beleives that Catholics were “right” and every other religion, including Hinduism, was wrong. Steve said he did. Sanjay was surprised and questioned how he could have the intellectual/spiritual arrogance to believe that every other religion, comprising of billions of practicing members, could be wrong. Steve asked me, an atheist, for my take on the matter.

Although I don’t believe, I can understand both sides of the argument. Hinduism has a large, complex history and its many adherents hold a wide number of beliefs on the issues of God, reincarnation, and the sacredness of spiritual literature. From this tradition, it’s hard for a Hindu like Sanjay to believe that Steve can be certain that his beliefs are right and that those of Judaism, Islam and Hinduism are wrong, especially on how to have a successful afterlife.

The Catholic Church on the other hand, has a strong history of issuing strong, sweeping and unequivocal statements. At the first Vatican Council in 1870 this statement was issued -

“If anyone says that the blessed Apostle Peter was not established by the Lord Christ as the chief of all the apostles, and the visible head of the whole militant Church … let him be anathema [ex-communicated]”

With this kind of statement, you can begin to understand why Steve would feel so strongly about his beliefs being the truly right ones. I agreed with him. As an atheist, due to lack of convincing evidence about supernatural, I don’t believe in gods, souls, and afterlives. I also believe that anyone who does believe in these things is wrong.

For once, Steve and I agreed, in that if you truly believe in your religion or philosophy, you find all others to be false. Jesus can’t be just another prophet (what Muslims believe) AND our Lord and Savior, the son of God (what most Christians believe). I’m not saying that atheists and Muslims and Catholics and Hindus can’t respect one another. After all, literary critics or historians can respect each other even if they hold different views. But they still think their opposing-view friends are wrong.

What’s your take? Can you believe one thing and think that someone who believe something different can still be right?

Links

Hinduism by Wikipedia

Sources of Catholic Dogma 1800-1900

What Muslims Believe

I’m Right, You’re Wrong, Go To Hell (Atlantic)

I’ve been dissecting a human cadaver in anatomy lab for slightly over a month now. I’ve done a lot of digging around and haven’t found a soul, or the remnants of a soul (unless of course it’s found in the in vivo mediastinum).

You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.
- C S Lewis

It seems to me, that the importance of the soul lies mainly its requisite importance to maintaining the idea of an afterlife. This means that you cannot be the body, as it perishes. The separation is ridiculous though. Why is it so difficult for us to believe that our body is our soul, that our brain, in it’s physical sense isn’t housing who we are, but IS who we are? I know it’s a difficult concept. It’s a harsh thing to find yourself wondering what the point is if we don’t live on after the body, and that’s rough. Even more philosophically imminent (since we aren’t dead just yet) is the soul’s implication to free will:

I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time.
- Carl Jung

I spent a lot of time looking for a plausible argument for free will. I haven’t found one. In order to make a decision completely freely, it seems to me that you would have to exist outside of space and time. The idea of the soul is the key to free will in this respect. The problem here is that the body, which is the conduit of the soul, is governed by the laws of space and time. So while the soul may be free in it’s realm, it’s worldly connection remains hindered by external factors. Additionally, if the soul remains unshackled in the world, surely the realm that it exists in, unless it is alone (solipsism), also produces some sort of actionary causal antecedents.

If you have found great arguments for free will, or for the soul, please send them over. I’d love to check them out. Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to believe in free will and/or the soul.

Questions:

Is there a soul? What effect does having or not having a soul have on your philosophy?

Yes: Where and how does it connect with the body? What is it made of? What happens to it? If all souls are composed of the same material or immaterial substance, then how is your soul individual?

No: Where does your identity lie? What happens when you die?