life and death

I've been ignoring the headache I have already for all day. I've tried to think of something, but this damn headache keeps me from staying focussed. It doesn't matter. This thing I've been thinking of is a matter of life and death. In fact I was questioning life and death and meaning of both. So I filled my time with thinking about and I couldn't get an satisfying answer. Not just the answer wasn't satisfactory, but I couldn't get the arguments to stand. When I questioned the arguments they started to walk in circles. Some of you might not understand how annoying this is. Life has no meaning if no one sees it, and when your dead no one sees the life anymore. When you are dead all the life you've lived is without reason. So, there is neither reason in life, nor in death. I was trying to find a reason for the things that are, but I couldn't find it. I already had a headache, but it only got worst now.

You know what helped me? For hours I had not left my place before my desk. I had looked up some philosophic ideas and even checked what my friend 'The Hermit' thought about this. He talked some about the things C.S. Lewis wrote about this. So, I looked up C.S. Lewis. He said some nice things about it. But my headache remained. He said some good things, but he couldn't say about it what I needed. Than my daughter Zoë walked in. No, she came bouncing in, she climbed like a monkey on me and she made me totally crazy. I wanted to get mad on her. But I couldn't. She's 6. Six year old girls do things like this. How could I get mad? So I grin at her and hold her upside down, which makes her laugh. I cannot be angry, neither can I remain with this question about meaning. Why bother myself with that question. The thing that is much more important is my little princess. She is the meaning of my life. She is the bright star in me. She is more than anything. Of course, together with the wife I love.

I am still working to figure out the meaning of life and death. My work on this isn't done yet, it will continue and might be the most important subject to work on for the next years. But even if I won't get an answer, I probably won't, I at least know the things that are important here and now. Zoë knows this, so much better than I do. So, have I found the answer than? Is life about happiness, family, love? Is life about the here and now? Is that the truth. Is that the preferred philosophy? Can we achieve wisdom and fulfilment simply by enjoying and being satisfied? Our struggle and our daily pains are just about that? No, not at all. Each person strifes to something differeint. Each person is unique in it's struggle to get what he or she wants. Some want to enjoy the simple things in life like love and family. Others just desire wisdom, a desire so strong that it burns them if they don't seek it. Apparently there are desires laid in the hearts of every men. Where does this desire come from? And how should we react on these desires? Questions that remain and need an answer, as love and family is not all that there is. What would I do if my only love would die? Would I die too? Or would I live, still, with the desires in my heart?

truth

Not just Marc is studying on the subject truth. So am I. Well, we are in fact not certain that there even is a truth. There might as well be no more than just a floating thought, a thought that is, that was but that has never been. Something such as the thing I just tried to catch in words. Truth evidently is a mystery to us, a mystery that will not easily be solved. The most interesting question is how you can possibly proof truth. Now the existence of a truth is in fact only assumed. This assumption is the thing that modern science is based on at first. Modern science is based on some other little things. There is some point where, being consistent, nothing that is is truth. If we ask the question what there was before the big bang is the same damn question as the question what there was before God. It can't be answered, it can not even be tried. How the things came into existence. We don't know. There are many more things that we are not certain of. As we are consistent we must believe it all is a lie. There is a evolution theory. This theory shows that through genetic mutations all animals have changed their entire form. From evolution all the species arose. There is a thing only that is necessary for this theory. This thing is that with mutations it would have to be possible that information would be added. Genetic, however, learn us that with not even a single mutation information was added. Each mutation seems to be responsible for a loss of information. There was said that science could explain all things. What we see however is that the many things that cannot be explained by scientist are ignored completely by them. What to believe?

There are many things today that we do not understand. It causes us to rethink whether we believe all problems can be solved or not. It cause us to rethink our entire philosophy. We need to question if there is a truth or not. I started to think whether there is a truth or not. The movie "The Matrix" has had a large part in this. The question I asked is how we can be sure if there is a truth. I was thinking about this subject lately and I foud out that the things that we believe to be true have clear boundaries. I found this out when I was consistently questioning all truth. I found out that I thought that I was laying on the beach, in this case, but it might be that I did not lay on the beach. It might as well have been a phantasy. It might even be a phantasy that I thought that I was laying on the beach. It all could simply be phantasy. Everything. Everything?

I decided for myself that, if it all was phantasy it was not real. In other words, everything that is phantsy is no truth and the other way around. Where phantasy starts reality stops. There is a boundary that both can not pass. When you got a cup of coffee on a morning you might try to catch something through that cup. It won't work. There is a boundary, which is in this occasion the cup. You know that there is a cup because you cannot grap through it. You might say: I know that there is a cup because I can see the cup. I believe that might be a true argument. But as we look at situations in the past it might be that our own senses are little disturbing. Science though is based on the proposition that there is a truth that can be known by experience, by our own senses. If, well, experience, would be a illusion there would be no science possible.

I decided that through boundaries we can find out know about truth. I also realised that it is only a knowledge of truth from the outside. We know that truth ends somewhere because we know that the boundary of truth is where phantasy starts. But I do not know what the truth is. It must be there, and by defining the boundaries of phantasy I can partly define the boundaries of truth. But I cannot by any means define the meaning of that truth by the knowledge that I've gained right now. It is certain that there is a truth, somewhere. As I started to try to find this truth I realised that this means that I must be a philosopher. If I wouldn't be I would never submit myself to such a lifework. I started to think about a question. Which thing is true? I thought, maybe it might be possible simply to find out the things that are the true and the things that are not true. I believe this is called the scientific method. With the scientific method the explanation which is the most simple is used and tried to be proven. Well, with my method I would try to just make a shift between the things that are true and the things that are phantasy. A shift between the things that are ideas and the things that are reality.

It didn't really work out that way. It appeared to be impossible to proof. Anyway, if I would just make a simple shift it would be only arbitrary to do so. But it annoys me that there would be a truth, which I believe is evidently there, and I wouldn't be able to find out what the truth is. If I don't know the truth I will have to base my decision on something else than truth. I would assume things to be true. But I wouldn't know. So, I remanined with the question how I could know the substance of the truth. It is a tought question. I'll need a little more time to rethink some. The first thing I will do is to define the boundaries of truth and phantasy. This will be a tough assignment in itself. If I am able to accomplish this, at least partly I will try to summarize the content of truth. This is a very tough question. I know that many scientists, philosophers, theologians and others have strived to know the content of truth. They couldn't accomplish it. I won't either. However, I might make a start from another viewpoint and try to find answers on some specific questions.