sometimes I think we forget the order of things and it is
good to get a refresher occasionally.
I am old, 59, and so I look at things with old eyes…
I see an experience and I try to find an explanation from
the varied examples of experiences I have. I see a man die from a heart
attack. From my prior experiences, I know what has happened and
what it means for me. My experiences have supplied me with information
about what those experiences like a heart attack means.
But when I was young, an experience like watching a man have a heart
attack, was new and confusing. I didn’t know or understood what
it meant in general or specifically to me, to watch someone have
a heart attack. It would have been a confusing experience for me
because I didn’t have the experience or knowledge to know
what it means to have a heart attack.
Now let us go even further back into time, when I was young,
maybe 9 or 10, my sister and I witnessed my father having a stroke.
We had no idea what was happening. Frankly, we panicked.
My sister ran next door and got a neighbor, a nurse, to come
over and take care of my dad. Now being so young, we had no
experiences with people having strokes or heart attacks and
we had no idea what to do. We didn’t have enough experience
to make sense of what had happened or what to do. We knew
something was wrong but we didn’t know what. Now that I am
old, I can pretty tell if something is wrong and because of my
past experiences, I can often tell what the problem is and what
the solution to that problem is…
Now that I old, I can give experiences some context. From what is
totally unknown, my father’s stroke, to today where I know
and understand the context of a stroke or a heart attack.
I can place or put into context, a single experience within
lifetime of my experiences. I now know that a heart attack is
a natural event that happens for quite often no real reason to people.
sometimes the live, sometimes they don’t. I can place into context such
experiences as strokes and heart attacks and divorce and births and deaths.
Such is the understanding of life that happens when you are 59.
There are not a whole lot of mysteries when you are 59. You have seen it
all, you have done it all, you have been it all. The only mystery left
at age 59 is death and someday, I too will undergo that experience.
The point and value of philosophy and science and religion is
to explain what experiences mean. I can philosophically explain
what death means to me and I can scientifically explain what death means
and I can religiously explain what death means. Science, philosophy and religion
are all means to explain and understand experiences. Now some experiences
are unexplainable because the event/experience is random, chaotic and thus
cannot be explained in either scientific or philosophic or religious terms.
The experience lies outside of the usual explanations we offer up for
such things.
What is god? We can try to offer up scientific or philosophical
or religious explanations to, what is god? I can use my vast experience, old age,
to help me and you, understand what is god and what does that experience
explain to us or offer to us. I have learned that having a god helps us to…
or I have learned that not having a god helps us to………
depends on my experience as to what my understanding of experiences
are. I have experienced a lot, so I know a lot… is pretty much how it works.
Now what philosophers try to do is to understand those experiences all humans
have of life and death and illness and loss and turn them into some explanation.
We have some philosophers who try to turn experiences into a system, by
deriving all experiences systematically from one fundamental principle.
Thus we have Nietzsche who tried to do this with his “will to power”
He thus understood all experiences from this one principle of “will to power”
and that was his “system”.
Now we have had people who have tried to systematically turn experiences
into a fundamental principle by saying, “it is all god’s will” and everything
is understood to happen by “god’s will”. then we attempt to work out what
it means for us humans if everything is and all our experiences are simple
part of “god’s will”. What does that mean for us humans?
We have also people who have tried to understand experiences in terms
of natural forces and actions. We call these people scientist. They try to
systematically understand experiences in light of natural forces and
experiences. We drop dead because of genetics or bad habits like smoking
and no exercise. The question of how we explain the world, how we understand
the world comes from our understanding the world of the world and our
experiences of the world. Our understanding of the world could
be scientific or philosophic or religious or some combination of all three.
So the question really is, by what method do you understand the world?
How do you understand and explain the experiences of the world?
How do you create context in your own mind with experiences of
your own life?
Think about how we understand experiences and how we engage
in creating context and understanding of those experiences.
that is the entire reason and rational of science and philosophy and
religion. To explain and understand experiences.
so how do you explain and understand experiences?
Kropotkin