A Fate Worse Than God

At the end of the movie American Beauty, a post-murdered Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) tells us, the audience, that he is, despite all appearances, grateful for "every single moment of my stupid, little life". Now, there's a philosophical pinata in this movie, and it's been written about and commented on by professional and layman philosophers aplenty. A common theme that emerges among those who look at American Beauty philosophically (and I assume even those who don't), is the question of the meaning of life. At first glance, Lester's life seems pretty pathetic -- loveless marriage, crap-ass cubicle job (from which he is fired), and a daughter who propositions the neighbor kid to off her dad, not to mention Lester's growing obsession with the best friend of his teenage daughter. We look at Lester and see someone worthless, someone who has let life pass him by, someone who, if he disappeared tomorrow, no one would notice. Lester's life stank of the quiet desperaton that Thoreau wrote of in Walden. However, even though we know that Lester's life has come to nothing, at the end, he's still grateful for every single moment of his life. So, there are no wasted moments after all. At the end, Lester found meaning in something that seemed so meaningless. But for the rest of us, in the real world, how can we tell that, in the end, we'd be so grateful like Lester? How do we determine that the lives we have are worth living? The 18th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was nice enough to give us a method for solving one of life's most vexing questions: Is my life worth living? Nietzsche's solution? Eternal return. Nietzsche's "eternal return" goes a little something like this: a demon come to you and says "this life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it... every pain and every joy... everything immeasurably small or great in your life must return to you..." . Nietzsche says if our response is that we "throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus", that our lives are not meaningful. that is, if, at the prospect of having to live your life over again for an eternity, you greet the news as someone would greet a death sentence, you had better rethink how you're living your life, and fast. Because your life sucks. Most of us would say yes to the demon if we had the possibility to change things we had done in our past -- to improve on ourselves, to change things for the better. Most of us wouldn't have a problem if the demon presented us with the situation that wheatherman Phil Connors experienced in the movie Groundhog Day. Phil was stuck living the same day repeatedly, but each time he began a new day, he was able to change his actions. Eventually, Phil discovered that the point of repeating the same day over and over was so that he would change something about himself. At the outset, Phil wasn't a very nice guy. Repeating Groundhog Day allowed Phil to see where he was going wrong. The day became a kind of cosmic mulligan. He did it 'til he got it right. Only when Phil improved himself was he allowed to move on to February 3. But with Nietzsche, there is no release. There is no moving on to the next day. And absolutely no changing things, either. What would we do if we realized that, wnlike Phil, we couldn't change what happened? We would have to live every excruciating detail of our lives forever? I suspect that only after a few times, we would end up alot like Michael Palin in the "Deja Vu" sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus. It doesn't take long before Palin's nerevs are frazzled, knowing that the same thing will happen over and over and over again. (if you haven't seen this sketch, watch it). The idea that is scary is that there aren't enough good times to make the truly awful times bearale for an eternity. For every fantastic birthday or trip to Cancun, there's that time that you were attacked by the neighbor's dog, or the time you spent a week in jail for unpaid traffic tickets. Those times sucked. In Nietzsche's eternal return, the demon gives us a choice. We can decide whether we want to take him up on his offer or not. But what if the afterlife (or whatever lies beyond our plane of existence) is more like what happened to Phil Conners? What if we don't have a choice? What if when our lives end, nature or God automatically pushes the "repeat" button? What if repeating our lives was something that wasn't meant to teach us a lesson about life so much as it becomes a punishment for our lives? There's this movie that came out in the mid-80s called High Spirits. It's reallya forgettable movie, but there's a character who is doomed to live the night of her murder for an eternity. Every night, she and her husband Martin reenact their wedding night. Martin accuses her of cheating (which she wasn't), chases her down and then stabs her. She dies and then the next night it's back to the same thing chase and stab again. By the time the audience sees the unfortunate bride and her husband replay her murder, they've been at it for over a hundred years. (Once again, however, she is released from her eternal bonds by love. She finds the true love of her life, played by Steve Guttenberg. Win some, lose some, eh?). But this poses a very interesting question. Ok, Nietzsche wants us to find meaning in our lives, but what if the real meaning is in our death? There's this idea that meaning has to be cultivated over a lifetime. That, taken as a whole, life either has or hasn't meaning. But why is this so? There are plenty of people who say that their entire point of view about life changed in a single moment. All the meaning of one's life can be crammed into one, singular moment. So why not live that moment for an eternity? That's ok, only if the moment we are living is worth living for an eternity, but what if it's one of those punishment moments? What if, if we are doomed to eternal punishment, we have to live the single worst moment of our lives for an eternity? In the movie Salvage, a young woman is forced (again, for seemingly inexplicable reasons, well at first anyway) to live the day of her murder over and over. As she begins to realize that she's repeating the same day over and over, she attempts to find ways to stop her murder from taking place. But, it seems that no matter what she does, she always ends up at home, where the murderer brutalizes her before murdering her and burying her body in a field. We think, like she does, if she can just figure out what's going on, much like Phil in Groundhog Day, she can break the cycle. But here's the thing. She's not repeating her murder to figure out anything about her life at all. In the grand scheme of things she really doesn't matter at all. It's because it's not about her life, it's about her death. She is a part of someone else's punishment. She's not stuck in her own eternal return, she's struck in her murderer's eternal return. He is being punished for murdering the young woman, her boyfriend, and a bunch of other people. He has to feel her pain, but the only way he can feel her pain is if she feels the pain of being murdered. That made me think, if a person chooses to take the demon up on his offer, exactly whose lives are involved? Is everyone you know doomed to be a part of your eternal repetition? If they are not, are they just facsimilies of the people you know? Is eternal return a group effort or is each person's recurrance solipsistic? (and if that is, how can I be sure that my life isn't now?). If I'm in something like Groundhog Day, and if everyone else wasn't repeating the day as I was, who were those people that I was dealing with? Were they convinvingly realistic looking holograms like the holodeck on Star Trek:TNG? If Igot to know those hologram people, did I really know the people that I thought that I knew once time returned to normal? You know, this may have all been an exercize in overthinking. I should try to just sit back and enjoy what I'm watching instead of analyzing everything for it's "philosophical significance".

Who Else Would Be Following You On Twitter?

Strange thing about technology. Before you know it, everyone is doing it and you're woefully behind the ball. A few years ago, it might have even been last year -- I can't remember a damn thing -- the supposed burning question that I was sopposed to be asking myself when I woke up every morning was for what good reason I was not on YouTube? Now, I'm, if what everybody else is telling me is correct, supposed to be asking myself why don't I tweet? That is, why am I not on Twitter? I could have sworn that as late as three weeks ago, neither I or anyone else that I knew knew what a "Twitter" was. But now it's like Twitter is everywhere. I had, until I got technologically caught up, operated under the impression that one twittered when one giggled and trembled uncontrollably. But, my life it seems is incomplete if I am not giving the world updates about myself and exactly what I am doing and thinking in 140 characters of less. Well, I don't ... tweet. For awhile, or at least that's what they will let you believe, I thought that I was the only person who doesn't... tweet. Stephen King doesn't tweet. Neither does Kid Rock. Trent Reznor did but quit. By the way, Kid Rock said this about tweeting, " I don't have anything to say, and what I have to say isn't relevant". I thought that was pretty thoughtful. But then, he backed up his comment with "Twitter this dick, motherfucker". You decide. Like with YouTube, Facebook, and that internet dark alley, MySpace, there are stories aplenty about people ruining or semi-screwing up their lives with things that they posted online. It seems like these social gathering places have become modern-day slambooks (if that reference doesn't date me, I don't know what will). It seems like every one of these 'I got fired because my boss saw my Cancun pictures on my MySpace' became instantly overnight like Harriet in Harriet the Spy, when she lost her book of trash talk and everyone she knew got to see what and how she really thought about them. But it isn't just the people that you know who get to see you slutting it up in Mexico -- the whole world gets to see you. Twitter, launched in 2006 (why am I only hearing about this now?) co-created by Evan Williams, who is responsible for blogger.com, according to Nielsen, has 13 million users (well, I guess minus one). That's a number that's somewhere between alot and not alot. If you look at the fact that there are roughly 6 billion people on this island earth, 13 million is barely the number of people who simultaneously farted just now. But, if you think about things from the point of view of trends, 13 million is a pretty sizable number. You only have to sell a million records to go platnium. It's not that I'm down on the social networks. I slum the internet from time to time and I blog. But I'm not on Facebook, nor do I have a MySpace account. At my age, having either seems a little ... odd. Although I am well aware that the fastest growing segment of new Facebook users are women over 50. When I tell people that I don't do Facebook or MySpace, they find this fact rather incredulous. I am told that there is a world of friends and followers that I am not updating or communicating with, and that this fact is supposed to make me feel bad. It doesn't. Strange, with all the hubub about Ashton Kutcher, who, according to Entertainment Weekly's Mark Harris, is "someone who is, if nothing else, expert at staying famous" making it his life's mission to get more Twitter followers than CNN, it seems that the ordeal about Twitter is only about how popular you are or can become. And for folks like me, who won't even use their real name on their blogs, that strikes us as a little arrogant and a tad creepy. There's something more than unimpressive about Ashton Kutcher accumulating a million "followers". What we should be asking it how many people have to participate in something so incredibly inane before we can call it a bonafide mental illness? The bonus, they say, about Twitter is that my "tweets", unlike other forms of communication, like actually talking to people, takes place right now. Like the bank employee who tweeted when the bank where she worked was robbed, or when that plane crashed into the Hudson, they say that the news hit Twitter before it made the TV news. Plus, they say, on Twitter you get what really matters: sage advice from Dr. Drew, music listening tips from John Mayer, health tips from Ellen DeGeneres, celebrities musing about... whatever, or declaring that they're ditching Twitter because there are too many crappy-looking, fat chicks (who fantasize about banging rock stars) following them. We know tweets are full of self-importance (see previous comment), but the bigger question we naturally are inclined to ask is is there really important being said on Twitter? Afterall, how much can a person say in 140 characters (assuming, of course, that the point is to say anything important at all)? Maybe Kid Rock's observation about himself isn't limited to himself, but also spot-on about every other Tweeter out there. All of this, of course, begs for someone to examine it with the philosophic eye. (even if it doesn't, philosophers are in the business of relating anything, whether it is "philosophic" or not, to some philosophic theory). It doesn't take too much deep thinking to come up with a few philosophy-like questions. Since Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc, are collectively known as "social networks" our philosophic sense leads us to ask about the "social" gathering places that these sites claim that they are. We all know, whether we like it or not, that humans are social animals. We want to find and look for people who are like ourselves. This is how these networks are marketed -- you may not know anyone who is like you where you live, but rest assured that there is some dude in Sweden who likes fresh blueberry pancakes, hard-core Japanese Animation porn, Chuck Norris flicks and Grizzlybear just like you do. Anyone can find their brethren in cyberspace. No longer are we the lonely beegirls looking for our hive like that adorable bee kid in that Blind Melon video. All I have to do is post a profile, and people will want to be my friend. That sounds good. But is it? Is it really better for us? There's a saying that you can spend so much time looking elsewhere for what you want that you miss it right where you are. There's a fear that we might be sacrificing potential local relationships with people relatively near to us for "relationships" with people who aren't anywhere near us (or who might never be -- and that's not always a bad thing). We might be giving up actual connectivity for what seems like real relationships, which in turn, leaves us actually disconnected from other people (it seems that plenty of people have experienced this one: you're having an actual physical conversation with someone. they tell you to send them an email. but, you're right in front of them! it's not that they're pressed for time, it's just that they're so used to not speaking to people face to face that they can't actually speak to people when they're in the same room with them). The question is, who are we connecting to? The idea of the internet and sites like Twitter is that there we are free to be who we really are. The lure, for some, is authenticity. We're not bound by social conventions or even by distance -- I can discuss how cool Forced Vengeance is with a pal in Sweden as readily as he can discuss the merits of the new S&M comics stuff put out by the dude that co-created Superman with his buddy in Clairmont. We may never admit to our predilections among our philosopher friends, but on the internet, we are free to discuss whatever we choose -- to be who we are. But are we? Of course, this issue relates back to the question "who am I?" And, asking "who am I?" relates to our own questions about the meaning of life and existence. There is a tremendous amout of pressure to be online. Local news stations tell us to follow up their news broadcasts by looking up the stories online. We are told that we can get the best deals on restaurants, cars, stereos, plane tickets or whatever we might want by looking up bargains on the internet. We're told that the printed book is dead and that what we need is kindle. It goes on and on. For those who aren't hooked up to the world wide web, we might begin to think that we're being left behind. By not joining the bandwagon, we become relics, as useless and outdated as a dog-eared copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (do you know how many people haven't read this book?!? It's amazing!). It's almost like, if I'm not online somehow, I don't count. I might find myself thinking that I'm like a tree in the forest. If I'm not on MySpace, do I exist? If I'm not telling the world exactly how I feel at every minute of the day, what other purpose is there to serve? I might think that being online -- Tweeting, being on MySpace or Facebook, somehow varifies who I am, not just that I "exist". But the problem is, is that I may be so caught up in the zeitgeist that I forget that posting my whatnot online isn't just a matter of what I reveal online but about what I reveal online reveals about me. I think this is why people often post things that they shouldn't. They gey so swept up in the idea that they lose who they are. We become profiles. We become 140 characters. That enevitably leads to a kind of detachment and (to use a term) alienation from others and I think also from ourselves. I heard somewhere that 60% of Twitter's users drop out after a month. Maybe they find that relating to people who aren't really there isn't really relating to people. The problem isn't so much a matter of corpulent followers, as it is a matter that the experience isn't very satisfying for alot of people. It doesn't replace actual human to human interaction. It leaves us wanting. Maybe Kid Rock had it right. He said that Twitter is gay. His words, not mine, folks.

Thanatopsis

Arguably the best line ever delivered in the history of modern cinema was said in 1968 in George A. Romero's classic tale of the undead, Night of the Living Dead. When asked by a local reporter if the dead are slow moving, Chief McClellan answers, "They're dead. They're all messed up". The chief's response is the perfect meeting of a great line and a great delivery. That line had always stood out of the movie for me, even when I wasn't in the habit of looking at things philosophically. But now since I've been bit by the philosophic bug, that line lead me to ask myself a few questions: 1) What's so messed up about death? 2) Is it messed up that you die? 3) Is there something inherent to death that, once someone dies they become messed up? 4) Are they messed up because they're dead? 5) Is death itself a state of being messed up? It really started to bother me. Chief McClellan seems to think that the messed-upness about death is the fact that one is dead. Being dead, as evidenced by the chief's sentiment and the ruthlessnes with which they "kill" the undead, robs an individual of his humanness. Once a person dies (and in particular if one reanimates) a person ceases to be morally considerable as anything other than something that must be destroyed. Perhaps then, being messed up has something to do with the idea that a person lacks humanness. So, I'm assuming that it goes something like this: person + dead = messed up, messed up = not human. This seems to be the sentiment that not only runs through Romero's movies, but throughout other zombie flicks as well ( I think a funnier description of the messed up state of dead people is said by the character "Rhodes" in George Romero's Day of the Dead. Rhodes calls the undead "fuckin' lunatics". I say this because Rhodes may have been onto something and not known that he was). This assessment, of course only leads us to more questions. I ask, if one can lose his humanness, what is humanness? Does the fact that we die mean that we have to lose what makes us human (or at least morally considerable)? Also, I ask, when do we stop being human (this is important in the real world when we consider those who are only mostly dead, like someone who is in a persistent vegetative state or is "brain dead")? Do we stop being human? Are we more than the sum of our parts? In the average zombie film, it seems that there is an inextricable connection between being human and being alive. This is exemplified by how the dead are described in the various films of the genre -- "things", "them", "ghouls", "stenches", zombies", "undead", "deadites", etc. They are called anything but "human" or "people". If these movies reflect how we actually feel about the dead, then being a human (and thus morally considerable) is being something that is a body imbued with life. It would take up too much time to get into the various views on what exactly life is, but for the sake of argument, let's say that a thing that lives is something that breathes, has a discernible heartbeat, has a body temperature roughly around 98.6 degrees Farenheit, and neither rots nor attempts to eat the flesh of the living. So, if life is a qualification for human classification, why do we worry about how the dead? Why do we worry about how dead bodies are treated (like why necrophilia is illegal in most states. I think that there are still a couple where you can have sex with any dead person that you want to get it on with), or why are we strongly discouraged from speaking ill of the dead? Afterall, they're not there to see us do anything to or speak ill about them. Why do we keep promises to dead people? Seems like a waste of time to hold a promise made to a dead guy over our heads. Perhaps our concern has more to do with our fear of ghosts, or visits from restless spirits, or divine retribution. Speaking of, I hope that Thomas Jefferson was haunted by the spirit of a dead friend whom he promised to use the friend's money to buy the freedom of slaves when he died. Jefferson didn't. But the question remains. If a zombie is messed up and morally unconsiderable, can we somehow cause harm to a zombie or other unliving person? Since it's so fun, let's look at zombies. A zombie, according to Random House College Dictionary (def. 1), is "the body of a dead person given semblance of life by a supernatural force". So, by definition a zombie is someone who has the outward appearance of something that is living but is not. A zombie moves (or shambles), makes noise in the form of moaning, and in the case of Re-Animator's Dr. Hill, it will perform oral sex on you (it's a visual pun). Zombies are put through various abuses throughout the pantheon of film: In George Romero's Land of the Dead, zombies are made to fight each other over food (the "food" is a live person thrown into a cage with two zombies). In the 2004 re-make of Dawn of the Dead, the heroes play a shooting game where they shoot zombies who resemble celebrities. In Shaun of the Dead, zombies are used as contestants on a game show. In Tom Savini's 1990 re-make of Night of the Living Dead and in Romero's Diary of the Dead, zombies are used as target practice by local hillbillies. In movies, zombies are killed, or re-killed in ways that we would never imagine treating a living person. This is because they're all messed up -- that is, not human. There is a body but no one to offend. Since they're dead already, you're not killing anyone. "Killing" a zombie is no different than playing the latest RPG video game. But for some of us, this sentiment doesn't sound right. Zombies look like us -- they used to be regular people. It seems counterintuitive to treat someone who is dead in any way that we please. Being messed doesn't completely disqualify someone as morally considerable. We do take care not to offend the dead, either by words or by deeds. In Tom Savini's Night of the Living Dead, Barbara (who survives this time around) says about the zombies, " They're us. We're them, and they're us". Barbara says this when she sees the local yahoos having their way with zombies. In Barbara's view, a zombie is still a person. They're more than their physicality. They don't lose their personhood or humanness upon death. We're still capable of committing violence against them. Their violence against us doesn't seem to warrant mistreatment by the living. There is a common thread that runs through the zombie films of Georre Romero that sets his films apart from other films in the genre. Namely, that Romero's films may be entertaining, but they are also meant for us to think. This is a good thing. The question (and the finer point) that runs through his zombie films is "who are the monsters?". There is an obvious answer and there is the one that makes us a little uncomfortable. Barbara discovered the answer when she saw the townies abusing the zombies. When we think of an individual doing another person harm, there are two individuals that come to mind -- the victim and the perpetrator. We consider the act, but we also consider the intent of the person who committed the harm. This is where (I think it was) Kant was going when he suggested that it is wrong to break a promise to a dead man. The moral transgression isn't in that we harmed the dead person, so much in that it speaks to what kind of person we are morally. We evaluate the intent of the agent. If I promise to buy the freedom of slaves with the money of my friend's estate after he dies, and I do not, the moral harm is that I have shown myself to be untrustworthy, that I do not honor my promises. It does not matter who I made the promise to -- I gave my word and I should honor my obligations to keep my word. (It's funny that there is a reason [one might say excuse] as to why Jefferson acted as dastardly as he did. Jefferson wrote, " The Earth belongs... to the living. The dead have neither power nor rights over it". Asshole.) A better example to use with zombies is how we treat animals or people with demished capacities. As Rhodes observed, zombies operate much like "lunatics". That is, a zombie, as we are reminded in zombie flick after zombie flick, cannot be reasoned with. Likewise, people who have no control over themselves (perhaps because of mental illness) are not rational. Like animals and the mentally ill, it is incumbent on us, the rational ones, that we care for those who cannot control or care for themselves. So perhaps we should think of zombies (or those who are mostly dead) more like we think of the mentally ill, or people who suffer from an addiction or compulsion. They cannot be but what they are. We should treat them sympathetically. For instance, my dog does not understand that there is a legitimate reason why he is not allowed to poop in the house. If I attempt to demonstrate my very well thought-out reason, he won't understand it. I cannot treat him as if he should understand. I would not hold him to the same rational standard that I would another adult human. Therefore, when he does leave an "accident", I cannot punish him in the same way that I would if he were a grown man who had crapped on my livingroom floor. If I did, I would be out of line for doing so. If I do (which would entail some asskicking), then I am in the moral wrong for my behavior. My willingness to overpunish my dog reflects on me as a rational moral agent. My moral aptitude is demonstrated by my actions. So, if I string a zombie up and poke it with sticks for shits and giggles, it says much more about what kind of person I am than about how dangerous the zombie is. And that's precisely what Barbara saw. It wasn't the zombies who had lost their humanity, but the living as well. The living had ceased to act like humans. Their intent was to cause harm -- it just so happens that their targets were people that they could get away with treating so badly. Like the man who makes a promise to his dying friend and then breaks it, they treated the zombies harshly because they knew that they would get away with doing it. To them , a zombie is nothing more than a thing. It is not a person. It deserves no moral consideration. It deserves no respect. An interesting side note is that we can see this attitude (maybe not to such a degree) in our electronic world. Websites such as Second Life enable people to enter a "reality" where they can act and do what they choose. A person can indulge any and every desire. The idea is, is that if there is no real person, then there is no moral transgression. There is no living being to offend. This is the same idea that is behind the idea of virtual child pornography. Since the child in question is the product of a computer and there is no real child who corresponds with the virtual image, then there is no moral wrong with having (virual) sex or viewing sexually explicit images of children who do not exist. But, as we all know, it takes two to tango. There is no actual being, but there is an actual someone who is having sex with virtual children. If one doubts that there is a problem here, all one needs to do is ask this question: would you feel comfortable alone, camping in the woods with someone who you discovered enjoyed rape/murder fantacies in a virtual world? Would it matter at all is the person didn't do it to anyone who actually existed (that they only did it with/to a virtual person, an automaton, or god forbid, a zombie), or would the fact that that person even entertained those sorts of intentions cause you to turn down the invite to go camping this weekend? What matters isn't that the victim (there I go, thinking like Barbara) is dead and all messed up, but that, like Romero suggests, the monsters -- the moral monsters -- are us. The end scene in Diary of the Dead is the perfect example of this point of view: The end scene of the film depicts a couple of gunsmen who have rigged up zombies for target practice. The last target is a female zombie who has been strung up from a tree by her hair. One of the gunsmen shoots, blasting her body away from her head. As her body drops, the top half of her head and her hair remain rigged to the tree. As her head dangles, a single blood tear streams from the corner of her eye. This final scene, the zombie's tear, suggests that despite her condition, she still retained some bit of her humanity. Perhaps she wasn't as messed up as Chief McClellan has believed. Somehow she still feels. This, of course, is how we think about souls. The body my die and whither away, but there is some part of us that remains. The soul is what may be harmed by the actions of the living. I feel that many people, when they think of people who died, tend to treat the dead according to this view. But of course, any atheist (or strict materialist) would object to notions of souls existing past death. We'll grant them that (primarily because this is how I believe myself). So, in real life, the dead do not move around and eat the living, and we may not believe in souls, but we do have, in our own minds, memories of those who have passed. Perhaps we can or should honor that. There's an old cliche -- that a person isn't truly dead so long as we keep them in our hearts. This may be why we are offended by the idea of treating a dead person improperly -- why the idea of necrophilia or cannibalism (unless we happen to be stranded in the Andes mountains with our soccer team), or procuring organs without the original owner's consent, are abhorent to us. The body is material and will eventually rot and turn to dust. But the body is also symbolic of the person who once was. And to that, we feel have a deep moral obligation. Until we are completely forgotten and lost to history, we may argue, when we die, we become more than the sum of our parts. At least as long as those who remember us are living, our existence, our humanity, becomes transcendent. More importantly, how we regard the dead reflects on who we are -- that those who are left behind are honorable, moral people. So, it is indeed possible to harm the dead, because when we harm the dead, we harm ourselves. Treating the dead harshly takes away from our own moral standing -- we become less human when we do so. The short of it is, is that when we die we don't lose our humanness. And being dead isn't so messed up. Well, it's either that, or we really are afraid of visits from good old Jacob Marley and his rattling chains. ..... or even worse, that kid from The Ring.

Philosophic Blah Blah Blah of a Star Trek Geek

I saw the latest Star Trek flick the other day. Like so many "purists" out there, I really wnated to hate it. Something to do with messing with a hallowed tradition, or some BS like that. I really wanted to leave the theater seething and declaring that Gene Roddenberry would be rolling in his grave at the travesty that passes itself off as a Star Trek movie. But I liked it. Not just moderately, but really liked it. Too bad. I was looking forward to a good rant. Now, if only someone would get hold of Star Wars... What I noticed, and liked, was the fact that it didn't have that typical/traditional Star Trek bash you over the head philosophic grandstanding that's usually passed off as "undertones" or "subtext". I found that a relief. But, a funny thing happened. The philosophic question just came. I was there, sitting in the darkened theater, and my mind started thinking. My brain actually started to look for some philsophic subtext to the plot. And eventually, I found one. Because of a slight time travel problem ( it wouldn't be Star Trek without some time travel, would it?), there results a pair of Spocks -- one older and one younger. Now, I thought, while munching on my sneeked in food, there are two Spocks, are they the same person? If I stuck the duo side by side and said something like, "Spock=Spock", would I be correct? Is this fact that I am putting forth analytically true? Putting age aside, the Spocks are the same genetically: they are both the son of the human woman Amanda and Vulcan Ambassador Sarek. They are the same, I presume, on the quantum level. And anything that is the same on the quantum level is identical, that is, itself. So, I would be forced to say yes, they are the same person. I'm not sure, since I'm no physicist, that there isn't some additional requirement that the Spocks have to occupy the same space to be exactly the same, or if the fact that they are not the same age makes them similar, but different. I don't know. But, even without considering any additional questions or possibilities, I feel that they, despite their quantum similarities, are not the same person. I know, from reading Quine, that if say, one spock was missing his left index finger, that we could easily say that the spocks are not the same person. Strikingly similar, but indeed not the same (as one is missing his left index finger). Like I said, I'm not sure if age functions the same as a missing finger. But, when we think of things like what makes us who we are, we tend to look beyond our physicality. We are, we say, more than our DNA. (Master Yoda says that we are more than "this crude matter". Yes, I mixed franchises. I am sci-bi after all.) We are made up of many things that comprise who we are: our experiences, our environment, our beliefs, thoughts and feelings all have to do with what makes us us. Our physical bodies may suggest something, but taken as a whole, we are something else -- that is, our bodies say what we are, but there is a matter of who we are ( and I don't think that the Existentialists are alone in suggesting this). In the much maligned Star Trek: Nemesis ( I still think this is one of the better flicks, despite the fact that they totally ignored the fact that Dr. Soong created more androids than data and B4), the explanation that Dr. Crusher gives to Captain Picard as to why he and Shinzon are not the same person is that their life experiences made them different people. Shinzon, for those who haven't seen the movie -- and plenty didn't, since it only grossed $43 million -- was a clone of Captain Picard. That means that Shinzon was an exact duplicate of the Captain. But, they had different lives. Picard grew up on earth, the son of a winemaker. Shinzon was raised on the Romulan moon Remus, where he was enslaved and mistreated by his Romulan captors. They shared the exact same DNA, but in essence, they were not the same person. The idea of essence has is connected to the fact that we do see personhood as something beyond the mere physical. "Person" is a loaded term. Being a person, as opposed to being a mere being, conveys a a uniqueness, perhaps even something transcendent within all of us. It is something that is unique to us as individuals that differentiates us from all others, including identical twins of clones. So, using this idea, I could say (spoiler alert) that one Spock , the younger one, lived in a timeline wherein he saw the death of his mother, the destruction of his homeworld Vulcan, and knew that James T. Kirk's father was killed before Kirk was born. The other, older Spock lived in an alternate timeline where Kirk shared his story about how his father watched him graduate from Starfleet Academy, and where his homeworld still existed (presumably), or at the very least his mother wasn't killed when Vulcan was destroyed. Their experiences make them different. It's not beyond the possibility that experiences make us physically different as well. We know that we can influence ourselves physically with our own minds. anyone who has ever thought himself sick or worried about a midterm to the point of puking knows this. We know that what we think can change ourselves internally. A brain of a person suffering from depression looks different from a person who does not. A brain that is injured by accident or drug use or whatever else looks different from a healthy brain. So, one might postulate that it may be possible to tell which Sopck is which from looking at their brains. The older Spock might, due to his life experiences (ones that the younger Spock did not have), show differences on an MRI that we would not see in the younger Spock. If this is so, then we have additional physical evidence to say that they merely look alike, but are not the same person. OK, I know. I know that this one wasn't supposed to lay on the heavy philosophic stuff. This one isn't supposed to lead to heavy philosophic discussions, and I should accept that this one is a early summer action flick. So, I'll end on this note: the special effects were great (especially the scene when the Enterprise comes out of warp speed in the middle of a debris field), and Zachary Quinto's Spock -- totally hot.

Hell Is Reality Television People

I was thumbing through my copy of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs a few days ago. To start off, I envy people, any person who can write and make a living off of it. Second, I wanted to re-read the chapter on Mr. Klosterman's friend's encounter with a serial killer. I have no idea why. There's, in this chapter, a bit about serial killers John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer. Mr, Klosterman ( I feel like, since I don't know him, I shouldn't call him "Chuck"), wrote about the fame that serial killers achieve as compared to real celebrities. In his book, he used Cameron Diaz. That started me thinking. For awhile, you had to do something like kill a whole bunch of people or blow the president in order to get noticed by the media. But now, it seems like this has totally changed. I noticed that there are a lot of people out there who, I cannot for the life of me, tell anyone why they are famous. I don't think that they killed anyone, since they're not in prison. And I don't think that many of them interned at the White House during the Clinton Administration. But they're there. I know who these people are and why they're important to my life. What really struck me about reading Mr. Klosterman's book, is that, although it was written in 2003 (yeah, eons ago), something he wrote hit me philosophically. It was that he said that he disagreed with the "accuracy of those comparisons" between the fame of celebrities and the fame of serial killers. Mr. Klosterman wrote, " there was nothing inherently special about Cameron Diaz; until she made a movie. She was just an attractive person. At some point, she became Cameron Diaz. But Jeffrey Dahmer didn't become Jeffrey Dahmer the first time he killed somebody. That's always who he was" ( pg. 192. emphasis in original).The fame of the serial killer, he said, is more authentic. Authentic. Now that's a philosophical word. In a way, Mr. Klosterman is correct. A serial killer just does what he is inclined to do. To quote (the fictitious) Mickey Knox, a serial murderer is a "natural born killer". A famous person is mostly known for playing someone else. It would be a little odd to assume that, because David Caruso plays the ultra smooth Horatio Caine on CSI:Miami, that that is the way he truly is. Although he pretty much played the same guy in that movie Jade... Ok. Maybe he was a bad example. The point is, is that celebrities spend their careers playing people who do not exist. They are professional inauthentic players. That is, until the human race was beset upon by the authentic celebrity -- the reality TV show personality. I was listening to the Billy Bush show a while ago. If you don't know, Billy Bush is this dude from Access Hollywood, a show specializing in teling us that, in order to have meaningful lives, the American public must know intimate details about the lives of its famous people. I hate myself for knowing that 1) there is such a thing as a Billy Bush, and 2) I've seen Access Hollywood. Anyway, Billy was interviewing Kim Kardashian. I was torn for a moment. My crap-o-meter had told me to immediately change the channel. But, something was compelling me to listen. I struggled against myself to change the station. *Note* for those who live under rocks and have no idea who this woman is, is recommend Googling her. Have fun, and bring a box of Kleenex.* Now, we, as a culture, tend to dismiss celebrities like Kim Kardashian and her ilk. These are people that we say have no good resaon to be famous (as if there actuall is a good reason), and therefore, are underving of our attention. In particular, we feel that people like Ms. Kardashian and Paris Hilton are of an even less deserving class of famous people. To most of us, they're cartoons. They appear to be caricature of what a person, even of what a real celebrity is supposed to be. we often use the words "fake" or "plastic" when we describe them. They are people who seem to have no real to them at all. They are inauthentic. But before we go label crazy, it's important to explain what we mean. I've already trotted out the word "authentic" and attached philosophic significance to it. So what do I mean when I say "authentic"? Authenticity, according to the Existentialists, is ( as uncomplicted as possible) living one's life unaccording to the expectations of others. That is, an individual lives life, not according to some supposedly pre-determined set of innate characteristics, but according to the terms that he sets out for himself. According to the Existentialist, we are the masters of our own being. We are our own creations. We are not born naturally shy or hot-tempered, or even naturally inclined to act masculine or feminine. The personalities we assume are assumed by ourselves. For the Existentialist, existence preceedes essence. We exist before we become who we are. Now, I recall that I had mentioned reality TV. Television is, according to some experts, a postmodern medium. There's no need to get into postmodernism other than to say that postmodernism rejects the existentialist's notion of authenticity. For the postmodernist, there is no such thing as "the real". We are, at best, a mix of influences that we assume into what we call our identity. And TV seems to reflect that point of view. Just think of the gritty NYPD: Blue like cop show that is also a murder mystery in the tradition of Murder She Wrote, with a twist of My Three Sons, as a single police detective, who also writes mystery novels tries to raise his three sons, including the adorably precocious 7 year-old Billy, as a single father in the rough streets of Claremont, California. But, somewhere in the postmodern mix, someone decided that it was time for people to stop being polite and start being real. I know that they say that the first reality show was PBS's An American Family, and that the first reality TV star was the late Lance Loud, who appeared on the show. It seems that between the mid 70s and the early 90s, the need to see people being real wasn't big on America's to-do list. But, I remember the first time I saw The Real World. Debuting in 1992 on MTV, The Real World opened up a big can of feculent TMI for all of America to see. It brought what they said could not be brought to television: REALITY. For awhile, the only reality on TV, if one was looking for it, was only on the local news. Car chases, police shoot-outs, the local riot... all for the audience to enjoy with real people in real time. But, reality TV brought something new. The people were people that you wnated to see. They weren't just some hillbilly whose house just got blown away by a tornado. Reality TV brought people that I could identify with -- they were real. When Dominic from Real World: Venice Beach got drunk and passed out on the beach, I totally identified with what he was going through! When Ruthie from Real World: Hawaii totally got drunk, like, every episode, I was so there! There were no scripts, there were no rules. This was life as it unfolded. The camera just sat there and recorded whatever happened. So when Irene got socked in the face when she left Real World: Seattle, the camera showed us what was really going on. NO holds barred. Of course, we all know as they say, what you see isn't what really happened. Let me say something a little bit about TV. What we see on television is not all that goes on to get the show to our eyes. TV shows are a team effort. They require the services of writers, directors, producers, casting directors, and personalities to make it to air. Even a show that calls itself a reality show required a team of producers to cast it and bring it to air. Some shows these days even let us in on this process (American Idol), or let us participate in which cast members stay of leave ( Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, Big Brother, etc). Any reality show producer will tell us that, in order to condense a week's worth of going's on into an hour of television, alot of editing takes place. And as was revealed during the Real World: Reunion show, what took place didn't always happen in the order of actual occurance. Events are arranged for dramatic effect, not in order of how they really happen. Postmodernist writer Jean Baudrillard writes, "the attempt to increase the feel of reality are themselves simulations. Their authenticity is a special effect". Baudrillard states that "images preceed the real". But this doesn't seem right when we think of TV that is supposed to be "real". The notion that images preceed the real violates the idea that reality TV tells us is behind its being. Reality TV is supposed to reflect reality, how things really are. When we look at a show like The Real World or The Simple Life, we believe that we are seeing what really happened. Which brings us back to the idea of authenticity. What is authentic? I thought about this question for at least a good five minutes before I answered, for some famous people, they really do seem to be the real deal. When I look at Kim Kardashian, she seems to be one of these people. She's famous for having a big ass. Nothing more. And she doesn't seem to be inclined to convince us of anything more than that. But when I see someone like Paris Hilton, I see the postmodernist at work. One week, she's a singer, the next, she's a philanthropist, the nest, she's staring in a really crappy movie (see Repo: the Musical, The Hottie and the Nottie, or House of Wax). You can't put a finger on what Paris Hilton is because she doesn't seem to be anything. I'm not saying this about her as a person, since I do not know her, but as something that is marketed as "real", ther appears to be nothing "real" there. Perhaps then, Kim Kardashian is something like Jeffrey Dahmer. She is what she is, rather, she is what her ass is. Paris Hilton, on the other hand, is a Cameron Diaz. The funny thing is, is that, despite what view, existentialist of postmodern, each ultimately concludes that there is no purpose or meaning behind reality, and I guess this covers the world of reality TV as well. You know, Sartre called reality absurd. Exactly.

I tried SO hard to like this movie

With the exception of the films of Coleman Francis, I'm willing to watch just about anything , and usually I'll find something worth liking about them -- whether it's the fact that Hugh Jackman is nearly always entertaining, or a wacky title sequence. There's always something. Did I forget to mention that I usually find something worth liking? I know that there are movies that everyone else is supposed to like, and then there are films that only certain people are supposed to like ( supposedly the difference is that everyone else watches "movies" and only certain people watch films or worse yet, the cinema). So I was watching this movie called Pi. It's directed (and written, I think), by Darren Aronofsky, who is currently enjoying some fame for his Oscar nominated movie The Wrestler. Since I had already seen his other movie, the heart-warming Requiem for a Dream, I decided that I must see more films by this guy! And that was Pi. I guess, for those who haven't seen it, Pi is about this dude who's really good at math who decides that he wants to figure out the math behind the stock market. Eventually, as all smart math guys do, he goes a little nuts, and ends up drilling himself in the head. Really, that's the plot. I thought that, since I'm into philosophy n' all, that I would like it. Two reasons: 1) it's in black and white (and black and white automatically means quality), and 2) because it looked like a movie that people who are into philosophy would like. There's a list, you know. There really is. It's a list of things that philosophy people are supposed to be "into". We're supposed to like Woody Allen movies (except for Antz that's a no-go for me), Monty Python flicks ( you're supposed to be able to recite dialogue from these), Coen Brothers movies, jazz music, and "fair trade" coffee. I also think that any movie written by Steve Martin (except for The Jerk) is supposed to be somewhere on that list. They're supposed to be stuff that are infused with all sorts of deep meaning and philosophic subtexts. Which is why pedestrian level philosophers like Star Trek. In Gene Roddenberry's universe there isno such thing as subtlety. It's all whack you over the head with a crowbar -- and the point of philosophy is that not everyone gets this stuff. Which, I guess is where the philosophic rubber hits the road. At least that's what the assholes believe, anyway. But the cold, harsh reality is, is that movies like Pi are damned hard to watch. It's not that I didn't get it, either. Oh I got it. Look, Being John Malkovich isn't so much difficult to understand than it is hard to pay attention to if you have anything resembling a sense of boredom. And by the way, would Catherine Keener please stop playing the smart-talking, intellectually superior ( to you), chick?!? The plain truth is, is that Super Troopers is not only more entertaining than most "philosophic" movies -- but it also probably is philosophically better for you. I swear that there is a difference between a movie that is just on its own smart (like the social commentary in the original Night of the Living Dead), and a movie that comes off like it is some sort of philosophy lesson (like Vanilla Sky). I'm not going to say exactly where I think this movie fits,but even now I keep thinking that I really should have liked Pi. While I'm writing this, I'm really thinking, wondering if there actually is some sort of philosopher profile that, once I join the ranks of THEM, I will automatically assume? Are there traits (or qualities, if that's the way you roll) that I must necessarily have as a philosopher? If so what are they? A tendency to rattle on about things that no one else cares about? The ability to talk for ten straight minutes without ever answering the question that I was asked? Will I lose my ability to talk to normal people?!?!? Of course, half of what I'm saying is in jest (well, except for the not liking the movie Pi no matter how hard I've tried to). But, I think that there's something more going on than this all being about a matter of taste. Without going into some sort of really overcomplicated postmodern take on high and low culture, there is a perception that there are things that everybody else likes and other things that only 0ther people like. That's kind of messed up.

It Ain't Just A Song, Baby (more thoughts on God)

There's this song that came out some time ago by this guy named Rich Mullins. In the years since its release, his song has become a non-denominational church staple. It's called "Awesome God". The song is basically a litany of what makes God well, awesome (and if I were Michael Palin I might add that we're all pretty impressed down here). His list, set to sweeping strings and full chorus, is accompanied by one of the catchiest choruses in the history of contemporary Christian music. (I know that those of you who know the song are humming it right now). But this is all besides the point. The song's list of God's deeds brings up the perennial question asked by laymen, theologians, and (heaven knows why) philosophers -- exactly how awesome is God? Of course at the heart of the question is the question of God's omnipotence. I thought that I'd look up what "omnipotence" means before I'd venture any opinion on the subject. This is what I found: omnipotence is defined as "infinite in power" and "having very great or unlimited authority or power". What really struck in my mind was the word "unlimited" (I'll get back to why it did later). Ok, there's already a problem here and it's obvious. Why on earth would an atheist be so interested in the power of a God that, according to them, does not exist? Good question. The real deal is that, try as an atheist might, there's just no escaping God talk. And if one takes up philosophy, then God talk is inevitable. What's worse is that, as an ordained philosopher, I feel that it is my imperative to have an opinion about everything -- even about things I claim do not exist. Aquinas wrote that God's omnipotence meant that God can do all things that are possible. But then, what does "what is possible" mean? What is possible is certainly different from something that is unlimited. Saying that I have a possible power is not the same as saying that I have an unlimited power ( at least at first glance it appears to be the case). So I read on: According to Aquinas, God being able to do what is possible means that, so long as there is no contradiction, God can perform an act. For example, God, after watching a little PBS, may decide that he wants to create a creature that is simultaneously dead and alive. Well, we know that a thing cannot be both alive and dead -- that's a contradiction. Once God has given the being life, he cannot make it dead at the same time. He's perfectly free to give the thing life, and then kill it, but he cannot do both simultaneously. Ok, so far it's making sense, but there's something that still is bugging me. Let's get back to definitions. Omnipotence is defined as "unlimited power". So, I ask, if one definition of omnipotence contains the idea of unlimitedness, then how does that jive with Aquinas' notion that God can do all things that are possible?When we say "possible", what are was actually saying? Are we implying, when we use the word possible, that God's powers are not complete? Are we saying that there are things that God cannot do? This question, whether God's powers are limited, started me thinking about the paradox of the stone. Tell me if you've heard this one before: Someone, obviously begging for a slap or two, decides to throw out "Can God create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?". This question, of course, is a question of God's omnipotence. The gist of the thing is that we are to ask if there is some quality of God that dispermits him from creating such a rock. If we answer yes, we are saying that God is somehow lacking in (total) omnipotence. If there is one thing that God cannot do, then God is not all-powerful. Stranger than that, a yes means that, if God possesses the ability to limit his own powers. But somehow this seems counterintuitive. God is all-powerful, yet he is able to will himself the inability to lift a rock. When we talk about God's omnipotence, we are talking about God's qualities, that is, what makes God GOD. God, we're told, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and really good (Only God and Mary Poppins are practically perfect in every way). God's perfections are all or nothing. If his qualities are deficient in any way, he is not God ( well, not a perfect God. He may still be "god"). This was all starting to sound strangely familiar. It began to remind me of --The Problem Of Evil. The Problem of evil, if you haven't heard of it, goes a little like this: there exists an all-powerful, perfectly good being (God). An all-powerful, perfectly good being would prevent evil (assuming that it would do so if it could). But, there is evil. Therefore, no all-powerful, perfectly good being exists, or at least we have reason to be skeptical that one does exist. This power of God quandary is of the sort similar to the paradox of the rock. The question once again is are there acts that God cannot do? (The situation is worse with the problem of evil. Not only are we asking if God permits evil, we might find ourselves asking if God performs evil). And once again, if we answer yes, we are not only left to question God's omnipotence, but we question God's all-goodness as well. Barring some reason that we do not know (e.g. God permits evil in order to accomplish some greater good), why would God permit or commit evil? The sunny side of this one is that no matter how many times we ask, no matter how many arguments we construct, we'll never answer the question! But, unlike the paradox of the rock, the problem of evil is considered a real pantybuncher of a philosophical question. It shakes the soul of man. This seems to be the view that everyone believes. And that's fine, if it works for you. But these "problems" don't work me up to the hurl-myself-out-of-a-window-because-my-world-is-crashing level that they seem to do to everyone else. The God, if I believed in one, that I'd want to believe in is indeed AWESOME, which means that he would inspire awe. I don't know about most people, but when I think awesome, I want to see something that completely floors me, somethng that I won't ( and won't want to) see everyday. The God that I'd like to believe in literally can do anything. But, wait a minute. What do I mean by "anything"? I mean just that. Not just what is possible, but what is conceivable. And since God's knowledge is infinite, he can conceive of a great deal more than my puny brain can ever manage to cook up. My God can do what is impossible. Now, this is just my opinion (like none of what else I wrote hasn't been?!?) but, I feel totally at ease with a God that creates rocks that he cannot lift, and performs the occasional evil deed or two. Not because he has to ( I totally reject the idea that God has to obey the laws of physics and such. The question there, then, is if God has rules that he must abide by, then who imposes those rules on God? Are we to assume that there is a Supreme Supreme Being that is even more omnicompetent than God that rules over God's rule over us?), but because he wants to. I know that every philosopher out there will object. They'll say that there is no way that God can create round squares and reverse the laws of physics! But I ask, why can't he? I'd like to think that he can. He can because he is God. I had once, or several times -- I really can't remember -- asked if God is bound by the same laws that we are bound by. A good ten out of ten times, the answer is yes. The answer usually has to do with some explanation involving irregular worlds or worlds that aren't actualizable. It's all supposed to make some kind of intuitive sense that there are things that God can't do. But for me it doesn't. I understand that I, the human, cannot create four-sided triangles and be 5 feet tall and 6 feet tall at the same time. But that's because I live in a physical universe that is governed by natural or physical laws that are constructed by God. But God, so far as I know, does not exist in the same world as I do ( that's the heart of the problem of interaction, isn't it?). There's really no other reason to believe that, other than that it makes sense for me to think so, God has to adhere to the same laws of physics and such as humans. I think that God chooses to "obey" the laws of nature, not because he has to, but because God, like us, has the free will to keep to the rules (he created, by the way) or not. God can just as easily and arbitrarily create a world where ingesting Clorox won't kill you and where flowerpots fall out of windows and rise up towards the heavens. But God doesn't. And if anyone asks me why I think this is so I will tell them this: God chooses to keep the world constant because he loves us. He knows, having designed us so, that humans would be disturbed ( putting it mildly) if he created a chaotic or "massively irregular" world. It's not that God cannot do certain things or that there are worlds that God cannot actualize. Just like I choose to write this particular blog posting, God (totally knowing that he could do otherwise) decided that this world was the best for his creation. Thank God he's consistent. *And may I add this personal note: I do not have a problem with possible worlds scenerios concerning everyday metaphysical of epistemological claims or quetions. For instance, I'm not put off to imagining or thinking about Matrix -like scenerios or the brain in a vat as a means of learning about the extent of our knowledge or the nature of our existence. However, I am adverse to speculation about the powers and/or intentions of a being that possesses a nature that I cannot comprehend. In short, I usually don't mind talk of possible worlds. Hell, I'm a Star Trek fan -- but I question the usefulness of such inquiries when it comes to God.

When There Is No More Room In Hell, Philosophers Will Walk the Earth

I've been thinking alot lately about metaphysics. No really, this is not a set up for some sick joke. I have, really. I've been going through my old philosophy books, and reading old notes from my classes... but I have no real idea why (funny I should throw in the word "real" since I've just mentioned that I've been stuck on metaphysics). I know that some of it has to do with this PBS program about the father of the dude from that group eels. He, the father that is, worked in physics, and his big contribution to the world of physics (and to Star Trek fans everywhere) was the theory of possible worlds. Now, there's this possible worlds thought experiment that has to do with a cat in a box. You stick the cat in the box, and then you put some radioactive stuff in there with it. But you can't see the cat, and you don't know when the material is going to be released, and so we don't know whether the cat is alive or dead, so in some ( long story short ) possible world the cat is both alive and dead. And that got me thinking. What does it mean to exist? I think that most people, myself included, go around asking questons about existence in the "why" form, meaning we ask why is life, why our own particular lives, and so on. I haven't really met anyone outside of a philosophy class ever ask what does it mean when I say that something "exists"? I figure that, for most folks, that, the "what" part -- we kind of take for granted. We see things and we say that they "exist" things we don't see don't exist. (I realize the big positivist boo-boo here, but play along for the sake of example). The problem is, is that the word "exist" is both loaded and muddy. When we ask "what is existence?", our questions, and unfortunately (ultimately) arguments tend to get us bogged down in semantics rather than actually getting to the subject at hand. This is often the point when some of us throw up our hands and simply stop discussing the issue altogether. But the hassle of agreeing on definitions shouldn't stop us from finding definitions that we all can agree on. It is important that we do so. So what do we think of when we think about existence? We tend to think of "exists" in terms of life or what "is". For better or for worse, when we speak of the world around us, we tend to speak of existence in human terms, that is, things exist in contrast to us. Being the semicurious devil that I am, I looked in the dictionary to see what the experts at Random House had to say about existence. And, no surprise, the definition included the phrase, " to have life or animation". That seemed mighty odd to me. Of course to answer "what is existence?" is not something that we'd like to answer too broadly. Somehow, there is an inclination to think of the answer as more nuanced than we'd initially think that it is. Perhaps the right way of thinking of existence is in terms of us. We can say that we humans (and some higher animals) "exist" everything else just "is". The word "existence" seems to shuttle in more than just being there and accounted for. There are social, biological, scientific, psychological, philosophical, and even colloquial meanings to the word "exist". I may claim that I politely raised my hand all class, and the professor acted as if I didn't exist, or I may say that my existence would be ruined if my guy left me, or I may say that my dog exists, or trees, or planets, or minds, or thoughts... but once again, I feel that when I say "I exist", that I've somehow changed the rules. I'm speaking of more than just flowers and trees. I am more than my here-ness, I am more than my social position, or my capacity to think (wow, that sounds a little Tyler Durden. I am more than my khakis). But then, there I go again -- closing myself up in the humans only box. Worse than that, I'm getting the feeling that I'm casting my net too narrowly. I feel that what I am doing is limiting existence to all that is, meaning all that can exist here with us. No. I promised myself that I would only mention possible worlds and not possible entities. I don't want to talk of Pegasus or corpulent men in doorways. I want to speak of something more concrete. What I am after, ultimately, is to find a meaning that will help us here and now -- there are too many problems to consider in the world where we reside than to get away from the issue by talking about Zeus and his brother or round squares. I was watching Land of the Dead awhile back. While I was sitting, watching Big Daddy and his zombie gang raid Pittsburgh, digging on Asia Argento (and Simon Baker, too), I started thinking about existence. I thought about that dead/alive cat, and how these zombies were beings that were both alive and dead. So I thought, do zombies exist? Knowing that the answer wasn't exactly the kind that you'd answer with an immediate yes or no, I realized that to get an answer, I required a thought experiment. So, let's say that I'm somewhere near Monroesville, circa 1978. Hoardes of the undead have descended on the local mall. Looking up from my beer I'm chugging at the Brown Derby, I start to think: I know that the recently reanimated are not "alive" (at least not in the medical sense), but do they exist? Possible answer #1: Descartes famously said "Cogito, ergo sum" -- I think, therefore I am. If Descartes was able to think, he was assured of his own existence. He could not even doubt that he did exist, because there was, at the very least some thing that was doubting his existence. As long as he possessed the capacity for thought, our PJ lovin' Rene Descartes was assured of his own existence. Well, it's obvious with a zombie where this Descartes' proof goes awry. A zombie does not think. There is no "I" to consider or even to deny its own existence. (funny, the zombie lacks the one thing that Descartes says is necessary for proof that one exists: thought. a zombie, however, possesses all of the other qualities the Descartes says are illusory -- locomotion, sight, hearing, touch, an insatiable thirst for human flesh...). But, then, would Descartes suggest that we deny that a zombie exists? especially is that zombie is busy gnawing on your brain? (ok, I'm mixing my zombie mythos. So far, I've been following George A. Romero's rules of zombiedom. It's Dan O' Bannon's zombies who eat brains. Sorry for the mix-up). So, if I take Descartes at all seriously (which is something that I try to not do), if a zombie does not think, it does not "am". And lacking the capacity for thought, he is not a rational being. He is like a dog or any other animal that lacks the capacity for rational thought. The implication of this, and I don't think that Rene would disagree, is that zombies have no souls. This means that we are free to do with them as we wish. We are not dealing with persons, but with beings who hold no more metaphysical (or moral) significance for us than a machine. So, when in Shaun of the Dead, zombies are being used to push shopping carts or as contestants on game shows, it's perfectly alright. That's what they are there for. They're machines -- really no different from a clock or a stereo. Like soulless steroes who happen to stink and rot and turn putrid. But this didn't sound quite right to me, so for the meantime, I decided to put Descartes to the side. But, just when I was throwing out Descartes (something I've said we should do for years), I had an ah-ha (not the 80s Europop band) moment. Maybe existence, in a philosophical sense, is tied to who I am. Maybe if the rationalist cannot confirm the existence of a zombie, the existentialist can. I started to think: what if it's the zombie who is the one who truly philosophically exists? Bear with me here: Heidegger says that our own "existence" is tied to the type of life that we live. We live lives inauthentically when we live our lives according to how others want us to live. It is up to us, Heidegger states, how our lives are to be lived. We could make a good claim that someone who lives his life according to the will of others does not truly exist, existentially speaking, of course. Well, if you look at existence that way, then zombies are the ultimate rulebreakers. 1) they've totally rejected society's die and stay dead rule. 2) they eat people. 3) they have no inclination to keep up their appearances -- they wear the same bloodsoaked clothes and they don't bathe. 4) they have no regard for manners or socially acceptable behavior, etc. So, I concluded that yes, a zombie is a walking contradiction. He is a being that is alive and dead. But, more importantly zombies exist, in a sort of half-assed, crudely construed existentialist sense. So, what purpose did my thought experiment serve? What it did was bring me back to my original question: "what does it mean to exist?" Then it hit me why my first thought was to tink of zombies. A zombie is an extreme if not impossible example that forces us to think about existence. But as I said, we need not look beyond the real world to find and contemplate such extreme examples. Any of us may at any point find ourselves or someone that we care about sustained through artificial means. Sometimes, as in the case of "brain death", we are unable to determine whether a person is truly alive or dead. It seems that, in some cases, a person may be a little bit of both. Likewise, as the technology of artificial intelligence advances, we may have to ask if a being that "exists" in cyberspace is alive or not a living being. So what am I getting at here? Really to be honest, I don't know. I don't know if I even asked the right question let alone actually got anywhere near answering it. I think that what I've done is found a way to rattle on about zombies and got to say that Asia Argento is hot. Which, by the way, she is.

Ash Williams and the Meaning of Life

"life is a tale, told by an idiot,

full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

-- Shakespeare

It seems strange to say that I like my horror movies with a coherent plot. I seems even stranger to say that I appreciate a horror movie that has philosophic significance. And now, I intend to write about not one, but three films that possess both plot and philosophy: Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy. The Evil Dead, subtitled "the ultimate experience in grueling horror", released in 1982, and it's sequel (?) Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992), follows the adventures in terror of Ash Williams, who, along with an assortment of companions, unknowingly (through the recitation of passages from the Necronomicon, or Book of the Dead), conjure up evil spirits that, over the course of the film, knock off each of the unfortunate unintentional conjurers "one by one". The first of the trilogy The Evil Dead, starts off with nothing spectacular: five college kids (including Ash, his sister Cheryl, his girlfriend Linda, his buddy Scott, and his chick Shelly) head up to an isolated cabin in the woods where they drink moonshine, smoke weed, and generally do what young folks in a typical horror flick set in an isolated cabin in the woods so. While snooping around the cabin, Ash and his male companion, Scotty, stumble upon an ancient reel to reel, which just so happens to be the property of an archaeologist who just so happened to be translating passages from an ancient Sumerian text containing incantations and rituals for demonic resurrection. Well, as expected, reawakened evil immediately sets to systematically possessing and killing (most horrifically) each of the young, nubile campers. As dawn breaks, Ash, the lone survivor, emerges covered in blood from the cabin. But as Ash breathes a sigh of relief, having survived an encounter with the evil dead, we follow a remaining evil spirit through the woods, through the cabin, eventually running headlong into Ash himself as the camera fades to black. We assume that Ash has not excaped the evil dead, but instead has become the last of its victims. That is, until 1987, when Evil Dead 2 was released. It's been rumored that Sam Raimi, having taken so much heat for the excessive violence of the first Evil Dead film, wanted to make a movie that was more appeasing to the censors. That may explain why Evil Dead 2 is less of a sequel than a remake of the original film. The film opens as Ash and his girlfriend Linda are heading up to the totally deserted, so far away from civilization that, if you were attacked by an onslaught of demonic forces, no one would hear you screaming cabin in the woods. Once again, Ash, while rifling through someone else's stuff, stumbles upon an old reel to reel containing a recordings read from the Necronomicon. And, as expected, Ash and his girlfriend are besieged by the spirits of the evil undead. After beheading and dismembering his girlfriend, Ash is (eventually) joined by a different group of deadmeats, including the archaeologist's daughter, Annie, her assistant Ed, a hillbilly with a serious case of hyperhidrosis named Jake, and his too cute for this guy in real life girlfriend named Bobby Joe. As this film ends, Ash and Annie must read from the Necronomicon to send the evil back to its own time. During the film's climax, Annie is killed (she's stabbed in the back with the Kandarian dagger), but the beleaguered Ash is sent back in time with the demon. Luckily for Ash, this time he is not unarmed, and he slays the evil creature with a blast from his shotgun (identified as his "boomstick" in Army of Darkness). The film ends as Ash is being hailed as a hero. The last of the trilogy, Army of Darkness, opens where Evil Dead 2 leaves off. Ash finds himself held captive by a medieval army, being led off to his death. During Ash's trip, he guides us, by way of voice-over, through a flashback. We once again see Ash and his girlfriend Linda (this time played by Bridget Fonda) heading up to that god-forsaken cabin in the woods. We've seen it all before: Ash and Linda head up to the cabin, Ash finds reel to reel, Ash plays reel to reel, Linda is caried off by demonic forces, Ash battles the evil dead, Ash goes back in time, Ash ends up a slave on his way to death. However, the adventure (this time) does not take place in the cabin. Ash must retrieve the Necronomicon and banish the evil dead by reciting the words: klaatu barada nikto. Ash fails to say the words correctly. And this is where the philosophy begins. The original The Evil Dead seems simple enough -- it follows the formulaic plot employed by dozens of genre films: stick a group of twenty-somethings in a remote place and kill them off one by one. By the way, it's cool to have a few obligatory boob shots and some pot smoking before someone gets sliced in half or shot through the head with an arrow (the plot is pretty repetitive, except I do believe that The Evil Dead is the only horror film that I know of that contains a scene where a character is violated by a tree. Not with a tree, by a tree). But there is something else at work here. It is the character Ash himself. As The Evil Dead closes, we are left to assume that Ash has suffered the fate of his companions. Yet, Ash returns in Evil Dead 2. Not only does Ash come back, he comes back with his girlfriend Linda , and we know that Linda died in the previous film. Ash, however, seems completely unaware that any event that is happening in this film already happened in the first film. We could take the films at face value assuming that Sam Raimi liked his plot so much, and enjoyed tortuing star Bruce Campbell so thoroughly that he felt the need to remake his first film (that might very well be true), but we are given a clue that there is something else going on on a deeper level. While searching through the Necronomicon for the incantation that will send back the evil spirit to its own time, Annie and Ash happen upon a page bearing a picture of a man standing, arm raised up holding a chainsaw. When Annie flips to the page, Ash gasps. He tells Annie that he feels as if someone has just walked over his grave. The picture in the Necronomicon looks, with an exception on the white pants, like Ash. Annie tells Ash that the traveler was predicted to come to vanquish the evil. Ash remarks that the traveler "didn't do a very good job". Finally, in Army of Darkness, Ash is thrust back in time where, with chainsaw on hand, he leads Richard and his army in a battle against the deadites. The priests tell Ash that he is the traveler that was predicted to save the people from the forces of evil. And, as Ash observed in Evil Dead 2 , the traveler didn't do a very good job. When I first noticed that there was something odd about the continuity of the Evil Dead films, I had assumed that the underlying plot was time travel. It was easy enough to assume this because in Evil Dead 2 destroying the evil required opening up a portal in time. That was before I had heard of Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche posited that we can judge the overall value (or meaningfulness) of our live by asking ourselves this basic question: would you want to live your life over again? Nietzsche, being the excellent humorist that he was, added one small catch -- the life that we live eternally would be the exact same life that we had already lived. We cannot change a thing about our lives, we must live each day, month, hour, and second as we had lived the first time around -- for an eternity. Ash, at first glance, seems to be stuck in some sort of loop. He seems to be repeating his life over and over (at least three times). But, not only does Ash seem unaware that he is repeating his life, each Evil Dead film is slightly different from the one the preceeded it. In each film, the group at the cabin is different. In each movie, the actress playing Ash's girlfriend Linda is different. And each ends differently. So, in a strictly Nietzschean sense, Ash's life is not the same. Also, Nietzsche's question is one about life's meaning. There seems to be no such scheme for Ash. Ash just goes through the motions and learns absolutely nothing in the process. The fact that Ash seems unaware of the fact that he repeats the same routine ( to paraphrase a nine inch nails song. Similar subject, listen: "everyday is exactly the same" by nine inch nails), seems to suggest that Ash could not make the decision to live the same life repeatedly. So, by my estimate, Ash, at least on this matter, is not Nietzschean. But as I was eliminating Nietzsche, I started to think of another doomed to repeat himself kind of guy: Sisyphus. Sisyphus, having been condemned by the gods, is doomed to push a large rock uphill, only to have the rock slide back down the mountain when he reaches the top. For Sisyphus, he is condemned to repeat the same futile act for an eternity. No matter what Sisyphus does, the rock will roll back down the hill. I thought, this sounds more like Ash than Nietzsche's eternal recurrence. The first clue to this interpretation of the Evil Dead trilogy came in Evil Dead 2, where Annie and Ash are looking through the Book of the Dead. To the viewer, the picture of the traveler clearly is Ash, and Ash's reaction suggests that the man depicted in the book is him. Annie tells Ash that a prophesy tells us the the traveler was sent to the past to destroy the evil, which suggests that there are higher forces at work in the scheme of things. Prophesy tends to deal with matters that are assigned by the gods that humans must abide by or fuflill. So, we can assume that Ash's predicament may have been arranged by the gods, like Sisyphus. So, like Sisyphus, perhaps Ash has been condemned to repeat the same futile act, namely having a sucession of girlfriends named Linda killed by evil demons, being sent back in time to rid civilization of evil demons, and ultimately screwing up, which will require him to repeat the task all over again. But, unlike Camus' Sisyphus, who ultimately finds happiness in his condemnation (he comes to gain happiness through the attempt to roll the rock uphill. The rock staying there is no longer a goal that Sisyphus seeks), Ash remains unaware that he is condemned to repeat his life over and over again [on the DVD commentaries for the Evil Dead films, both star Bruce Campbell and director Sam Raimi express a disdain for the character Ash. It seems that, from their point of view, Ash may be too stupid to figure out that he has been to that cabin before. For example, Sam Raimi calls Ash an "idiot, coward and a braggart". (DVD commentary Army of Darkness)]. Sisyphus is able to derive some meaning out of his futile existence. However, Ash, it seems, lives a life best expressed by Shakespeare. His life is full of sound and fury, but ultimately signifies nothing.

God Is Just Not That Into You

I think that there's something that I dwell on way too much. Well, actually (sorry alex) two things: 1) God, and two, my philosophy classes concerning God, and -- in particular-- my (attempted) conversations with my philosophy of religion professor. Since I've heard it said that no novel is ever finished ( George Lucas, my personal hero, said that films aren't finished, they're abandoned), I started to think about a paper I wrote in my philosophy of religion class. The class topic (officially) was THE PROBLEM OF EVIL, but the last paper topic was the hiddenness of God. Officially, my position is that something that does not exist cannot hide from anyone (I realize the serious positivist faux pas, here). But, if one wants a grade (a passing one anyway) one must play along and write the required term paper. So I wrote one. Which, now that I think about it, I could have dicked off the class given the fact that I didn't actually (sorry alex) need the class to get my degree, but took the class because ( and I'm being completely honest here) I enjoy talking out loud in class and that professor in particular seemed to indulge my want to gab. In actuality, that man, just short of ball gags, would not have been able to silence me. Now that I think about it, ball gags would have spiced up the class quite nicely. Originally, my conclusion was this: God is all around us, and if one fails to see it, or Him, then one is ignoring the obvious. God need not reveal himself to prove that he exists. I actually reworked my paper as my last blog entry. But then, I thought, somewhere in the Bible, there's a line that says that God is a jealous God. That means, if God is capable of experiencing jealousy, then God may be so inclined to experience any number of human emotions, including plain, old dislike for someone. Brad Pitt says in Fight Club that ther reason why our lives didn't turn out the way that we were promised may lie in the fact that God has abandoned us. That, in all probability, he says, God never wanted us. He doesn't like us -- personally. As I look about the world around me, I'm beginning to think that Tyler Durden is right. Maybe God doesn't like some people. So then I thought about the problem of hiddenness. Maybe God is hiding from us because he doesn't like us as much as we like him. It could be that God is really not that into us. Take someone like Joel Osteen for example. If you don't know who he is ( and really, don't be embarassed at all if you don't), he's what was called in the 1980's a "televangelist". He does the Lord's work via television. And for his work, he's been rewarded. He's got a hot wife, lots of dough, and he's FAMOUS. All rewards, he may say, from God. Now, look at where you are. Swimming in cash? Are you or your significant other "hot" or "smokin'"? Do you have a TV show or millions of followers who are willing to send you cash to read a from a book that is available in nearly any bookstore and that they can read themselves? Probably not. You work hard, you may even pray or go to church. So why is God not sending you earthly rewards in abundance? It's probably because he just plain doesn't like you. Look, any of us knows that when you like someone you want the best for them, right? You at least try to see that the ones you like are safe and secure and are to some degree prosperous. Right? Haven't you ever stopped to think what the hell did those people in Darfur do to piss God off so thoroughly? Why some people seem to be afflicted with so much unpleasantness while for others the worst that happens to them is a stubbed toe? There's a saying that God doesn't give to us any more than we can handle. Which, if we interpret that saying at face value, that means that any woman living under the Taliban can kick my ass in a New York minute. But, why would this God who is alternately described as a loving God give some people a life that, if you allowed the same thing to happen to someone, you wouldn't be asked to babysit anyone's dog anytime soon? Don't we want to help and protect the people that we love? So, if God loves us, and he only gives us what we can handle, I'm guessing that God doesn't love people with really shitty lives. He piles it on these people because he wants them to suffer. And he wants them to suffer because he doesn't like them. It's not that God is hiding. It's that he's hiding from you. I've never seen a miracle. I haven't seen the face of Jesus in a tortilla either, but there are people that have. There are people who have been saved by guardian angels, and survived plane crashes that killed everyone else on board. There are people who, like our last president, claim that they personally talk to God. I used to scoff at them. But now, I realize the truth. God, despite my attempts to get his attention, just isn't into me. It's sort of explaining why Paul ditched Jane the model and hooked up with Linda. It's that he saw her, and that was that. I guess it kind of works the same for God. And since, presumably, God sees all, he knew when he created the world that he wouldn't like me ( which makes the whole idea of predestination all the more crappy, doesn't it?). My God, I think that I really depressed myself there. I'd better stop before I really say something depressing.

On One of Life's Least Interesting Subjects Or, the Problem of the Hiddeness of God

Has anyone really seen God? I'm not talking about seeing the face of the Virgin Mary on the side of aluminum siding, or hearing a voice in your head tell you to wait before stepping into the crosswalk moments before a car speeds through the intersection , nor am I talking about any sort of metaphorical experience ( a "closer to God" sort of moment), but has anyone really felt like God had revealed himself to us? As a steadfast empiricist, I would (for the sake of consistency) have to say that neither I or anyone else has seen God, and that fact counts as evidence against the existence of one such being identified as the "Creator". But, does the fact that you cannot see God mean that we are justified in saying that he does not exist? The fact that we cannot see or feel God in a strict, material sense leads many of us to say that we cannot -- with any definitive proof -- claim that God exists. Are we justified in believing in something that we cannot offer proof that it exists? Would we believe in any other claim about ourselves or the physical world if the proof of its truth continually and consistently eluded us? We wouldn't put faith in any "truth" about the physical world is we said that the proof of it's truth was hidden. For instance, say I tell you that I could create physical matter from mere thought. I think of a ball, I say, and one appears. Well, the first thing that you might ask, is to prove my claim. But I then tell you that I can't quite explain or even prove that I can. The fact that you saw a ball when you walked into my living room is my proof. (ok, bad analogy, but the idea is, is that if I said that I can do something, you'd be inclined to ask for proof). I can't get by saying that the process is hidden. Or worse yet, I can't say that it's not actually me but an elf that does it, and I can't tell you where he is right now. He's hiding, I say. Well, that's the way that some feel about God. His hiding from us complicates that whole believing in him thing. We might, if we were funny enough, say that God seems to us like a bit of a prankster. That is, he always seems to be hiding when we need him most. Who among us hasn't looked to the heavens and asked the Creator to strike either ourselves ir someone else down at a moment of pain or distress? But, empirical or unfunny, borderline blasphemous comments aside, we really do want to believe that we are under the watchful eye of a benevolent creator who loves us and wants us to know that he is present in our lives. But how are we to know that he is there? Biblical accounts aside, we often find ourselves calling out to a God that is not present (at least physically) in our lives. God, for the most part, and on many occasions, remains enigmatic to us, something that is hidden from our view. Ok. But is that really a problem? I was in my philosophy of religion class one afternoon, barely paying attention, when this subject came up. I think the professor was saying something along the lines of he wouldn't put faith in a marriage if he had never seen the woman he was married to ( I don't know, some guys would call that kind of marriage heaven). I think that the idea was, if you never see your wife, then you're not really married. You can't even say that you know that she positively exists. But, as so many of our examples (or "thought experiments" for the uninitiated), his example was dealing with physical objects. So, of course if I make a claim about some object in the physical world, we'd eventually have to pony up some evidence that it exists. Or else we'd assume that your "wife" is as likely to be a balding, overweight self-employed guy living on the East Shore of New Jersey, as she is likely to exist at all. But, God, if this is new to anyone, is not a physical object. Rules concerning HIS existence operate, by nature, outside of the rules concerning the physical world. Even Hume admits to that. I remember saying in class that I felt, and still do, that philosophers do not belong in the business of religion. My professor said that, given my lack of knowledge in the subject, that I was in no position to make that judgement. But, his phd aside, I still holdfast to my claim. I feel that, in matters of God and our belief (or lack of) in his existence, we should, indeed, must from time to time shrug off our philosophic coats, and try to understand God as he wants us to come to know him -- by faith. Whether we "see" God is a matter best handled by the heart and not by the intellect. Any evidence we offer, whether we are engaged in fierce philosophic debate or quiet contemplation, is, at best, anecdotal. Our evidence is and will always remain the Virgin in the sheeting, or the feeling of love we feel when we are in church, or the voice in our head telling us to stay on the curb for another half second. Our evidence that God exists is based on what we personally see, or hear, or feel -- what we've heard and what we believe to be true. And evidence of this type, as we know, cannot be verified no matter what well-formed argument that we construct. Which is why I maintained then and now that the philosopher, so long as he maintains that he can offer proof for the existence of God via an argument, will never find the proof that he wants to find. Arguments are constructed for a standard of proof that is dictated by men. And of course we know that God is notorious for not adhering to the standards of man. The plain truth is, is that, despite all of the best defenses and logically correct arguments, we can neither reason ourselves into finding God, nor can we demand that God reveal himself to ease our doubts. If we want to find God, we must remember the lessons that we were taught in Sunday school. We must remind ourselves that God is found in all creation. He tells us that we, human beings, are reflections of Him ( we are proof of God, the Father's existence just as we are proof of the existence of our own parents, even after their deaths. The fact that a parent may be dead does not serve as a negation of the proof of their existence -- especially if you are alive and well and saying to me that you indeed have parents). God tells us that to find him, all we need to do is call upon him. We may recall that God does not "prove" himself to us though spectacular displays ( i.e. God does not do parlor tricks), but through the fact of existence itself. A believer claims that his own existence justifies a belief in God. The atheist counters that no evidence short of an appearance by God himself, gives proof that miracles or other so-called evidence draws back the curtain to reveal a hidden God. But then, by holding each position, we land right back at the position where we started: each camp entrenched on either side, claiming that the other is "epistemically challenged". However (or unfortunately, if you look at it another way) our lack of definite evidence leaves us to rely on what we know -- faith. Perhaps it is faith that allows those who see God to see him. Those who do not have faith simply will not see. We know, as sinners, that it is us who must prove ourselves to God, and that our failure to see him is a sign of our separation from God rather than proof of God's hiding from us. So, we ask, is the hiddeness of God a problem? My answer is no. A believe has no problem finding God. And, if you ask him how he knows how a God that hides from him exists, he will tell you that the point of his faith is not to see God, but to seek God. Those who do not see God merely refuse to see in the face of overwhelming evidence of the existence of an almighty Creator. All we are left to do, the believer may say, is say that those who want philosophic proof may find themselves forever lost in a torrential sea of probability and valid but unsound arguments. What we must do, he may tell us, is to deal with those who do not see as graciously as possible and that we should not hold their epistemic defectiveness against them. Eventually, our believer friend may say, the lost may simply quiet themselves and stop demanding answers. When they learn to be quiet, the answers -- better yet -- the proof may come. Which, by the way, is a better way of answering the question than any argument involving possible worlds or a derivation.