My favourite subject this semester

Hello classmates,

My favourite subject this semester is by far political philosophy.

The classes of the professor Dario Montero were really good, he is a really pedagogical teacher. His lessons consists in the explanation of the political philosophers, their arguments and the historical context that led them to think in the way they were thinking.

We talk about the political philosophy of Platon and Aristotle, the classics.
Then we talk about the modern political philosophers, starting for Descartes, then the contractualists Bentham, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and we finish with the german romanticism, they answer and critique the modern philosophers. We studied the philosophy of Herder, Kant, Schiller and Hegel.

I think my interest of political philosophy is because it's pretty interesting the discussion of how we should organizate as a society, or as a global society, even as a species. Is a fascinating subject because it comprehends ethics, anthropology, ontology, teleology even aesthetics. Also is interesting because a political philosopher has to critique, attack other points of views and defend other one. There's a lot of political philosophers I want to read, like MacIntyre, Rorty, Berlin or the book of Honneth and Fraser !

Nautilus

Hey mates, i want to introduce you a really good science magazine, that i've found by accident, in fact, i can't remember exactly how i get to it, I think it is something that just happen on the internet.

Nautilus is an online and print magazine, it melts in its publications science, culture and philosophy. Every month the magazine chooses an issue, and every thursday they publish chapters, they offer multiple disciplines to develop his publications.

I have read about artificial intelligence, sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy and so on. I think everyone can find something interesting on nautilus. I read it because it's interesting but also inspiring to read investigations and how they investigate.

If i should recommend nautilus, I think, because of its wide themes, and because is easy to find sources or inspiration by reading the articles.

One of the best publications that i have read on nautilus is "homo narrativus and the trouble with fame", the investigators argue that fame or popularity isn't always related to quality, somethings are popular because they are popular. They have find that popularity has to do in some cases more influence of the casuality, even chaos theory than quality of things. They say that if history is run again, we will got other history, there is no fate, just history of fate.

Is "Mad Max: Fury Road" art ?

This week I will expose about , the ten nominations and six won academy awards of 2016, Mad Max: Fury Road.

Well, this movie is a kind of a blurry boundary between the typical action movie, and that kind of movie with meaning and some artistic purpose, i don't want to say art cinema, because that category tends to be too bombastic, or at least too bombastic to Mad Max. Anyway, let's go with a possible analysis.

In the internet, one can find different analysis on the meaning of the characters that compose the drama. Let's examine some of them: (SPOILERS)

It could be a critical commentary on today's society, were Inmortan Joe represents the patriarchy, the bullet farmer is a representation of war, an anti-life entity, in the movie, they refer to the bullets as an anti-seed <<seed one, and watch something die>>, and the banker, the capitalist, as a man-eater (pretty marxist connotation). Also, this kind of hierarchy must be defeated by opressed and objectify people: Max is seen as a "blood bag" by warboys; Nux, whom is a warboy, is a dispensable infantryman, an object that could be sacrified in the name of Inmortan Joe, like in a fundamentalism. Women are a mere object of breeding and nursing warboys, and Inmortan Joe's offspring.Also it could be a commentary on how authoritarian regimes, raised on times of crisis (even for neccesity), go really really bad.

I mean, sure, this looks kind of I'm really hard trying to make the movie plot some sense but there something more important on Mad Max, and it is the reason why it got so many academy awards:

George Miller's and his crew got an awesome imagination, they create this world, detail by detail, the desert, the places, characters, costumes, vehicles. Everything in the world of Mad Max: Fury Road has an exquisite 21th century post-apocalyptic diesel punk. The music is really exciting and captivating, defintely, if the plot doesn't want to blow your mind, the environment that the movie introduces you, will do.

But, you could question, why this is art and not fast and furious, in fact,
Why "Fast and Furious" isn't art? to try to solve this question, i need to give a definition of art, so I will leave this question for another free topic if is there one in the future. So, the next time I will talk about what I understand on "Art", in order to answer why Mad Max is art, and why Fast and Furious is not.

Light and Dark in the Universe

This picture is a NASA/ESA (European Space Agency) collaboration, it was tooked by Hubble space telescope and published on NASA's website on August 29, 2014.

It depicts various cosmic phenomena like a star formation or a dark nebulae.

For sake of honesty, I really don't know almost anything of cosmology (isn't a synonym of astrology, so, get out you Pedro Engel fanatics), I think it's really interesting to understand it or talk about Universe phenomena like redshifting, light years and physics like Interstellar do(a movie of Christopher Nolan about, well, interstellar travel). Instead, I like this photo so much because it remembers, at least to me, that in Universe, or, Observable Universe (because we know so little about what it's beyond what we can observe) it's darkness what prevailes. In my opinion, we should take a lesson of the predominant nothingness or darkness in the cosmos. 

We humans tend to judge light like a good or positive thing and dark in the other way. Why is that? may be, cultures in a ubiquitous way (apologies to anthropologist if I'm wrong. If that's the case, please correct me with passion) associate what they don't know - that thing hidden in the shadows. A robber in a city, a savage animal in the nature - with fear. The uncertainty of being in danger, exposed to something evil, or both. I know that someone could argue that, sometimes people fear the light, fear what is known, and that's a really good counter-argument, perhaps so good that I'd lose the discussion.

So, to make my point about that ''lesson'' I will say that light is momentary, a spark condemned to die. If the major theories of physics are right, the Universe will die and the darkness prior to Universe will reign again. What I mean with all of this, is that we should start to appreciate darkness, like the beauty in this picture. Light can't exist if there is no dark to contrast, at the same time, darkness has a lot to show us. If I follow my previous analogy, we should understand that we can't know everything, is good to be in the shadows, in the uncertainty. It's good to expect "dark" things too, in this life, a lot of things will go bad and really really bad (but good too, there is light). We should understand that the fear of the unknown is almost every time, a share experience with other humans, and in that point, we should be more empathic, and understand the fears of others, to be understand.
What is a stranger if not a shadow when we see at his mind?
Don't confuse it with the apparent light that is guess what is in his mind, specially when we guess based on prejudices.

There's no dark side of the moon
Matter of fact, it's all dark
(Eclipse by Pink Floyd)

What is my favorite piece of technology?

Well, this could easily turn into a really tough question, I mean, what is technology? Just to begin. If I were supposed to say something about that question, I would say that almost every tool that humans have made is technology; some people would argue that even language is technology, so the question could quickly led to a, kind of, philosophical question. But, for sake of the real focus of this question, I will choose my smartphone.

         What is a smartphone in any case? It’s a kind of minicomputer, where you can connect to internet and almost every social media. It has a lot of uses in fact, it’s like getting your laptop or pc in your pocket, you can check your e-mails, play some videogames, watch videos on YouTube, and oh, you can call people with this, is amazing, also you can see the time.

         The technology of smartphones update really fast, most of people renew his phone every year, my last smartphone bear with me 4 years give or take, I think I’m not a consumerist with this kind of technology. I acquired my actual phone three or four months ago.

         There is something that could be creepy I think, people is getting more dependent of its smartphones, I know that you could perfectly think, <Oh, this guy is like my uncle Joe> or something, ok, I take it, it’s kind of a concern of older people, but I have read that greek philosophers think that writing would be the end of memory, or a similar idea that people centuries ago have about books and novels, people is getting lonely and immerse in his reading forgetting the ‘real’ world and his beloved ones or something. ‘El Quijote’ it’s a kind of satire about that last idea.  So, what I want mean with this is people will always worry about new technologies (especially elder people). Now, what is interesting about smartphones (and I think this is a game changer) is that they are an extension of ourselves, in the social media or when we manage our money on them, even our health. We also can read books or every sort of information on them, what is interesting or worrying, I don’t really know, is how much information, or, how much of ourselves we put in them, we personalize it, we identify with it, even we say <My battery is out>, as if the smartphone were a part of us. What’s next? Implant it on our skulls? In our brains? How that could be normal? (And I think, it could definitely be normalized). I thought all of this because I really use it a lot, I can’t spend more than a few hours without checking it, for some people that’s is a lot of time, because there are people that can’t spend some minutes without checking it, still, I see myself as a dependent like everyone else who is immerse in this new technology. I see it as a revolution, like the consummation of the third industrial revolution or something.

         Perhaps, I’m a little, just a little, paranoid, I hope not become a paranoid android soon. Or a paranoid smartphone.

         In any case, I can’t imagine my life without it, it’s how I said before, a part of me, it put me in contact with all my friends and beloved ones, I can watch a lot of interesting contents and all the things that I need of internet (which is a lot, in this times), are in the reach of my hand.

         Sporadically, I imagine how would feel to break free from the facilities that this tech offers, not checking it, not seeing his vicious screen every five minutes or something. But in that case, I think I could not live in a city, because I would lose contact with the people that I like to be, the things that I like to do and well, everything would be more difficult. Smartphones are the way we have to live in this interconnected society and I don’t conceive another way to live in it. If I wanted to leave my smartphone, I’d prefer to leave all the things of the city, or the ‘interconnected social life’ and live a different kind of life, may be, when I grow older. May be a I like life this way, and complain too.

Is Breaking Bad about Existencialism?

This week, I will talk about my favorite tv series, which is also by many, as much for popular acclamation and enough to some specialists the best series ever. I'm talking about Breaking Bad. 

(Yes, I know, was this neccesary?, you know from the title that this is about Breaking Bad, but I need to put some flavour to the introduction)

Well, Breaking Bad is about Walter White, an overqualified chemistry teacher that also has to work in a carwash to gain more money for his family and is diagnosed with lung cancer. With this last notice, he only wants to die and not face the due that will cause the treatment for his disease. Of course his wife Skyler and his son Walter Jr. (Who has cerebral palsy, what makes the life of the protagonist a bit harder) want him to beat the cancer whatever it costs.
That's when he decides to become a drug dealer to pay his treatment and help monetarily to his family.

This drama became so mesmerizing because, well, many reasons, the series is full of tiny details. But I will focus on one of the most mesmerizing parts, Walter White, the change in his personality and motivations.

Walter left his job as a chemistry teacher and in a progressive way became a metanphetamine druglord knows as Heisenberg. For Walter, in the beggining of the series, <<Chemistry is about transformation>>, so this is the main chemistry in the drama, his own transformation.

Heisenberg is in the beggining a pseudonym that Walt adopts to move in the criminal world, this pseudonym born with a personality, goals and ways to act, far away from Walt habits.
Little by little this kind of b-side erase Walt's personality. Heisenberg is a bit nihilistic, he has a sociopathic behavior, acts in cinic, machiavellian ways, it's a bit megalomanic or narcissistic, manipulates everyone because of his greed and does not have any kind of moral. So, we have this deep change from a shy, quiet, hardworking, submissive, fearless, cowardly, "good person" stereotype to a fearless sociopath kingpin.

The way he became Heisenberg is really interesting and for sake of time, I will simplify to the life meaning point of view of his transformation to explain it.

Viktor Frankl, was an austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a holocaust survivor. He's the founder of logotherapy, a way of therapy that focus on existencial meaning to the person. In his book Man's Search for Meaning (1946), Frankl narrates his own struggle to survive the concentration camps. In order to survive and keep mental sanity, he was only focus in the finish of a book. Frankl visualizes and describes what lose of life meaning do in people in concentration camps. In his thesis, what makes people happy (in existencial or philosophical terms) is having a purpose,<<There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life>>, <<What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task>>.

That worthwhile goal to Walter is in the beggining to pay the due of this lung cancer and leave his family good in economic terms. Soon, the danger, extreme situations, talk and be in contact with violent criminals makes him feel alive, actually he start to empower his personality and his situation in the criminal world. Little by little, in Heisenberg he reveals against whom he had been his entire life, his lack of purpose in life and wish to death fades with his new will to power.

Frankl describes very well the personality of Walter, who manifest this existencial vacuum in a short and rampant sexual libido. Frankl also describes that will to power manifest in a will to money. Walt accumulate a really really big fortune and power in his carrer of metanphetamine druglord.

"Existence precedes essence" Sartre famously said. This quote from an existencial-nihilistic perspective, says that we humans have not intrinsical meaning, we just exist. Frankl's logotherapy is an existencial treatment, he tries to guide people on finding his purpose to exist. It's very interesting that Aristotle, defined hapiness like "Eudaimonia", that etimologically means good-spirit. It's like a life fullfilment in terms of purpose, being virtuous (with all the aristotelian philosophy behind).

So, what could explain the mesmerizing transformation of Walt's character and goals, is this life meaning or eudaimonia theory. This view offers a way to understand the complex personality of Heisenberg struggles between his empowerment and greed, and his beloved ones.

Why I choose Sociology ?

When I was a kid, my dream was to design sport cars, then I grow up and wanted to be a professional basketballer but I got tired of it and the same year I drop basket, I crush with social sciences and humanities. I was confused between anthropology and sociology.

I think is really interesting to study at Universidad de Chile, because all of my companions are very good at thinking, I believe. So the dialogues that we can have are really fun and mutually rewarding.

I like sociology because it’s a complete discipline, with a lot of relation with the other social sciences. Also I’m very interested in human condition (if there is any), so my range of interests to study reach philosophical and abstracts questions but practical worries too. So, I would like to make a sociological theory or something in the abstract, but I wouldn’t like to stay just there, I want to make a little improvement of the social forms in Chile, may be in Renca (where I live) or in the legislative scenario. I’m not so much an idealist in the sense of having big hopes of what human kind really is – at his core, or something. Also I don’t feel like a pessimist because I think that human condition includes altruism and egoism altogether. So I prefer to see me as a pragmatist or a realist when it comes to social change.

In the words of Portuguese novelist and Nobel of literature José Saramago, in his novel, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ <<We are all, this little and this lot, this peace and this war, this goodness and this meanness, docile and unsettled>>