Cogito Ergo Sum

Posted February 1, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Philosophy / 0 Comments

Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am) is a popular phrase but do we really known what it means?

The phrase comes from solipsism; everything outside the mind is unjustified and unproven. The philosophical idea has been considered to be scepticism simply because they believe that others experiences can only be known by analogy.

Sophists live by the idea that ‘My mind is the only thing that I know to exist’.

The theory of solipsism merits close examination because it relates to three widely held philosophical presuppositions, which are themselves fundamental and wide-ranging in importance. These are that:

My most certain knowledge is the content of my own mind—my thoughts, experiences, affects, etc.;
There is no conceptual or logically necessary link between mental and physical—between, say, the occurrence of certain conscious experience or mental states and the ‘possession’ and behavioral dispositions of a ‘body’ of a particular kind;
The experience of a given person is necessarily private to that person.

Though the theory can sound complicated and even absurd; in modern society it does seem to be a common practise. People would not call themselves Sophists but they still choose to Wikipedia information to verify and prove to themselves the info is real and factual. To me that sounds very much like that whole bases of Solipsism.

The Sub-Cultures – Emo

Posted February 1, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Culture / 3 Comments

Disclaimer: While I don’t agree in the whole Sub-Culture labeling it does play a big part in culture itself. So I will try to remain unbiased and not try to stereotype any sub-culture.

Possible one of the most misunderstood sub-cultures is the Emo movement. While there is a lot of stigma with this group there really aren’t grounds for it. The Emo movement is based around the rock genre of the same name, though no band claims to be an Emo band.

The Non-Existent Genre

The genre of music began in the mid 80’s as an off shoot of the Hardcore and Punk genre. In those days these styles and even grunge music was very political based and the people listened to it, while they enjoyed the music didn’t really care about politics. So a whole lot of bands started popping up that would start singing about something other that politics, they started singing something more personal. Those bands were labelled Emocore or Emo, the artists themselves never claimed to be apart of the genre, they just claim that they writing songs about their emotions and what’s going on in their world. If no band claims to be an Emo band, can it really be a music genre? Thus the reason why this is a non-existent genre

The Sub-Culture

“We’re all alone, together”

This is the response a girl said when asked about being an Emo. While amusing it does sum up the movement pretty well. The whole culture has been considered to be all about social withdrawal and suicide but the people that do claim to be Emo would probably say otherwise. They would probably say it’s not about self injury but more about expressing emotions, speaking out about the feelings of alienation, depression and angst.

Revisiting an Old Movement

The whole culture behind Emo’s is nothing new, in fact it’s almost modernising the whole Romantic Movement. There is so many connections between the two, both Romantism and Emo focus on the emotion and not order and both would be considered socially outcasts in there relevant societies.

Ultimately the whole movement is a much mocked, maligned, and misunderstood term for melodic, expressive people.

Month: February 2010