Why I Read the Classics

Besides science and the proper study of physics using the scientific method, the ancients have already created and developed everything: metaphysics, epistemology, logic, geometry, tragedy, comedy, politics, etc… All of human nature is so carefully explored already. All the modern philosophers of today can do is improve upon their works of genius.

Politics is bad for science

I’ve been reading a studying great works of politics and philosophy, most notably “Democracy in America” by de Tocqueville. I never really understood politics as it is today, and never really understood government until I started reading that book and paying more attention to presidents and presidential history. My eyes have been opened a little to a new world, a world where politicians are shrewd and they hate science.

Frustrations…

No matter how hard I try, or how much I study, I always find someone smarter than myself, someone more capable of achieving my dreams more efficiently and with greater skill. It’s a personal angst of mine to better myself; I spend hours every day poring over literary classics, mathematical works of geniuses, philosophical masterpieces, etc… and I still find that I am like an insect among giants. It’s so incredibly frustrating!

Science, Religion, and Augustine

I have been standing at the cross-roads between science and religion for a sizable part of my life. “How”, people ask me, “can a person who believes in the existence of God also be a scientist? Don’t the two beliefs contradict?” I get this question more often than I would like, personally.

Ugly

When I was younger I would often go outside for a walk. I would smell the air, taking note of the season, ignoring the month it was – it didn’t matter to me, as a kid, what month it was. My mother would take me to a place in the Hollywood mountains, the Griffith Observatory, where I would skip around on the grass and let the Sun warm my face, lay on the grass while my mother would yell at me to not dirty my jacket, listen to the pigeons purr (is it purring that they do? It sounds like it.), feel the cool breeze over the hill, and I would especially love looking over the hill into the city, getting the whole view of half of Los Angeles County. When I grew older I would wake up very early in the morning to go to school; while waiting for my school bus I would smell the cold. It was never quiet, I remember, but perhaps coming from an Armenian household, that was okay. I enjoyed the noise. The smog, too, grew on me. Coming back to Los Angeles after leaving it, it’s like chicken soup for the Los Angeleno soul.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost

One must imagine Sisyphus pissed off!

Sometimes when you hold someone so highly and you see them make a mistake, or you think that they may be wrong somehow, you feel a bit shocked, perhaps a little hurt, at least, I do. I don’t have many heroes, but men I respect I have some. I sort of feel that way, now. I love Albert Camus and his writings, he is as close to a hero as I am going to have. I thought of something, which doesn’t exactly render Camus wrong in anything he said, but got me thinking about things contrary to a statement of his.

More Axioms?

My studies of the foundations of Christian thought and its relation to human reason has led me to a place I did not expect to go. As a scientist, if I may call myself one, I must acknowledge the world around me in a way fitting the title; as a man interested in philosophical thought, I have to question the logical stance of my beliefs, all of them; and as a Christian, if my reader will regard my self as one, I must understand and be able to defend my reason for believing.

INTP

I recently took a Jung-Myers-Briggs personality test. I usually don’t put any weight in these sorts of things; I find they are usually silly and pointless, highly inaccurate. The results, and especially the analysis/description, were, for me, spot on! I don’t think I ever felt so known, it was kind of scary, almost like losing something private.

Christmas came early this year.

Normally, I hate Christmas and the Christmas season.