My Essay

This is my essay for philosophy class, i like it, what do you think?

The origins of a society are contained in its past, the past is what creates the future. To say that the future is formed from the present and randomly forms however it so chooses independently of past circumstances is to suggest that each moment of reality is chaos. If each moment of reality is chaos then each moment is independent of every other and no thought, decision, or choice ever matters because each also exists separately. Each person has no more identity than their actions in any given moment, each life has no meaning because each moment dies as it is born, ends in its beginning. Instead it must be accepted that the past creates the future. In accepting this idea the mind becomes linked to the past as well because from each past thought a new one springs. This not to say that nothing ever occurs without connection to the past but rather that most things occur in connection to events which have already occurred because it provides the foundation. When it comes to something such as a society this idea becomes especially important because like a good building that will not fall down and crush its occupants a good society is based on a foundation of what came before it leading to a strong sturdy building.
But what happens when a society is built on a flawed foundation, one filled with brilliant thoughts that remain empty in the real world. What would happen if a society was based off of ideas which ignored half of what makes a person a person? What happens when a society is based off of two thinkers who take humans and split them into mind and body? This is the mistake made first by Plato and then again by Descartes which results in the body being suppressed as it is seen as something to be controlled and contained by the mind.
The idea of the mind and the body being two separate entities goes very far back into history. Most major religions include the idea of something called the soul which is something that continues on after the body dies, implying that not only is the body less important than the soul which creates a hierarchy but also boosting that difference by making the soul into some kind of divine creation. This idea is taken further forward by the Greek philosopher Plato who proposed the idea of the forms and shadows in his allegory of the cave (Solomon). In his work The Republic Plato has his character Socrates speak of this idea that all their lives men and women watch shadows on the back of a cave wall, from birth to death, and think this things real (Solomon). He then proposes that once someone is dragged from this cave they would see the real world and all that it is filled with before returning to the cave to try and convince others to come from the darkness and gain the knowledge of how things truly are in the light (Solomon). Plato takes this further however by stating that there are two worlds, and that the world of the forms is where we all would seek to go if our souls could but remember it (Solomon). In this world of forms all things are perfect, it is the origin of all things and it is where our souls return to upon our deaths (Solomon). In Plato’s theory this is where we must attempt to remember using our souls and our minds because the physical world exists as the shadows, while our thoughts can return to the glory of perfection (Solomon).
If this process of thought had ended with Plato than one might say society as a whole is no worse off because this idea occurred to one man over two thousand years ago and since then people have realized that their bodies are just as important as their minds and just as natural. That is not the case, in fact another man much more recently offered a very similar idea which is that if you were to doubt all things as a creation of some delusion or creation of an evil being of nearly infinite powers than the only thing which you could not doubt is the existence of your own mind. That man’s name was Rene Descartes. Descartes started with a very good idea which was to doubt every single thing he knew about the world, which was a lot, and build a foundation upon which all knowledge could then be based (Solomon). He then proceeded to doubt, and was left with one thing, he doubted which meant he had to exist in some shape or form (Solomon). This existence was what he built on (Solomon). He existed but as for anyone or anything else he had no proof, he could doubt even the true existence of his own body but still his mind would persist to exist (Solomon). Now in thought this idea is brilliant. In thought Descartes has created something which no other person can refute from him, but at the same time it leaves a certain amount of rationality behind.
To doubt the entirety of existence can be a brilliant mental exercise and uncover many things which should no longer be believed but at the same time it ignores the fact that even if this reality is the creation of an evil genius or some other being who is playing at creating a false space and putting true creatures in it doesn’t change the fact that this is still where Descartes was at the time existing (Solomon). Even if it was not the true world, it was by this place that he was bound, it was in this place that his body would have to act if he did not wish to die.
This idea that the mind and the body are two separate things which becomes harmful to people. It condemns the body while lifting the mind up. In this type of thought and opinion artwork, languages, and philosophy become more important while function and purpose gradually slide away. We end up with a society where rhetoric and prose become more important than the message. We have philosophers whose work only makes sense if it is written in larger words because once it is condensed it is seen as easy to turn around and see that it makes no sense. In separating the body and the mind it becomes wrong to sell the body because it is profane but selling the mind in books is seen as fine.
As well as placing sex in the negative because it is an act which brings the entire body to bear it also gives a negative cast to food and any other bodily pleasures. It links people to their thoughts and actions rather than to their situations. Life becomes about quantity over quality. People become less important, they get ranked according to their minds and bodies are used in manual labour become almost less than human, less than someone who wears a suit and gets to go around selling invisible pieces of a company that uses those bodies.
If these had been the only thoughts which had occurred to people it might be possible that they are the best possible choices. The problem with that is Aristotle, Plato’s student, refutes this (Solomon). Aristotle focused on the physical, on the world (Solomon). He studied plants and animals, created a number of different sciences, and turned Plato’s ideas on their heads (Solomon). Instead of the abstract world of the forms being the original real thing Aristotle focused on the physical world and said that these were the real things (Solomon).
To separate the body and the mind is like separating the heads and tails from a coin. Lose one and you lose both, a mind without a body or a body without a mind, both are no longer a person. Philosophers from ages past continue to write about how what truly makes a human a person is their mind, their rationality, the fact that they can think. Give a rock or a computer the ability to reason and think does that make it a person? Does that give it a soul? What about a baby or a young child who cannot yet reason? What about the philosopher who contracts Alzheimer’s? Taking away this ability to reason does not make someone less human. It makes them different, but if we all can reason and think differently as is evidenced from the number of arguments and different philosophies which emerge from the same societies shows that people are already unique. When civil rights leaders stand and ask what makes us different they ask if you cut me do I not bleed? We are linked both in mind and body, we all are people. To say otherwise is to say that we are limited in other things, to place some achievements above others and to claim the god-like right that you know which is more valuable, which will give more knowledge and more joy.
Philosophy works in the mind. The body exists in the world. Perhaps it is time for philosophy to exist in the world and the body to exist in the mind.

Quick Response

Just tossing out a little response to the comment on my last post, that was by a friend of mine whose blog just keeps tossing out writing that i find so inspiring, if you liked the sound of her writing then check it out at http://charcoalstars.blogspot.com/ give a comment or two, and see what other great writing you can find (and if you find nothing ask me for more recommendations)