Suffering ?

When assessing the fundamental significance of human existence we find it very difficult to deduce any objective truth and cause, though one relevant facet remains not acknowledged and that is assessment is subjective. Essentially what can be objectively true is that humanity is subjective and conceives existence entirely appropriate to their temperament, spiritual and cognitive abilities. And thus all that is relevant, even all that is impertinent, for that matter all of existence is liable to the consciousness of the individual human being, and that nothing can be validated or justified as being true beyond that individual discernment. And so with that concept elucidated I come to the question of death, and the essence of murder. Though in order to proceed I think it is vital to elaborate some preliminary concepts and examples to clarify this perspective more prudently.

Now what we need to ratify is that the human species existing around us are external forces dominated by physical necessities, and fundamental ideas, which correlate with our own, which makes them attributes of our individual objectives. And with this confirmed we are then capable of deducing that the association and collaboration of humanity is entirely restricted to our state of consciousness, and objectives. For example, a child loves his mother because of his physical inability to ensure his own survival and power, thus emotional reciprocation entails. Furthermore the child loves its mother for the sake of ideal because when family efficiency is contrived, it assists the child in its emotional and idealistic objectives. Now morality is implemented into this cycle of collaboration between families and societies to alleviate the abhorrence of death and to ensure productivity in ascertaining the desired objective the individual may have. Morality then justifies motive, which allows humans to dismay the preliminaries for their actions. For example, I confirm eating meat is essential to my survival, and so I dismiss the essence of killing the animal because it’s morally justified. Morality contributes to the efficiency of acquiring success in the individual objective of a human which is thus power. And so with this acknowledged we come to infer that humanity is merely an attribute and product of our objectives. And with this acknowledged we come to deduce that morality is limited within the confines of this primitive objective to function for survival and productivity.

Humanity at this point is open to subjective discrepancy, we have logically assessed the nature of its being, but even this discernment is limited to my individual understanding. And with the understanding that I exist to dictate my conception of the universe and of the external forces encumbering me, I ascend beyond the restrictions of objective concurrence, and moral putridity, I become the God of my acknowledged universe.
What justifies my individual conception and ideals as being superior or more pertinent is my ability to impose them upon the external forces around me, such as human’s and to ensure my state of existence through them as instruments to my fundamental individual conception. And so to acquire dominance by means of wrath, or benevolence, in both perspectives are irrelevant when assessing this inexplicable universe surrounding us. You see we need to identify one relevant aspect, this existence that the individual is embedded in cannot be dictated by objective principals or concentric volitions. The universe is an unfathomable fluctuating state of divine occurrence, and that it is we the individual that exists for idea, and that is power.

If a famished vegetarian man was situated within a room and he was provided meat to consume, and this was the only means for him to assure the ensuing of his existence, it’s logical to deduce he would dismay his moral perspective and eat to survive. Now if we assess the situation we justify his moral neglect to ensure survival, but in this situation it was not just survival, it was the vegetarian’s survival, which is subjective and Idealistic. What we have to understand is that the vegetarian did not survive because he is a biological organism averting demise, but because he is an individual person, a concept, a God. And his volition to consume that meat perpetuated his state of individual being and his beings survival is only because of his power to submit to a cause to ensure future dominance with later objectives. Now fathom a situation where a man is forced to rigorously fight to sustain his existence against another man in a war milieu, what is the deduction? At this point morality is dismayed and one man conquers another, and what entails is that the victor’s individuality has been validated by his use of power. And the lesson and understanding the victor shall attain from this atrocious situation will assist him in making future pertinent decisions. And thus his victory becomes and attribute of his existence, an event so relevant to his state of being and individual power.

What we are obliged to acknowledge is that existence is a vain occurrence and that the only justification and relevance of it is our ability to conceive and implement our ideas within it. And this defines the essence of human power, and in a sense spiritual purpose. The only essence that defies this previously stated fundamental of existence is our primitive and repugnant emotions. Human existence is dictated by the individual and its subjective interpretation of existence, and any external attribute which is folly to the dominance of this individual is merely an attribute of the conglomerate system of human objective cause.

The consequence and vanity, the ultimate atrocity of demise or suffering is our inability to appropriately comprehend it. If indeed the inexplicable phenomenon of death was embraced as an occurrence of divinity or irrelevancy humanity could thus proceed lacking the repercussions of fear and sympathy. Atrocity only occurs when our emotions and temperament conflicts with what we are oblivious and what we object to. To object is redundant unless we have logical preliminary deductions, to which generally morality impairs us from making them, because it emphasizes on momentary occurrence as oppose to eternal.

When we assess the temperament of a child which ceases to acquire its desired objective, like a candy for example, the ramifications are generally negative. Now let’s fathom a situation where the child is ineffably disgruntled, the child is so consumed by the tears of atrocity and longing for such a substance of delight. What would we discern of the situation? We would state that the child’s tears will diminish and that the result of its distress is caused by something trivial and irrelevant and only the 3rd party mature humans can acknowledge this. With accordance to the child this is ultimate suffering; this is for a sort moment the most poignant moment of its shrieking existence. Now let’s introvert this idea to a man decaying on the battle field of Dieppe beach 1942. What is the difference between the suffering of the child and the man? Our perspective, you see the suffering is equal, but we justify the man’s by stating that his cause is more meaningful and relevant, this is a subjective interpretation as well. Nonetheless in a universal divine perspective the mans suffering is equally as vain, and if we discern it from a divine omnipotent God-like state we can infer it can be dismayed as simply as the impertinent child’s cause for distress. You see we do not cease to regard the significance of the suffering, by all means the child and the man’s are parallel, what is dismayed is the sympathy for the occurrence that imbued the suffering.

The negative empathize on murder is as redundant as accentuating the child’s crisis of not acquiring its candy. You see the human exists based on the premise of abstract thought and idealistic supremacy. Our existence is an attribute of this conglomerate, cognitive, and abstract essence within our soul/mind. Now this entails that physical struggle and suffering to survive does not exist as it does so pragmatically to our fellow animals. The humans only enemy and predator is an abstract substance which is ideal, or a metaphysical contention which is ontological, ethical, or theological. If an individual beholds a more significant idea which contributes to a collective when obliged, which attains its objective succinctly and efficaciously, and which ensues based on the discretion of the individual then he is idealistically superior.

For I do not infer that the individual with less cognition and abstract receptivity is redundant, merely I state he exists to function towards a cause which is more expendable to a collective, and less acknowledged to the individual. For example, would a German farmer in 1850 Ratify the significance of why he is implemented onto this obscure earth and universe, or would the priority be attending to his substantial tasks? His contemplation would be introverted to sustain and perpetuate his oblivious, laborious and ignorant life that only persists because the farmer abhors every facet of philosophical relevance because it may impair his productivity. At his point we have inept personal consciousness, and flexible contribution to a collective, which makes him thus inferior intellectually to that of a philosopher. Humanity is not equal because collectives are organizations and structures based on the foundation of an individual objective. For example nationalism encompassed all of Germany in the 1920, though this collective and cause was an individual one, merely humanity submitted their existence and identity to it. They are not equal they are different, merely their ideal and objective is similar. Humanity is a phenomenal being, one that is inscrutable individual and different. And to state that we are the same property, substance, and idea is flabbergasting, the only thing that can be similar is our inability to reconcile vanity, and our ineffable desire to huddle together in order to avert it.

So the justification of murder and the essence of suffering coincide. Because humanity dismays and exists to do anything to neglect the potent and inevitable essence of suffering which is thus vanity, when death occurs we feel intoxicated by it. This is only so due to our primitive nature caused by emotions. We sympathize for an innocent man being murdered because we comprehend the fear he has for the death we also abnegate from. But this title innocence can be substituted with the word ignorance quite adequately. If we saw a criminal who raped and burned 3 children alive being murdered we could justify this. Though what is essential to infer is that our ability to commit that “punishment” or that moral absence is equally as “malicious” as the objective for the murder itself. The only difference is our applied discretion and our absent discrepancy.
A being lacking consciousness to its existence caused by a lack of education, and inability to function, is thus inferior and redundant with accordance to one who excels within these confines. A being like previously described is exactly like a chicken we kill to consume, an entity and substance inevitably doomed by the vanity of its existence, and dominated by the external forces of supremacy. The right to kill is granted by my will to dominate and ability to have the collective concur with my motive.

The suffering of a dying human is as irrelevant as a child crying for a candy.

David Hume and The Problem of Free Will

I recommend you not to go through this shit, seriously!



The problem of free will is one that centers on the issue of whether we are subject or not to causal determinism, and, if we are, whether this determinism is compatible with having free will. In this essay I will conclude that Hume's contribution to the problem of free will is two-fold. Hume shows that causation and necessity defined as constant conjunction is the basis for a linguistic analysis of free will; in short we are free because decisions and actions, though determined, are determined by our motives. Secondly, he shows determinism is integral to the existence of free will; it is because our actions are causally determined by our motives or character that we have moral responsibility and free will. I will justify this conclusion by assessing the nature of the problem of free will, placing his views in context, before adopting a similar view to Hume.

In the course of this essay I will show that Hume's contribution to the problem of free will overcomes problems in earlier arguments, including dualism and indeterminism.

The strength of his argument is the compatibility thesis in which determinism and free will are compatible, and in fact causal determinism is actually a necessary condition for free will. Hume's arguments are in-line with modern materialist thinking; some form of the compatibility thesis is still widely held. A notable example being the philosopher and physicist Dawkins' who I'll discuss in more detail later.

Firstly, what is the problem of free will? Do we have free will or are we determined to do what we do? If we take a Dualist approach free will can be located in the soul and we could seem to avoid the problem, but the approach is fraught with other problems. How can a non-material, non-determined soul relate to or affect the physically determined body? How exactly can the mind or soul be free while the body is causally determined? Hume takes a monist materialist approach; namely that the mind and brain are one and the same and that there is no such thing as a metaphysical substance 'soul'. If we follow this approach, then the question is whether causal determinism excludes choice and responsibility, and this poses a problem for ethics. Why is it a person's fault if they break the rules of morality, if it was predestined to happen by a series of cause and effects? Worst still, if God predetermined that I go to hell, why should I live a moral life now?

Determinism, the philosophical view that everything is universally caused, is therefore very closely linked to the problem of free will. Determinism, it is worth noting, is not the same as predestinationism, which refers to the religious view that actions are caused not by empirical cause and effect, but by Divine will. If, as empirical philosophers argue, actions and will are entirely determined (caused), then does free will even have meaning? Is determinism incompatible with free will?

What should be remembered is that, determinism, unlike fatalism, does not insist that everything happens in spite of us, only that, everything is universally caused. John Hospers in An Introduction To Philosophical analysis suggests the term; "universal causality" would be preferable. Whilst at first glance determinism seems to eliminate the possibility for free will, it is possible to argue the reverse, as Hume does; namely that determinism is the only way freedom can be defended, since, even though determinism means everything is caused, what you do is caused by 'you'. If we argue the opposite taking the route of indeterminism, where all actions are meaningless, then the will is not free, since chance, and not yourself, is the 'cause' of your actions. For example, deciding to eat wheatabix for breakfast leads to eating wheatabix; deciding to eat porridge leads to eating porridge. Would we be freer if we decided to eat wheatabix, but ended up eating porridge? Can there be any more freedom then your acts being caused by your decisions? With predestinationism ruled out, then what is left except the Humean version of universal causality? We are the cause of our own actions.

It might be objected that if everything is caused, then our decisions themselves are caused. Hume's riposte, as we shall see developed, is that our motives and desires are the cause of our decisions. Determinism does not need to argue that we are all free, only that free will exists.

Hume's major contribution to the problem of free will is to say that while our actions are caused by our motives and desires, this does not mean we are not acting of our own free will because we are our will, our motives, and our desires. It is interesting to note that the physicist and commentator Richard Dawkins follows a similar line today. Although Dawkins is a biological determinist, he argues that in the realm of ideas we are free because we are our memes; memes being self-perpetuating ideas analogous to genes. Like Hume, Dawkins argues that it is not that we are controlled by our memes, not that we should accept predestination in another guise, but that we are our memes and this is in fact free will.

It is important to note that in Hume's analysis of 'causation' causes 'necessitate' or 'determine their effects' and this is also true of human actions. For Hume 'necessitation' is defined in terms of constant conjunctions or regularities, rather then of compulsion. Hume's analysis of causation is a psychological one, namely that we become accustomed to perceiving constant conjunctions by seeing objects followed by one another, "and whose appearance always converge the thought of that other." Through habit we acquire the belief that A and B are causally related when what actually links events A and B is my idea that they are linked; because I imagine them to be causally related I can infer B, which is beyond sense experience, from A.

This is particularly significant as it leaves the door for freedom, and with it, responsibility, open. Hume defines freedom as whatever is determined by our motives, and not as the absence of external constraints. Hume not only argues that causal determinism allows for free will, but goes so far as to say that it is only because our actions are caused and originate from our character, that responsibility can be said to reside in us.

The importance of Hume's contribution and its place in the overall debate about free will can be partly understood if it is seen in context. In earlier philosophical thought, the problem of free will did not revolve so much around whether or not free will is compatible with determinism as with predestinationism. Predestinationism can best be described as the thesis that given that God created us our actions are not caused by us, but instead, caused by God. As Einstein said,

"...every occurrence including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling or aspiration is his work"

Aquinas makes a similar point in Summa Contra Gentiles by holding that God is the first cause and rejecting the view that we have free will, but Aquinas had a problem insofar as he wanted to hold people responsible for their sins; attempting to reconcile the doctrine of predestination with our undivided responsibility. This somewhat ironically led Hume to make a comment on the limits of human understanding,

"These are mysteries that mere natural and unassisted reason is very unfit to handle..."

Hume may very well be correct about the problems of reconciling predestination and free will, but is there a similar difficulty between this and reconciling deterministic free will? Clearly predestinationism and determinism are not the same. The first implies someone else must be party or wholly responsible, but the determinist can conclude that if we are not responsible, then no one is. The question that is posed is; are determinism and free will compatible? On the incompatibility thesis all conditions are totally inevitable; we necessarily do what we are determined to do. But if this premise is correct then we either have to say that we have no free will because we are determined (hard determinism) or we flee to indeterminism, which ultimately also fails to allow for free will.

The problem was met by Hume and solved to his own satisfaction by a compatibility thesis (soft determinism) and in this respect we can see that his thinking was somewhat in line with that of Leibniz. Leibniz, in his Theodicy, developed a compatibility thesis for predetermination and free will to show that God is not responsible for moral evil. He argued from the premise that the universe is created by a perfect God, and as such must be the best of all possible universes,

"The work most worthy of the wisdom of God involves... the eternal damnation of the majority of men"

He then went on to argue that predestination (or determinism by extension) does not imply what he calls "unconditional necessity." In other words we are not helpless because we are predestined. Anthony Flew in An Introduction to Western Philosophy comments that the argument for compatibility is sound, but that the weakness of Leibniz's thesis is that he presupposes a deity and then insists that God bears none of the responsibility.

Leibniz contributed a theory of compatibility to this area, an essential component in Hume's soft determinist solution to the problem of free will. However Hume did not follow Leibniz's fundamental premise, but instead used the compatibility thesis too much more fully develop other components of this argument that are not addressed by Leibniz; particularly necessity and causality.

Whilst Leibniz influence was passive it may be that the Scottish Hume, being out of the mainstream, generally developed his theories with great independence, though it can be noted that there are parallels in the work of other philosophers. Thomas Hobbes is one such whose work is linked approximately by chronology, if not by causation. Hobbes was a sceptical materialist; who rejected the view of humans as being supernatural, and favoured the opinion that humans are to be understood as complex machines. Even though Hobbes believed in a wholly scientific view of humans and endeavoured to explain all psychological activity in terms of modifications of matter in the brain, he still maintained the view that human actions are entirely voluntary, and that we should be held accountable for them. Hobbes, essentially a political philosopher, appears to only approach one side of the debate; he defines human liberty in a somewhat negative context as the absence of external constraint. Whilst he acknowledges that we are motivated by our inner "desires" or "aversions" we are ultimately responsible for our actions insofar as they are not obstructed or controlled by external forces.

Hume's contribution goes much further in arguing that we are internally free. Hobbes contribution is more limited because he did not have such a developed understanding of 'necessity' Hobbes uses necessity in two different ways; as a necessary proposition that would be logically impossible (self-contradictory) to deny and as a contingent proposition, which is logically possible, but can be denied. Hume, however, moves away from this dual usage to use necessity more consistently in his causal theory of constant conjunction, again demonstrating his contribution to the problem of free will, not only in defining liberty, but also in defining necessity.

The problem of determining the compatibility between free will and determinism was already an important debate in which some of the groundwork was laid, but Hume added a great deal of original thinking to extend the debate. In trying to justify the even harder position of the compatibility of predestinationism and free will, Leibniz had already contributed a sound compatibility thesis, but Hume made a distinctive application of the compatibility of determinism and liberty. Other philosophers such as Hobbes also considered that acting in accord with our internal motives is a necessity that is consistent with free will, but Hume developed this position more clearly with his more precise definitions of necessity and causality.

In order to develop his theory of how we have free will, Hume first had to demonstrate causality, since his theory relies on the compatibility of free will and determinism and not on random acts. Hume proposed that our understanding of cause and affect is basic to our understanding of the world, including our beliefs and motives, for if the word were totally random then we would surely be lost within a senseless void, which is why indeterminism fails.

According to Hume there are no sense impressions of cause itself, rather we have a series of sense impressions which are contiguous to one another, I push a button on a timer, my finger and button come close, there is an impression of contact and a subsequent impression of the timer buzzer going off, but I never have any impression of cause per se. We infer from this that the buzzer going off is not a random event, but we can't show that cause is a feature of the physical world so Hume concludes that cause is a feature of the human thought process, psychology.

I see constant conjunctions from pressing the timer to hearing the buzzing, and through habit acquire the belief that they're causally related, the appearance of the timer being set leads to thoughts contiguous to the buzzing. What links the timer to the buzzing is really my idea that they are linked because in my mind they are causally related I can infer that the buzzing is causally determined by the pressing.

Hume also theorised that our minds are a bundle of motivations, emotions, desires, etc... According to Hume if I made the choice of setting the timer to buzz in five minutes and then go back in time, making no differences to the causes of my action, I would have still set the timer to buzz in five minutes, because that is what my motivations determine me to do. However that doesn't mean I wasn't free to do otherwise. You might object that if my motives and desires are determined then I still don't have free will. But Hume makes the point that we are our motives and desires, that this is our will, and it is our will that determines what we are going to do.

Hume not only shows that causation and necessity, defined as constant conjunction, is the basis for a linguistic analysis of free will, but that determinism is integral to the existence of free will pre se. It is because our actions are causally determined by our motives or character that we have free will.

Many people object to this definition of free will and want to insist that true freedom must mean that I could actually have chosen otherwise even under the same conditions. This has some common sense appeal, but what does it really mean to say that the same person given identical conditions would act differently? Can we in fact suggest that it is possible to act independently of antecedent conditions? Even to act independently of such conditions as our own motive?

In reality, we cannot test either of these free will claims, even if we were to recreate the past in order to prove determinism wrong, creating a choice exact to a previous one we would still carry the knowledge of the choice as well as a reason (motive and cause) to act differently then before, and so it would not be exact; even to act against ones desires to prove Hume wrong would carry with it the desire and motivation of trying to prove Hume wrong.

The strengths of Hume's contribution are that it works within itself; each proposition Hume makes leads onto the next. Hume makes a strong linguistic argument for the compatibility of determinism and free will in line with the empiricist and materialist thinking of the eighteenth century. Hume's argument works because he has defined his terms in such a way that a free act repeated under the same conditions would necessarily result in the same free act, even if I believe I could have done otherwise, Hume sees liberty and motive as integral to one another.

"By liberty then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of free will" (David Hume's An Inquiry concerning Human understanding, page 159)



PS : \Dilbert/ :P

Holy Bible

The bible, this wonderful novel, and the Gospel, its heart, full of characters so vibrating and true, mirrors everyone of a human appearance, almost a performance, a pantomime, a theatrical allegory, so present to make you understand that man is man and will not change ever.

"Heart Shaped Bruises"

The English language can be such a frail thing. Although able to orchestrate the wildest stories or descriptions, it merely stands like a child in awe when faced with such things as feelings. It is limited--limited in the same context that an artist can never capture the full grandeur of an object, place, or moment. Summon me the most brilliant painters and ask them to etch the most magnificent piece imaginable of a small creek; it would prove my meaning. They can not contain the whole. Indeed, they may visualize the light coursing through leaves at a summer dawn or the ripples breaking over rocks in their journey downstream, but there is much else to be narrated in the scene--the birds who frequently come to play and be cleansed in the refreshing water, the appearance of liquid as more of a sheet of crystal than a stream in the winter, and the innumerable activities of life all maneuvering through this simplistic (yet, paradoxically, complex) environment at any given moment. In the same way, emotions make words seem as merely pebbles to be tossed with ease into a pond. However, there is one word that encompasses all this and more. I'm sure you've guessed it already...The one infinte word is "love."

It's a peculiar feeling--having so much to say about the one you love, but being so utterly lost for words because none can give due justice. In hopes of capturing what I feel, I might say something (sappy, but heart-felt) like this: "A valley complemented by all the most delicate flowers of the world only reminds me of someone more pleasant, and the butterflies can't dance as gracefully as you merely smile-- such a smile that would send any man to his knees." Given a mastery of speech, I'd use language to sketch a portrait of her that makes sunsets and rainbows look like child's play. But that's just it. To me, none of that truly suffices what is making my heart feel like it's about to explode with pure joy. So, often, when I try and articulate what's inside of me, my tongue merely flails in my mouth. Then, my thoughts so graciously come out as "I....you.....wow...Ahh!" Thank the Lord there's a word to take up where all others fail!

"So what is love?" you might inquire. That's like asking someone to touch the sky. True, they can do it, but the person is only grasping, with a loose finger hold, a small fragment of a vast expanse that is much more beautiful and wondrous than their eyes can take in. Defining such a word is comparable to demanding of an artist to etch every event of of the world onto one canvas with only primary colors. I can't appropriately explain to you such infinite things (Wouldn't being able to do so make me a god?). I'm a rational person. I think, examine, and rationalize. Yet this concept is too enigmatic too fit in any of those confining boxes. No wonder some find love veering over the edge towards insanity and say "We're all fools in love." Despite all this, I claim to "love someone." Maybe I can't wrap my head around something that already has me completely enveloped in it, but I've clenched those fingers tight and shall hold to whatever tiny fragment of it that I've comprehended as if it were life itself.

"If love is infinite, then hate must be also" you might add. Call me an idealist, but I would have to whole-heatedly differ. There's one defining factor of all products of hate--reducing to nothing. Now, while hate is a destroyer, love is a creationist. Love builds, strengthens, encourages, shelters, grants compassion and comfort. The worlds, dreams, and realities that can be created through it are infinitesimal. When one is to create something, there is no limits. Anything imaginable could be manufactured. On the other hand, malice can only debase an existence to zero. "But love hurts!" A sticky web you've spun by that tricky sentence! Still, saying thus would require of love to go against its very nature. I'm not trying ignore any such grief, but just as it's the absence of light that makes a room dark, it's the loss of love that hurts, not love itself. I know. It's a horrid shame that the pursuit of such a sublime wonder is the very thing that has hurt so many, but just because an animal is elusive, does not mean it can not be found!

But back to my point.

Admittedly, the word has been watered-down in contemporary culture, but, to me, it holds a paramount and unfathomable depth. Without it, I might be forced into perpetually writing a never-ending tale that could not surmount, in any extent, to what I feel. So, when the stars don't glisten nearly as much as her eyes; when the innocent bird's songs are shamed by just her voice over the phone; when her presence alone has the ability to procure a grin bright enough to illuminate the bleakest of nights; when seconds are sapphires, minutes emeralds, hours as diamonds; and when even the most beautiful phrases about her do not even begin capture my intentions, I'll rely on a few words that soar far beyond the skyline of others, a few words that could swallow up any essay, novel, or poem--- "I love you."

The Fifth Kramazov

It is unlikely that Nietzsche ever read Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, though he did praise lavishly the Russian author’s “Underground Man” and allowed that the writer was a psychologist worthy of his attention.

To one steeped in Dostoevsky and familiar with Nietzsche’s own ambivalent certitudes, it is not hard to link him to this family of 19th Century fictional archetypes — all wrestling with the implications of a world that is in the process of rejecting God.

The four Karamazov Brothers — children of the insidious buffoon Fyodor — are:

Dmitri, the eldest who might qualify as a life-affirmer in Nietzsche’s terms,

Ivan, the tormented intellectual who is stretched out on the rack of the very morality Nietzsche is at pains to excoriate,

Alyosha, the saintly secular monk Dostoevsky hopes will carry human destiny forward, and:

Smerdyakov, the imitative imbecile who infers the homicidal urges of his brothers and acts them out in the parricide that is the novel’s principal crime.




Nietzsche, is the fifth Karamazov — Like Ivan he has passed through Dostoevsky’s furnace of doubt — but gone even farther than the tormented Ivan.

dostoevsky - II

"Dostoevsky is finished. He will no longer write anything important." -- Nekrasov (1859)

“a sick, cruel talent” -- Nikolay Mikhailovsky (1882)

“a prophet of God,” a “mystical seer.” -- Vladimir Solvyov (1883)

“He lived in literature.” -- Konstantin Mochulsky

“the Shakespeare of the lunatic asylum” -- Count Melchoir de Vogue (1848-1910)

“Dostoevsky preaches the morality of the pariah, the morality of the slave.” -- Georg Brandes (1889)

“Russia’s evil genius,” -- Maxim Gorky (1905)

Thomas Mann described Dostoyevsky as “an author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul” and Notes from Underground as “an awe- and terror-inspiring example of this sympathy.”

Turgenev once described Dostoyevsky as “the nastiest Christian he had ever met”.

Nietzsche was scornful of Dostoyevsky’s Christian stand and held him in contempt for his “morbid moral tortures,” his rejection of “proper pride”. He accused him of “sinning to enjoy the luxury of confession,” which Nietzsche considered a “degrading prostration.” Dostoyevsky was, in Nietzsche’s words, one of the victims of the “conscience-vivisection and self-crucifixion of two thousand years” of Christianity.

However, Nietzsche also described Dostoevsky as “the only psychologist from whom he had anything to learn.” (1887)

Edwin Muir states that “Dostoyevsky wrote of the unconscious as if it were conscious; that is in reality the reason why his characters seem ‘pathological’, while they are only visualized more clearly than any other figures in imaginative literature... He was in the rank in which we set Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe.”

Henry James described Dostoevsky’s works as “baggy monsters” and “fluid puddings”, with a profound “lack of composition” and a “defiance of economy and architecture.

Joseph Conrad called The Brothers Karamazov “... an impossible lump of valuable matter. It’s terrifically bad and impressive and exasperating. Moreover, I don’t know what Dostoevsky stands for or reveals, but I do know that he is too Russian for me. It sounds like some fierce mouthings of prehistoric ages.”

Nikolay Berdyaev (Prague, 1923) states matter-of-factly: “So great is the worth of Dostoevsky that to have produced him is by itself sufficient justification for the existence of the Russian people in the world: and he will bear witness for his country-men at the last judgement of the nations.”

Kenneth Rexroth describes Dostoyevsky as a “man of many messages, a man in whom the flesh was always troubled and sick and whose head was full of dying ideologies--at last the sun in the sky, the hot smell of a woman, the grass on the earth, the human meat on the bone, the farce of death” -- from his book Classics Revisited.

Henry Miller writes “When it comes to Emerson, Dostoievsky, Maeterlinck, Knut Hamsun, G. A. Henty, I know I shall never say my last word about them. A subject like The Grand Inquisator, for example, or The Eternal Husband--my favorite of all Dostoievsky’s works--would seem to demand separate books in themselves.” -- from his book The Books in my Life

Miller goes on to say that “Dostoievsky was human in that “all too human” sense of Nietzsche. He wrings our withers when he unrolls his scroll of life.” and “Dostoievsky had virtually to create God-- and what a Herculean task that was! Dostoievsky rose from the depths and, reaching the summit, retained something of the depths about him still.” and “Dostoievsky is chaos and fecundity. Humanity, with him, is but a vortex in the bubbling maelstrom.”

D. H. Lawrence: “He who gets nearer the sun is leader, the aristocrat of aristocrats, or he who, like Dostoievsky, gets nearest the moon of our non-being.”

D. H. Lawrence: “I don’t like Dostoevsky. He is like the rat, slithering along in hate, in the shadows, and in order to belong to the light, professing love, all love.” He also thinks that Dostoevsky, “mixing God and Sadism,” is “foul.”

Hermann Hesse in 1920, professed his fear of Dostoevsky’s “slavic murkiness.”

Walter Kaufman refers to Notes From Underground, published in 1864, as one of the “most revolutionary and original works of world literature.” “The man whom Dostoevsky has created in this book [Notes From Underground] holds out for what traditional Christianity has called depravity; but he believes neither in original sin nor in God, and for him man’s self-will is not depravity: it is only perverse from the point of view of rationalists and others who value neat schemes above the rich texture of individuality.”

“To Dostoevsky belongs a place beside the Great Christian writers of world literature: Dante, Cervantes, Milton, Pascal. Like Dante, he passed through all the circles of human hell, one more terrible than the mediaeval hell of the Divine Comedy, and was not consumed in hell’s flame: his duca e maestro was not Virgil, but the “radiant image” of the Christ, love for whom was the greatest love of his whole life.” -- Konstantin Mochulsky

"Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss!" -- Einstein

"Notes from the Underground is the best overture for existentialism ever written." -- Walter Kaufmann, "Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre" (1956)

"Just as I have no ear for music, I have to my regret no ear for Dostoevsky the Prophet. The very best thing he ever wrote seems to me to be THE DOUBLE. It is [a] story... told very elaborately, in great, almost Joycean detail..., and in style intensely saturated with phonetic and rhythmical expressiveness... It is a perfect work of art, that story, but it hardly exists for the followers of Dostoevsky the Prophet, because it was written in the 1840s, long before his so-called great novels..." -- Vladimir Nabokov on "THE DOUBLE"


Some reactions to "THE DOUBLE" when it was first published...

"It is apparent at first glance that in The Double there is more creative talent and depth of thought than in Poor Folk. But meanwhile the consensus of St. Petersburg readers is that this novel is intolerably long-winded and therefore terribly boring..." -- Vissarion Belinsky

"In The Double, Dostoevsky's method and his love for psychological analysis are revealed in all their fullness and originality. In this work he has penetrated so deep into the human soul, has gazed so fearlessly and feelingly into the innermost workings of human emotions, thoughts, and affairs that the impression produced by reading The Double may be compared only with the experience of a man of inquiring mind who has penetrated into the chemical composition of matter." -- Valerian Maikov

"We do not understand how the author of Poor Folk, a tale that is nevertheless remarkable, could write The Double. It is a sin against artistic conscience, without which there cannot be true talent." -- S.P Shevyrev

"In this tale we now see not the influence of Gogol, but an imitation of him... In speaking of Mr. Dostoevsky's tale The Double, one can repeat the words which his Mr. Golyadkin often repeats: 'Dear, it's bad, bad! Dear, my case is pretty bad now! Oh, dear, so that's the turn my case has taken now!' Yes, indeed, it's bad and it's taken a bad turn." A.A. Grigor'ev: "The Double, in our humanly imperfect opinion, is a work that is pathological and therapeutic but by no means literary: it is a story of madness, analyzed, it is true, to the extreme, but, nevertheless, as repulsive as a dead body." -- K.S. Aksakov


And to "NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND" when it was first published...

"The hero tortures because he wants to, he likes to torture. There is neither reason nor purpose here, and, in the opinion of the author, they are not at all necessary, for absolute cruelty, cruelty an und fur sich (in and of itself) is interesting." -- Nikolai Mikhailovsky (on the underground man's treatment of Liza)

The underground man, through solitary observation of human nature and criticism of the utopian rationalists, attained a deep understanding of human imperfection as a law of nature and of history and became convinced that man, by his very essence, is an irrational, incomprehensible being, endowed in the act of creation with the capacity for suffering and rejoicing, and for profound emotional experience of his vicissitudes, but whose intellect has not been given the possibility of understanding and explaining the essence of man. In their reliance on reason, all rational sciences are equally powerless to unravel the secret of man. The understanding of man can come only through irrational, mystical penetration into the essence of things, that is, through religion. -- Vasily Rozanov (summary of views)

"[the author's very tormenting and barren... writing] clarifies nothing, does not exalt the positive in life, but, dwelling on the negative aspects only, fixes them in mind of man, always depicts him as helpless amid a chaos of dark forces, and can lead him to pessimism, mysticism, etc.... With the triumph of one who is insatiably taking vengeance for his personal misfortunes and sufferings and for the enthusiasms of his youth, Dostoevsky showed in the person of his hero to what lengths the individualists in the class of young people cut off from life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can go in their whining baseness..." -- Maxim Gorky

"Why part two is entitled 'Concerning Wet Snow' is a question that can be settled only in the light of journalistic innuendoes of the 1860s by writers who liked symbols, allusions to allusions, that kind of thing. The symbol perhaps is of purity becoming damp and dingy... After the great chapter 4... a false note is introduced with the appearance of that favorite figure of sentimental fiction, the noble prostitute, the fallen girl with the lofty heart. Liza, the young lady from Riga, is a literary dummy." -- Vladimir Nabokov


And to "CRIME & PUNISHMENT"...

"Raskolnikov lived his true life when he was lying on the sofa in his room, deliberating not at all about the old woman, nor even as to whether it is or is not permissible at the will of one man to wipe from the face of the earth another, unnecessary and harmful, man, but whether he ought to live in Petersburg or not, whether he ought to accept money from his mother or not, and on other questions not at all relating to the old woman. And then -- in that region quite independent of animal activities -- the question of whether he would or would not kill the old woman was decided. The question was decided... when he was doing nothing and was only thinking, when only his consciousness was active: and in that consciousness tiny, tiny alterations were taking place. It is at such times that one needs the greatest clearness to decide correctly the questions that have arisen, and it is just then that one glass of beer, or one cigarette, may prevent the solution of the question, may postpone the decision, stifle the voice of conscience and prompt a decision of the question in favor of the lower, animal nature -- as was the case with Raskolnikov. Tiny, tiny alterations -- but on them depend the most immense and terrible consequences." -- Leo Tolstoy on Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov


Source: http://www.kiosek.com/dostoevsky/quotations.html

vademecum

Every time I go away
I only can see your face
When I leave just for a while
all I can see is your adorable smile

When I go
I miss you so
My heart beats too slow
But when your here
I have no fear
and now all I can hear..

is your cute laugh
I want to go back..
I see your small nose
Your so warm hearted, I bet it glows
I see Your red cheeks
You look so sweet.
When you look at me
all I can see
are those eyes
makes my brain fry

You are my sweetheart
My darling
My love
My little dumpling
I dont want to be away
from all the pet words we make any day

When we are apart
I have no heart
Im lathargic like an old fart
When I go
I miss you so
My heart beats too slow
But when your here
I have no fear
and all I can hear..

is the way you talk with me
The way you walk with me
The way you turn my frown
all the way upside-down
and how you can comfort me
when I need to be
In a caring souls arms
Without a single sight of harm

So next time I go away
I'll pack you in my suitcase
Well be away, but together
and I want that forever.

Death ?

“We were meant to learn in our time together.”
-Jonathan Livingston Seagull

This quote is strange to say the least. It doesn’t give me something new to really think about but rather reminds me of one of my oldest fears: that of loss. When we are done learning, what happens? Do we split ways and go opposite directions? If that’s so, then what happens after I can learn no more from my mother, father, or friends? What is that opposite direction? Death, our continuing to live when our choices in life lead us separate ways, the loss of communication? Considering how clingy a person I am I don’t think I’d like to stop learning from a lot of people because quite personally I love them so much that I’d miss them when our time together was up. Which leads to a second argument: do we ever stop learning? The universe is so open-ended that it could be possible that if people stuck around only to be learned from that I could keep the people that I love the most around the longest, however humans are so close-minded that I suppose such a thing couldn’t be possible even if physics allowed. Humans, I understand are not siphons for the universe’s knowledge, which just returns the fear of loss and the anger that accompanies it. After all, one person can only know so much.
I lost a man who was as much a part of my family as my own parents. He was hit in a car accident. And it puts this quote into perspective. I only cried twice for the man: once when i was told what had happened and the second time at the funeral when I saw the coffin. Even in death he still was able to teach me which leads one to further question the context into which I put this quote. Are people truly gone after death? Is death a limiting factor in our ability to learn from one another, because he gave me more than just a father figure and a playmate for years; at his funeral I learned that I have more family that just the blood relatives and that I truly am important to some people and that I’m perhaps stronger than I first admitted to. I have very low self-esteem normally, which is why my new focus on fixing everything that I have come to hate about myself this year is such a massive turn around. It’s only ironic that I would attend my first funeral under such circumstances and that I come to such a conclusion, such as I most likely will not be the person to make all the changes in my life alone. Of course it certainly is not the quote alone that leads me to this conclusion but the experience which makes the quote worthwhile.

the book of mirdad

"Can you see the beauty of great literature, like The
Book of Mirdad? If you cannot see it, you are blind.
I have come across people who have not even heard the
name of The Book of Mirdad. If I am to make a list of the
great books, that will be the first. But to see the beauty
of it you will need a tremendous discipline."

- Osho ( The books i have loved session )


The book is beauty, sheer beauty!!

Dostoevsky - I

There is one fundamental power within the human being, one core desire that exhales all the use of language, signs… communications, and that is to become understood! The human mind is complicated, yet simple, thus making it twice as complicated. We use the method of metaphor and other linguistic maneuvers to steer our tongue, to better paint before our observers our thoughts and feelings; simply because our words, our whole language is poor. There are not enough words, and fewer that are learnt. How does one ever know what the other means through verbal communication, body language or elaborated scripts? In whatever sense, we attempt to reach out and provide meaning to others from our thoughts and feelings, there is always a certain portion that remains undelivered, indescribable and concealed within ourselves, giving a burdening effect over our shoulders: we find ourselves unfulfilled in unsuccessfully sharing parts of our mind and flesh into the person in question (whether it is a stranger or a beloved, a friend or foe.) Humans seek to show their gratitude, but also to make their gratitude understood (and by gratitude establish a foothold in another being’s territory). One can go by a lifetime without be able to reach out properly in the fullest extent of the will. Is one even truly familiar with oneself? Can at all one be understood by others? Can the simplest outbursts be clear to the person in question? If so I do not believe it will be through the means of verbal language as us civilized human beings are used to. Behind the forehead everything is uncertain. However, if a sentence is spoken instinctively and natural, more like a response to a sudden event, the message may be pure (of forethought), but the message itself will be as framing a panorama into a mere picture – however blissfully executed the painting or picture is, it could never match the sensation of actually _being there_. If conversation is spoken without forethought, it is as pure as a painting can be. Forethought and deliberation of one’s experience from sensation into spoken or written words, corrupts the picture – one must use the thoughts at the present moment to dawn into language! One drawback with this is that one can never be fully equipped with the desired words and frames at all time with oneself, thus a review may seem to be a necessity.

Receiving information from another person, depending on the value of the information (on how secretive, important, and laborious it is), and inasmuch depending on whom we receive this information from (a stranger, a friend, a colleague, a loved…) gives us certain meaning as the keepers of this information. If, one receives very uncommon information from someone rather close to mind (someone who is often thought of), one is immediately bestowed with the sense of self-worth, self-appreciation (sourced externally), and the aftermath of this is a prolonged contemplation, seeking every possible meaning and outcome in what known and even project hypothetical scenarios (often unrealistic and too much to the liking of the ego, thus discouraging from the original scientific excavation). How will the benefactor ever know, or more importantly understand, what dire or pleasant tidings given to the receiver? It is normally thought of the other way around: the benefactor of information is the one whom must carefully consider the value of the information to pass, the weight of trust towards the receiver, and the effects, and possible backfires of the information that is about to be transcribed. However, manipulators, or persons that aim to divert others, cleverly transcribe their information so that it leads the receiver into disarray. Also, there are times when we indifferently or in pretension of compassion, oblige information, but that too has its purpose, to uncover the colors of our shells. Where do we end? All the information we give (as benefactors) is always is of self-interest.

Where does that lead us? If all information we give is of self-interest, then all that makes our contemplation as receivers obsolete to a certain point (unless we modulate the information given and make use of it). The romantic spirit within us too easily, too many times, leads us astray, obliterating resources permanently and most, if not all, events occurred will be buried and specifically sheltered within the mind; not erased from memory, but put aside so that one must thoroughly conduct investigations (with exceptions of emotionally painstakingly haunting recordings that are connected with more than pure lust and desire). Nothing is absolute. Man is as unbalanced in his thought allocation as the world is in its economy and wealth.



Influenced from Dostoevsky's The Idiot.