Well here we are at the end of the quarter... it's been quite a run, huh? In the spirit of closure, I suppose I'll reflect a bit on what we've learned about philosophy in class this quarter.
So first of all, the main point of everything. EVERYTHING. Philosophy's goal is NOT to determine what is TRUTH. Philosophy is merely trying to clarify the MEANING behind ideas and events in life. If philosophy does its job correctly, what we end up with is not truth but meaning. When we ask "why do we say and do what we say and do," hopefully we are able to find the meaning (or I suppose another word might be intent) behind what we say and do.
So where is the truth to be found then? Science? Certainly not. Pretty much everything in science is a working definition. I like how one of the readings from this week put it. Something about how what we do in science is merely the best available application of our knowledge [until further discovery and progress can expand our knowledge and increase the range of its application anyway].
What about religion, then? I mean, since everyone keeps turning back to religion, maybe that's where truth is? But then we have religions that can't agree. Islam vs. Christianity, for example. Of course you can't say "well everyone is right in their own way" (i.e. 'pluralism') because once any two parties claim contradicting viewpoints as Islam and Christianity do, then it follows that only one or possibly neither may be the bearer of truth. So if pluralism isn't plausible, then that suggests there is only one truth (or perhaps no truth at all-- but I shudder to think of the implications of that proposition). One could also suggest that truth can be accepted by faith, but faith can easily be misplaced. For example, children have faith in the existence of Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, but their faith alone doesn't somehow create the [physical] existence of these entities. (Although it could be argued that faith can create some kind of conceptual, or in God's case metaphysical existence, yet faith alone seems to have no bearing on the realm we interact with most, that is the physical one.)
So we know or at least we think we know the workings of the physical realm thanks to science, but we know there are other aspects of life not physical in nature. As was pointed out in class, we have studies in music and literature, law and sociology, etc. These fields are not affected by physics, and yet they are important in that they affect our everyday lives. But even knowing that there are important ideas beyond science does not get us any closer to the truth.
At the beginning of the quarter, I was hoping to learn new truths about the world. I found out that that's not philosophy's real goal. But despite that, I still feel a deep desire to know truth. As of yet, I still have no means to find it... not in philosophy, not in science, and not even in religion either (it's more of a faith thing than 'knowledge' of truth). But if nothing else, philosophy has granted me the tools to understand the meaning behind the workings of the world, and for that much I am grateful. Well, it's been a good quarter, and I've gotta say I really enjoyed this class. I will try to keep the lessons I've learned and apply them as often I as remember. So to you, philosophy class, I bid you "adieu."
Fin.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Love
Well this post is probably a little late but it's intended to be for the problem of evil week. Oh well. Vacation's as good a time as any to get it done.
So I was really stimulated by Friday's discussion with the guest speaker. Even when responding to student questions he responded promptly and coherently. Seeing as how student comments are unpredictable and so can't be prepared for beforehand, his quick responses show just how well he knows his stuff. If I didn't miss anything, a summary of the discussion is this: his professor's theory to answer the problem of evil proposes that given God is all-powerful AND all good, evil exists for some good reason He knows and He will reveal to us at some point in the future. But toward the end of the class period, the speaker suggested his opinion that God's "power" (given that He is all-powerful) is love-- a self-sacrificing love that entails the ability to negate evil. Hence God sent His son Jesus (who is a part of Himself) as a sacrifice to eradicate the evil that resulted from human free will.
Now here's the kicker... it seems fate decided to toy with me yet again. My previous two blog posts were entitled "Faith" and "Hope". With my Adventist background, I noticed I unwittingly fell into a trend. Check out this Bible verse:
"But now abideth FAITH, HOPE, and LOVE, these three; and the greatest of these is love."
-- 1 Corinthians 13:13 (ASV)
So even before that discussion, and even before the week started, I had decided to follow the pattern and entitle this next post "Love" regardless of what I would blog about. Little did I know that love would actually be the topic of this blog. Coincidence? I think not.
So what's the moral here then? I dunno. But I think there's some truth in both our guest speaker's and his professor's ideas. It seems to me that whether or not love, that is, a self-sacrificing love, will be enough to eliminate evil is something that only time will tell. As I was reading in some commentary on this verse, there is a good reason love is the greatest of these three values. Faith is only good in the absence of sight or experience, and hope is only good until that hope comes to fruition. Once Jesus returns to redeem the saints (assuming He does), faith and hope will become antiquated. But love is the virtue that will characterize the world thereafter, and so it is the true and eternal ideal virtue. Of course, the present world needs both faith and hope that God is who we believe Him to be in order for human society to even place enough value on self-sacrifice to make it a functional virtue. Though that's what makes love an ideal... striving for it is a continual process.
So I was really stimulated by Friday's discussion with the guest speaker. Even when responding to student questions he responded promptly and coherently. Seeing as how student comments are unpredictable and so can't be prepared for beforehand, his quick responses show just how well he knows his stuff. If I didn't miss anything, a summary of the discussion is this: his professor's theory to answer the problem of evil proposes that given God is all-powerful AND all good, evil exists for some good reason He knows and He will reveal to us at some point in the future. But toward the end of the class period, the speaker suggested his opinion that God's "power" (given that He is all-powerful) is love-- a self-sacrificing love that entails the ability to negate evil. Hence God sent His son Jesus (who is a part of Himself) as a sacrifice to eradicate the evil that resulted from human free will.
Now here's the kicker... it seems fate decided to toy with me yet again. My previous two blog posts were entitled "Faith" and "Hope". With my Adventist background, I noticed I unwittingly fell into a trend. Check out this Bible verse:
"But now abideth FAITH, HOPE, and LOVE, these three; and the greatest of these is love."
-- 1 Corinthians 13:13 (ASV)
So even before that discussion, and even before the week started, I had decided to follow the pattern and entitle this next post "Love" regardless of what I would blog about. Little did I know that love would actually be the topic of this blog. Coincidence? I think not.
So what's the moral here then? I dunno. But I think there's some truth in both our guest speaker's and his professor's ideas. It seems to me that whether or not love, that is, a self-sacrificing love, will be enough to eliminate evil is something that only time will tell. As I was reading in some commentary on this verse, there is a good reason love is the greatest of these three values. Faith is only good in the absence of sight or experience, and hope is only good until that hope comes to fruition. Once Jesus returns to redeem the saints (assuming He does), faith and hope will become antiquated. But love is the virtue that will characterize the world thereafter, and so it is the true and eternal ideal virtue. Of course, the present world needs both faith and hope that God is who we believe Him to be in order for human society to even place enough value on self-sacrifice to make it a functional virtue. Though that's what makes love an ideal... striving for it is a continual process.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Hope
"They say there's no such place as Paradise. Even if you search to the ends of the earth, there's nothing there. No matter how far you walk it's always the same road-- it just goes on and on. But in spite of that, why am I so driven to find it? I hear someone's voice, calling to me..."
--Wolf's Rain (anime series)
This week I was somewhat inspired by one of the assigned online readings. It was coming from an atheist perspective and it argued that belief in God is simply a childhood naivete that lasts until a person grows up and learns of science and the laws of nature that mechanically dictate the workings of the world. The paper argued that as children, some adult figure (usually parents) provides for the child's needs, and this leads the child into a constant cycle of believing there is something greater than itself. The child also looks at the world of evil and hopes for something better. The child then imagines for itself an entity called God who is constantly greater to compensate for the evil it sees in the world. But in the author's eyes, creating God in such a manner is merely a form of escapism much like the way Dorothy ran away from her life to the land of Oz.
I posted a quote from an anime series called Wolf's Rain because I think it's relevant to the topic at hand. The quote both starts and ends the show: the main character begins wandering the earth is search of a fabled place called Paradise, but despite his rationality telling him no such place exists, he wonders "why am I so driven to find it?" He spends the entire series searching a degenerating world in search of Paradise. He knows there are legends claiming its existence, but that's not why he searches. "I hear someone's voice... calling to me." He searches even until the literal end of the world. As the earth slowly freezes over, he finds himself the last living being on the planet. Even so, as he lies collapsed and alone he comes back to his original dilemma. "Even if you search to the ends of the earth, there's nothing there. But in spite of that, why am I so driven to find it? I hear someone's voice... calling to me."
I think that indeed, people see desolation in the world, and without a good answer for its existence or a solution to the problems, people have a need to believe in something that will validate such an existence. In other words, people need to hope for a future in which the problems of the present will be resolved in order to justify an existence of suffering in an interim present. If one were to point to God as the source of this hope, the view would be "The world is full of suffering, but one day God is going to put an end to the suffering. So suffering right now is ok because eventually He will eliminate all suffering." (for more of my commentary on the existence of evil see one of my previous blogs)
There was something else I was contemplating about the argument between atheists and theists (or at least Judao-Christians beliefs). It seems to me like a "what came first: the chicken or the egg?" argument. From the Judao-Christian viewpoint, God created humans who in turn hope for a God despite having evidence but no proof (remember that faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evience of things not seen-- see my last blog entry). But in the atheist viewpoint, humanity exists and hopes for something better than its current reality and so creates God to embody and sustain that hope. But much like the chicken and the egg dilemma, it's impossible to say "ok, let's go check to see which one of us is right."
"I hear someone's voice... calling to me." It seems like some people hear the call, some people don't. Some people call it God, others call it a higher reality, others say it simply does not exist. Whatever the case may be, people need an answer for the confusion they experience in the world. People need to hope for something better in order to live.
--Wolf's Rain (anime series)
This week I was somewhat inspired by one of the assigned online readings. It was coming from an atheist perspective and it argued that belief in God is simply a childhood naivete that lasts until a person grows up and learns of science and the laws of nature that mechanically dictate the workings of the world. The paper argued that as children, some adult figure (usually parents) provides for the child's needs, and this leads the child into a constant cycle of believing there is something greater than itself. The child also looks at the world of evil and hopes for something better. The child then imagines for itself an entity called God who is constantly greater to compensate for the evil it sees in the world. But in the author's eyes, creating God in such a manner is merely a form of escapism much like the way Dorothy ran away from her life to the land of Oz.
I posted a quote from an anime series called Wolf's Rain because I think it's relevant to the topic at hand. The quote both starts and ends the show: the main character begins wandering the earth is search of a fabled place called Paradise, but despite his rationality telling him no such place exists, he wonders "why am I so driven to find it?" He spends the entire series searching a degenerating world in search of Paradise. He knows there are legends claiming its existence, but that's not why he searches. "I hear someone's voice... calling to me." He searches even until the literal end of the world. As the earth slowly freezes over, he finds himself the last living being on the planet. Even so, as he lies collapsed and alone he comes back to his original dilemma. "Even if you search to the ends of the earth, there's nothing there. But in spite of that, why am I so driven to find it? I hear someone's voice... calling to me."
I think that indeed, people see desolation in the world, and without a good answer for its existence or a solution to the problems, people have a need to believe in something that will validate such an existence. In other words, people need to hope for a future in which the problems of the present will be resolved in order to justify an existence of suffering in an interim present. If one were to point to God as the source of this hope, the view would be "The world is full of suffering, but one day God is going to put an end to the suffering. So suffering right now is ok because eventually He will eliminate all suffering." (for more of my commentary on the existence of evil see one of my previous blogs)
There was something else I was contemplating about the argument between atheists and theists (or at least Judao-Christians beliefs). It seems to me like a "what came first: the chicken or the egg?" argument. From the Judao-Christian viewpoint, God created humans who in turn hope for a God despite having evidence but no proof (remember that faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evience of things not seen-- see my last blog entry). But in the atheist viewpoint, humanity exists and hopes for something better than its current reality and so creates God to embody and sustain that hope. But much like the chicken and the egg dilemma, it's impossible to say "ok, let's go check to see which one of us is right."
"I hear someone's voice... calling to me." It seems like some people hear the call, some people don't. Some people call it God, others call it a higher reality, others say it simply does not exist. Whatever the case may be, people need an answer for the confusion they experience in the world. People need to hope for something better in order to live.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Faith
Now one of the issues that has been bugging me in this class for a while is the existence of God. The attitude I've taken thus far is that I'd like to see just how much about this world can be understood without relying on the concept of God. The moment God is brought into an argument, there can be no more room for rationality.
To put it another way, we have been discussing various topics in the philosophical community. And it's interesting that we have not been able to discuss one topic without coming across the notion of God. Also interesting to note is that God comes into the picture whenever we seemingly have no rational answer. And this has happened every step of the way: "How do we know there's a reality? God." "How do we know there's a self? God." "How do we have free will? God.", etc. Whenever we come to a conflicting rational arguments, God can be used to resolve the conflict.
Now I'm not saying God doesn't necessarily exist. Rather, I am advocating that even those who do believe in God try to understand as much about life as they can through philosophical inquiry (which may have to suspend belief in God). Of course, spirituality has its place, too. I think only once one is unable to come to a rational understanding of the world should a person turn to religion for answers. According to Hebrews 11:1 (KJV) "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." In those terms, we should try to explain what can be "seen"/observed, and what cannot be explained may be accepted by merits of faith.
To put it another way, we have been discussing various topics in the philosophical community. And it's interesting that we have not been able to discuss one topic without coming across the notion of God. Also interesting to note is that God comes into the picture whenever we seemingly have no rational answer. And this has happened every step of the way: "How do we know there's a reality? God." "How do we know there's a self? God." "How do we have free will? God.", etc. Whenever we come to a conflicting rational arguments, God can be used to resolve the conflict.
Now I'm not saying God doesn't necessarily exist. Rather, I am advocating that even those who do believe in God try to understand as much about life as they can through philosophical inquiry (which may have to suspend belief in God). Of course, spirituality has its place, too. I think only once one is unable to come to a rational understanding of the world should a person turn to religion for answers. According to Hebrews 11:1 (KJV) "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." In those terms, we should try to explain what can be "seen"/observed, and what cannot be explained may be accepted by merits of faith.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Free Will and The Existence of Evil
So in class today, the arguments got heated once again. It started with speculation about free will vs. determinism and somehow ended up in the (possible) existence of God and His supposed nature. So once again I'd like to give my take on the issue and see what y'all think. Although I'd like to start with the nature of God rather than free will.
The basic argument is: assuming God exists and that He is all knowing, all powerful, and all good/perfection, shouldn't His perfection require Him to prohibit the evil that occurs in the world? Or even before that, since He is perfect, how is it that He created beings with a built-in defect, the propensity to do evil?
In my attempt to answer these questions, I'd like to just take a step back and examine the premise itself. God is "perfect" and "good". One of my old religion teachers pointed out that some concepts require an understanding of antitheses. For his example, imagine a world in which all people are the same height. Where would the concept of "tall people" and "short people" be in such a world? In other words, sometimes we need an understanding of two opposites in order to have complete knowledge of the concept.
So if we apply this concept to our original question, maybe God created beings with a propensity to do evil (knowing full well they would do evil acts) in order to exemplify His perfection. If we apply the concept of opposites, it's possible we may never have understood perfect goodness without a knowledge of perfect evil. The problem I see with this argument is that God's own perfect nature requiring Him to create imperfection to fulfill His role as the perfect being places a limit on God's options. i.e. If He wanted to make the universe, he would have to allow evil so the universe could understand His goodness. But as Christians believe He will eventually eradicate evil, and for now we are only proving God's point by demonstrating the extent of evil. But "does the end justify the means?" I'm no theologian, but there's always the quote "God works in mysterious ways."
On an interesting side note, can you even imagine what a world without imperfection would be like (before you learned of imperfection anyway)? I think it was Siddhartha Gautama (later known as the Buddha) who was supposedly raised in a palace and never allowed to see imperfection until one day he leaves the palace and sees certain 4 imperfections in the world. He then says "the world is full of suffering, suffering is caused by desire," and yada yada yada. He then went waaaay overboard and tried to live a life of poverty. My point being, even a guy who never experienced suffering actually tried out suffering like a pair of shoes once he found out it existed just so he could better appreciate the concept. Supposedly anyway.
As for free will, my take is that history is charted on one timeline because God knows every choice we will make before we make it. But from our perspective, there are as many possibilities for history as there are choices. And even though our choices are in fact limited by external factors (ex: genetic limitations, social limitations, etc.), everyone has at least some choices they can make. To use a metaphor, imagine yourself standing in front of an open fridge trying to decide what juice to have for breakfast. You have orange juice and apple juice but you want pomegranate juice. Now even though your choice of juice is limited by what's immediately in your fridge, you still have choices available within the context of the fridge. So even though your total choices are limited by external factors (you don't have the juice you want in your fridge), from your perspective you still have choices available to you. And from your perspective, you can say God knows I'm going to pick orange juice, but I still feel like I'm able to pick apple juice all the same.
As always, please feel free to post comments, agreements, contradictions, etc. on either argument-- why does God allow evil or free will.
The basic argument is: assuming God exists and that He is all knowing, all powerful, and all good/perfection, shouldn't His perfection require Him to prohibit the evil that occurs in the world? Or even before that, since He is perfect, how is it that He created beings with a built-in defect, the propensity to do evil?
In my attempt to answer these questions, I'd like to just take a step back and examine the premise itself. God is "perfect" and "good". One of my old religion teachers pointed out that some concepts require an understanding of antitheses. For his example, imagine a world in which all people are the same height. Where would the concept of "tall people" and "short people" be in such a world? In other words, sometimes we need an understanding of two opposites in order to have complete knowledge of the concept.
So if we apply this concept to our original question, maybe God created beings with a propensity to do evil (knowing full well they would do evil acts) in order to exemplify His perfection. If we apply the concept of opposites, it's possible we may never have understood perfect goodness without a knowledge of perfect evil. The problem I see with this argument is that God's own perfect nature requiring Him to create imperfection to fulfill His role as the perfect being places a limit on God's options. i.e. If He wanted to make the universe, he would have to allow evil so the universe could understand His goodness. But as Christians believe He will eventually eradicate evil, and for now we are only proving God's point by demonstrating the extent of evil. But "does the end justify the means?" I'm no theologian, but there's always the quote "God works in mysterious ways."
On an interesting side note, can you even imagine what a world without imperfection would be like (before you learned of imperfection anyway)? I think it was Siddhartha Gautama (later known as the Buddha) who was supposedly raised in a palace and never allowed to see imperfection until one day he leaves the palace and sees certain 4 imperfections in the world. He then says "the world is full of suffering, suffering is caused by desire," and yada yada yada. He then went waaaay overboard and tried to live a life of poverty. My point being, even a guy who never experienced suffering actually tried out suffering like a pair of shoes once he found out it existed just so he could better appreciate the concept. Supposedly anyway.
As for free will, my take is that history is charted on one timeline because God knows every choice we will make before we make it. But from our perspective, there are as many possibilities for history as there are choices. And even though our choices are in fact limited by external factors (ex: genetic limitations, social limitations, etc.), everyone has at least some choices they can make. To use a metaphor, imagine yourself standing in front of an open fridge trying to decide what juice to have for breakfast. You have orange juice and apple juice but you want pomegranate juice. Now even though your choice of juice is limited by what's immediately in your fridge, you still have choices available within the context of the fridge. So even though your total choices are limited by external factors (you don't have the juice you want in your fridge), from your perspective you still have choices available to you. And from your perspective, you can say God knows I'm going to pick orange juice, but I still feel like I'm able to pick apple juice all the same.
As always, please feel free to post comments, agreements, contradictions, etc. on either argument-- why does God allow evil or free will.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
If Consciousness=Self
To my understanding, Locke's view on the "self" is that he believes we have a body, a consciousness/mind, and a soul. The soul is eternal and unchanging, but the consciousness is subject to change. Because the "self" is also subject to change (of which there are numerous examples: a) physical- my hair was long, I got it cut, now it's short b) immaterial- I used to be an atheist, now I believe in God), he identifies the self as our consciousness.
One thought that popped in my head regarding the issue brought me back to my freshman year of college. During that year, I had roommates who would keep me up late at night because they had afternoon classes, but I had class at 8 a.m. every day. This of course led to a massive sleep debt. Anywho, the point of this sidenote is that when I would be in class trying to pay attention to lecture, I would often doze off. And the reason they call it "nodding off" I'd imagine is because you intermittently raise your head after each realization that you are gradually starting to lose consciousness. Interesting thing for me is that when I would be considered more asleep than awake, I could swear I was driving a car at night in my "dream". Then my head would snap up and I'd instantly remember I was in a classroom with a professor talking up front. So what would that say about myself when I was asleep? If my consciousness is myself, wouldn't that mean that I have a separate self that exists while I'm sleeping? Or that myself for a time ceases to exist in its normal state? While sometimes I like to think there's a "me" who lives a separate life while I sleep and that I live my life while he sleeps, I highly doubt this to be the case.
The notion that the consciousness is the self also presents a problem for people like sleepwalkers or people with multiple personality disorders. Let's say a sleepwalker killed someone in their sleep. They were unconscious of the act, but their body still committed the offense. So in this case, should their whole "self" be held accountable for an act committed outside of consciousness? Fortunately that's what the insanity defense is for and we don't force responsibility on unconscious crimes. In the same scenario for a case of multiple personalities, my guess is that Locke would say each personality is a housed in the same body and therefore shares one consciousness, though I suppose our legal system would make provisions so as not to fully punish that body for the acts of a more aggressive personality. 'Course, I know next to nothing about politics, so I could be wrong.
One thought that popped in my head regarding the issue brought me back to my freshman year of college. During that year, I had roommates who would keep me up late at night because they had afternoon classes, but I had class at 8 a.m. every day. This of course led to a massive sleep debt. Anywho, the point of this sidenote is that when I would be in class trying to pay attention to lecture, I would often doze off. And the reason they call it "nodding off" I'd imagine is because you intermittently raise your head after each realization that you are gradually starting to lose consciousness. Interesting thing for me is that when I would be considered more asleep than awake, I could swear I was driving a car at night in my "dream". Then my head would snap up and I'd instantly remember I was in a classroom with a professor talking up front. So what would that say about myself when I was asleep? If my consciousness is myself, wouldn't that mean that I have a separate self that exists while I'm sleeping? Or that myself for a time ceases to exist in its normal state? While sometimes I like to think there's a "me" who lives a separate life while I sleep and that I live my life while he sleeps, I highly doubt this to be the case.
The notion that the consciousness is the self also presents a problem for people like sleepwalkers or people with multiple personality disorders. Let's say a sleepwalker killed someone in their sleep. They were unconscious of the act, but their body still committed the offense. So in this case, should their whole "self" be held accountable for an act committed outside of consciousness? Fortunately that's what the insanity defense is for and we don't force responsibility on unconscious crimes. In the same scenario for a case of multiple personalities, my guess is that Locke would say each personality is a housed in the same body and therefore shares one consciousness, though I suppose our legal system would make provisions so as not to fully punish that body for the acts of a more aggressive personality. 'Course, I know next to nothing about politics, so I could be wrong.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Time and Reality: A sci-fi perspective
Over the last week, I've been re-watching a sci-fi anime called RahXephon that to this day stands out in my mind as one of the most interesting pieces of fiction I've ever encountered. Aside from a colorful art style and beautiful music befitting its musically-based motifs, its story is engaging on both emotional and intellectual levels. And though it is vastly confusing, I seem to glean something new from it each time I watch it. Since philosophy confuses me in much the same ways, I feel it's only appropriate that I blog about some of the ideas presented.
A brief overview of the story is as follows: The story begins in a setting in which Tokyo is supposedly the last stronghold of life left due to some unknown tragedy that wipes out the rest of the world. Ayato, the main character, is living a routine life going to high school until one day foreign high-tech planes begin attacking the defense forces. Amidst the turmoil, Ayato is kidnapped by a mysterious older woman named Haruka who promises to tell him "the truth about this world." But Haruka's plane is supernaturally forced into a strange chamber housing a giant robot, the RahXephon. Ayato is unconsciously drawn into the robot, and the two are transported into another dimension.
Ayato later learns that his world is a fabrication called "Tokyo Jupiter," which is an alternate dimension in which time flows at one-sixth the flow of time outside of the enclosure (it is so named because it is a giant sphere resembling Jupiter that surrounds Tokyo). Tokyo Jupiter as it turns out was created by the Mu, a race of blue-blooded humans who appeared out of nowhere about twelve years ago (so Ayato was in Tokyo Jupiter for only 2 years). Ayato also comes to learn that Tokyo Jupiter was created by his mother, the leader of the Mu, as a means to brainwash him, who though half-Mulian, half-human, is unique in his "qualifications" to pilot the RahXephon (though there are other characters within Tokyo Jupiter kept in this brainwashed state).
Though Ayato himself doesn't learn of it, there are side characters that flesh out the more complex parts of the story. To start from the very beginning, thousands of years ago there was a Mulian named Bahbem who invented the "RahXephon system," which was a machine whose purpose was to alter quantum theoretical probabilities using the RahXephon, a machine that produces waves to alter said probabilities. Some of the terms used are "instrumentalist" = pilot and "singing" = (waves the robots produce, usually to fight). But his first instrumentalist, Quon, made some mistake and as a result, the universe began to pluralize (multiply), and so the Mulians were forced to appear in the dimension of the humans. But with the universe's ever-increasing expansion, it would only be a matter of time before its mass would collapse on itself. And the only way to reverse the effect is for "Ollin" = (means "change"), the instrumentalist to find "Ixtli in Yollotl" = one with a divine heart who has found his/her true face (in this case one who can manifest himself in all things and in time itself). The instrumentalist would then be able to "tune the world" by "suffusing the world with sound". This would, in effect, return the multiple worlds to one.
Of course, the tension comes in because the Mu want the world to be tuned to become one for the Mulians, hence they try to brainwash Ayato. Naturally, the humans don't want their existence denied either, so they bring him out in order to show him both sides, enabling him with the choice to decide which world to create. Interestingly enough, though Quon also has a RahXephon supposedly equal to Ayato's and though they are both required to resonate with each other other in the tuning of the world, it is Ayato's choice to decide the nature of the new world (I wonder if it's gender related. "Man has dominion," mayhaps? Hm....)
This time after finishing the series, I was reading a commentary on the musical theme permeating the throughout the story. The premise is built upon the notion that if time could be considered a thing, then that would imply that its energy could be altered (the role of the RahXephon). The commentator noted that, unlike visual images, auditory signals rely heavily upon a proper chronological order. Pictures out of order can still make some sense, but imagine jumbled syllables or a song played in fragments-- it would make no sense at all. So to finish up, I'd like to relay a quote from the commentary that contains interesting thoughts to contemplate:
"The world is suffused with sound - fragmented sound at that... If it being fragmented is unpleasant, then it must be put in proper order. The RahXephon is a world-tuning machine that [the director] created to do just that.
A piano that is out of tune is a meaningless thing. If one is to just live, then that is no particular inconvenience. But when giving meaning to the world, no, seeking meaning in the world, the work of tuning, ordering events in chronological order, become necessary. Just as syllables must be in proper chronological order in order to correctly grasp the meaning of words.
The work of tuning the world and time is none other than ordering the chaotic events in the world in chronological order in order to glean meaning from them.
And whether that work is being done correctly or not should be determinable by whether the sound can be heard correctly and with meaning. That would be the easiest method of confirmation...
In other words, we could say that we are equipped with the functionality to tune time, but it makes you think that perhaps it is life itself that makes time flow." -- Chouhei Kanbayashi
There is also a movie version for anyone interested but pressed for time (also an anime), but with a 2-hour time constraint, some story elements were changed that I feel don't reflect the original intentions. So I highly recommend the TV series for anyone interested in checking it out.
A brief overview of the story is as follows: The story begins in a setting in which Tokyo is supposedly the last stronghold of life left due to some unknown tragedy that wipes out the rest of the world. Ayato, the main character, is living a routine life going to high school until one day foreign high-tech planes begin attacking the defense forces. Amidst the turmoil, Ayato is kidnapped by a mysterious older woman named Haruka who promises to tell him "the truth about this world." But Haruka's plane is supernaturally forced into a strange chamber housing a giant robot, the RahXephon. Ayato is unconsciously drawn into the robot, and the two are transported into another dimension.
Ayato later learns that his world is a fabrication called "Tokyo Jupiter," which is an alternate dimension in which time flows at one-sixth the flow of time outside of the enclosure (it is so named because it is a giant sphere resembling Jupiter that surrounds Tokyo). Tokyo Jupiter as it turns out was created by the Mu, a race of blue-blooded humans who appeared out of nowhere about twelve years ago (so Ayato was in Tokyo Jupiter for only 2 years). Ayato also comes to learn that Tokyo Jupiter was created by his mother, the leader of the Mu, as a means to brainwash him, who though half-Mulian, half-human, is unique in his "qualifications" to pilot the RahXephon (though there are other characters within Tokyo Jupiter kept in this brainwashed state).
Though Ayato himself doesn't learn of it, there are side characters that flesh out the more complex parts of the story. To start from the very beginning, thousands of years ago there was a Mulian named Bahbem who invented the "RahXephon system," which was a machine whose purpose was to alter quantum theoretical probabilities using the RahXephon, a machine that produces waves to alter said probabilities. Some of the terms used are "instrumentalist" = pilot and "singing" = (waves the robots produce, usually to fight). But his first instrumentalist, Quon, made some mistake and as a result, the universe began to pluralize (multiply), and so the Mulians were forced to appear in the dimension of the humans. But with the universe's ever-increasing expansion, it would only be a matter of time before its mass would collapse on itself. And the only way to reverse the effect is for "Ollin" = (means "change"), the instrumentalist to find "Ixtli in Yollotl" = one with a divine heart who has found his/her true face (in this case one who can manifest himself in all things and in time itself). The instrumentalist would then be able to "tune the world" by "suffusing the world with sound". This would, in effect, return the multiple worlds to one.
Of course, the tension comes in because the Mu want the world to be tuned to become one for the Mulians, hence they try to brainwash Ayato. Naturally, the humans don't want their existence denied either, so they bring him out in order to show him both sides, enabling him with the choice to decide which world to create. Interestingly enough, though Quon also has a RahXephon supposedly equal to Ayato's and though they are both required to resonate with each other other in the tuning of the world, it is Ayato's choice to decide the nature of the new world (I wonder if it's gender related. "Man has dominion," mayhaps? Hm....)
This time after finishing the series, I was reading a commentary on the musical theme permeating the throughout the story. The premise is built upon the notion that if time could be considered a thing, then that would imply that its energy could be altered (the role of the RahXephon). The commentator noted that, unlike visual images, auditory signals rely heavily upon a proper chronological order. Pictures out of order can still make some sense, but imagine jumbled syllables or a song played in fragments-- it would make no sense at all. So to finish up, I'd like to relay a quote from the commentary that contains interesting thoughts to contemplate:
"The world is suffused with sound - fragmented sound at that... If it being fragmented is unpleasant, then it must be put in proper order. The RahXephon is a world-tuning machine that [the director] created to do just that.
A piano that is out of tune is a meaningless thing. If one is to just live, then that is no particular inconvenience. But when giving meaning to the world, no, seeking meaning in the world, the work of tuning, ordering events in chronological order, become necessary. Just as syllables must be in proper chronological order in order to correctly grasp the meaning of words.
The work of tuning the world and time is none other than ordering the chaotic events in the world in chronological order in order to glean meaning from them.
And whether that work is being done correctly or not should be determinable by whether the sound can be heard correctly and with meaning. That would be the easiest method of confirmation...
In other words, we could say that we are equipped with the functionality to tune time, but it makes you think that perhaps it is life itself that makes time flow." -- Chouhei Kanbayashi
There is also a movie version for anyone interested but pressed for time (also an anime), but with a 2-hour time constraint, some story elements were changed that I feel don't reflect the original intentions. So I highly recommend the TV series for anyone interested in checking it out.
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