Philosophy of Mind When Thinking Essay

However, when looking more closely at the specific philosophy suggested by Socrates, a more specific view appears to suggest itself. Socrates appears to favor the view that true knowledge is only possible once the soul separates itself from the body.

For Socrates, the sense, i.e. touch, hearing, sight, taste, and smell only distract what he refers to as the "soul" from truly experiencing the nature of the external world. According to this philosophy, in other words, an external world does exist, but the individual can only truly access it at the end of life, when there are no longer senses to distort the impression of the external world.

According to this philosophy, therefore, there does exist an external world that can be perceived. This perception, however, is only possible once the human "filters" provided by the senses are allowed to die. The senses only die at death, which means that any human being can only access the ultimate truth once he or she dies. This creates a situation in which the body separates from the soul, and the soul in turn is freed to perceive the universe truly as it is. This is also why Socrates is not concerned or afraid at the prospect of dying. It is an opportunity for him to finally experience the ultimate truth, without having to submit to the filters necessitated by the human senses.

What this means is that human beings experience reality in a certain way. Each human being has his or her own percpetion of what reality is and what is important. However, this sense of importance is attached to a certain sense of importance that relates to the individual senses. When the senses die, the ultimate truth becomes available to the individual. What Socrates ultimately states is that each human being, during his or her life, has a specific sense of what life is and should be. At the moment of death, however, the human senses die and the ultimate truth of life is accessible.

This view does not seem to be either solipsistic or skeptical, since both views seem to focus on the current experience of life, as a person experiences it while still alive. One might also view this from the perspective of a living person. Not being able to access the true nature of life and philosophy from a generally unconnected view while still alive could refer to the skepticist view of life. The best way to approach this, according to the philosopher, appears to be from a sense of not being able to truly know what life or death is. Indeed, the best approach appears to be that there is truly no way for an individual to know whether an experience is philosophically viable or not.

Finally, when comparing the experience of learning about a specific area of learning such as a certain configuration of triangles and an experience of connection such as a certain friendship, I feel that both have a root in the learning experience. The more time is spent with a specific person, the more is learned about this person and his or her likelihood to be accepted in terms of a friendship type connection. The more time is spent with a person, the more is learned about his or her philosophy and whether or not a connection can be established. More or less the same is true about mathematics. A certain type of triangle might relate to the comfort a person might experience when interacting with these in the future.

The connecting factor here is the learning paradigm. When learning more about anything, whether this be triangles or people, it means that a greater sense of comfort is experienced when interacting with them.

References

Aristotle. Metaphysics. The Internet Classics Archive. Retrieved from: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.html

Nagel, T. (1987) What does it All Mean? New York: Oxford University Press.

Plato. Phaedo the Internet Classics Archive. Retrieved from: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html