damn you biochemistry, you are going to own me.

just 4 weeks to go in the quarter, it’s kinda odd, it seems like school just started. now i gotta start worrying about finals? blow me….

anyways, i could fill up a page of uninteresting gibberish about how classes are going, school, career prospects, etc., everything having to do with my future, but really, it’s pretty boring. i’m on the right track, and as long as i put in my fair share of work, i’ll get where i’m going. no worries there.

anyways, i was thinking about something from a couple of nights ago. of course i had it all worked out sime time a couple of nights ago, and i know that it was something that was bugging me, but now all i’m left with is the intial question, so who knows, maybe i’ll end up somewhere else. i’m guessing my brain will fall in to the same pattern once i start rolling though. my brain is pretty predictible in its patterns, after all.

but yeah, mikey was yelling something about religion, and i retorted with something equally as inane as “well, what is rational thought?” so then the next night, mikey pointed out that i always say stuff like that. well shit, why do i always say stuff like that. seeing as it’s hard for me to explain things on the fly, i’m mostly dumbfounded myself, with the answers to my own questions. not an uncommon thin, i might add. given time, and a printed media though, i think i can make some sort of coherent answer.

Q: What is rational thought?

A: what i precieve it to be.

Q: Well, if it’s only what you precieve it to be, then what makes it rational?

A: therein, lies the paradox. as i precieve things, everything in this life is arbitrary. from the ideas you hold, to the things you believe, they are conclusions that you have come to through your interpretations of other peoples actions or ideas. but some things make intuitive sense, like the fact that water will get you wet, or things dropped from your hand will fall towards the ground. oversimplifications to be sure, but things that can be proved to your senses in a direct fashion tend to be concretly stabilized there. you then can take these things you precieve to be concrete, integrate the ideas behind them, and apply it to something that is not the same, but shares similar qualities. mars isn’t the same as earth, and you’ve never been there, but you assume that when you drop something from your hand, it will fall to the ground. but since you haven’t directly experience this, how can you possibly know that it is true? probably because if somethign concrete you knew didn’t hold true in similar situations, then it would disprove it’s infallibility, causeing another explination of your question to formulate. if you don’t hold fast to some rules that are pretty consistant in your life, then things would make no sense (i mean, less than it does now).

so hard, fast, rules, are a basis for rational thought. this is where the conjecture comes in. who dictates these rules? someone or something outside of your control. who interprets these rules? you do. you can take the meaning that something falling to the ground is actually the ground pushing up on you to meet the ball everytime you drop it. of course, i think this is pretty improbable, and yes, you can prove such things as gravity with math and physics, and yet it is still up to the individual who interprets it. just because something is proved, doesn’t mean you have to believe it, or take it the way it is presented. there wouldn’t be progress if everything that was ever presented to us was taken at face value.

so because rational thought is something that needs hard, fast rules, and the fact that you dictate the rules that make up your rational thought processes, the fact that your foundation of rational thought is soley based upon you makes it valuable to yourself, and anyone else who decides that you are an important enough influence on their rules of rational thought.

Q: So then why does my rational thought coincide with so many other people?

A: I think that this happens because most people are wired pretty damn near the same. general integration and syntehsis are basic human qualities that are nurtured when young, and sharpen as you age and hit the peak of your life. some people’s biochemical pathways are just more efficient than others, and not all rational thought processes are the same, so information gathering and interpretation can be different for anyone. i mean, i’m pretty smart, but if i hadn’t had the conception of the world being round hammered into my head since i was young, i probably wouldn’t have been able to figure it out on my own. someone else’s thought process figured it out and proved it (apparently), so now i accept it to be true because it makes more sense to the other things i hold true.

so i hold some things to be true. i think that deviled eggs are the greatest food ever.

does this make me right? nope.

is everyone going to agree with me? i sure hope not.

but when i think about the fact that believe i love deviled eggs so much, and that i believe the earth is round, they’re both arbitrary decisions to me. just because i hold something true doesn’t mean you have to. it doesn’t mean anyone has to. holding a belief true does not make you right. it just gives you something you believe in. the fatc that you are in agreeance with many other people about what you precieve to be rational is due to societal conditioning i think, but i don’t really want to explain all the facets of that.

so basically rational thought is a collection of rules that you interpret and dictate to yourself, and choose to believe. this is only true for me though, and not for you. hence i think that rational thought is arbitrary, and all arguments are invalid, because the bottom line is, i live in my world, and you live in yours. they’re similar, but by no means the same.

i’ve never taken a philosiphy class in my life, but i think this might be something i would have to write for one at sometime or another. of course i probably wouldn’t be able to use my own ideas to such a degree, but then again, that’s why i don’t take philosiphy classes. it’d all sound as hollow as this does.

so really, if you managed to work through my half-hour-probably-loaded-with-holes-since-i-didn’t-read-this-over-once logic and disagree, then by all means prove me wrong, find holes in my arguments and exploit them, tell me if i forgot something and i’ll listen. not necesarily care, but i’ll listen.

the other option, which is more likely, is that you didn’t make it through this, or don’t care anyways. if that’s true, then great.

cause you’re in the same boat as me.