Non-being and something-ness
06May11
One of my favourite bloggers, Dr. J, is here to guest post for us today. If this doesn’t give you a chuckle or a smile, your heart is made of charred leech ashes. And it is a good reminder that philosophy is, as everything else, ultimately only what you make of it. – westwood
Non-being and something-ness
by Dr. J
I have been interested in philosophy for as long as I can remember! However, all of my philosophical musings had only involved one consenting sentient being until I was off to University.
During that liberal education in college, as I was bounding towards my destiny of being a surgeon, I had a fear of becoming less diverse in my thinking, I decided to push back against this one track, educationally induced, potential mental constriction with some mental resuscitation and decided to sign up to take my first philosophy course, Metaphysical Problems!
Philosophy was that strange little known area that beckoned to me like the Siren’s song to Ulysses. On that first day in class, sitting at my desk, I could feel the ropes beginning to surround me, getting tighter as I more fully understood what trial I had undertaken. The professor teaching the class reminded me of the Penguin in the Batman tales, as he strode up and down the isles, pontificating in a very un-siren like tone, and, I kid you not, smoking a cigar!
Somehow I barely navigated this class without being smashed upon the rocks of philosophical confusion. I concretely managed to receive a “pass” on my record for the class, as one of the fortunate prescient things I did was to take the course with only a pass/fail option. The course grade was largely based upon writing a paper about a philosophical topic of our choice. Up to that time I had received an “A” on every paper I had written in college, but for this class, my paper “Evolutionary Determinates of Human Morality,” was gruffly handed back to me with a “C” grade and a note indicating my professor’s total disagreement with my original concept. Even my paper byline, ”Evolution Bestows Hope,” (Theodosius Dobzhansky) meant little more than a cigar ash to my obviously superiorly evolved mentor.
Interestingly enough, years later that foolish evolutionary idea of mine was accepted by real philosophical minds as one valid theory of the formation of human morality. Not in time for me to improve my grade, but pleasantly in time for me to email the university’s philosophy department with my observations of “things one remembers from college.”
I would not be surprised if my old professor was now chairman of the department, and with his deletion of my email,
I imagine he was pondering the question of, as the lonely tree falling in the forest, if a deleted email ever really was written at all.
Filed under: evolution | 3 Comments
Tags: anecdote, college, Dr.J, evolution, guest post, philosophy, professor, theodosius dobzhansky
-
-
Recent Comments
Got to love Dr. J whether he is writing about health & fitness OR he is writing about his own musings! Loved this.
I was never good at the whole Philosophy thing whether is be a class or chatting with friends… my mind is just too simple!
OR, maybe to caught up in health & fitness with little room for anything else! 
Dr. J,
Love this: ” . . . meant little more than a cigar ash to my obviously superiorly evolved mentor.”
I only last one week in my philosophy course before I changed it to something else. The professor who was teaching it was intolerable, mostly because he sounded a lot like this: “And so, blah, blah, blah, which means, blah, blah, blah.” Sorry. Just could not take it.
Jody!
Philosophy lurks in every area of our lives:-)
Poietes!
Thank you! How a class is taught can have more influence than what is taught.