Human Person Topics

SELF

            When I was in the seminary, there were times that I became so anxious. I don’t know what to do. I even tried to think every night who really am I. There were times that it is so difficult to know myself, to understand myself. Every day, I always try to think of things that are related to me and I write it down in my notebook. Then, one day, I realized that we are brothers so I tried to open up myself to one of my brothers. I shared my background and my problems. I also shared the happy moments in my life and if there are happy moments, there are also sad moments.

            I asked a postulant brother, “Kuya, what do I need to do for me to know myself?”. “Go back to your past, travel through time, think about it and reflect. There I realized that it is so good to be me.

            During the preliminary term, we were given an article about where could you find self. Let me share you my reflection:

            Where Am I? is a beautiful and inspiring article made by Daniel Dennett, a Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor, a Professor of Philosophy, and the Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He also published a lot of articles and books.

In the story, there are four main characters: Yorick, Hamlet, Hubert and Fortinbras. Yorick is the original brain of Dennett which was removed to avoid the high risks of the mission. Hamlet is the original body of Dennett which was left in the interior of the earth due to the malfunction of the system operating Yorick and Hamlet. Hubert is the copied brain or the twin of Yorick and Fortinbras is the copied body or the twin of Hamlet.

            At first, I had a bit of difficult and confusion with the story because of the names and the sequence of the story. I had a hard time of reflecting on it because I wasn’t able to literally experience it, yet. It is said that it is hard to explain or share something without experiencing it. It is also hard for the listeners to believe someone who preaches something he or she is not following or doing, or he or she hasn’t experienced it yet. But because of the use of my imagination, I was able to come up with this reflection.

I just reflected on some things. These are the inseparableness of the three main parts of a person. These are the brain, the body and the consciousness. The brain is the one that controls the body, without the brain, stimuli will not be responded without the central nervous system. The body is the one that show the movements of the person and it shows the movements instructed by the brain. The body also shows it’s responses to different stimuli. These three work together with each other.

For example, a basketball team is composed of a lot of members. These are the coach, the assistant coach, the team captain, the players, the towel boys and water boys.  Everyone acts with different functions but they are one. There must nobody lacking. Without the coach, the players will have a difficulty in their strategy. Without the players, no one will play. If the players are lacking, they will not be allowed to play. Without the team captain, who will lead the team playing on-court? Without the towel boys, how will the players wipe their sweat immediately to avoid getting sick? Without the water boys, there is a possibility that the players will be dehydrated. Therefore, a team lacking will not be able to function well. The coach is the brain, the rest is the body and their “consciousness” is to win the game.

With all of these factors, they will be one. The same as the person, with all its factors, everything will be in harmony.

FREEDOM

According to the Philosophy of Human Person, Freedom is given three points. These are the Determinism, Libertarianism and Compatibilism. But before all of these points, there is an example given regarding Skinner’s thought but I will not use it. Instead, I will use another example. Let’s use as an example the story of the Good Samaritan. One day, a man was robbed, beaten and was left half-dead on the road when he was in his way to Jericho. Three men passed by the same road that the man has taken. They are the Pharisee, the Levite and the Samaritan. The first two men just passed by the half-dead man and left him without sympathy. They did not do anything to rescue the poor man; instead, they just walked as if they did not see anything. The third one, the Samaritan, despite of the fact that he is a Samaritan while the half-dead man is a Jew and they were citizens of two different and opposing countries, he disregarded this thought and helped the man, gave him a drink and brought him to an inn where the half-dead man can rest and recover.

Man has his own will, a power or capacity of man, to decide and make a choice. Choices are the factors that help us to deliberate which the best way to do or the best thing to have. Choices are made by the person himself. Choices depend upon a person’s motives and decisions.  Motives are used to prove something is something or not. Choice is already chosen even before the question.

In the story, the three men were given choices to help the poor man or not, to feel sympathy over the poor man or not, and to stop the journey to help the poor man or to continue walking and continue his journey. The first two men, they chose to continue their journey while the Samaritan decided to stop first his journey to help the poor man. This choice of the Samaritan has shown his motive to feel sympathy for the poor man and to help him despite of the separation of their nationality. This also gave us an idea on a good behavior on how we must act with our less fortunate brothers and sisters. But, the Samaritan did not think of popularity or fame after helping the man. Again, choices were given, to help for the sake of fame or to help for the sake of friendship and love. And again, a decision was made. This showed us that the Samaritan has a good motive and character which were determined by the Samaritan’s PAST.

According to Sartre, “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself”. What does this mean? For me, as I reflected, man is the source of all his decisions. He must be the one to choose and to decide for himself. What a man does and how he acts shows his full rationality and his full being. For example, the Samaritan decided to help poor man. This act shows his true color that he is a good example, a good model in serving those who need a lot of help or in danger.

Let see how Determinism, Libertarianism and Compatibilism differ and be similar to each other. All of these show that we decide every time and every day. But how do they differ? Determinism shows that a person is not responsible, Libertarianism shows that a man is free, that he may live his own life and property and that he can make his choices as long as others are respected, and Compatibilism shows that a person is both responsible and free at the same time.

It is said that we are attracted by the illusion of these three. In determinism, freedom is an illusion because we are cheated that we think we are free and we are free because we are ignorant of the necessitating causes. These necessitating causes are the following: impulse, composition, elements, physical, temperament, energy, happiness, passion and the real and fictitious advantages.

For example, it is examination week and your parents told you to study at 7pm. You were not aware that it is already 7:30pm and you don’t know that it is already past 7 so you thought you were free. So you were not able to study so you disobeyed your parents and failed the exam.

In the case of libertarianism, there is a rule and when the ruler is absent, you think you are free. For example, your parents left you alone at home because they are going somewhere. Before they left, they told you to study your lessons and review your notes. The illusion appeared because you know that there is a rule but the rule maker is absent so you think you are free. It is just the same as the saying, “when the cat is out, the mice are playing.”

But in compatibilism, you are totally and absolutely free even if there is a rule and the ruler is present. For example, same as the example for libertarianism but the difference is the presence of your parents. What if they did not leave you? In the case of compatibilism, you are still free to do anything.

To end this reflection, I would like to say that I have less belief in superstitious beliefs and destiny. Our destiny will depend in our decisions and how we act on it. Our decisions will lead us to another problem that will give us a lot of choices again and will make us decide all over and over again. We must always remember that we are free, free to obey. If we are free to obey, we are free to follow God’s commandments and His will. There was a misconception of freedom. They said that we are free to do anything and whatever we want to do. I say that it is not totally true because if we can do everything, what about the bad intentions and evil motives? If we are free in that sense, it will be chaos all over the world. What this really points out is that we must be free in doing everything that is good and that is for the sake of the common good.

KNOWLEDGE

            Regarding knowledge, I was hardly hit by two of the subtopics included in the topic KNOWLEDGE. The two are the Noesis and Noema, and the Immanence. We all know that Noesis and Noema are two important elements in the topic knowledge. To define, Noesis is the perceiver while the noema is something that is perceived. These two are always interconnected to each other because if they don’t, world war 3 might appear in the news. No, just kidding. Seriously, with the dialectic unity of these two elements, we can really say that we are conscious that we are really awake. In the contrary, if the two are separated from each other, we can say that we are just dreaming or it is only in our mind.

            Reflecting on these two elements and their dialectic unity, I remembered a friend of mine way back grade 6 told me, “Pare, tingnan mo iyon, ang chicks noh? Pustahan tayo, may gusto iyan sa akin.”

            With what my friend told me, it is so impossible for that thing to happen. I know that they do not know each other. Maybe my friend knows the girl but the girl does not know my friend. It is so funny to say that my friend is so assuming, assuming to say that the girl likes him. I know that the statement he said does not conform with reality so I just accepted his offer. I know that I will win because he was just using his imagination or maybe he was just day dreaming that time. So the story ended when he was slapped by the girl and I ended there laughing out loud with my funny bones tried to end my life that time.

            Another subtopic is the immanence. In our discussion, it is said that “study and learning is self-study”. This statement was really glued in my mind. It is true to say that it is only us who can teach ourselves. I have a story related to this; I have a friend who quarreled with another friend and he was almost crazy that he do not know how to solve that problem. So I told him, “Bro, just relax, I have an advice for you, all you need to do is to close your eyes, relax, and try to time travel. Think of the things when the two of you were still together. Try to find the things that you might have done that caused your fight.” It is only us who can solve the problem we carry because we are the one who really know ourselves.

 If this is so, why do we need to go to school? To oppose this question, another question is raised, what if your understanding is wrong? That is the reason why we need to go to school.

There is another story; it is about the blind men and the elephant. The blind men tried to know what really an elephant is. The first man went to the tail and he thought that an elephant is a rope. Another man went to the task and thought of an elephant as a spear. The other one went to the body and thought of the elephant as a wall and the last one went to the ear and thought of the elephant as a fan.

In my opinion, all of them are partly true because they went to different parts of the animal. Because of this, they had an initial idea what an elephant is. This is the reason why we need to go to school – for us to learn and for us to improve our knowledge. We must also think that we are not the only person in the world, that we are not the only beings thinking, many are also thinking because they are rational too. We must always try to consider what others think of and try to listen to their opinions.

INTERHUMAN

            In respect to inter human, I had reflected on its elements. These are: social, being and seeming, personal making present, imposition and unfolding, and genuine dialogue, but before sharing my reflection, I would like to define the different elements. Social is to live with each other and to have a relationship with one another. Being is someone who really is while seeming is what someone wishes to seem. Person making present is to confirm someone as a creature made also by God, to accept him despite of struggles and for him to be experienced as a whole and not as a part only. Imposition and unfolding is to affect other people through propaganda and education. And genuine dialogue is to exercise that degree of making someone present as a whole.

            These elements made a great compact to me. To live with other people is not that easy. We need to know them first before we can live happily with them. Man is a social being and we need others for us to survive. It is so hard to live in a world where no other people exist. For us to socialize well, we need to confirm ourselves to others that we too need to be accepted by everyone for us to experience each other as a whole.

Living with others also needs a good attitude. In what aspect? Being and seeming will enter this one. We must always do our best to treat others equally as we treat ourselves. We are human so they are human too. We must not always think for our own self and for our own benefit, but of others too. We must be true to other people for them to accept us truly. Who can accept a person who is a plastic or a person who is just a pretender? No one can. No one will. So, what we must do is to be who we really are and for us to be true to others. Another point of this is to avoid the objectification of another human person. We must always treat others rightfully because they also have the right to live in this world.

Another reflection I would like to share is about the phenomenology of love. It is said that love is with romance, there is possessing and there is being possessed, that there is sex, and falling and standing in love.

To share my love life, I met a girl and she has the characteristics of the girl I want to be my girlfriend. Not really want, but NEED. Honestly, I fell for her when we became best of friends. After falling for her, I stood up and did everything I can do so that I will be given the honor to be called as her boyfriend. Of course, I am after the title. Yes, with the title. Because according to Chinese philosophy, we must act according to our title. For me, I would like to act the right way as her boyfriend. All I want is for her to be happy and to live the rest of my life with her. Of course, I can do it without the title. With or without the title, I am certain that I love her.

In love there is reciprocality. What does this means? It means that love has a give and take notion that when you give something, you will return something. Same as what we are doing, I care for her, I accept her, I trust her, I make her happy, I cherish her, I am honest to her, I respect her, I understand her, I am loyal to her, I am patient for her, I am obedient to her, I am open-minded for her and I love her. I don’t want her to be sad, to cry. All I do is to make her happy, to let her make her own decisions and to support her. Same as her, she does it for me too – that is reciprocality.

DEATH

            In philosophy, it is easy to explain something or express your thoughts if you experienced it already. With this topic, it is hard to reach. Anyway, we must try to learn all the possibilities in the world even if we do not experienced them at all.

            There were points in the phenomenology of death by Martin Heidegger. Death is the completion of life because it ends the life of a person. With death, a person loses potentiality to do something and is no longer there because he is no longer a being. A human being can do anything he wants and can think, while a dead person does not have these characteristics anymore.

            Every being has their end. There is no being without end. I have an end, you have an end and we have an end. Nothing in this world will remain. Everything will end because through end, it completes the essence of a human person. Relating to Hegel’s philosophy in his triadic movement, the thesis always contains the antithesis. For other philosophers, it is not true for blue to have an opposite of not-blue. But for Hegel, it is possible because through thesis, antithesis is born. There will be no antithesis if the thesis is not possible, and it is not possible for a thesis to have no antithesis.

            His thesis is the being, and antithesis is the nothing. There will be no nothing if there is no being, and being is impossible to have no nothing. For the unification of the two, the synthesis connects each other. The synthesis, now, is Becoming. Becoming is the process where the being will develop itself so that it will lead to its perfection.

            For example, a baby is born to his parents, then he or she will grow to childhood where he or she will play around with his or her playmates, giggle with them, play with them, fight with them, quarrel with them and enjoy with them. Then this child will turn into adolescence where he or she will try to know where he or she wants to go, what he or she wants to do, and to ask himself or herself what to do with his or her life. Here he or she will experience struggles in life and try to learn from these problems. Then, adulthood will follow. Here, he or she is now ready to apply for a job, and to have and live with his or her family until the time when he or she becomes a grandparent. Then, time will come, he or she will die. From being comes nothing.

In the process of triadic movement, we can see that it has a beginning and an end. It begins with being, then becoming, and ends with nothing. When it has being, it consists of the different characteristics of a being that can be present in the world and can be actively participating with other beings.

When these beings become nothing, its life is finally completed, completed in a way that his or her beingness came to its final goal, to be with God. When a being becomes nothing, the characteristics of a being will be removed. It loses its potentiality to do something, it can no longer be there, and it is impossible for it to exist.

Related to this is the authenticity of a being towards death. In this situation, a being accepts the fact that its existence has ended and can no longer be experienced by other beings. For example, my authenticity will rely in the way I face my fate. If I am going to die, I must accept it.

A while ago, I said that if there is thesis, there is also its opposite, the antithesis. If there is an authentic being, there is also an inauthentic being. This kind of being is a being that does not accept the fact that its existence will end already.

So, in our Christian doctrine, we must do what is good for the sake that it is good so that by the time when we reached our limit, it will be easy for us to accept our fate.

GOD

            We are Roman Catholic Christians and we believe that there is a Supreme Being that guides us every time and every day. And this Supreme Being is God. But, to know God and to know that there is some One who helps us, we must try to learn and understand His existence. His existence was explained by St. Thomas Aquinas through his five ways, his cosmological arguments.

            The five arguments are the: argument on motion, argument on causation, argument on contingency and necessity, argument on perfection, and the argument on the Intelligent Design.

            In the first argument, the argument on motion, I reflected that all things in the world are changing. There is nothing in the world that remains as it is. Of course it transfers from something to another something because everything has its potency to change. It is believed that the motion caused for this change is also caused by another thing before it was caused and before it caused another cause. For example, I am writing an essay now is caused that I opened the computer, and because of the cause that I need to pass this requirement for me to pass the subject. It is true but before that cause, there is also something that caused it to happen. Everything is caused by the successive motions and these successive motions by someone who does not need to be caused, and it is said and proved that God is the one who caused everything to happen. He is the prime mover.

            On the second argument, the argument on causation, it is similar to the first argument but the point here is that there must be something that must cause the other things to move. And that someone does not change that’s why He is not in this world. He is the ultimate cause of everything because there is nothing that causes Him to exist, and He is God.

            Reflecting on the third argument, the argument on contingency and necessity, I thought of things that they are all possible. It possible for me to pass the exam, it is possible for me to fail the subject, it is possible for me to come up with a beautiful term paper and so many possibles. Because of these possibles, we can say that there is someone who made things possible, it is God.

            On the fourth, the argument on perfection, we know that there are different categories in this world. In terms of beauty, we can say that there is ugliest, uglier, ugly, beautiful, more beautiful and most beautiful. But how can we say that we can tell these categories? Because of the fact that we have the idea that God is the most perfect Being and He is our basis why we have such categories.

            On the last argument, I’ve been thinking this when I was a little boy. How could there be someone who made these things beautifully and in order? The trees grow, bear fruits and die. The beings have their differences such as their thumb marks, face, DNA, characteristics, actions, way of moving or walking or standing and sitting. I also realized it in the game NBA 2K12 because in there, the players have different and unique way of shooting the ball. Another observation is why the planets never collide? There is only one answer; there is a Super Intelligent Designer who designed these things like these. And that Super Intelligent Designer is God.

            My faith is strong and I know that there is really a God. Now, my faith became stronger because at least I have the proofs.

LIFE

            I love myself and I want to take care of myself. We have our responsibility to take care of our life because it is given by God to us. The Supreme Being gave it to us Himself. We are given the chance to live our life so we need to grab the chance and live our life properly.

            From this moment, I could say that I want to live. I have my own plans for myself – to finish my course, to have a degree, to study masters and doctorate, to have my own family, and to find job for me to supply my family its needs. These are the reasons why I want to live. It is so happy to live with the people you love the most.

            But life is said to be absurd because even if we want to know the truth, it is hard for us to search for it and to understand it. Life is for us to continue living but it is also difficult to live if we do not understand our surroundings. What matters most is not the truth but by the fact that it is worth living. That is what Camus said.

            For us to understand the world, we must live in the world. We must learn things that occur in the world. We know that it is difficult but we must try to understand it. For example, it is easy to study a book because its contents don’t change, but what about the world? We know that the world is continuously changing that’s why we find it hard to understand.

            For example, a girl’s father told her to study hard so that she will find a good job, have her own family or go abroad. But when the girl finished her studies, her father will just tell her to stay so that she will able to support her parents.

            Difficult to understand it is but we must face it because it is the truth. All we need to do is to accept it and live our life happily with the ones we love.