[MUSIC] Hi. Duck-Joo Lee. Last week, we talk about the fact that we copy the world and that we are living within that copied world. We think we are living within the true world, but it is very important that we understand we live in the copied world. This idea was not just proposed by me, but was already discussed by many philosophers. In this class, we will study how the philosophers have recognized our world. Because the Western philosophers tried to observe our world analytically and clearly with their own comprehension. It would be meaningful to study then. I will introduce three modern philosophers in this class. They are Immanuel Kant a philosopher who emphasized "Enlightenment" ideology. "Life philosopher" Arthur Schopenhauer and "Analytic philosopher" Ludwig Wittgenstein. We will begin with Immanuel Kant, who's one of well-known Western philosophers. Before Kant, if we interpreted and expressed things as it was then we accept the interpretations as the truth. However, if we interpreted things differently than how it was, then we could not accept and call the interpretations false. But Kant argued that it is impossible to accept the things in the external world as it is. Kant changed the criteria of truth from the things in the external world, (thing-in-itself), to the subject of our cognition, (the-world-of-appearances). It was revolutionary to change from the things in the external world to the subject of our recognition as the criteria of the truth. It is called the Kant's Copernican Revolution. This Kantian theory proposed the change from Geocentric theory that all the star and the Sun revolves around the Earth (The Ptolemaic System) to Heliocentric theory that Earth revolves around the Sun. (The Copernican System). Kant hoped to accomplished in Metaphysics, the same sort of the shift in perspective that Copernicus accomplished in astronomy. In other words, rejecting the traditional view that our knowledge conformed to objects in the world. Kant held the belief that objects in the world conform to our knowledge, so things in the world are not the primary objects, but secondary objects which are constituted by our mind(subject). The mind(subject) is the primary thing (a prior), and the things in the world are the secondary constituted things. It is the key point of Kant's of philosophy that our cognition is possible only through the combinations of sensibility and understanding. He started a revolution in philosophy by examining how the mind constructed our knowledge of the objective world and limits thereof. The external world, he writes, provides those things that we sense. But it is our mind that processes this information and gives it order, allowing us to comprehend it. Since human individuals have all different experiences, they cannot but recognize the things differently. It is natural. Observation by Kant is the exactly the same as what we find out through self-reflection: we recognize the things differently. We already knew through self reflection that our minds are the criteria of evaluation while living. Arthur Schopenhauer view of the world is the same as one of the Kant. Schopenhauer started with the proposition that "Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung; The World is my presentation" in his book "World as Will and Presentation(Idea)" published in 1818 and amplified in 1844. And then developed it 'blinder will; blind Will'. These propositions are the key points of his philosophy. This world 'Presentation' (Idea) is the same or similar word 'Appearance' in Kant's philosophy and 'Will', is the same or similar word, 'Thing-in-itself'. As Kant explained, the world that we perceived is a 'Presentation' of objects in our own minds. So the world, which is constituted by our minds, is the world of our life and experiences, not the world which is the original world. This world, however, is not perceived by us. This world is governed by the 'blind Will to Life'. Therefore, the world as a 'Presentation' is not of real world. but the real world is the world as 'Will'. So the essence(nature) of the world is not the 'Presentation', but the 'Will to Life', which is not understood by us. Schopenhauer thinks that the world of a 'Thing- in-itself' is nothing more than the world of 'blind Will'. The blind will in his philosophy is not the usual expression, 'will', but the origin of the life and the essence(nature) of all things. Because of this blind will makes all things possible. Human will is the blind will to life and this will is irrational and impulsive. This blind will to life wanders from place to place to look for the goal, which is not knownable by us. Therefore we suffer from the life without goal. He realized that freedom from blind will is the only way to be free from the dreadful pain of life. The essence of Schopenhauer's theory was that there are two aspects of self, the self as it appears as an object of a perception and the self as a manifestation of a will. Conflict between individual wills is the cause of a continual strife and frustration. The world therefore is a world of unsatisfied wants and of pain. Schopenhauer's world of unsatisfied wants is well recognized by our previous life graph also. We already knew Kant's observation of things and Schopenhauer's thought of unsatisfied world through the practice of self-reflection. It is remarkable that we could understand the essence of a philosopher's thoughts from this course. The another western philosopher in the mainstream is Ludwig Wittgenstein. He was chosen by Time weekly magazine as the most great philosopher in the 20th century. His philosophy was defined as 'Linguistic Turn'. He changed philosophy based on 'reason' and the philosophy based on 'language'. He thought that reason is expressed by language. Therefore if the language is analyzed properly reason can be understood properly. Ludwig Wittgenstein thus ponders how language related to the world, what were the limits of language and what this all meant for the philosopher? He thought the traditional philosophy have problems because of misunderstanding of a logic of language. What he made a famous is his 'Picture theory of language'. He concluded that language had a logic structure that accurately reflected the structure of reality. Language is all that are propositions, and proposition is consist of the elementary proposition which is not analyzed anymore. These propositions are the pictures of the world which is consisted of atomic facts. Later he found the contradictions in his 'Picture theory of language'. He differently concluded that language is a game; -full of tricks, jokes and subtleties-, the meaning of which was derived from social context as much as logical analysis. After realizing the diversity of language, he introduced a concept of 'language-games'. He thought the language is not the substantial picture and it is regarded as instrument to carry out the diverse goals in the human life. It can be so because that it is based on the 'form of life'. That is, the language expressed the 'form of life' of a human living in the world of the language. Wittgenstein has a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering in Manchester, United Kingdom at 1908. He was fascinated that theory and experiment agreed very well, showing results of aircraft, which is heavier than air, flying.
He changed into language-games based upon real life. He also became interested in the foundations of mathematics, which was the basis of theory. Later, he probably wanted to challenge an ultimately unsolved the real problem in mankind, which is philosophy. His picture theory of language based upon his propositions reflecting the structure of reality. And later, he changed it to language-games based upon real life. The above three Western philosophers in the mainstream had their own ways of thinking, but the common thing was that people cannot recognize the world as it is and that they recognized the world based upon their own experiences. This concept is already mentioned when we talk about Kant and Schopenhauer. Ludwig Wittgenstein also tried to describe the world as it is by the picture theory of language. But later it was changed into language-game to describe the real world because he proposed that the language is formatted based upon the social context as much as logical analysis. What we have done are self-observations of the world. What you have recognized so far through self-reflection is that the thoughts you have recalled in the previous life do not disappear but remain in your mind. What you have observed things are based upon your individual interpretations. In other words, people copy the world and live within the copied world of their own mind, which is not the real world. Matrix described the world as a prison of the mind. Edward Young started his world as the copied world. Therefore, living is a pain, not happy and not always satisfied. If you have any questions, contact us anytime. We would like to discuss how to go about getting out of the copied world and suggest a method. Also, we should try to live in the ideal way. Next class we will discuss about our life from the viewpoint of modern neuroscientist. The neuroscientist and the brain engineer understand the principles and structure of a brain in the processing high levels of information. They study the technology which implement the mechanics of brain function in the real world to enable intelligent interactions of the artificial system. They will provide the scientific evidence in how we recognize the world. So far what we try to emphasize is that we are not living in the real world. This was discussed through many ideas and theories presented by educators, psychologists, philosophers and the movies. Because we are not living in the real world, we didn't know how to fulfill our goals and also could not achieve success. We tend to recognize this clearly through the practice of self-reflection. Please keep self-reflecting diligently. See you next class.
