Dr Neville Buch
I have yet again come to free thought in a serious way. A stream of consciousness writing. I am bored. It is not as if there are no tasks which could fill time-space. But I can’t be excited to work. It is the blues of today’s philosopher: why bother? Each person is the author of their thoughts, and purpose is the driving force. Until. Until we each realise that our mundane activities are there out of boredom: eat, drink, sex, write, and even conversations, until we sleep because there is nothing more to do.
Yes, this is not life and certainly it is not most of life. It is often confined to the quiet hours of the night, when we are bored with the visual appetite of the screen entertainment. I am bored with drama, mystery, comedy: it is not just funny anymore. Boredom afflicts some more than others. Some have access to many friends that they can lose themselves, and are not troubled by philosophers’ mundane concerns. The saving grace for philosophers is companionship, and when there are no companions (to be had), there is the hope in Aristotle’s promise of genuine friendship.
Life can, at times, be empty, even for the philosopher. Indeed, the philosopher contemplates ideas of the void. Each person exists until death. This is why existentialism is so wonderful. The comfort for the philosopher is, to say in the emptiness, “I exist, therefore I am not dead.” I may only feel dead, but none who are alive can really say what that feels like. Indeed, it is likely to be no feeling. At this point, non-philosophers may dismiss the thought as all nonsense. Yes, we have a philosophy of nonsense, non-sense. These are thoughts which are not sensual; sensual as those activities listed above to kill boredom. It is pure thought. And that too kills boredom. Indeed, finally in reasoning each will come to reason that “pure thought” provides the passage to mental flourishing; that tell us that life is worth living; even as the rest of the body languishes. Now, to clarify. Pure thought is only the start of the mental process. Pure thought is an idea that pops into the head, particularly in the process of free thought. No academic constraints, such as footnoting, endnotes, and bibliographies. Nevertheless, these thoughts have to go somewhere, and in free thought, past research come to mind. We each have schemas of the mind that idle away.
From Pure Thought the mind goes to a pocket of contextual thinking. Existentialism is a start but there are categories of the mind, whether true or false, which play on (and in) our judgement. This is the intellectual history from Kant onwards. The thinking is complex for everyone, and the only advantage that the philosopher has is the capacity to map these thoughts. By mapping thoughts comprehensively, judgement can be made true or false.
It leads me to a question that excites me. Finally, boredom is killed (again). The question is why are not others, tonight, excited about the dynamic of cognition, such as to have a genuine conversation? It would seem, to simple me, that judgement begins in prejudice with the opportunity for revaluation. Attitudes, the reinforcement of belief can be challenge. The question of values is given rise, another revaluation. I then think what have I excluded and included in my thoughts. It seems to me that this is a wonderful method of thinking, and I don’t understand why it does not excite others, such as to start a genuine conversation (not a boring conversation).
I started as a free thought experiment to kill boredom, and arrived at a challenge. I believe that the experiment will be a success if a conversation becomes anew. And then each will not be bored.
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A.I. had nothing to do with this short piece of writing. It was all human free thought.
Neville Buch.
Featured Image: Monty Python and Local Free Thought.
Neville Buch
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