THE DIFFERENT EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT AND PHILOSOPHY ATMOSPHERE BETWEEN FRANCE AND CHINA---- WHICH MAKES DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHY ACHIEVEMENT IN THE TWO CULTURE

When I read Pascal’s personal experiences and his philosophical works, a strange question is ringing in my mind: China has a lot of great thinkers, but nearly all of them stay at the stage of ideology and Confucianism. In a word, they don’t become influential philosophers in the world. Why does it happen?

Pascal has some similarities with Zhuangzi, who is the famous thinker in China from BC. 4^th to BC. 3^rd century. Even though they lived in totally different historical stage or cultural atmosphere, they had lots of similar thoughts on the world, lives and changes. One of those similarities is that, Zhuangzi thought all the things in the world are intangible, cosmos’s operation cannot be handle by people, real and illusion cannot be told, and he supported peripateticism for the attitude towards life and learning. However, why didn’t these great thinkers in China become influential towards the world, or made substantial contributions to the human beings?

I have following concepts after the learning of Pascal:

l  Philosophy and Natural Science

Through the achievements of Pascal, I find that philosophy is the conclusion of all kinds of subjects and knowledge, which is obviously shown in Pascal’s philosophical experiences. As one of the great philosopher, Pascal doesn’t just stay in the aspect of thought and ideology, but his philosophical achievements are based on learning, analyzing and even creating natural science. Therefore, philosophy becomes the development or conclusion of other subjects.

When we look around the cultural environment in ancient China, there was a huge lack of creative natural science atmosphere.

Pascal’s father is a tax officer in the city, which needs strong capacity in math. He has a very profound influence in Pascal’s childhood, and the math capacity becomes the foundation for his remarkable philosophical achievements. Pascal’s contributions to hydrostatics, particularly his experimentations with the barometer and his theoretical work on the equilibrium of fluids, were made public one year after his death. The development of probability theory is often considered to be the most significant contributions in the history of mathematics.

l  Faith & Religion

At the age of 23, Pascal started to read the works by Augustine, and he began to touch faith and religion. At first, he thought that god is a conception in philosophy, as time passed by, he found that when people felt sad for their guilty, philosophy could not comfort them, but for the people who had faith in god can be comforted even if they were lack of knowledge.

Pascal wrote in his works, the cognition towards god is from the sense of human beings, which is the confidence towards Christian but not logic. Human beings can’t prove the existence of god by their ration, but only through Christian.

I find that in the history of human beings, there are a lot of great philosophers who have strong belief towards religion. They build their lives on the solid Christian belief stone, but not on the floppy sand of philosophical theory.

However, in the long history of ancient China, religion didn’t become the social ideology all the time. The emperor and political order is the only ideology in this country, and the high authority always suppresses any kind of religion group and their related actions. Therefore, China always lacks the soil of religion and belief, which impedes their research of philosophy.

l  Thinking

Pascal once said, Man is a reed, the feeblest thing in nature, but he is a reed that thinks. As a great philosopher, Pascal paid high attention in thinking, which he thought was the most important factor constructing human beings. This is same when we look back at Descartes, who said the famous motto: I Think Therefore I am. Ever since Renaissance, thinking in philosophy is the permanent theme in Western culture. However, when we look at thinking in Ancient China even nowadays China society, all the people are hurrying up for their livings---- high salary, high social status, career, raising up children, and so on. Material, utility and restlessness make Chinese people lack the energy for deep thinking. In my perspective of view, it’s another way showing the lack of spirit and faith.

l  Basic Education

When I learn more about Great French Philosophers, I find that there is philosophical gene flowing in French people’s blood and companying their whole lives. From the beginning of primary school, French children start accepting philosophy education. They have the particular textbook of philosophy, and all the other subjects have the penetration of philosophy. As the matter of fact, the philosophy education in France schools is not aimed to cultivating philosophers, but for bringing up excellent French Residents. 

Reason, Predestination and Grace.

Reason, predestination and grace.. it seems that there is a word which does not belong and that goes clearly against the other two words as if they where in a 1vs 2 combat. Reason is the human capacity of logical and analytic thought which works in favor of the human raze, sometimes plotting in favor of good ends and sometimes in favor of evil ends. One can use reason in any way which better serves ones interests. Reason is the main human value which is undeniably in the top of the values hill for one simple reason, the human raze acknowledges this value and capacity as the differentiating factor from all the other animals in the reality as we have get the chance to know. Pascal, as a mathematician has experienced the good fruit of reasoning and uses it, through the structured construction of probability as a tool to analyze from a cold perspective the whole traditional concept of afterlife, from the knowledge he has acquired due to the fact that he has awaken into consciousness in a Judeo-Christian context.

Eternity implies infinite more time than finite time - First premise
Eternity exists - Probability
A bet on eternity, even if it is really improbable is the best bet. Eternal glory seems much more of a rewarding price if it is compared to finite glory.

This could possibly appear as a bet played from fear. However, could anyone really claim that he suffers from absolutely no fear of what happens after we die? If I had to bet on that one I probably take my chances. One can not reason in a purely objective and uninfluenced way. Now we have arrived bizarrely to the topic of predestination. Ones existence seems to be randomly determined by the context conditions one is born in. If one destroys the current of thought implanted by cultures tradition one does not arrive at a state of enlightenment in which no thought wonders through the vast extensions of ones mind, if that where the case one could not reconstruct anything out of nothing.

The word predestination comes from the greek word proorizo which means determined in advanced. All of our lives seemed to be determined in advanced by the fact that one has no saying in whether we want to awake into the living or not, one has no saying wether if he wants to be born rich or poor, christian or jewish, buddhist or minimalist. Even if we embrace Espinosa's philosophy of the collective current of thought that comes from behind us into our present and that only by the power of our unlimited and vigorous will we can make out of our constantly renewed and renewing present anything we want there is no way out of predestination. Espinosa's argumentation aims to exalt the idea of freedom and free will and simultaneously to fight against religious thoughts that were not first brought into the picture by Pascal, nor by the apostle Paul, and not even by the ancient greek tragedy of Oedipus. Reasoning from Espinosa one could say that men always make rational decisions in order to get in return the maximum amount of benefits. Also we could agree that men take decisions at the present, and that the decisions that someone opts for in the present may vary in function of previous experiences, in order to live again a victory or in order to avoid a failure. Following this order of ideas, if men do always take the best possible decision out of the deck of decisions they could perceive in an specific lapse of continuos time, when they reason, sense, acknowledge it is time to take a decision, then how is that we think that the future is not predestined if we have always been one step behind since the moment we awake into the living and took our first "conscious" decision  that started to through us into a path in which we will continue to make only one, the best decision, at every time.
(I hope you did get that one jejeje)
 

Predestination is something that has always been around and men have always dealt with this concept. It seems that reason and predestination have always been meant to be in the same package of words. I bet that this is because we are actually created in God's image.

Now, after my best possible process of decision making to opt for the best way I could share may thoughts on predestination, having in account the conditions that push me into writing with the threat of being late once again to class, we have arrived to the last topic, the Grace of God.

Warning!!!!

This will be hardcore gospel material.

Stop reading if you rationally arrive to the conclusion that is better for you to stop.



God, the only one that is and was able to create something out of nothing, which was not actually ever nothing, due to the fact that he has always existed, determined in advanced that we were going to be in this course together, that the human raze was going to choose to put him aside to undertake the conquest of being self-sufficient and autonomous and that because of this, death and evil was going to be created by Him and that the human kind will be confined to a evil nature in which from the very early ages of ones live would tend to opt for a current of thoughts that would make one acknowledge ones incapacity to comply the first, more abstract and more important of all the Law of God, of the order of things, to love God above anything and anything. How our we going to possibly be able to love God above anything if we do not even manage to love others and in some "weird" cases even ourselves.

The Law of God is there to give human kind the knowledge that they can not comply, consequently the knowledge of sin, the knowledge of being different to God regarding our nature; The Law is not there as a moral code someone should live in in order to go and live with God, because no matter how hard one tries to live by the Law one will never be able to do it by its own self sufficient means. (Galatians 3:10)

The Grace of God is that HE acknowledge that HE was responsible for his creation, and due to the fact that he is a God of justice someone had to pay for all the sins so HE decided, in advanced, that he was going to be the one paying for it, and that anyone that would recognize that only because of HIM we are able to go live with HIM, not because of our good deeds, and that only through ones addition to HIS victory over death, the product of sin, that had us prisoners, we are able to go live with him. The Grace is the gift of salvation nobody deserves but that we are all able acquired through Christ (GOD's) sacrifice. (Ephesians 2:1-10)

     
        Life Lessons From Our Endearingly Idiotic Friend, Candide


As I’m sure many of us are pleased to find as we read Candide, it makes a lot more sense than it did in high school. At the time, I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why my tenth grade English teacher seemed so eager for us to love this ridiculous adventure story. But in re-reading it, I realized I was giggling to myself like an idiot in the middle of the library, and thus there had to be some value in it. 

Through the rediscovery of Voltaire’s chef d’oeuvre we call Candide, I have found some valuable life lessons I hope to bring with me into my infinitely less exciting life’s adventure. 

In no specific order of importance: 

Your teacher’s philosophy shouldn’t necessarily be your own. Throughout this saga, it becomes evident that Candide’s absolute faith in Pangloss’s teachings were the source of his ridiculous naïveté. This idea that he lives in “the best of all possible worlds” and that “things cannot be other than they are”, leads Candide to accept and not question countless horrors over the course of his journey that he certainly should not have permitted. Therefore, I think it is important to take into consideration and mull over all that interesting information your teacher’s give you, but also to question it and formulate your own opinions on the matter. 

Things Change. Opinions should evolve with time. Pangloss’s undying optimism even in the face of the worst situations cannot, and should not be realistic. All the crazy happenings of life should subject one’s opinions to change and evolve over time. Having a set mindset will get you nowhere.“‘Well, my dear Pangloss,’ said Candide to him, ‘When You were hanged, dissected, whipped, and tugging at the oar, did you continue to think that everything in this world happens for the best?’ ‘I have always abided by my first opinion,’ answered Pangloss; ‘for, after all, I am a philosopher, and it would not become me to retract my sentiments; especially as Leibnitz could not be in the wrong: and that preestablished harmony is the finest thing in the world, as well as a plenum and the materia subtilis.’” (Chapter 28). 

Don’t let flattery get in the way  of reason. Just because two random guys call you a hero, it doesn’t mean you should blindly trust their Bulgarian king. This stupidity may lead you to a dungeon where you will subsequently get whipped 4,000 times. (Chapter 2)

Money Can’t Buy Happiness. It is when Candide comes across his fortune in Eldorado and appears to be somewhat financially stable for the time being that he seems to be the most unhappy. He becomes terribly aware of the negative aspects of humanity, and his unshaken optimism is truly put to the test. Furthermore, the Beatles had it right with “Can’t Buy Me Love”.

True fulfillment is achieved through hard work, plain and simple.  It isn’t until the very end of Candide that we see Voltaire’s view of true happiness. As Candide settles into a simple life and builds his garden, working on something he can control and get fulfillment out of, we are taught that sometimes it is more fulfilling to make things happen in your life instead of letting the supposed “best of all possible worlds” take it’s course. Cultivate your life the way you want it to exist, with a realistic and achievable perception of its course. Blind optimism will lead you astray, on a crazy adventure you don’t necessarily want, only to realize that once you recognize reality, you’ll understand what is really important. 

Aristocrats, Prenuptial Agreements, and Turkish Gardeners

From what I remember of learning about Voltaire in one of my freshman year philosophy classes was that he was a writer of Satirical work designed to poke fun at the aristocratic classes and all the idiocies of his time. The whole of Candide is strewn with satirical representations of Voltaire’s era, with several very insightful pieces of philosophical reasoning thrown in.  Although this was the second time I read Candide, I definitely appreciated Voltaires humor much more in this second reading than the first when I was a foolish freshman and didn’t understand what Voltaire was getting at. One of my favorite lines from the book comes after Candide and Martin have had spent the evening with the Pococurante in Venice. Candide has admired all the pleasant things the Pococurante has in his home, from pretty women, to beautiful music, to an extremely vast collection of literature. All of which the Pococurante has dismissed as vile, boring, or in general not worthy of attention. As Candide and Martin are leaving the Pococurante’s home Candide Remarks:

“Oh what a surprising man! Said Candide, still to himself; What a prodigious genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him.”

I think that with this line Voltaire is poking fun at the aristocracy of his time. Living in the mid 18^th century, much of the landed nobility did absolutely nothing with their time and money other than spend it satisfying their desires and living in ‘high society’. They were able to read so much philosophy, listen to so much music, and have so many dalliances with beautiful women that things that were indeed interesting and joyful no longer gave them pleasure. The Pococurante is the epitome of the aristocrat who has indulged in so many pleasurable things that they are no longer pleasurable to him. He is so well read, and has encountered so much great philosophy and literature that he is now simply above it all. I can practically see the plump noblemen chortling with admiration at the vain aristocrat among them who is so wise that he holds everything in distain. A prodigious genius indeed!  

This is a problem as much in our time as it was in Voltaire’s. I think that there absolutely is such a thing as too much of a good thing, as constantly experiencing a certain pleasure eventually takes the fun out of it. Think of the stories you hear of incredibly rich people having all the money, boats, cars and things they could ever want and still being incredibly unhappy. It is important to live a life of moderation, indulging in pleasurable things every so often, perhaps even frequently, but not so frequently that they loose all significance or enjoyment.

Another line from the book that I liked which has to do with the topic of being wealthy was from when Candide fell ill upon entering Paris:

“As he wore a diamond of an enormous size on his finger and had among the rest of his equipage a strong box that seemed very weighty, he soon found himself between two physicians whom he had not sent for, a number of intimate friends whom he had never seen, and who would not quit his bedside, and two women devotees who were very careful in providing him hot broths.”

Here Voltaire is ridiculing the shallowness of humans, and how they will attach themselves to someone and pretend to care about them simply because they are rich. One of my friends told me that one of the reason celebrities so often marry other celebrities is because they don’t have to worry about another celebrity marrying them simply because of their fame or money. They often have to worry when meeting ordinary people that the person who expresses interest in them, isn’t actually interested in them for their personality, and for who they are on the inside, but for their fame and who they are on the outside. I think that Voltaire’s observation about the shallowness of many people is as applicable today as it was in his time, and is a fact of life that will likely continue on as long as there are rich and famous people in the world. Hell, worrying about someone marrying you for your money was such a big issue that lawyers invented prenuptial agreements.

One final line that I liked from Candide was the very last line of the book where Candide says “let us cultivate our garden.” I think that what Voltaire was trying to say with this, is that in the end of things you just have to live your life. All these horrible things happen to Candide, and Pangloss and all the other characters in the story, but at the end of things none of it matters much as they all end up in the same place. In a similar way, there is a great deal of philosophical discussion within the book, from Leibnitz’s optimism to the Manichaeism of Martin, and everyone seems to have an opinion about who has had the worst life, or how one should look at the world. But in the end, the most content and happy person in the book is the Turk Candide and company meet at the very end of the story who sits at home cultivating his garden with his family, and who cares not a fig about the world outside his own. I think that what Voltaire means by his line “let us cultivate our garden” is that despite all the horrible things that go on in life, despite all the great philosophical ideals and theories about how things work, at the end of the day, the only thing that a person can do is to go on living their life.

Pascal's Wager Reanalyzed

Well at this point we should all be pretty familiar with Pascal’s wager. Essentially, Pascal used his mathematical background to construct a probabilistic proof to why it makes sense to believe in god.

A quick recap for those of you who aren’t math whizzes: an Expected Payoff is used in probability theory to determine what is the best course of action to take and is calculated by multiplying the payoff if an event occurrs by the likelihood it occurs. For instance, if I told you I were to give you $10 if I flipped a coin and it landed on head but I would give you $100 if it landed on tails your expected pay off would be $55. {Pay of event 1}*{likelihood of event 1}+{Pay of event 2}*{likelihood of event 2} = 10*.5+100*.5=55.

Pascal approached the idea of God in a similar way. He makes many assumptions, which can’t be avoided in this situation, to draw the conclusion that the expected payoff from believing in god vastly outweighs the expected payoff from not believing in god. To look at it mathematically here are the two expected pay offs. But first we need to make some assumptions.

Assumption 1: God’s existence is like flipping a coin, 50% chance he exists, 50% chance he doesn’t exist.

Assumption 2: The payoff for living a life of debauchery would be 10 pascalians (a unit of measurement for amount of dopamine released by a person throughout his/her life), but it would be -1000 if God existed, as they would spend the rest of their life in hell

Assumption 3: The payoff for living a life of faith would be -10 during their living life, but would be +1000 during the rest of their, which they spend in heaven.

So now let’s take a look at the expected payoffs for the two courses of actions, spending your life helping the less fortunate through good deeds or spending your life helping the less fortunate through funding drug cartels and strippers.

Life of Debauchery: {pay off god when doesn’t exist}*{likelihood good doesn’t exist}+{pay off when god does exist}*{likelihood god exists}

=10*.5-1000*.5= -495

Ok, not great. Let’s check out scenario #2.

Life of Faith: {pay off god when doesn’t exist}*{likelihood good doesn’t exist}+{pay off when god does exist}*{likelihood god exists}

=-10*.5+1000*.5 = 495

Well, looks like Pascal was right. Probabilistically speaking, wayyyy better to just believe in God and take your chances.

Well now that we know we should believe in God to get into Heaven let’s take a closer look at the fine print of getting to Heaven. Hmmm, well it appears that things are bit more complicated than how Pascal made them out to be, turns out that there are roughly 4,200 religions. So which God do we believe in? Well, looks like it’s back to the drawing board. Let’s try this expected pay off thing again with this new information in mind. But first, two new assumption needs to be made:

Assumption 4: God is equally as likely to be the god of any religion (50% he exists divided by 4,200)

Assumption 5: These religions heavens are mutually exclusive (I mean come on, it's God, he’s all knowing. You’re not going to show up to the pearly gates having lead your life as a Christian and then be let in when you find out God’s Zeus because of some loophole where certain aspects of Christian life over lapped with aspects of Greek polytheistic life.)

Life of Debauchery: {Chance God doesn’t exist}*{Payoff of life of debauchery}+{Chance God does exist}*{Payoff of Hell}

.50*10+.50*-1000= -495

Life of Faith: {Chance God doesn’t exist}*{Payoff of life of faith}+{Chance God does exist and you chose the right religion}*{Payoff of Heaven}+{Chance God does exist and you chose the wrong religion}*{Payoff of Hell}

.50*-10+.00012*1000+49.99988*-1000= -50,004

Well, looks like chances are we’re spending the remainder of our lives in Hell anyways. Might as well get those extra 10 Pascalians why you’re still on Earth and lead a life of debauchery.

Of course, many assumptions have been made here and you could argue that by changing these assumptions you change the outcome. But any argument that discredits the math done above will also discredit Pascal’s math because his logic too is based on assumptions. 

Removing the numbers Pascal essentially says the outcome of believing in God and having him be real is so much better than the outcome of not believing in God and having him not be real that you should play to the odds of God existing. Removing my numbers, I am essentially saying there are so many Gods that the chances of you believing in the right one are so low that you are probably going to hell anyways and should enjoy your time on earth. 

I don't believe that the above math is substantial evidence to say that it probabilistically makes more sense to not believe in God; but, I certainly do believe that it is substantial evidence to say you can’t decide whether or not to believe in God based on probability. Using the concepts of probability Pascal proved you should believe in God, using the concepts of probability I proved you shouldn't believe in God. By definition this proves that you can’t use probability to prove whether or not to believe in God.  

Pascal's fear

In OF THE NECESSITY OF THE WAGER, Pascal persisted in a question, “Why am I so limited? ” And he described the condition of men as such an image, “ A number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope.”

It’s different from the ordinary impression of scientists living in the year of Enlightenment. He seemed to be very anxious about the fact that human beings are not immortal. This kind of fear even destroyed his interest in this life. This might because he was a scientist, and what he feared of is not the death, or the pain we would suffer in hell, but the unknown.

   According to Pascal, here might be two preconditions. Self-realization is the basis of individual happiness and the cognition of the outside world. At the same time, as a part of human dignity, rationality drives people to seek for the ultimate truth while it serves as the most reliable cognition method. People in Pascal’s age believed that they should and could find out the truth. According to the science revolution, they did make it partially. However, the more they discovered, the more astonished we are at the limitlessness of the world, and we inevitably realized the limit imposed on us, even when it came to rationality itself. It aggravated the everlasting doubt whether we can even realize ourselves. What have been mentioned above may lead to a dangerous conclusion: rationality could lead us nowhere, and our development, our dignity, may be nothing. “Being independent” is just a dream. We are still the slaves of something unknown.

   This is why Pascal chose to believe in the existence of God. Although he was a Christian, his definition of God is not confined to the Christian conception. It is more like a symbol of an ultimate answer, and his explanation can be put on Allah, the Buddha, and any other god living in the legends. What leads him to the God may simply be the habit or tradition of culture. He didn’t care what the God is. The only thing he needed to secure is that there IS an answer. Then he could continue his pursuit of it with the confidence that what he did was not in vain.

   His insistence that God exists doesn’t conflict with reason, and in fact he was not alone. For example, all the American astronauts landing on the moon finally devoted themselves to religion. You have been on the moon. Then what else has meaning to you? What are you to this vast universe? Does our science have any meaning when the world is so limitless? When they stood on the moon, the astonishment dominating them may be the same as what Pascal felt when he was faced with the mystery of nature, even the development of science has gone to a different level. And maybe we cannot escape from this kind of fear.