Stop. Motion. Sledding.

Mark, Gracie, Nathan, and I had a grand old time on New Year's Eve day. We went sledding on the only one (man-made) hill in Rochester, IN. Love it.

It's Complicated.

No, this is not a post intended to review Meryl Streep's new blockbuster hit (joke).
Its not too complicated, even based on the commercials, to know that that one isn't really worth my time.

But, there are some things that are really complicated. Such as:

1. When you are walking outside in the freezing cold, and have forgotten your gloves, where do you put your hands? You could leave them in the cold, or you could put them in your pocket. It may seem like an easy choice, but consider, also, the ice on the ground. If you fall you need your hands--and they are not easily accessible when they are hidden in your pockets.

2. (And the real reason for this post, inspired by today's post-spanish class events) Who you are, versus who other people think you are. It, at first glance, doesn't seem like a complicated problem. I, after all, am the only one with access to my mind, and thus, a full analysis of it. How much of who I am is what resides in my mind, though? It can't be all of it. Though I may be the only with access to the inside of me, I am also the only one without access to visual or aural perception of myself from without. While motivations and desires (which exist somewhere outside the physical) are key in comprising who we are, it must also be said that many of these thoughts/beliefs/motivations, are not really that real unless incarnated. Once they become incarnate, we are no longer their only perceiver, others can perceive and interact with them. While others might be able to perceive these actions/manifestations/incarnations, this is not directly correlated to a correct appraisal of motivations/thoughts/desires that gave birth to said actions/manifestations/incarnations. [Such causes become more clear, however, in people whose actions seem to follow a discernible pattern, coherently interacting with other motivations, causing correlated action, in different areas of their life. So, it seems that we are the only ones that can understand, with certainty why it is that we do things--or can we? To some extent, probably, and yes, probably better than those around us, however, this may take a higher view of human mental life than I would like to assume. Often (and i think this is biblical) if we aren't aware of the warring passions in our minds, and even if we are, it can become overwhelmingly confusing to discern specific motivations and correlate them to specific actions. It takes work, like most complicated things.

So.

Today we tried to work to a better understanding of ourselves. And by "we" I refer to Mark, Jordan, and Steve. We went through the Strengths Finder 2.0 book (using it more for our own purposes than testing purposes), looking through the list of 30-some adjectives or "strengths" in order to help further identify the gaps in our own lives between perceived motivation from within and perceived motivation from without. There were some discrepancies, not many, but instead of discouraging me by showing how much people, even people around me, don't understand me, it served to be a cool time of encouragement--like a "hey annie, you might not think that this is you, and even if it is not natural to you, you do this, which means this, and it is helpful in this way," or a "hey, annie, you may lack any (or "annie" if that joke is thrown out) empathy, but you are working on it, and we appreciate you for the strengths you do have, and we aren't gonna throw you out because you suck at identifying with peoples hurts."

That is cool. I'm pretty sure that it's part of being the body of Christ--reflecting back to one another the characteristics we have been gifted with, helping one another see where each excels, and where each falls short(of the glory of God), and loving each in either case. This also might be a part of loving God with our mind--the pursuit of understanding Him, through understanding who He created us to be.

Its complicated, but good.

{compulsory}

Its the new year....I have to write a blog post. Everyone else is.
{Maybe I should make a new year's resolution to be less of a conformist}

-a half hour later-
I literally thought forever(a half hour) about what I could write.

I just can't think meaningfully about my life in years, or months, or weeks, or days.
So I won't.
{New Year's resolution: fulfilled}

What do philosophy majors do?

This.
This is a paper for my metaphysics class. You probably won't want to read the whole thing. You might. It shouldn't be too confusing, except that my writing skills are not quite honed. I'm just putting it here for posterity's sake. We all know how often hard drives crash these days.

Enough. Here it is--

All is Flux: What Change Means for the Persistence of Personal Identity

Change, the becoming different of certain particulars, has posed no small problem in philosophy throughout time. It would seem that “to be” would mean to remain the same, thereby maintaining the same “being,” and persisting in identity. Quickly though, we are posed with a problem when an entity that possesses “being” is “becoming” something else by change of some property. We are left with a few different options to explain such a phenomenon. We can deny change all together; but this option seems counterintuitive, as this discussion would be irrelevant if change wasn't evident all around us. Or, we can affirm that change occurs and that because of this, nothing persists in its identity; but here again, by merely examining this problem over a long period of time, we affirm ability to conceive of, at least, our own existence as persisting mentally. We can explain away change in many different ways to show that the identity of anything with an essence, a mind, or a memory can persist. But, in this paper, I would like to go a step further than this mere explaining away, and explore the paradox of change in light of the Aristotelian notions of material, final, and efficient causation, and its potential to not only destroy persistence of personal identity, but instead, to allow a being to step into a fuller identity.
One of the primary “paradoxes of change” comes in a series of questions about the nature of “Locke's Socks.” In this paradox, socks, and not persons, are the subject, making the problem simpler, but nevertheless, providing a principle that can be abstracted. John Locke wonders about whether, when his sock develops a hole, it is the same sock if he patches it. He wonders further, if this process were to continue until all the material of the sock was entirely replaced, would the sock, lacking all of the original material, be the same sock? Does its identity persist despite lack of identical material substance? I think that in order to “answer” these questions we need to ask another question in response: Can anything be “itself” when it is not fulfilling its purpose? It seems clear that a sock is intimately tied to its purpose, and thus is more itself when it is patched. In Aristotelian terms, this purpose is a “final cause,” the end for which a thing was created. Thus, the sock's “being” is found in fulfillment of that purpose. This not to say that what it is made of, in Aristotelian terms, its “material cause” is unimportant, but to say that materials do, in all cases, deteriorate. This seems to be a reason to assert, to all material causes, the property of deterioration or change, leaving us unsurprised when deteriorating material properties take away the ability to fulfill a purpose.
Upon further reflection, it seems that change is a property that resides above and within the materials themselves, existing as a meta-property. And purpose, or final causation, is a property that we ascribe, by mere creation, to all things, a kind of teleological meta-property. The issue, and where the paradox seems to lie, is where these two meta-properties conflict, the point at which change or deterioration runs against an entity's ability to accomplish its final cause. A decision must be made about whether we consider the teleological property supersedes an entity's deterioration, in this case, a sock's deterioration.
When we attempt to apply what we have learned from the sock to our experience as human beings, we find that the problem becomes much more complicated. Besides a difference in final cause, the sock's situation is distinct from the human person's situation in that for the person there is a conscious volition, whereas the sock, and how its identity will persist, are the conscious choice of not the sock, but the wearer of the sock. It is here that the sock analogy diverges from the true subject of this paper, the persistence of personal identity.
Taking care to be thorough, and fair, we will present this paradox of identity with the human person as the subject of inquiry. Human persons, like socks, possess, at least, the two causes we have spoken of thus far, material and final. The socks, like the human persons, possess a third Aristotelian “cause,” the “efficient cause,” or creator, though this cause is less important when we discuss the sock because of the wide range of efficient causes for the wide range socks we might encounter in the world. It is also important to note that the despite this diversity of socks we find in the world, the final cause of a sock is much more widely agreed upon, making it easier to diagnose a view on how to weigh the teleological property and its intersection with its material meta-property of change in the sock's persistence of identity, though even that is, by no means, a simple task.
With these differences in mind, we will begin to work out a view of identity for human persons. We acknowledge that humans change, sometimes as a result of personal volition and action, sometimes as a result of material deterioration, or sometimes as a result of intervening outside causes. There are, unlike the socks, many ways that a person can change, many of them being immaterial or mental. But, like with the socks, personal material causes will naturally change, according to their meta-property of deterioration or change, which is as persistent as the materials themselves. And before considering other changes that may happen less naturally, or without conscious choice, we must decide on the teleological meta-property of human beings, because, like the socks, whether or not change conforms with a human person's final cause is a determining factor in how personal identity persists. And here there are a variety of highly debated options, but, as with all other material entities, I assert that there is a final cause to the human person, something that many would not do, and that even further, this final cause emanates from the efficient cause, or creator, the God of the Christian Bible, which is, again, one more large step in a direction many would not take. However, on Aristotle's view, the burden of proof is on those who would want to rid his system of final and efficient causes as they pertain to the human person. I will move forward asserting that these causes do not only exist, but highly inform personal identity and its persistence over time.
Thus far I have ascribed to the human person an efficient cause, the God of the Bible; a final cause, or teleological meta-property, found in the purposes of the efficient cause; a material cause, the stuff human persons are made of; and the meta-property of change or deterioration effecting material cause (which may or may not be all material, depending on one's view, but is a discussion outside the scope of this paper). When this point was reached in the analysis of the sock's identity, the teleological meta-property, that a sock would insulate a person's foot, and the meta-property of deterioration of material cause, which caused the sock to have holes, were pointed out as conflicting meta-properties. If the teleological meta-property is seen as most important, then the sock retains its identity, even when patched, and perhaps moves even closer to its original identity when the patch is applied. This patching can even be seen as a reversal of the material deterioration meta-property, a material reclamation property, acknowledging that the material is merely a means to a fulfillment of purpose. However, if the material deterioration meta-property is seen as preeminent, then when it is patched the sock loses its identity. It is also important to note that even without the patch, a sock with holes in it will have an identity devoid of purpose in the end since, even though it is the “same” sock because it has stayed true to it's meta-property of deterioration, it can no longer be the material between foot and shoe, so any clinging onto a strictly material deterioration meta-property as distinct from the teleological meta-property is a denial of persistence of purposeful identity. When we begin to apply this to the human person we see a similar dilemma, where do we place identity? Which of these meta-properties will win out?
For the Christian, it seems that the material cause is quite important. In scripture, an emphasis is placed on the body, mind, and soul—all components that “materially” (this word is used loosely) comprise a human person. It is important, however, to note that in the majority of cases, when scripture speaks to these material causes, it pairs them with efficient and final causes as well. In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul states, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” He speaks of the material cause, the body, as subject to the final and efficient causes, honoring God and His purposes with the material cause. Paul goes farther, in Romans 12:1-2, when he urges the people “to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Not only is the body subject to this teleological meta-property, but so too with the mind—both are subjugated to the will of God. The whole of scripture speaks to this truth. Man, who is separated from God, is deteriorating on a number of levels, his material cause is subject to the fall, to the meta-property of deterioration. This, for many, is a defining property, and thus, their identity “persists” by a natural deterioration meta-property.
For many, the deterioration of their human mind and soul is something they are not aware of (though most are quite aware of bodily deterioration), and in the search to find and assert a final and efficient causation, people create their own teleological meta-properties to cope with the meta-property of deterioration—as if that is something that can be done, man not having created himself. For the Christian, the problem of deterioration is no less of a problem, but the Christian person, acknowledging the deterioration, also acknowledges a higher meta-property, a teleological meta-property, rooted outside of himself in his final and efficient causes. He asserts the existence and importance of the material cause in one's identity as it conforms to a “renewal,” taking the meta-property of deterioration and flipping it on its head, allowing life and purpose-giving change, in the mind and soul, hoping for this same bodily renewal after death. On the Christian view, the final cause, God, and the efficient cause, his purposes, directly oppose the human material causes, which have fallen out of accord with the former two causes. Paul bemoans this fact in Romans 7:22-24 saying, “For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” The answer, for Paul, and other Christians is found in the person of Christ, who bridged this meta-property gap, and allowed us to say that “In [God, our Final Cause] we live, and move, and have our being.” It is because of Christ that a Christian may not only persist in identity only on the basis the property of deterioration, but, align his material cause with the pursuit of his final cause, often called sanctification, resulting in an even fuller identity.

Excuses, excuses. and pardons.

I think that we don't make enough excuses for people.

Christ gave up his life to pardon all, including the ones nailing Him to the cross. He did this unconditionally, He did this though He didn't deserve it, He did this even though we didn't deserve it, He did it knowing full well that many would not accept or even acknowledge His sacrifice, He did all the work, not expecting us to do anything, He, alone paid the price for things that He didn't do.
He took blame, and excused us from it, he pardoned us from it.

Where, in our lives, do we make excuses for the life and death of Jesus not being the focus? Where do we not make excuses for other people, like we excuse ourselves? We have been taught, many of us, since we were young, that “[We] are Special.” Max Lucado wrote a book about it. We are convinced of it. And honestly, we are. God loves us so much that He sent His son to be our excuse, our pardon. We have been taught that we are special enough for that. We, thus, end up loving ourselves like that. Which, is by no means a bad thing. We make excuses for ourselves all day long. We pardon ourselves, attributing failure to a bad environment, or a slip of the tongue. But, when it comes to other people, we are quick to blame mistakes on intrinsic motivators. So, if I say something mean to someone, I make an excuse for myself, but if someone else says something mean to me, I don't allow them such an excuse, instead, I blame it on all the malice in their heart. In psychology, this phenomenon is called the attribution theory.

We get so caught up in receiving love or giving it to ourselves (in the form of excuses), that we fail to remember that the love we have received in the person of Christ, calls us to be the bearers of that love, giving as we have received. In the same way we have received pardon, we are to pardon others, whether they deserve it or not. This not to say that Christ died as an act of making all the bad things that we had done perfectly acceptable, but instead, that he died that his love might cover a multitude of sins, making us perfectly acceptable.

Perhaps this is what "loving others as we love ourselves" means. I love myself enough to give myself excuses. Loving others might mean excusing others in the same way I allow myself to be excused, forgiving as I have been forgiven.

Katherine Lynn and Alexandra Jane

The moment of my arrival in St. Louis, Missouri cannot come fast enough. The two women who inhabit the title of this blog post may be the reasons why.

My life isn't full of many people who have known "Duration-Annie." Many people know "Little kid-Annie," "Westminster-Annie," "Sophomore-year Annie," "Homeschool-Annie," and "Taylor University-Annie," which are all, arguably, highly interesting and influential parts of "Duration-Annie," though, each "Section-Annie" loses some of its importance without experience of the other "Section-Annie's."

All this to say, the dear girls I am about to see over break know more than one "Section-Annie," and Miss Stipanovich knows just about all of them.

These are important people to have in our lives, I think. Personal history, like other history, is hard to make real to people without their having experienced it firsthand.

See you tomorrow my lovies.

WHAT IS GOING ON?

I am currently writing a paper about the sociological effects of the evolution of communication technology, culminating with a discussion on online social networking (of which i am, currently, partaking in, as i write down my thoughts on this blog to help create a sense of interconnectedness of ideas and communal consciousness). So, I was doing some "research" on facebook a couple minutes ago (no really, it was research), and I was looking, sick to my stomach, at old high school friends' pages. Keep in mind that I went to a private Christian school.

I have come to two alternative, but not mutually exclusive, conclusions from today's research:

1) Something needs to change about the system in which these students were educated. Someone needs to give youth the understanding of a metanarrative that will allow for some meta-perspective to reduce rationalization of the silliness in which they are STILL engaging.

and/or

2) Something needs to change about the way communication technology is used. Because, and this is possible, the things written on their facebook walls may not really reflect the actual occurrences and perspectives in their life. However, what else are we to assume? We can, at least, feel certain that what is written and communicated via their facebook pages is an accurate reflection of the extent to which they use facebook and their views on what can and should be communicated via said medium. True to life or not, it is obvious that many believe that sex, drugs, alcohol, and their less than desirable effects are, at least, appropriate things to be joked about, if not abused in the most dehumanizing of ways. If, and this is what I really think, these things are true, then the former applies much more than the latter, as the latter is simply a way of speaking about what is really going on, and, in my opinion, a way to make it less real so as not to deal with it.


And, from these two things, I avow that this is a part of my mission in life: to help youth understand, clarify, gain perspective, and create coherent paradigms in which to understand and cope with the reality of life, as well as help provide a way to speak clearly and creatively about it, so as to help others do the same. Christian schools are doing nothing if they do not do this, Christian people are doing nothing if they are not doing this--sharing real life found in Christ and its relevance to dulled lives devoid of purpose and clarity, advancing the Kingdom of God, not the rules of religion. Rules are not a compelling way to live, but they are a way to categorize the things we do and don't to as a result of where life is most fully found. Rules? Yes. Rules first? No. Lots of tangential thoughts at the end of this paragraph? Yes. Do I mind? No. Have I finished my aforementioned paper yet? No. Will I stop writing now so that I can? Yes.

hypocritical parenting.

So today (actually it wasn't today, but these sort of reflective stories are always better in the very near past), when I was working at the Jumping Bean, a father and his pre-pubescent son walked up. The boy was standing at an awkward distance from dad, obviously not the "hey dad lets go fishing and spend the weekend together" kind of relationship. His dad, curtly, and not lovingly, said, "you want anything?" (Perhaps his love language is gift giving, but he should pursue a few others, like, kind words, tone of voice, and overall demeanor towards his son).
The boy replied, coldly "Yeah, but you won't let me have it...I want a white chocolate mocha."
The dad said, "You can have anything without caffeine" (An appropriate, father-like answer. I wouldn't want my kids hooked on the stuff either).
The son glares.
The dad says, "I'll have a white chocolate mocha, please." (I'M PISSED at this point. Really, Dad, really? You're gonna drink a white chocolate mocha, the one drink your son wants?)
The child angrily grabs a jones soda.
They pay.
They leave.

Parents, I don't know how many of you read this, maybe I'm just typing this to myself to read someday, if I'm ever in that role. Never, FRICKIN, NEVER, tell your kid they can't have, say, or do something, as if it is wrong, and then do it yourself. Because, let's be honest, we don't want him getting hooked on caffeine (if one white chocolate mocha can do that to you), but we also don't want ADULTS hooked on caffeine either. It's not a necessary evil. It's not. Also, we don't want children hooked on television, highly processed foods, or high fructose corn syrup either, but they are because its convenient. No doubt that father takes his child to McDonald's because its more convenient for him sometimes, or lets him sit in front of the tv for hours on end so he doesn't have to play ball in the yard with him. That's not good either, but its sure easier. Just like its easy to deny kids something and exercise your own power, to feel like you have some, or like you are good dad. Get over yourself, dad of the boy who came into the jumping bean (today).

Sidenote, I find this to be much akin to situations in which: parents cuss and tell their kids not to, parents get drunk and tell their kids not to, parents tell their kids to not lie and then divorce their spouse. Stop it parents. Stop saying one thing and doing another. Kids get confused. And angry. If I were that little boy, I would be angry, and I wouldn't understand. And the answer "because I said so," or, "because I'm your father" would not work. Its a cop out, just like the addictions you DO allow to tv, high fructose corn syrup, and highly processed foods.

Planning Ahead.

The night before the big midterm in metaphysics i ponder a few questions I have:

Concerning identity of material entities, why wouldn't we assert a hierarchy of properties?
Why can't we affirm that all (but God), is flux, and necessarily so, in that it is part of its essence to change, and therefore does not make it less itself, but a fulfillment of its natural process?
If so, could change be at the top of the property list/a meta property?
If so, then do the paradoxes of the Ship of Theus and Locke's Socks dissolve in that any change is natural/essential/a part of the possibility inherent in the sock/ship?
If so, can we more readily define ourselves and people by using the term "being as becoming"?

Shall I develop a teleological metaphysic for my senior paper?

Yes. I shall.

Judging Glasses

These are my judging glasses...I used them when I judge Airband.
(special thanks to my roommate, Mary Horton)

I should probably draw out a nice parallel about life, and when I get judgmental...but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say, these glasses rock my face off...just like Airband tryouts.