Carmen Salcedo
Perspectives
What does it all mean? In one’s life you cannot help but to wonder at the meaning of everything. What are we doing here? What are we here for? Is any of this real? Do we have souls in our bodies? Does anything have true meaning at all? Is there purpose? What is what and how? How is anything, anything at all? These are all inquisitions that we make as we grow. Can you remember being a kid and wondering what life was all about? Questioning our surroundings is not only a part of life but even though we don’t much take a notice of it, it is also philosophy.
Nagel is far more than a philosopher, he’s an explorer of the depths, the inexplicable, the ignored by fear, and the disheartening. In his work, Nagel embeds these…show more content… How could you prove that anything exists outside of your mind without using your sense of smell, thoughts, eyes, ears, skin, or taste? Everything I’ve ever experienced or known in my life has been through the abilities of my extremities. My experiences, my feelings, my understandings. That’s all we have to go by, our senses. They build our characters and personalities.
Nagel proposes to just let go of everything we’ve been taught. Imagine that the entire universe around you is all a projection of only what your mind conceives. Nothing exists but you. This theory explained by Nagel is further known as solipsism. René Descartes, a french philosopher of the 1600’s, set the backdrop for this theory with his “methodic doubt”. Nagel states that the only thing we can be sure of is what is inside our minds. It’s not a concept I myself very much agree with, but none the less outside of my senses I am not able to prove it to be…show more content… I have a strong belief in a separate entity other than my physical body. I would not consider myself religious, but I do believe that my mental state or my feelings come from within my body from a place that cannot be observed or experienced by someone external to me. Possibly when people die souls live eternally, as some kind of energy that always exist in but separate to your mind and body. For instance there have been many cases where people claim to be reincarnated and remember their past lives. A young boy finding where his previous body was hidden, a little girl finding the culprit of her last live’s murder, and other young people disclosing accurate information that would not be known otherwise. Of course we can agree that there is not enough substantial evidence to disprove or conclude