If there's one thing that I've learned whilst studying Bioethics, it's that there are some people who really do spend the majority of their time answering abstract questions that I've never really bothered to give the time of day before. In a seminar today, a tutor briefly mentioned that there is an ongoing debate on what it means 'to be' and I started to ponder on that myself. Now, I don't know whether I'm spending too much time in the Ethics department at the moment or if I'm taking the twisted genius of Charlie Brooker's 'The Black Mirror' series on Channel 4 a bit too seriously but I'm feeling inquisitive. (If you haven't watched The Black Mirror yet, please do - mind-boggling stuff and it makes for fabulous dinner party discussion.)
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc)
The video above is sure to get you thinking in more ways than any of the words in this blog entry will. It's about ontology (meaning the nature of existence or being), a philosophical concept that I can't say I come across everyday but I'm partial to a good cartoon if it distracts me from what I'm really supposed to be doing. I saw it for the first time about a year ago and, although it's a bit dated, it does the trick. Philosophy, it seems, is often too abstract for the 'average Joe' to make sense of (I'm speaking from experience, trust me) but making it this accessible opens up a Pandora's Box of questions that I didn't know that I had bubbling up inside me. See where the video takes you, anyone fancy hedging bets on how soon it becomes a reality?
I'm not a risk-taker myself, so I'm going to err on the side of caution by sitting on the fence with a cup of tea in hand as I'm not sure we're going to agree on definitions of the reason for existence anytime soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment