The exciting adventures of Benjamin O'Neil

So this past weekend was full of exciting adventures. Friday night was overcrowd lottery, and we ended up doing well. Ryan, Kalle, and I are currently in a double overcrowd in Camm 141, though Kalle and Petey may switch, depending on Petey transferring and what not. That night Lauren and I went out to dinner at Chili's with Ryan and Laura, which was a good time. Our waitress was trying to get us alcohol I think, which was exciting, but we declined. We dropped Ryan and Laura off at the King and Queen Ball (which apparently featured Gene Nichol drunk, which I have to say I've disappointed I missed) and then just drove around for a while, listening to the driving mix that Lauren had made, which was full of excellent musical selections. We came back and I fell asleep at like 11, which was sad.

I woke up the next morning at about 10:30 and hung around not really doing anything until Lauren came over at 2:30 or so. When she showed up, I knew something was wrong, and apparently lottery didn't end up very well for her, so we ended up going to the bookstore to hang out and feel better about things. We ended up sitting in the travel section for a while, looking at books of places we could only dream about going. I think she felt better afterwords, so that was good. When we got back, my aunt and uncle from Virginia Beach called and asked if I had eaten dinner yet, which I had not, so I got to eat at the Blue Talon Bistro, one of the fancy dining establishments in Colonial Williamsburg that college students normally can't afford. I had awesome rotisserie chicken and sorbet for dessert, so definitely a good time. After that was the Wilco concert, which was absolutely incredible. I'd had A Ghost is Born for a while, but had only listened through it maybe twice or so. The show definitely made me want to get more of their stuff, so I'll have to buy Yankee Hotel Foxtrot at some point, since according to my favorite overly pretentious music site it's incredible. After the concert, I caught up with Lauren and she came back to watch The Philadelphia Story with Ryan and Laura, but we all fell asleep like 10 minutes in, and Lauren ended up spending the night which was nice.

Today was rather uneventful; read the petitions at church, ate brunch, checked out all our rooms for next year. Lauren seemed to be okay with her room when we went and visited, so that's good. It's definitely not the most ideal place, but it's close to the Caf (the nice dining hall) and the Rec Center, and I'm probably a five minute walk at most, and it's no more than ten minutes from the farthest academic buildings. Our room looks to be pretty nice; we didn't actually get to see it, but the building itself is really nice, and there's an attic lounge, so that's really cool. After that I fell asleep at Lauren's (I should really learn to not be so tired all the time.) I came back and was trying to fix Ryan's website, which didn't end up so well. And then we had dinner with the Barrett girls (they had made pasta, tomatoes with parmesean, bought bread ends from the Cheese Shop, and had angel food cake with Cool Whip and strawberries so it was definitely a feast.) After that I came back and fixed Ryan's website some more, and then called my parents to check in and headed back over to Barrett for about 45 minutes. Now I'm here, and I should really go to sleep. So I think I will.

Only five days of classes, five exams, and a lab presentation stand in my way of being home. Beach this weekend should be a lot of fun.

I'm also a little more relaxed about my biology grade. She posted the clicker points and I currently have 72 but really should have 100 so I'll get that fixed, and that brings my percentage to a 66%. Which assuming I get an 80% in lab and an 80% on the midterm and final nets me a 73% for the class, whcih is normally a C-, but depending on how she grades the class (she adjusts it to make the average a B-) I have a pretty good shot at a better grade. Hopefully that'll work out. I'm glad I took this class, but it's been a lot of stress.

All my other grades are up in the air. Philosophy is a solid B, maybe a B+. Same with econ, both depending on how I do on the final. Math I'm hoping to pull a B, B+ would be nice, B- would be okay. Japanese should be an A unless I'm forgetting something in my grade. Assuming the lowest grades (A, B, B, B, C) I would get a 2.93. However, if I manage to luck out in all of my classes, that could be as high as a 3.35 (A, B+, B+, B+, B) Really, a 3.0 would be nice. Oh GPA, how you don't really matter.

And for those of you that don't know, my schedule next semester is looking like awesome. I'm taking Elementary Analysis, Applied Statistics, and Advanced Linear Algebra (woo 3 math classes) Ethics, Japanese, and Intro to Accounting. Hopefully this will not kill me. If it does, I'll probably drop ethics first. We'll see though. Still trying to figure out study abroad and what not.

Anyway, I said I was going to sleep a couple minutes ago. Goodnight.

Posted by Benjamin O'Neil at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We went to the beach at midnight. Ryan Lauren Katie Penny Melissa and Penny's Friend whose name I forgot. It was actually one of the most serene things I've ever seen in my life, minus the graveyard in Japan on top of Mt. Koya where I wasn't allowed to take pictures. The water was glassy, with the reflection of the full moon the only blemish on its surface. Even then, not so much a blemish as a "beauty mark."

We'd never been to the beach when it was like that. Usually it's windy, so the water's choppy and it's somewhat uncomfortable to stand on the shore while the wind constantly whips at your face. This is one of those nights that makes you think though. I thought about the fact that I only have ten days of class left. 6 classes each of biology, economics, and Japanese. 4 classes of math and philosophy. Two bio labs. One bio discussion. Pretty soon, I'll be a sophomore in college. My mind kept whirling around about where I'd be in four years, what I'd be doing, and of course what car I'd be driving. But then I stopped and smelled the proverbial roses. Because as they say:

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

This didn't really serve any point other than a grossly literary explanation of my night last night. Oh well.

Posted by Benjamin O'Neil at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So here's a paper about Spinoza that I recently wrote. It's pretty awful, but I figure since I posted the last paper I wrote for philosophy here, I might as well post this one too.

So here's a paper about Spinoza that I recently wrote. It's pretty awful, but I figure since I posted the last paper I wrote for philosophy here, I might as well post this one too.

In Part I of the Ethics, Spinoza maintains that nothing could have been otherwise than it actually is because everything happens does so as a result of God’s Essence. Thus, “Nothing in nature is contingent, but all things are from the necessity of the divine nature determined to exist and to act in a definite way.” (IP29) Additionally, Spinoza claims that “It follows, secondly, that God alone is a free cause.” (IP17C2) These two claims seemingly contradict each other, yet Spinoza expects them to be consistent. Although this contradiction seems to exist on the surface, in the end Spinoza is able to remedy the problem in the end by defining God using both of these claims together.
Before we can dive into the problem of whether or not Spinoza’s two claims contradict each other, we must first explain what Spinoza means when he says that God is a free cause. Spinoza claims that he has “proved that nothing can be or be conceived without God,” and so “God acts solely from the laws of his own nature and is constrained by none.” (IP17) He then follows this with the second corollary, stating “For God alone exists solely from the necessity of his own nature and acts solely from the necessity of his own nature. So he alone is a free cause.” (IP17C2) These arguments, taken together, mean that God’s nature necessitates Him, and that He is caused by Himself. However, to make these claims, we must first backtrack and utilize the previous two propositions. Spinoza’s basis for these assertions comes from his claim that “whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be conceived without God.” (IP15) This claim is important for clearing up how our existence relates to God: we are simply modes of Him, as is everything else. Without God, we could not exist, nor could we conceive of anything external to ourselves. This claim is bolstered in Spinoza’s next proposition, “from the necessity of the divine nature, there must follow infinite things in infinite ways (that is, everything that can come within the scope of the infinite intellect.)” (IP16) Moreover, the first corollary to this proposition is vital to the idea of God being a free cause, stating, “hence it follows that God is the efficient cause of all things that can come within the scope of the infinite intellect.” (IP16C1) These ideas all point to the fact that there is God alone, that He is the only substance that there is, and that everything else is merely a mode of Him. However, to really affirm the idea of Him being a free cause, we must determine that there is no outside force that acts upon God. Spinoza states later in the Ethics that “will cannot be called a free cause, but only a necessary cause.” (IP32) While this proposition is seemingly unrelated to the idea of God being a free cause, we find the support that we need in the first corollary, “hence it follows, firstly, that God does not act from freedom of will.” (IP32C1) This allows us to conclude that being a free cause means that there are no outside factors that influence God and that His existence is dependent solely upon His own nature.
There is an apparent contradiction between the claims that nothing in nature is contingent and God alone is a free cause. The idea that nothing in nature is contingent means that there is a definite way for all things to exist and act. (IP29) This means that everything in nature is already determined, and that there is no other possible way for things in nature to occur. This claim is further supported by a later proposition, “things could not have been produced by God in any other way or in any other order than is the case.” (IP33) If these two statements are taken together, then it forms a strong argument that is hard to refute regarding multiple ways for nature to exist. In this proposition he states that,
“If things could have been of a different nature of been determined to act in a different way so that the order of Nature would have been different, then God’s nature, too, could have been other than it now is, and therefore this different nature, too, would have had to exist and consequently there would have been two or more Gods, which is absurd.” (IP33)

The contradiction arises from accepting this statement as true. By accepting this, it becomes false to say that God is identical with all of nature, which is what Proposition 17 is purporting. It would be impossible for God to be a free cause and have Him be confined in one nature. In addition to only being able to ever exist in one nature, Proposition 33 suggests that there is no way for God to change what that nature is. There is a way around this problem though: he could change the characteristics of the nature by changing His modes/attributes, which is what he is identical to, rather than nature. This is the only way around the contradiction; by accepting modes as a mechanism that are able to be changed, God can take on many forms and change without changing nature itself.
Spinoza expects these two claims to be consistent for the reason that was stated above: the solution to the contradiction is explaining different things in nature by using modes. This way, there is only one nature (God) but there are infinitely many attributes that comprise the different objects that we see in the world around us. By using this system, Spinoza avoids contradicting his own propositions, yet is able to explain how there are many unique objects in the world.
Spinoza’s main conclusion is that God’s essence is the cause for everything that happens. He proposes two ideas: the first that nothing in nature is contingent (IP29) and the second that God is a free cause (IP17C.) It seems that these two ideas are contradictory, in that the first suggests that there can only be one nature, while the other is nearly impossible to satisfy without entertaining the idea of infinitely many natures. Spinoza dances around this issue by using attributes, which allow him to pass off the differences in nature as different attributes of a single substance (God,) thereby avoiding any potential conflict between these two ideas.

Posted by Benjamin O'Neil at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)