Philosophy ?

Philosophy. 

That boring, esoteric and archaic subject. 

Image result for philosophy memes

Ew.

That party where Nietzsche the perpetual dickhead is busy being consumed in self-dread, Kierkegaard is busy joking about humanity, his sense of self and death, Aristotle is busy in pointing out the flaws of the average and the below average humans and cracking jokes about humanity's brain farts while Schopenhauer is at a corner metaphorically smacking his head after looking at the human race's sad plight and barbarism. These guys are few of the main people at the party of philosophy. 
A detailed description of this intellectually mad party would be interesting but that would deviate from the focus of this article.


On speaking to Abhinav(Anand).he frequently mentioned and shared many links to websites and videos about philosophy. My insecure sense of self led me to believe that it was I who wasn't knowing enough about philosophy. It led me to feel like a poser for months. 

But I could not have been more wrong. 

As I spoke to Agnishwar, he reminded me that my interest in things in the field of techno-scientific experiments was actually one of the most relevant forms of modern day philosophy.

It was then it struck me. 

Tech =  present day philosophy|>?

Don't believe me ? The biggest social networking platform,i.e,  Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are presently humanity's largest anthropological and philosophical experiments in their own right.

Facebook is a large scale experiment of philosophical nature to understand how humans communicate,evolve and connect with themselves and other human beings. 

Snapchat is another another experiment involving the study of the ephemeral obsessions of mankind and ways to enable the participants to communicate these very obsessions to the world in a minimal and effective way using pictures.

Twitter is the largest living demonstration of how a metaphysical tool for communication can help participants express themselves in 140 characters. I call it metaphysically inconsistent because no one really understands what Twitter is. Is it a media company, tech company or something else ? In fact, this is a question that even the founders of Twitter have been unable to understand. 

Artificial intelligence initiatives such as IBM Watson, Google Brain and Alexa are involved in the application of our present understanding of consciousness and human nature.

There are many other initiatives that serve as experiments to test the effect of certain stimuli on the consumerist behaviour of general public. In fact,data that leads to an understanding of consumerist behaviour of the general public has become more valuable than actual money or any other form of monetary commitment. That is why many of the widely used tools that "make our life better" such as Google search are free. 

This phenomenon may lead us to believe that we are being controlled by a certain group of people. 


That happens to be a joke.

(Follow up article about the same containing the explanation for why it is a joke.)

The elections for leadership posts held in organizations, governments and different communities also serve as an in-depth philosophical inquiry into the gap between what people claim they want and the what people actually want. They also serve as a detailed living thesis about large scale organizational behavior. 

Understanding why startup entrepreneurs are obsessed with their startup having astronomically high valuations can also give us some surprising insights. This usually points to the deep need of humans to receive validation from the community they are a part of. In the case of entrepreneurs they want to receive validation from fellow entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors ,their families and the public about their self created notion about their success. Many times, this attitude proves to be harmful, and even suicidal. 
Take the example of Elizabeth Holmes, the CEO and founder of the now defunct Theranos Inc. This woman had orchestrated an extremely compelling narrative about the inception of her company. A chemical engineering student at Stanford University. She dropped out to start this firm. Her goal was not just to develop a thriving business by selling blood testing devices that can test for blood with a prick on the tip of a finger. Her goal was to "change the world".
Venture capitalists, angel investors and the public bought her seemingly compelling narrative. 

She was worth four billion dollars.

But the reality was, she didn't actually have a product to back her claims. 

It was nothing more than a fad. In fact, when Holmes proposed her idea to her professors at Stanford University, they all expressed strong doubts about the credibility of her idea. In fact, Phyllis Gardner,a professor at Stanford Medicine told "I doubt if it could work".However she persuaded her advisor,Channing Robertson to vouch for her. It was very well known to her that reliable data could not be collected from a pinprick of blood.

She refused to acknowledge the flaw in her idea.

Despite this fundamental flaw, Holmes went to great lengths to build a Steve Jobs like persona and leadership style. The black turtleneck, the secretiveness and the aggressive public campaigning said it all. She also claimed to build the company for the long term.

The parade eventually came to a nasty end. 

Holmes lost her billionaire status, her carefully brewed sense of self worth, her employees and "her" company. 

All she has now is twenty-five million dollars of debt. 

Why did she do all of this?

She claims that she built this company to "democratize healthcare" and because of "her fear of needles". 

But when you look at the complete picture, you realize that it is another story of a millennial who piggybacks on public trust, and capital to gain validation from society that "they have changed their world". 


I can go on with multiple aspects of life saying how they are all examples of philosophy, but the intent of the article is alter the present perception of philosophy. 

Philosophy isn't about orienting yourself with the schools of thought that different men/women profess,it is about understanding the deepest problems of the human condition in detail. The ultimate goal of philosophy is to understand what it means to be human.

All the above examples try to achieve that. In fact, everyday life is filled with such philosophical experiments. We probably will never get to the point where we will have a full understanding of human consciousness.But it is important that we as humans go on this quest, as curiosity about the self and the world perceived by the egocentric lens of the self is what comprises a significant part of the human spirit.

Also, I hope that Abhinav does a little more than gaining half baked knowledge about archaic schools of philosophy and their deeper implications.

-Pranesh Umashankar.

(FULL DISCLOSURE : PRANESH UMASHANKAR HAS NEVER BEEN TO A REAL PARTY.)

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