I am busy changing the world

I used to think philosophy is a boring subject until one day I found Sophie's World, a book by Jostein Gaarder. From the moment I finished that book, I became interested in Philosophy. In Sophie's World, the author teaches readers about all the main ideas from the ancient to the modern time via a story of a girl name Sophie. Everything begins when one day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?". After that, Sophie goes on a journey to answer those questions by using the philosophy she learnt along the way. At the end of Sophie's adventure, you will notice that the whole history of philosophy was painted vividly and impressively. When I reached the final page of the book, I suddenly realized everything in the world is still a mystery and has a lot of questions need to be answers. And the only way is through philosophy...

“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein .

This is the most famous story of a Chinese philosopher, Zhuang Zhou: English translated (source: wikipedia) : "Once upon a time, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. He did not know that he was Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and was palpably Zhou. He did not know whether he was Zhou, who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhou. Now, there must be a difference between Zhou and the butterfly. This is called the transformation of things." ~Zhuang Zhou, "Zhuangzi" chapter 2, "On the Equality of Things". (Image source: http://www.rockpapercynic.com/index.php?date=2012-11-26 ) Chinese: "昔者庄周梦为蝴蝶，栩栩然蝴蝶也，自喻适志与，不知周也。俄然觉，则戚戚然周也。不知周之梦为蝴蝶与，蝴蝶之梦为周与？周与蝴蝶则必有分矣。此之谓物化。" Chinese-Vietnamese translated ( source: Trang Tử Nam Hoa Kinh, Nguyễn Duy Cần ): "Tích giả Trang Châu mộng vi hồ điệp, hủ hủ nhiên hồ điệp dã, tự dụ thích chí dữ bất tri Châu dã. N...

I've just finished reading this great philosophical book (Vietnamese version) of a German author, Richard David Precht. "Who am I? And if so, how many? A journey through your mind.". It makes me so confused. The first confusing thing is that I don't know whether it is a philosophical book or a scientific one about how the human's brain works. Even thought Richard used some idea from philosophers through out our history to answer (?) some serious questions about one's individual self, he pointed out a lot of scientific research on the Homo sapiens's brain. That method made me feel like I'm reading a paper about anatomy, not a book of ideas as I read the title. Also, after reading "Who am I", I'm not sure about my existence anymore. Is this all real or are we just kinda electromagnetic pulses flowing around the universe and accidentally meet each other? Is it me or someone else's thought. Is everything happened to me really happe...

“I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort. From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be — what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing — I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am. We do not know — neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, n...

"If there is a state where the soul can find a resting-place secure enough to establish itself and concentrate its entire being there, with no need to remember the past or reach into the future, where time is nothing to it, where the present runs on indefinitely but this duration goes unnoticed, with no sign of the passing of time, and no other feeling of deprivation or enjoyment, pleasure or pain , desire or fear than the simple feeling of existence, a feeling that fills our soul entirely, as long as this state lasts, we can call ourselves happy, not with a poor, incomplete and relative happiness such as we find in the pleasures of life, but with a sufficient, complete and perfect happiness which leaves no emptiness to be filled in the soul." ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau (source: https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1182863711p8/7994.jpg) 

"No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest." ~"On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill.   John  Stuart Mill   (1806-1873) (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill)

This is one of the most popular questions and jokes in physics and philosophy:   WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?   Plato: For the greater good. Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability. Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained. Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas. Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authori...