Category Archives: Philosophy

Essay: Distortion (‘Metamorphosis’ Timed Write)

In the story “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, Kafka distorts Gregor’s voice, body, and behavior to show how the modern worker’s obsession with work can lead to isolation.

Kafka first distorts Gregor’s body in order to demonstrate how one’s obsession with their job isolates one from their sense of self. When Gregor discovers his new body, he “saw his little legs struggling with each other more fiercely than ever, if that were possible, and saw no way of bringing peace and order to this mindless motion” (16). Kafka’s diction of “mindless motion” describes how Gregor considers his work to be “mindless”, as though his own mind is not put to use in his job. His inability to bring “peace and order” to this motion illustrates the lack of control Gregor has in his life and in his job. His own legs, which are supposed to carry him and take him where he wants to go, are out of control and useless, further symbolizing Gregor’s inability to support himself and take his life in the direction he desires. This lack of control, self-sustainability, and direction in Gregor’s life, along with his mind being wasted in his job, all help strip away Gregor’s individuality, potential, ambition, and thoughts, thus conveying the isolation from sense of self that can be caused from working too hard.

Gregor’s voice is also distorted in order to illustrate how lack of communication can lead to isolation from others. Upon conceiving the reactions of his family to his voice, Gregor realizes that “his words were no longer intelligible even though they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than before, perhaps because his ear had grown accustomed to them” (25). Due to his dedication to his work, Gregor rarely has time to have real conversations with his parents and his sister; when he finally has a need to communicate, his words are “no longer intelligible” from lack of previous communication. However, his words are “clearer than before” to Gregor himself, because he has become “accustomed” to his state of non-communication, to his work that took away his humanity and livelihood so that he no longer sounds human to his family. Work, as it had done to Gregor, can rob one of continual communication with their loved ones from whom they will thus be isolated.

Another aspect of Gregor that is distorted is his behavior; by distorting this aspect, Kafka demonstrates how working to please others causes one to abandon their own needs and isolate themselves further. When Gregor tries to get out of bed in the morning, “he no longer paid any attention to the pain in his abdomen, however it burned” (24). His abdomen, which has been in severe pain for a long while by this point, is ignored by Gregor as he attempts to get up even though the logical response is to treat the pain. Gregor is so desperate to get to his job that his basic health needs are disregarded, exemplifying how the modern worker’s personal needs will be overlooked in their desire to please their boss and support their family financially. Later on in the story, Gregor realizes his sister is repulsed by his appearance and “one day carried the sheet to the sofa on his back… and arranged it in such a way that he was now completely covered and his sister would not be able to see him” (51). Covering himself with the sheet to spare his sister the view of his transformed body is a quintessential example of isolating oneself to please others, as Gregor is purposefully using the sheet to create a barrier between himself and his family, believing it will help his sister despite sacrificing his own need for love and recognition. This action also represents how Gregor throws himself into work in order to support his family, and thus distances himself in the meantime, believing it to be the best for his family. Gregor ignoring the pain in his abdomen in favor of getting ready for work, as well as blocking his sister from himself, contribute to the idea of the desire to please others causes one to neglect one’s personal needs and isolate themselves.

The distortion of Gregor’s body, voice, and behavior in “The Metamorphosis” helps illustrate how the modern worker’s obsession of work, which comes with a lack of communication, lack of control and vitality, and a desire to please others, will lead to isolation from others as well as their own needs and identity. While having a job is important, it is essential for workers to maintain a happy, healthy relationship with their loved ones, and to hold on to their own lives and ensure they don’t lose their sense of selves.

Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

So recently (as in a couple of hours before I wrote this in a fever) I started taking online introduction to philosophy courses and they brought up a particular argument supporting the existence of God: Anselm’s Ontological Argument. This post is basically gonna be me copying exactly what the online courses teaches and then explaining what I think about it. Bear in mind I literally just learned this stuff and also I have the memory of a goldfish with anterograde amnesia so I could be very wrong, this is just my understanding and again I just use this blog to just rant about stuff so don’t take me seriously I’m just trying to share some Cool Ideas I came across. Anyway, get ready for a quick, dubiously accurate lesson in basic philosophy, everyone.

Basically, Anselm separates things into things that exist in the understanding (things we are able to conceive) and things that exist in reality.

Anselm's Venn Diagram

Here are some personalized examples:

Personal Anselm Venn Diagram

I spent like two hours on this graphic, one to try and remember how R Studio works and another to give up and actually make this in Google Drawings, so please appreciate it

So, for example, while we have an understanding of both Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds exists in reality as well while Deadpool does not. Things that exist in reality but not in existence is difficult to comprehend because naming things that exist will make you think about it, and they would exist in understanding. The course I was using suggested stars that are never seen and most fish in the ocean as an example, as while we know there are lots of stars and fish out there, we won’t think about most particular stars/fish, and they will go through their life cycle completely without our awareness. Personally, it is easier to comprehend by the example of undiscovered species – we know there are many animal and plant species out there that haven’t been discovered so while we know they exist, we still don’t have a concept of them in our heads and are unable to conceive their existence.

The problem comes in the placement of God. Anselm defines God as “something that than which no greater can be thought”.

Anselm's Venn Diagram_ God

Anselm claims that if God existed in both understanding and reality, He would be greater than if He existed only in understanding but not in reality:

Anselm's Venn Diagram_ God's Greatness

To understand this argument, let’s use an adjective other than “great”: scary. Let’s take a look at the Dementor. Dementors are pretty scary (if you don’t think Dementors are scary you either don’t know what they are our have never experienced happiness in your life in the first place, but no matter what we’ll assume they are scary for the sake of argument). However, imagine them existing in real life.

Anselm's Venn Diagram_ Dementor

That’s even scarier; while we used to be comforted in the idea that they’re just a myth, we are now confronted with their reality; we could actually be affected by Dementors now because it is a thing that exists in reality – they could absolutely suck out our happiness, hope, and soul in real life now.

So applying the same logic to God, that must mean He is even greater if He exists in reality:

Anselm's Venn Diagram_ God's Greatness

However, that means He can’t exist in the understanding but not in reality, because that would mean something can be conceived that is GREATER than God, and that something is God existing in reality. This is a problem because God is defined as something that than which no greater can be thought, and if existing in reality makes us think of him as even greater, then He cannot exist only in understanding and not in reality; therefore, God MUST exist in reality.

Anselm's Venn Diagram_ God Conclusion

However, the online course I was taking did point out that when you break Anselm’s argument into the premises and conclusion necessary for an argument, you will find that while his argument is VALID, it is not necessarily SOUND.

I won’t go into detail about his premises and conclusion, but just know that validity means it’s impossible for all the premises to be true but the conclusion false, and soundness means that the argument is valid and that all the premises are true. Basically, Anselm uses premises that are not necessarily true no matter how you interpret them.

Here are my personal thoughts: personally, the premise that God exists in our understanding is already not necessarily true for me. This is entirely my own interpretation, but this following commentary is going to be based on it, so just hold on.

In my opinion, the greatness of God is too much to conceive and truly understand, which means God cannot exist in understanding in the first place. Frankly, I view it as plain hubris to assume humans could possibly conceive how great God truly is (or any higher being, for that matter). If He did exist in both understanding and reality, we still wouldn’t be able to comprehend the true extent of his greatness. Reworded, existing in reality won’t change his greatness by a meaningful amount because his greatness exceeds human comprehension.

Now dropping this interpretation, I still find more issues with this logic. Namely, it is entirely based on perception. God existing in reality won’t make His greatness greater – only BELIEVING He exists in reality will make people perceive Him as greater than just existing in understanding, and give people the ability to conceive the greatness of God. However, that does not prove His existence, it only shows that people who genuinely believe God exists in reality will truly perceive Him as “something that than which no greater could be thought”.

Those who do not believe He exists in reality are not perceiving maximum potential greatness and thus God cannot exist in understanding and not in reality; this makes sense. However, all that this implies is that they do not understand the true greatness of God. For them, the greatest thing that can be thought is not God at all. The greatest thing they can conceive IS the concept of a God nonexistent in reality (a paradox explored more in the following paragraph) or something entirely different. Those who do not believe He exists in reality do not have him in understanding in the first place, since for them, the greatest conceivable thing is not God in the first place.

Anselm’s entire reasoning is based on the assumption that God IS the greatest thing in the world, which is a problem if He doesn’t truly exist in reality. What his reasoning tells us, however, is that for something to be conceived as the superlative embodiment of some adjective (scariest, funniest, etc.), the particular person must believe that the thing exists in reality. What I am proposing now is the concept that the THOUGHTS exist in reality and can be the greatest conceivable thing. Basically, I would like to suggest that the IDEA of the greatest conceivable thing BE the greatest conceivable thing to someone.

The idea behind this is that thoughts by themselves are perfectly capable of inflicting emotion. So while, perhaps, something that exists in reality may be the scariest physical thing to someone, but the thought of something that does NOT exist in reality may scare them more. So while they may not believe something exists in reality, the THOUGHT of it does exist in reality.

Consider that to someone the scariest thing known to exist in reality is a snake, but they don’t scare them that much because not many things scare them in real life. However, IMAGINARY things are REALLY scary; perhaps the THOUGHT of Bigfoot really scares them. In this case, neither snakes nor Bigfoot are the conceivably scariest thing because snakes aren’t that scary and Bigfoot doesn’t exist. However, the THOUGHT of Bigfoot is something that exists in reality, and is the scariest thing for that person.

Obviously this doesn’t make much sense; again, if you can THINK of something scary, obviously it’d be scarier if it happened in real life. So we still can’t determine what the “thing that than which no scarier can be thought” is or if it exists, we do know that thoughts of something imaginary CAN be scarier than the scariest real thing, so the scariest thing does not have to be real, although if the thing that was THOUGHT of as the scariest thing but only existed in understanding became real, it WOULD exceed the scariness of the THOUGHT of the scariest thing to become the ACTUAL scariest thing. Basically, it would take the real existence of “something that than which no scarier can be thought” to prove the real existence of “something that than which no scarier can be thought”, and the non-existence of “something that than which no scarier can be thought” to prove the non-existence of “something that than which no scarier can be thought”.

Similarly, the greatest thing existent in reality does not have to be greater than the thought of something great, as the human imagination can exceed reality at times. If the thing that was THOUGHT of as the greatest thing not necessarily existing in reality (God) became real, it would exceed the greatness of the THOUGHT of the greatest thing to become the ACTUAL greatest thing. It would take the real existence of “something that than which no greater can be thought” to prove the real existence of “something that than which no greater can be thought”, and the non-existence of “something that than which no greater can be thought” to prove the non-existence of “something that than which no greater can be thought”.

Of course, this is very unhelpful because it’s basically saying that the existence of God proves the existence of God and the non-existence of God proves the non-existence of God, but such is life. Isn’t philosophy fascinating?!