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I meant to say this during the meeting, and it was somewhat mentioned towards the end, but I think that essence is oriented around an individual's conscious thoughts and perception (like Mr. Pittis brought up) of their surroundings. Its not specific to their perspective of life or their actual thoughts, as these can change throughout life, but more of how you process your environment through your own consciousness. Don't know if that made sense but I figured I'd mention anyways. Good meeting today.

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I remember back in the meeting when we were talking about "what is my essence", Daniel said that essence of people cannot be changed. But if you think about it, people are constantly improving (or even the opposite) themselves throughout their lives, then if their mentality are changing, how could the essence stay the same? The only way to elaborate on this idea is that essence is the best of us, it is the "ceiling" of a person. It is no longer what defines us, but the best we could be. For example, someone who graduated from MIT and worked in Microsoft later became a drug abuser and then committed crimes, and was known for that the most of the times, what would be the essence of him? Is it the degree and the job that he used to have or it's the hateful and antisocial personality that he later showed? I think this is a really interesting topic to think about and I can tell that it's going to be useful for us when thinking about what we should do and what we should become.
And wouldn't it be very interesting if there's a way to tell new borns' "essence"? Like oh this kid would become an astronaut and this kid would become a Youtuber. It sounds almost like a Dystopian movie. Where people are just gonna do what their essence is suggesting them to do in order to live "the best life". Or is this actually Utopian?

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Kate Olson

Maybe free will is a part of destiny
You have the choice, but the destiny is there

Zackary Pittis

tough for me to accept that my life is pre-determined....seems like an easy way out of responsibility

Daniel Park

I think the whole concept of Microcosm is a relief to the humans since humans are so small compared to the macro universe and the notion there is a universe inside us gives us the reason to live on

Aileen Park

Maybe trying the best or not is also pre-determined

Kate Olson

you can always learn from experiences destiny or not

Daniel Park

yeah true i think learning from the past is important in our life no matter if destiny actually exists or not

Zackary Pittis

No.  I have never felt there is something pushing me - other than myself or other people - but nothing "greater" than that.but maybe it has....and I only have the illusion of control :)

Kate Olson

After you have a breakdown and you're just sitting there on the floor like oh dang do I even exist??

Zackary Pittis

It's fate that we are confused this week...

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I definitely can't recall 100% of what I had in mind during the meeting, but I think destiny doesn't mean that your life is restricted. The true premise of "you're destined..." might be fixed, but the possibility inside the "destiny" could be infinite.

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(thanks to Gabriel)

Zackary Pittis

happiness is the journey, not the destination ?
Gabriel Comer
It can be part of it in my opinion. Some people will never be content with their lives until they achieve something and that's just how they perceive the world. I'd say it varies per person
Daniel Park

Yeah i agree with what Gabriel said that happiness varies per person because i think people have different norms of happiness and they feel happy when there own norms of happiness is satisfied
Zackary Pittis

are people born happy?

can we "learn" to be happy?

Daniel Park

It kind of goes against the view of Aristotle's view, but I think happiness is just a state of mind we attain when a certain condition is satisfied

Zackary Pittis

happiness is a state of being.  We are not always happy just as we are not always sad, or bored, or angry, etc.  right now I am happy that I still have internet!

Claire Felsl

or is that just temporary joy?

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It was really interesting how we talked about Truman and Inception (briefly) during our meeting today. It's a way to see how philosophical thoughts have been embedded into popular culture creations.

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Daniel Park
I think all the subjects have diverted from philosophy; for example, science has been an observational trial of philosophy in a way it tries to find the Theory of Everything, which is a philosophical approach to solve the questions we are facing. I believe religions, art, music, math and all other subjects share the same context in a way it has its own way of telling the world.
Conor Mayo-Wilson
Strevens.  The Knowledge Machine
Cathy Li
Theseus’s ship?

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Question: How would you design a world if you could become a God of a simulated world?

alyssa stern :)

if we are then what happened before there was computers lol

Daniel Park

What it means is that there might be higher creators than us and they might be simulating usLike for example, labalatories run thousands of simulations to test their theories even in this world; so we might be in one of the simulations of the higher labaratories of the higher dimensional world

alyssa stern :)

i would make it pretty :)

Taylee Alldredge

if you were god then you would live forever therefore time would not matter as much

Daniel Park

it doesn't nececarily mean that you live forever because according to the simulation theory, even the game developers might be the god of their worlds

Taylee Alldredge

if people don't suffer then they don't learn and get better

Daniel Park

yeah i think they are inevitable to one another

Zackary Pittis

if we learned our world was a simulation, we would tear each other apart.  no doubt.

Taylee Alldredge

I think some people would not believe we are in simulation and would continue with what they do

Daniel Park

I agree and especially it is impossible to find it out when we are confined to this simulation world

Daniel Park

That is the reason why this theory is still not popular even though it wraps up the philosophy effectively

Taylee Alldredge

definitely