Existentialism

Existentialism is a strange philosophy to examine. If we take the main idea of it i.e, not caring about anything, or having no reason for doing things, it can take quite a strange route in the way we look at ourselves. Some people will say they dont care about something, at least once in their lives. But, normally it turns out they do. Is this Existential? The way people see reactions of uncaring people on their outer shells? It might not be as they may be doing it for a reason.

The idea that History stops you thinking that your nothing is quite an important one also. The only way we can clarify our existence is through historical things we have done in the past. As was said in the lecture, existence comes before essence, as our essence is determined by our existance.

There are a couple of films which are interesting to watch, and i do recommend watching them so you can see existentialism in a different light. Equilibrium is one them. It describes how humans greatest need is to feel like they exist, and the only way they do exist is be their history. The industry in the film believed that feelings and emotions took away your essence as sometimes you may become depressed, hyperactive etc. This would in tern change your essence and make it seem like something that can be played with. Everyone in the world of Equilibrium has no emotion, no feelings. This makes them Existential. An example of this would be the industries slaughtering of dogs. In a non existential world that would be an outrage because people care for a look after dogs. In the world of Equilibrium, this is not the case. The dogs were slaughtered because they changed peoples emotions, or essence.

The Matrix also encompasses some ideas of existentialism. People trapped inside the matrix are technically not using any of their true emotions because everything in the matrix does not exist, they are just computer programmes. Outside the matrix, in the real world, people who have been free'd can have a history, allowiing them to exist and have true emotions.

If anyone would like to add anything to this please comment.