Dear Murtaza:

“She is more into western philosophy, specifically existentialism, such as Albert Camus, Freud, Fredrick Neichze, also nihilism, since she feel like it could help her”- if Ibn al-Haytham, an Iraqi, is “the father of modern optics” then he is the origin of western optics. The western philosophers you mentioned studied the published work of pre-modern Iraqi philosophers.

I will be writing the following because it interests me, you are welcome to skip any of it that doesn’t interest you:

You mentioned Albert Camus, a French philosopher born in Algeria who died in 1960, at 46 years old. In the plot of his  novella, The Stranger- the main character, Meursault, a French settler in Algeria, killed an Arab, but in court, the prosecutor, trying to prove that Meursault was guilty, focused not on the killing, but on the socially condemning fact that Meursault did not show any indication of grief after his  mother died. Albert Camus wrote in 1955: “I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: ‘In our society any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.’ I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game”-

– the hero of his book is a Stranger, he does not play the social game.. he is not a Normie (Murtaza’s term!)

Wikipedia: “Philosophically, Camus’s views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism, a movement reacting against the rise of nihilism. He is also considered to be an existentialist,  even though he firmly rejected the term throughout his lifetime”.

Absurdism is about people looking for a special meaning for human existence while the world/ nature is indifferent to human life, it does not participate in a human’s search for meaning.

From Wikipedia (this is very relevant to the title of your thread and to a lot of your thoughts expressed in your thread): The question then brought up becomes whether we should resign ourselves to this despair. As beings looking for meaning in a meaningless world, humans have three ways of resolving the dilemma. These 3 ways are described in The Sickness Unto Death (1849) and in The Myth of Sisyphus (1942, Camus).

They are: (1)  “Suicide (or, ‘escaping existence’): a solution in which a person ends one’s own life… Camus states that it does not counter the Absurd. Rather, in the act of ending one’s existence, one’s existence only becomes more absurd”, (2) “Religious, spiritual”- taking the “leap of faith” that although this world is meaningless, the next world (heaven, and any such intangible and unproven world) will be meaningful, “Camus regarded this solution, and others, as ‘philosophical suicide'”, and (3) “Acceptance of the Absurd: a solution in which one accepts the Absurd and continues to live in spite of it. Camus endorsed this solution, believing that by accepting the Absurd, one can achieve the greatest extent of one’s freedom”.

Back to quoting from your recent post and commenting: “I  read the first half of The Stranger by Camus, I just didn’t like it, I can’t read it just because she likes them.. in general I don’t like books.. I don’t see it interesting to read a man thoughts about the world, two that I know that everything that they say, is somehow a product of their life and age, back then they were very influenced by religion and traditions”-

Camus referred to religion as “philosophical suicide”, that’s somewhat a product of his time, and of earlier times, and it is somewhat independent thinking (I say “somewhat” because no thinking can possibly be independent of current and past times because no thinking individual has ever lived in a vacuum).

“I really think that if I get in a relationship I would be a good partner… a proof is that my relationship with my sister… we are very open to each other, and if I get bothered by any actions of hers, I would just tell her, that easy, that’s how you build a good relationship, by communicating, the good and bad, by understanding each other”- beautifully said. I am impressed, and I too think that you would be a good partner (a very good partner, I think) to a fortunate woman (if a partnership was possible for you).

anita

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