PhD, baby!: Sentio ergo sum.

PhD, baby!: Sentio ergo sum.: This piece is about sentio ergo sum or the difficulty of a thinker to go beyond thinking. Is it our ability to think that makes us huma...

I saw this post after searching for a term, that I foolishly thought I had been first to coin, in Latin: Sentio Ergo Sum. Of course, I had a bit of help in formulating it, as no doubt Renes Descarte's, "I think, therefore I am," is surely to be ringing in the ears of the more enlightened. Though I'm certain, after seeing this, that it is a common idea amongst the academic elite.

However, this post reaffirmed to me that my forward display of existential angst was slightly justified. While in college I wrote to my professor the overwhelming angst my social psychology class was giving me. Of course the reluctant stoic in me censored my psychotic episode to a mere "information overload." I asked her, "What do the branches reach for?"

This of course, to any sober mind, would sound bizarre. The imagery I had hoped to invoke was the Tree of Knowledge. It is the imaginative display of all current knowledge possessed by mankind. Everything, or branch, is based off previous discourses of the multitude of subjects that pervade academia. The trunk of the tree is itself the paradigm of knowledge. Yet in understanding the concept of a sum totality of human knowledge, it left me empty. What was it all reaching for? What was its point? Yet the question I submitted was overlooked in a hasty display of  pay grade concern.

I understand, now, her reluctance to put forth anything on the subject. It is a topic that has perplexed all of humanity in the totality of its conscious awakening.

Rationality by its definition is about reasoning. Reasoning entails a series of parameters, that the mind evaluates, within a scenario. Yet how do we apply this rationality? Give a newborn an option between any two options, and derive an objective basis on why it decided between the two. The paradigm of choice is irrelevant at this stage in life to a newborn, as its mind is compelled to derive purpose and meaning to everything. The child seeks to experience everything it perceives.

Yet in our adult lives we see things a bit differently than we did as a child. Our choices aren't so freely made, as it is confined by scope or consequence, that is compared to a child's preference for Cheerios or Fruity Loops. We are swarmed by a never ending series of choices, which, are too often surmised as trivial in appearance, with far reaching consequence and rewards. We all lead separate lives, in varying degrees of socio-economic factors, which inherently promotes a separate score of choices day to day. Yet the subjective experience is not what is at question, as it asks for a universal constant of our existence.

Why are some choices made and while others not? How does our rationality condemn or compel us to a reasonably justified choice? It begs the question of moral objectivity, yet, we are at a loss when compelled to put forth a just standard. It is a question that assumes absolute authority of the rational mind over the self and its autonomy.