Perhaps there is no time in which the ingenuity of man is more active than in those moments when he has a sensitive consciousness of being wrong, and consequently, a feverish desire to vindicate his works or acts to himself, as well to others. Even if the traditional theory is wrong, something like introspection often takes place, it is a common, everyday phenomenon to think about one’s experiences at the time they are occurring. For example, a person looking at a painting may wonder whether he is enjoying his experience or whether he is enjoying it more than some previous experience. The main difficulty with the traditional theory was its attempt to categorize the process of self-reflection as a form of sense perception or of direct awareness. If I should seem now and then to trifle upon the road—or should sometimes put on a fool’s cap (a conical hat for slow or lazy students) with a bell on it, for a moment or two as we pass along—do not fly off (get very angry)—but rather courteously give me credit for a little more wisdom than appears from my outside—and as we jog on (by extension, to make progress slowly, deliberately, or patiently), either laugh with me, or at me, or in short do anything—only keep your temper. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 11

Introspection can yield erroneous beliefs about one’s own mental states has been asserted on many occasions in the history of philosophy. It makes no sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself. It general, it is possible that the concepts used in the description of a mental state are not possessed by the individual who is in that state. In such a case, the individual could not possess self-knowledge. It would seem, then, that the standard account of introspection presupposes that the mind is a nonphysical entity capable of having quasi-sensory experiences. Retrospection is not sufficient for knowledge of past states, for we can retrospect only what we have been previously conscious of. If a person is justified in asserting that he is in pain only if he has introspected his experience of being in pain, what justifies him in asserting that he has introspected the experience? It is a distinguishing characteristic of first-person-experience statements that it is simply their being true, and not the observation that they are true, or the possession of evidence that they are true, that entitles one to assert them. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 11

For a while, I realized that in labeling my assignments, I kept forgetting the number five. I would look back on my documents over the course of several week and noticed I forget the number five. The files would go from one to four, then six, and so on. So it seems I was robbed by an unknown psychic force of the control over the proper numeric system belonging to my memory; it is the same force which in other cases may bring about the same failure of memory during perfect health and mental capacity. When I analyzed those cases of forgetting the number five and withheld shows some relation to a theme which concerns my own person, and is apt to provoke in me strong and often painful emotions. The number withheld has touched a personal complex it me. The relation of the number to my person is an unexpected one, and the number five is associated with traumatic experiences. Like falling asleep in the closet at age give and getting a terrible spanking because everyone thought I was missing. Five years ago was the Earthquake in Japan. And most recently, a nightmare of being on the fifth floor of the World trade center and hearing planes circle the building, before rushing out and witnessing one actually crash into the building. And also, it has been five years that I have been in this situation where practically every day and every relationship seems the same and I cannot figure out what to do differently to get a different experience. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 11

Overwhelming experiences affect our innermost sensations and our relations to our physical reality—the core of who we are. Trauma is not just an event that took place sometimes in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think. For real healing to take place, the body is required to lean that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present. Our search to understand trauma has led us to think differently not only about the structure of the mind but also about the process by which it heals. I cannot tell you have to be happy, I can only assist you in understanding what may be going on. I could tell you something that I think would make you happy and it could result in an adverse reaction. When I have seen a person strutting in a procession, after others whose was only to walk before one (defeat easily), I have conceived a higher notion of one’s dignity than I have felt on seeing one in a common situation. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 11

No person can know what perception is unless one has observed a case of perception, and one’s own perceptions are the only ones one can observe. This theory is merely a special case of a fundamental psychological principle of traditional empiricism, which states that all ideas are abstracted from or compounded out of what is observed. Now the problem of how people do get ideas or concepts is very much up in the air and certainly cannot be solved with a great deal of psychological investigation. However, if introspection is best characterized not as inner sense or direct observation but as thinking and judging about one’s mental states, then it cannot be an original source of concepts. For thinking is an activity in which a person is already exercising the concepts one possesses; one cannot think about anything unless one already has an idea of it. A person cannot have the concept of certain mental states unless one has been in those states, that, for example, a person cannot know what pain is unless one has been in pain. Moreover, consciousness has or is an external relation in the sense that the object, when the subject is conscious of it, is what it would be if the subject were not conscious of it. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 11

The mind is a nonphysical entity capable of having quasi-sensory experiences. It is in connection with elucidating the meaning of this statement that philosophical problems arise—problem which are of particular interest because we cannot understand such an expression without committing ourselves, in some degree, to some particular conceptual schematism by means of which we can set out the empirical facts about human nature. There are alternative and rival conceptual possibilities is a fact which the history of philosophy testifies. It seem possible for a person to believe that one does not know whether, for example, a certain geometrical theorem is true and then for one to remember having proved it true. In the medieval World the underlying assumption is that man’s self-fulfillment is discovered in the love of God and of the rest of the divine creation. To explain is to reslove a complex whole into its individual parts and to show how the individual parts must be combined in order to reconstruct the whole. To explain the complex whole of social life is, therefore, to resolve it into its component parts, individual men, and to show how individuals must combine if social life is to be reconstructed. I owe to others what I owe to myself. However, it seems that human nature is essentially individual, nonsocial, competitive, and aggressive. This is displayed by your use of “iPhones,” “Selfies,” preference to communicate online, but ignore people trying to get your attention in person. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 11

The behavior and these devices sound very selfish. Also, may are more concerned about doing better than the next person and seeing how much they can get out of someone, instead of doing their best and helping those in need. However, you will notice that when someone is doing well or beginning to achieve success or popularity, they are proud to support that individual. For instance, in 2007, when Britney Spears was at a low point in her life, she reached out to Justin Timberlake for help, but he ignored her because he did not want to hurt is career. In contrast, the city of Sacramento spent $8 million on a giant gummy bear statue, by Jeff Koons, and feels lucky to have it because it art is rare, but school districts in the city of Sacramento, California USA cannot even afford to pay teachers, they are facing a deficit of over $6 million dollars, and it might have been better to donate money to the school districts. Also, if someone reached out to you and supported you, but you were not there for them in their time of need, when they are through their struggles do you think that they will still be waiting for you? There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 11

Virtue does not consist of selfish pursuit of pleasure nor in the utility of human actions. Rather, virtue is disinterested benevolence or affection; it is the intrinsic beauty of the dispositions of a person’s heart. An action is good not because it is advantageous to ourselves or to others, but solely because it springs from a beautiful disposition of will. Virtue is a spiritual beauty or excellence that commends itself to us for its own sake. Any other motive for acting is based on self-love and consequently does not measure up to virtue. However, human nature, owing to original sin, is totally depraved and given over to self-love. Only by the election of God and the gift of efficacious grace can man rise above his “dreadful condition” and perform truly virtuous actions. Without supernatural assistance seemingly disinterested affections, such as the natural love of parents for their children, are accompanied by self-love and hence are not truly virtuous. At most they are secondary virtues or the shadows of virtues. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 11

God reveled himself in the Bible and also in the visible Universe and the souls of men, which are made in the image of God. In order to interpret correctly the symbols of God in the created World, the mind has to be purified by a divine illumination. There is no more sublime or delightful activity than to discover and to contemplate the traces  of God in nature. All passions originate in love and are for its sake. Love is the excellence of beauty of minds. Understanding is the faculty by which the soul perceives, speculates, and judges. Without senses there can be no further mental operation. The mind needs his sense in order to form all of its ideas. Concerning human understanding, I derive more enjoyment than the greedy miser finds, when gathering up handfuls of silver and gold, from newly discovered treasure. The fine arts, sciences, and philosophy ideally have no status separate from theology; as they become more perfect they issue in divinity, and coincide with it, and appear to be parts of it. The spiritual World alone is real, the visible Universe is but its shadow, created to lead the mind, under divine illumination, to an awareness of the presence of God. The objects of the senses are not real qualities of bodies but impressions and ideas given to us by God. Minds alone are, properly speaking, beings or realities; bodies are only shadows of being. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 11

Goodness and beauty belong to anything in proportion to its intensity of being. Hence, minds alone are really good and beautiful; the visible World has but a shadow of these perfections. Its value is to lead the mind to the enjoyment of spiritual and divine goodness and beauty. As the intellect passively receives impressions and ideas from God, so the will is inclined to agreeable objects and repelled by disagreeable objects. The will is no a self-determining power; its actions are determined by causes. God alone is free in the sense that one can determine one’s own volitions. Everything that happens has a cause the human will does everything it needs to create it. If, then, self-interest would lead some to disobey the rules of justice and if many have no natural regard for the public interest, how do the rules of justice come into existence, and what fosters our respect for them? The crucial fact is that did we not have respect for the rules of justice, there would be no stability of property. Indeed, the institution of property could not and would not exist. #RyanPhillippe 10 of 11

The most interesting thing in the World is to find out how the next man gets his vittles. Never speak to a white man till he is fed. Now, the existence of property and stability is to all our interest, and we are always conscious of how much we are injured by others failing to obey the rules. So we have become conscious that although some people’s immediate and short-term benefit rests in breaking the rules on a given occasion, our long-term benefit resides in insisting upon a universal observance of the rules. The solution is to say that God has so contrived the afterlife that only if we obey the fundamental moral rule will we in the long run, that is, the eternal run, secure our own happiness. God has arranged that all the happiness people either have enjoyed or will enjoy is deposited in “The Bank of the Universe.” By working to increase happiness of others, I also increase my own happiness, for God has arranged to divide this stock of happiness into equal share, to be allotted one to a person, and so by increasing the size of the general stock, I also increase my own share. I am, as it were, a shareholder in the cosmic bank of which God is at once chairman and the managing director. #RyanPhillippe 11 of 11