No Exit

Think about the place you have chosen as your hell. Does it look ordinary and bourgeois, like Sartre's drawing room, or is it equipped with literal instruments of torture like Dante's Inferno? Can the mind be in hell in a beautiful place? Is there a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment?
    My image of hell (which I am not even sure there is one, in physical or afterlife form), is a place that is completely annoying.  The coffee is lukewarm, the chairs are slightly uncomfortable, the heat is just above room temperature, the beds are itchy, and the people are disagreeable.  So, I guess you would say it is a mixture of the two, not complete physical torture, but not completely mental either.  For the second question here: What constitutes a beautiful place? If a place is completely beautiful, inside and out, then you could not be in hell there.  Yes, there is always a way to find peace in a physical environment, there is something there that would interest you.

Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess,' whether it be cheesecake or ravenous partying?
    It truly depends, is there such a thing as too much breathing? No, I truly do not moderate or add variety to keep from going to hell, but to keep things interesting.

How does Sartre create a sense of place through dialogue? Can you imagine what it feels like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place? How does GARCIN react to this hell? How could you twist your daily activities around so that everyday habits become hell? Is there a pattern of circumstances that reinforces the experience of hell?
    The dialogue creates a sense of place in the fact that everything the people talk about is negatively connotated, giving the feel of a negative place.  No, in fact, it makes me sleepy to try. Garcin takes it to be a place to contemplate his life and to view his legacy.  I could make every day hell by not thinking of interesting things, and just doing work for the sake of just doing work.  I do not agree, although repetition can be hellish.

Allegory of the Cave Sonnet

The cave is a place
where a man cannot think
for himself, save to inquire
about the thoughts he is fed

To rescue the prisoner
from his life long prison
is the trait of curiosity
which causes him to inquire more

Once gifted with this freedom
the former prisoner can
finally view the light of the world
and see reality

This reality is only personal enlightenment as he is
greeted as a lunatic upon returning to his prison

The Allegory of the Cave Questions

1. According to Socrates, what does the Allegory of the Cave represent?

The allegory of the cave represents "how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened."

2. What are the key elements in the imagery used in the allegory?

The cave, and its set up of the wall, the fire, the chained people, and the shadow puppets.  It also makes use of the world as we know it.

3. What are some things the allegory suggests about the process of enlightenment or education?

The allegory suggests that we like to stay in our own bubble, and not learn about the outside world, or the truth about the world around us.  It also tells us that those of us who do like to learn, are seen as crazy to the majority of close minded people.

4. What do the imagery of "shackles" and the "cave" suggest about the perspective of the cave dwellers or prisoners?

Both caves and shackles are very negatively connotated things for obvious reasons, showing that the perspective of the cave dwellers is very close minded, small, and in many cases, wrong. 
5. In society today or in your own life, what sorts of things shackle the mind?

This is going to be very controversial, but taking things literally all the time, especially things like a book of allegories written a little less than 2,000 years ago by the Greeks, not the Hebrews.  By people taking this so seriously, a book of allegories that shows the problems of humanity, or simplifications that make people understand things makes a book that was meant to teach lessons into a misinterpreted book of misunderstanding and  contempt for those who think differently from what is written in the book.  "I believed in father christmas and I looked at the sky with excited eyes 'till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn and I saw him and through his disguise."

6. Compare the perspective of the freed prisoner with the cave prisoners?

The freed prisoner has been enlightened by the actual world, while the cave prisoners are still locked in their small world of naivety.
7. According to the allegory, lack of clarity or intellectual confusion can occur in two distinct ways or contexts. What are they?

The two ways that intellectual confusion can occur are ignorance and apathy. 
8. According to the allegory, how do cave prisoners get free? What does this suggest about intellectual freedom?

The prisoners are freed by the will to break away, which in real life is curiosity, and open mindedness. 
9. The allegory presupposes that there is a distinction between appearances and reality. Do you agree? Why or why not?

I agree.  Everybody puts on a facade.  Not to many people you interact with are genuine.  It takes a while to crack people open, thus what we see of them is not who they really are.  Also, we can see trees and buildings, and we think of them as so, although they are really just complex clumps of atoms, which are in turn made up of smaller and smaller particles.  
10. If Socrates is incorrect in his assumption that there is a distinction between reality and appearances, what are the two alternative metaphysical assumptions?

The theory of alternate universes, and the theory that everybody is living their own reality that they have created for themselves.  What is real to you is not real to everybody else.

Hamlet Remix

This is my completely amazing remix.  Yes, I made references to things, but connecting to something that I and others should know makes material more interesting to me and the people who understand the references, and linking new material to something that one already knows makes it much easier to understand.

A Poetic Inquiry

Sonnet: On Knowledge

Knowledge is one thing priceless, people want;
Knowledge is something gained by labor long;
Knowledge is infinite; master, you-can't;
Knowledge is changeable, much like a song.

Knowledge is deeper than the oceans deep;
Knowledge is larger than the Universe;
Knowledge is barely in life, just a peep;
Knowledge if badly used becomes God's curse.

Knowledge remains undiminished, tho' you- share;
Knowledge gives man, a civilised outlook;
Knowledge if improper, you ought to pare;
Knowledge is gained from Nature and by book.
Knowledge can make a man a wiser one;
Knowledge gives Wisdom in the longer run. 

Dr John Celes

I chose this sonnet, because my question is about why people do not actively seek knowledge, and this poem is about the importance of knowledge, its difficulty to obtain, and its endless uses.

Hamlet Essay

Words are how we are able to communicate from one another complex or abstract ideas to those around us.  We say words to tell people what we are going to do, and because we do this, saying something becomes the first step of doing something.  The more we say that we are going to do something, the more people believe that you are going to do that thing, giving a greater obligation to do something.  In William Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet, the character’s actions, and thus the plot are all driven by this act of performative utterance, making them extremely human.  

In the play, the character of Hamlet is always using performative utterance to portray what he intends to do.  Weather it is to Horatio, to his family, or to himself, saying things truly makes Hamlet’s future actions concrete.  These declarations of future actions serve many purposes.  First, they allow the audience to know what is to come, setting up many instances of dramatic irony when put side by side with other character’s performative utterances.  One example of this is when Hamlet vows to kill Claudius to avenge his father, yet Claudius and Laertes plan to poison Hamlet during a duel.   Hamlet’s utterances make him feel obligated to do what he says he will, thus making them drive the plot, as Hamlet is driven to do what he says he will.  When he says that he will have to avenge his father, nothing stops him, from being put down, to being shipped off to England.  

These performative utterances also make the characters of the play seem very human.  Hamlet especially feels very human, because humans do this.  As humans, we are constantly declaring that we are going to do something before we do it.  It gives us the social pressure we need to do something.  If everybody knows that we have the intention of doing something, we feel that it will make us untrustworthy if we do not do it, so we do it.  If you tell somebody that you are going to do the talent show, and you do not, you feel that you are viewed as untrustworthy.  This is shown in It’s a Wonderful Life when George Bailey tells everybody that he is going to “wipe the dust of this little town off my feet and see the world!”  Because he does not, he feels like he is a failure in life and wishes that he was never born.  This is why performative utterance is such a human thing, and why it is so human that Hamlet uses it.