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1. The biggest problem that comes with discussing Socrates as a historical person is that, there is in fact no direct evidence that can support any of the discussions, since Socrates has no writings that exists for us to review. Although there are so many people that have written about him and lots of documents from Ancient Athens (maybe, I didn’t investigate this) indicate that Socrates’ existence and his death was probably real, however, it might be difficult to discover his true philosophy from other people’s work.

(Again since I haven’t read enough articles about Socrates, my following argument is not well-supported by evidence. Please correct me if any of the claims is incorrect.)

Socrates has a great impact on the development of philosophy. Even those who have no interest in philosophy probably also have heard of Socrates and some of his famous quotes. In my opinion, it’s more meaningful to discuss the impact of Socrates as a symbol instead of his true existence. I tend to believe that the Socrates that we are reading about is more like a literary creation. In Plato’s text, Socrates is an anti-social man with a strict logo and various difficult questions, who is only humble to knowledge and gods while using them as the base of his “weapons”. The contradictions in his character are so charming, that makes the arguments made from his mouth so intriguing. Who can not respect a man that has chosen death to continue on his endless inquiry? However, since in other people’s text Socrates always cared so little about the basic needs for a human to stay alive, which really should be the biggest concerns of all people in all time, I think his fellow philosophers like Plato had turned Socrates’ character into a literary creation: a man that existed purely for philosophy. Thus, it is necessary to reconsider which portion of the Socrates that we are reading that has been exaggerated. While words are harder to examine, it is possible to investigate the things that Socrates had done, by comparing writings about him from different authors. That way the same ideas that have appeared in multiple writings will have a higher potential to be a part of the original philosophy of Socrates. Secondly, it’s also worth learning the authors who created those writings about Socrates. Literature has always been a way that the authors use to symbolically express their feelings or attitudes towards the society/government at their living time. By acknowledging the authors’ background, it is possible to infer what parts of their writings about Socrates were in fact their own words but through Socrates’ mouth.

7. Call me a materialist if you want although I don’t classify myself that way. Or it’s because I’m around 20 years old and nothing else makes more sense to me than the presence. I don’t believe in heaven and hell, because if every single dead person goes to either, heaven and hell must be awful places that are flooded with uncontrolled expanding population. There’s just no fairy tales like that exists in this universe. In terms of sustainability, the eastern myth of reincarnation does a much better job. When a person dies, their soul leaves their body and goes to the eastern hell, which is the living place for the dead, where every soul receives a trail about their past life and pays off their sins, washes off their past memories and finally it’s sent to a brand

new life. My only question about this system is when and how the souls start to exist and disappear, or the population expansion problem is still going to happen eventually. There have been reports about people having memories of their previous lives and some of them did seem to be evidential. However, since I don’t have those memories, there is no way for me to prove or deny whether my life before birth and after death truly existed/ will exist(or souls doesn’t work with our sense of time so using tense is ridiculous). Therefore, the only existence that I’m quite sure about myself and I can talk about is my present life.

If we call the soul a program of some form, then the body is the hardware where the program exists and runs. Just like software and hardware, It’s not appropriate to talk about them separately, because the conclusion must be somewhat one-sided. Even if it is unclear whether the soul can live without a living body, it’s quite concluded that when the soul is not floating on its own, the physical body has influences on the soul. There are all kinds of scientific studies that can support that, such as the use of drugs, hormones, ASMR, and all kinds of physical stimulates that affects our cognitions and feelings. At the same time, there are so many complicated brain activities that can not yet be explained by just analyzing the physical activities of the body, such as memories, intuitions, emotions, and etc. Personally, I can clearly feel that I’m alive when my consciousness is able to sense and communicate with all the parts of my body. Being physically or intellectually involved in intensive activities also has the same effect. So I am somewhat convinced that I’m alive with a combination of a living body and an active soul. However, there was one night when I was laying on the bed and trying to consciously relax my body as much as possible, for one solid minute I felt the weight of my lungs and how deadly they are pressed on the bed by gravity, as if it’s a separate part from the consciousness that I identified as me. To be honest, I was scared. For the first time I actually felt that my consciousness, or soul, is trapped in this heavy meat & bones prison, instead of only a thought experiment.

Anyways, I personally do believe that life exists and will continue to exist before and after the current life. However, I don’t have good evidence to support it and I don’t really care about them so much. Because I still think it is the presence that always really matters.