Zain's Guide to Overthinking Everything

Plato’s The Republic Overview              The Republic is an ancient Greek dialogue by the philosopher, Plato, about Socrates’ discourses about justice, ethics, and creating an ideal society.   Book 1 Main Ideas: Socrates asks for a definition of justice and is met with three responses: 1. To give each what is owed to them. 2. To give to each what is appropriate to them. 3. Whatever is advantageous to the strongest. Socrates then attempts to refute each definition. For the first definition, Socrates gives an example of returning a weapon to a madman. While a knife may be what was owed to them before they lost their sanity, returning it to them may cause them to harm someone. For the second definition, if doing good to one’s friends is appropriate and acting the reverse to one’s enemies is harmful, but harming someone tends to make one unjust, then harming one’s enemies will lead to justice creating injustice. Furthermore...

An Explanation of Reincarnation in Hinduism   “Just as the embodied soul continuously passes from childhood to youth to old age, similarly, at the time of death, the soul passes into another body. The wise are not deluded by this.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:13)            The soul that animates the body will survive while the body does not according to Hinduism. This next body will be destined by the actions in their previous life and this is the concept of karma. Good intent and actions lead to a good future while bad intent and actions lead to a bad future. But what is exactly the soul? Is it the Atman? The Atman is identified with the consciousness of the human being that is all-pervasive amongst all that exists. The Atman is eternal reality, indestructible, and bliss and is identified with Brahman or God who is the true reality of everything. However, since the Atman is everywhere and unchanging and is in all beings, it is not the one that ...

Notes on the Basics of Neoplatonism   Neoplatonism revolves around the idea of an all-powerful transcendent divinity, The One, and its emanation. The movement was founded by the Greek Platonist philosopher, Plotinus (204-270 AD). According to The Enneads , Plotinus’ primary text of Neoplatonism, The One is an omnipotent force which exists beyond all categories and is the single source of light from which the entire universe is illuminated. The One, however, is not directly the creator of our universe. Rather, The One represents a higher level of divinity and reality than the Demiurge or the divine intellect which is the creative element of the divine and a manifestation of the radiance of The One which permeates the lower levels of the cosmos which are visible to man. The One is so simple such that it does not contain any parts or be divided and beyond reality that it cannot even be said to exist or to be a being since it is utterly beyond. The system can be divided between the inv...