David B. Calhoun’s Blog

Today was my archery day! That’s right - all Fridays I just have archery in the morning, then I’m out!

And I found it very strange that in talking about bad excuses for missing class, the instrutor mentioned that “oh, I was up until 6:00am playing World of Warcraft” is a bad excuse. I posted this on the BioL4N club folder on BUBBS and someone replied that she (the archery instructor) plays a mage on the Proudmoore server! Haha, fancy time to quit WoW, just when I find out that one of my teachers is playing the darn game! Anyhow, it wasn’t a philosophy teacher, which isn’t surprising considering they’re all a bit too old for computer games, and they probably have better priorities anyhow (though I DID find two other people in my philsophy seminar class last semester who play, but they were both sub-40, as we snobby level 60’s like to say).

Well I’m fine with it. When I want to play a game, I find myself playing the Battlefield 2 demo in the sometimes unbearable and unpredictable lag (when it’s really bad, I’ve found it’s a lot easier than the original [BF1942] to play in the lag, because you can still walk around fairly easily, and you can pick up a job like engineer and just run around repairing equipment on your base).

Ok, enough of computer games!

When I’m not doing that, I’ve found myself editing Wikipedia. I’ve just now gotten into the Philosophy section of Wikipedia, which is a REAL fixer-upper. There’s a whole project dedicated just in updating the philosophy pages. I added my name tonight, and tried to help a bit with Medieval philosophy, which is in even worse shape since it’s so unpopular.

Incidentally, the Middle Ages are the most overlooked period in most every subject, philosophy included. Philosophy was the EPITOME of the Middle Ages though - the Church needed to clear up its doctrine and what its doxology (right-teaching) was. This could only be achieved through academic debate - in a type of argument called the scholastic method, which is basically what people in Ivory Tower land still do today in academic journals, etc. Anyhow, it’s on the one hand a shame that Medieval Philosophy is looked over, but on the other hand it creates a rare opportunity in today’s world. Speaking purely about my future career, Medieval Philosophy is an area in sore need of researchers and teachers. There are volumes of materials just waiting to be analyzed and translated (we only have a very select amount of materials that have been translated into English so far). It’s quite similar to another favorite subject of mine: World War I aviation.

Not only is World War I looked over in favor of World War II, but hardly anyone acknowledges the existence of air power in WWI.

So that’s good I guess - it provides a good opportunity for the world to grow and research unpopular areas of history. In an age when the physical frontier has albeit disappeared (deep ocean and deep space excepted in this case), an intellectual frontier is still ahead.

“My child, do not despise the Lord’s
discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
for the Lord reproves the one he
loves,
as a father the son in whom he
delights.”
Proverbs 3:11-12

And again!

“My child, do not let these escape
from your sight:
keep sound wisdom and prudence,
and they will be life for your soul
and adornment for your neck.
Then you will walk on your way
securely
and your foot will not stumble.
If you sit down, you will not be
afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will
be sweet.
Do not be afraid of sudden panic,
or of the storm that strikes the
wicked;
for the Lord will be your confidence
and will keep your foot from being
caught.”
Proverbs 3:21-26

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2005 at 10:51 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.