All You Zombies

        It is a science fiction short story by Robert Anson Heinlein. It was written in July 11, 1958. The story involves a number of paradoxes caused by time travel. That's why I'd like to add the story on my blog.

The story involves an intricate series of time-travel journeys. It begins with a young man speaking to the narrator, the Bartender, in 1970. The young man is called the Unmarried Mother, because he writes stories for confession magazines, many of them presumably from the point of view of an unmarried mother. Cajoled by the Bartender, the Unmarried Mother explains why he understands the female viewpoint so well: he was born a girl, in 1945, and raised in an orphanage. While a fairly ugly teenager in 1963, she was seduced, impregnated, and abandoned by an older man. During the delivery of her child, doctors discovered she was intersex, with internalized male sex organs as well as female sex organs. Complications during delivery forced them to give her a gender reassignment. The baby was kidnapped by a mysterious older gentleman, and not seen again. The Unmarried Mother then had to adjust to life as a man, despite an upbringing which left him unqualified for "men's" jobs; he had planned to get into space as a sex worker for male workers and colonists. Instead he used his secretarial skills to type manuscripts, and eventually began writing. Professing sympathy, the Bartender offers to take him to the abandoning seducer, whom the Unmarried Mother wishes revenge on. He guides him into a back room, where he uses a time machine to take them to 1963, and sets the young man loose. The bartender goes forward eleven months, kidnaps a newborn baby and takes it to 1945, leaving it in an orphanage. He returns to 1963 and picks up the Unmarried Mother, who was instinctively attracted to his younger female self and has seduced and impregnated her. The Bartender nudges him to connect the dots, and realize that the seducer, the young woman, the baby, and the time traveler are all him. The Bartender then drops the Unmarried Mother at an outpost of the Temporal Bureau, a time-traveling secret police force that manipulates events in history, to protect the human race. He has just created and recruited himself. Finally the Bartender returns to 1970, arriving a short time after he left the bar. He allows a customer to play "I'm My Own Grandpa" on the jukebox, having yelled at the customer for playing the song before he left. Closing the bar, he time travels again to his home base. As he beds down for a much deserved rest, he contemplates the scar left over from the Caesarean section performed when he gave birth to his daughter, father, mother, and entire history. He thinks, "I know where I came from—but where did all you zombies come from?" 

Reference: https://goo.gl/iqyS6t
Click the following link to see the chronological order of events and understand better: http://goo.gl/iJ2Lvh

Realism and Romanticism in the History of Literature

         In the history of literature, there are a lot of literary movements which changed the literature with their attitudes from time to time. Some of them aim the ideal art for people, but in other respects some of them believe that the art is not for people, it exists for itself. There are two literary movements which are against each other but when a closer look is taken, it is clear that while Realism and Romanticism are alike in some respects, there are also significant differences between them.

         We can not say that there are too many the similarities between Realism and Romanticism because Realism took place to be against Romanticism. But there are several similarities between Realism and Romanticism. Realism is a literary movement like Romanticism. Also, Realists and Romanticists are similar to each other, in that they attach importance to the description of nature in their works.
        On the other hand, there are too many differences between Realism and Romanticism. The most importance difference is their senses of art. In Realism, the idea "Art for art's sake." dominates, but then in Romanticism, the idea "Art for people's sake." dominates its sense of art. In Realism, the author prefers to hide his identity in his work. In comparison, in Romanticism, you may know the author's identity, because he doesn't hide his identity. By the way, mythology are used in the rise of Romanticism but the real life cases come into prominence in Realism. Another noteworthy difference between these two types of literary movements is the language. In Realism, used language should be simple but in Romanticism, it might be splendent and garish. To give a spesific example, the poem "Mignon" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe start with those sentences: "Do you know the land where the lemon-trees grow, in darkened leaves the gold-oranges glow, a soft wind blows from the pure blue sky, the myrtle stands mute, and the bay-tree high?". You can see the language how flashy, and not simple. Romanticism is predicated on emotions. Conversely, Realism as is evident from its name is predicated on the facts. Significations such as good and nice are at the forefront in romanticist works, not in the realist works. Consequently, it is obvious that while Realism is deemed the mind and facts, still in Romanticism emotions and feelings are at the forefront.

        In conclusion, despite the fact that both Realism and Romanticism are the literary movements, they differ from each other in terms of the sense of art, the language, the attitude to the people in art. The authors today will need to know the differences between those two types of literary movements while they write their works.

"All Cretans are liars."

        The Epimenides saying is a problem in logic. It's an expression which is revealed by the Cretan philosopher Epimenides. He said: "All Cretans are liars". This saying of Epimenides is a paradox. The Epimenides saying is also known as the Cretan Paradox.           

        What makes this saying a paradox? If we agree that "All Cretans are liars", Epimenides is a liar because he is a Cretan. If Epimenides is a liar, the statement "All Cretans are liars" is false. In that case, the statement is both true and false. If we agree that "All Cretans are liars" is false, we can say that Cretan Epimenides tells the truth. Then, the statement "All Cretans are liars" should be true. In that case, a contradictory result occurs. Finally, a statement cannot be both true and false.

        In my opinion; if Epimenides had said "There is at least one Cretan which is righteous", we could not call this statement a paradox. Because if he had said like that, he would have mentioned himself in that statement as a Cretan. Thus, we could say that Epimenides tells the truth and agree with the statement. According to the statement "There is at least one Cretan which is righteous", Epimenides is righteous and Cretans are liars.

Platonic Love

         

        Plato says that, like objects, abstract and concrete terms are in the world of ideas and the things that human beings see are the shadows of each one of them. According to the Platonism, Platonic Love is a belief that a person who sees the beloved person's shadow and thinks it's ideal. In other words, Platonic Love is the love which turns into spiritualism from secularism. It's the real love, celibate and non-sexual. Contrary to what is believed, it's not an unrequited love or impossible love. Platonic Love is derived from the Republic. In the Republic, Plato identifies a state which is ideal about impossible. Thus, Plato created the idiom "Platonic" that, articulates your feelings which will be possible or impossible.

 

Ageometretos Medeis Eisito

         The saying of Plato "Let no-one without knowledge of geometry enter", so the original version of the saying in Latin is "Ageometretos medeis eisito" (ἀγεωμέτρητος μηδεὶς εἰσίτω in Greek) which also known "Matematiksel olanı anlayamayan buraya girmesin." in Turkish. We can argue about the saying and ask ourselves, "Why Ageometretos medeis eisito" which is a mathematical saying is in the Academy (Philosophy Academy)?", but this may be possible because in this saying, Plato means the importance of analytical thinking in philosophical thought system. Meanwhile, let me define what the analytical thinking is: Analytical thinking is a critical component of visual thinking that gives one the ability to solve problems quickly and effectively that allows you to break down complex problems into single and manageable components. Therefore, Plato refers that people acts with the mathematics' knowledge when they repeat their attitudes in the face of life and comments about living creatures and happenings. Because of that, Plato says "Let no-one without knowledge of geometry enter". And also, we can say that the Akademeia are grounded by Plato with a mathematical and rationalistic thought and he follows his master Socrates.