Waiting and mirror: a trivial essay

Abstract

The problem of the determination of human action has occupied philosophy for centuries. This essay seeks to contribute to this debate by proposing two philosophical theses. The first one holds that all human action is organized on a structure of waiting for something that determines consciousness. Every initiative and every voluntary act dependent on something that appears in the stream of consciousness. In this sense, the subject seems to be visited by something from the outside that will start his or her behavior. In support of this thesis are presented phenomenological reports of the decision process, historical records of mental events as visitations, literary representations and philosophical theories of time. In particular, it is shown that the theories of the corpuscular or granular dimension of time and of the flow of consciousness are particularly relevant to the explanation of the agency capacity of human beings. In addition, it is proposed an inventory of the major themes that organize human action. The essay focuses on cultural contents linked to universities, the internet and the world literature. Moreover, one advocates a second philosophical thesis according to which
humans are only interested in themselves. The essay ends with the defense of the idea that philosophy, science and religion have no rational means to explain human agency, proposing as an alternative the sapiential approach on this subject. The various lines of thought of this essay are unified by the idea that the triviality of human life hides intellectual problems worthy of investigation.