5/3/12

In section three of Darwin's theory of Human Nature it is talked about the difference between biology's point of view when it comes to our nature and why we act the way we do. It is known in society that woman are more inclined to take care of the children and biologically it is thought this is because the women are the one's carrying the child so they feel a connection to the baby on a different level than the father. But what about the way that society defines us as women and men? Nature is not our destiny when it comes to biology, but it is argued the fact that society makes us act and feel a different way.  Girls at a young age are taught to be more understanding and compassionate as while men are taught to be tough, care givers and more agressive. The argument is how much of this has to do with biology and how much has to do with the way that we are treated at a young age.   

5/2/12

When reading about Darwin it is said that men are superior to woman but woman could be trained to think and act more like men. This concept baffles me because what I get out of this thinking is that it is thought that it is only necessary to keep women around to have children. I question if it was wrong to act like a woman in Darwin's eyes or to just be a woman in general? I know that some men like woman that are more masculine, but how are men suppose to be attracted to woman that are constantly acting like men? Also I question if Darwin would think that woman would be subject to natural selection if it wasn't for the fact that they are needed to bare the children and that by acting like a man they are more fit to survive? I might be looking into this a little to far but the way that woman were viewed during that time blows my mind; how do you think that women could be trained like animals to act a different way? 

5/1/12

When reading into any great philosopher it is a given that there are going to be different ideas, writing styles, and ways of viewing the world. But what influences those ideas? The issues in society (like racism) can be traced into even the most enlightened peoples work. Another example of how things have changed is before in writing only "he" was used, females weren't usually talked about in earlier writings. Now in almost every writers work both woman and man are talked about in their written text. But a newer influence of society that has infected writers in the bi-est look at Mideastern people after 9/11. In our society still we look at people from the middle east as the bad guys and the people that shouldn't be allowed on a plane. Even though most of them do not practice in the harsh beliefs of terrorism, we still look at them as though they did something wrong. This belief can even be traced in our text of the modern age.

4/30/12

With Darwin's idea of natural selection it is said that anyone that has a defect of any kind (mental or physical) would die because of the environment and that is natural selection at it's finest. In other words nature would weed them out, for example blind people would get hit by cars and handicap people wouldn't be able to get out of their houses and therefor they would die because they are not fit enough to live. They are only alive because of the people that are fit enough to take care of them and feel guilty enough to help them. In his theory he thinks that by us helping those that are not fit to live on their own that we are messing with the natural selection process and that is wrong. But there is a hiccup in this theory; no human can live on their own, we need help from one another to survive no matter how fit we are. Without someone taking care of us when we were born we would die within a couple hours. We're not like crocodiles who as soon as they are born they run from the nest because their mother sees them as a source of food. I would say that we're pretty luck in the sense that our mothers don't want to eat us as soon as we're born.  

4/26/12

Competition of resources causes us to battle for them, and by this nature selects who's the most fit. But by fitness I'm not talking about who is the strongest, ants can lift 100x's their weight, no human can do that but yet we can crush an ant and think nothing of it. There is also the example of dinosaurs who were one of the strongest and biggest animals on Earth. It is proven by their extinction that they weren't fit for their environment so they were killed off. Also fitness isn't shared genetically, just because your parents were smart doesn't mean that you are going to be just as smart. This is where Nature vs. Nurture comes in. Your parents might play the guitar, that doesn't mean automatically that you are going to love guitar, but because you have been around the guitar all your life you might pick up an intrest from your surroundings.  

4/25/12

Everyone has heard of survival of the fittest, at least anyone that has taken a biology class. It is the process of selecting an animal to survive based on who's most "fit". But philosophers argue what it means to be the most fit, does it mean that you are the most physically fit, or the smartest, or the animal that just has the best luck? Some would argue that it depends on the situation. We talked about in class how a snake would be able to crawl through a small hole to survive, yet even though we are smarter as humans and kill snakes all the time in that example the snake would be more fit. But if it came to be able to create a way to feed yourself for live and make the tools to make that skill easier humans would triumph any animal. I feel that we are all fit in different ways but it's just the environment that you are in and what danger you need to survive that makes all the difference. We might be one of the smartest animals on earth, but we defiantly aren't the most capable animals to survive.   

4/24/12

Something that really blew my mind was finding out that when George Bush was running for President the way that people morally chose between who they would vote for was thinking who they would more likely have a beer with. How can we as Americans think that is a rational way of thinking that is the way that we should make a decision as to who should run our country? As I said in my last post, we are responsible for the choices that we make, so how can we be so mad at George Bush when we are the ones that put him in office in the first place. I agree that he needs to take responsibility for the choices that he made to but I feel that it is a two way street. I also said in my last post that people having different morals make it hard to judge what is right and wrong, but there is also something known as common sense and I feel that should be considered something that we could judge if someone has it or not.

4/23/12

When talking about conforming, there are many different aspects to acting independently from everyone else. There is a difference between wanting to do something that everyone else is doing and mindlessly make a decision because of what everyone else is doing. For example stay at home mothers were often ridiculed by feminist for not wanting to be independent, but this isn't right because if you truly want to stay home with the kids there is nothing wrong with that, but if you are staying home because that is what you have been taught to think then are you not being radically free. Law sometimes make the decisions for us, not because of if they are right or wrong but because we don't want to go to jail. We are responsible for the decisions we make, but to judge someone based on their morals is impossible. No one can tell you that your morals are wrong if they are what you believe.  

4/20/12

How can we classify our nature? Marx would say human nature is classified as how we meet our basic needs. But what about biological nature? An example would be alcoholism, there is a level of choice that we have and we don't have. It is your choice to drink in the first place, but there is a line where it is no longer your choice, is that classified then as your human nature. We change based on the things that we need and how we meet those needs. Some of those things are a biological given, like taking care of your children. As a parent you change to provide and do whatever it takes for your children and that is just in your nature, we want to do what's best for our kids. I feel that there are some aspects of our nature that we can chose but then there are choices that we make that can change our nature into habits that we can not control and because of those choices we change our nature completely.

4/19/12

In our reading we are suppose to be answering the question what is means for us as humans to be "radically free". In Platos beliefs we are rational creatures that submit into our emotional feelings and when we do that we are acting more like animals. But the difference between us as conscious beings and objects is that we have intentions within our actions, objects don't. We are aware that there are things other than ourselves in the world, but most adolescences don't see it that way. When we are  younger we tend to have an egocentric predicament, meaning that we think that we are the center of the universe and that we are not intertwined in the world. When we get older we learn that we are embedded into the world and that we are very dependent on our surroundings. To be a conscious being you need to have the realization that there are things outside yourself that you didn't create. 

4/18/12

One of the biggest concepts that I got out of the reading about Sartre is the distinction between consciousness or "human reality" and the inanimate, non conscious reality. What he is distinguishing are not two substances but two modes of being. He is talking about the differences between the way the conscious being exists and the way that inanimate things exist. Sartre also distinguishes between reflective and prereflective consciousness. For example when you are counting something, you are conscious that you are counting them, but you are not reflectively conscious that you are counting them until someone asks you what you are doing. He is going into the concept that we do things without consciously thinking about them and we only come to the realization that we are doing something when it is pointed out to us by an outside realization.

4/17/12

This week in the book we are talking about Sartre and his central assertion being human freedom. Sartre didn't believe in God and claimed that we all fundamentally desire to be God in the sense that we want to "be our own foundation". By wanting this he is stating that we would all like to be perfectly complete and self-justifying. He also talks about an negative way that we all tend to think of, we recognize want is not the case. We can conceive something otherwise than it is, and it will be otherwise. He also brings up the thinking that emotions are outside the control of will, but Sartre that you are sad only because you make yourself sad. He claims that emotions are not just moods that "come over us". For example anger with someone involves belief that someone has done something wrong, but if you don't think that action is wrong anymore, you are no longer angry.

4/12/12

When in school, we change classes because we hear a bell. And then when we get to that class we sit in rows, usually in order of our last names. Even in college when we don't need to sit in the same seat every day we do because that is what we have be conditioned to do. This is very much like an assembly line, workers are grouped together on a line to make a product and have no control over the workplace. Bosses hate labor units because we are so expensive. Think about it, the people that work on the assembly lines for Apple making iPads don't get an iPad at the end of the day. Most of the time we don't get to reap the benefits of what we make or in better words what we labor on. That is a form of alienation. We are being alienated from the process and the product. We exploit resources and by doing that we are alienating ourselves from nature and by not caring about what we do the the planet or the other animals on it.

4/11/12

What do we consider property? Is it land, or maybe a car, or even your children? When we first discovered America, we claimed this land as our property because we were here first. By claiming ownership, you are claiming something is yours, usually by the labor that you put in to get it. That's why when your mother or father says "that's my child" technically they have every right to say that because they put in the work to make you, cloth you, and put a roof over your head. Money is a main exchange of ownership, you work for the money and for the exchange of that hard work you can get something of equal value, seams fair right? You labored for the money, making it yours, now if you see something you want then you can exchange that hard work for anything you want that is to equal value. We used work to survive, but now we work to get nice things and to keep up with always changing trends.

4/10/12

In class we talk a lot about what's wrong with America, but a lot of what I am realizing is the truth. A point that was brought up was that America is falling apart at home but yet are acting like the police of the world. It has gotten to the point that we just want our troops home, but the damage it has done at home has left millions without jobs and many of our luxuries that we had, especially in the education system, are being cut for money. Times like these have given our social relations really important. Many are realizing that we need others to help support us in these hard times. We need others to survive, not only for resources but in the social aspect. We are laboring animals, but not only physically but mentally. We are the only animals on Earth that labor mentally, which is feel is a blessing and a curse because we are the ones that have the knowledge to know when we mess up and then have to live with it.  

4/9/12

In class we talked about how we fight these wars with all of these different countries but yet what do we really know about them? For example we were talking about how Russia had to learn English as one of their languages and when tested that they could names some of our famous mountain tops and a few states. I know if someone came up to me and asked me questions about Russia I wouldn't know a thing, at most I would be able to find it on a map. I was told yesterday that 50% of Americans couldn't find America on a map, how sad is that?! I feel that America's motto isn't "know thy enemy", but "know that your enemy is there and then make sure that you have bigger guns then them." Most countries think that we as Americans have the best of everything, and that is somewhat true but mostly because we want the best of everything no matter the cost. There is a universal appeal of shiny things, which causes an universal source of envy.

4/5/12

I don't know if I believe in God, not to be disrespectful of anyone that does but sometimes it's hard for me personally to think that there is something that is greater than me that allows awful things to happen in the world to good people. I know that if I was a God I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to the things I created. I understand the argument that I am not a God and that I am by no means all knowing and that God works in mysterious ways with a plan in mind. But every night on the news there are more and more stories about people dieing and suffering. I know that the human race does it to ourselves but what can a God do to change how we are? Why not fix us and save the planet and save ourselves? I know that no one learns without mistakes but how many mistakes can we make until we come to the conclusion that we are just dangerous creatures by nature that will never be satisfied until we have it all?

4/4/12

I never really thought about it, but why would God want to kill us if he loves us? Are we really that much of a mistake that he thought that we needed to be wiped out because we will cause to much damage to his "perfect" world? We worship him, but for what reason? I know that he made us and that we should be forever thankful but what does he get out of us praising him all the time? Is it an ego boast or is it something that makes him stronger? How could he be thinking of us when he at one time wanted to kill us? And what about those who don't believe in him? Why are they here if they don't give anything back? I know there is the threat that if we don't praise Him than we are going to hell when we die, but we really don't know if that is true because the only people that know are dead. I want to go to heaven and live happily ever after but I understand why there are doubts what we are really worshiping for.

4/3/12

I wonder what type of being is a God. What goes God come from if he created all? Is he something that we can not fathom because he is so much "more" than we are. I mean after all in the Bible it's states that he made us so did he make us just out of reach of the answer of what he really is? In the Bible it explains how God is everywhere but not everything. For example God isn't the desk that you sit at but he is in the room watching you. For me personally that kinda freaks me out, the idea that something that created me and can end the world is watching me all the time to make sure that I don't mess up! But then comes into play the idea that people changed the story of God to create a code of ethics because it is taught in church to NEVER question the word of God. Followers do as their told because when they start to questioning if God exists then you lose the security that comes with believing that there is something bigger than you and me.

4/2/12

In Christianity there is the belief that there is only one all knowing, all powerful God. This God is also ominy present, meaning that he is everywhere. In the Christian belief, this God made everything by saying that things should be created. This is obviously much different than the way we as humans make things. It is also believed that this God has conceptions of things before they come into existence and gives them names then they do come into existence. In the bible, it is taught that God made the world all good, us included and things started to go downhill when Eve gave Adam the apple in the garden of Eden. The reason that there is evil in the world is not because God created it, but because we are creatures capable of sin. Also God does not have physical features, but in the Bible it is told as if God has a human body to be seen and looks like a European man. We as humans changed the story so that God could look more human like us, even though that doesn't make any sense.

3/29/12

It's hard for me to not support the war but support the troops. What was said in class got me really thinking and logically it is correct to say that if you support the troops than you support what they are doing overseas and there forth you are supporting the war. But I want to support the men and woman that are dieing to keep me safe, I feel like it is the least I can do. I know a lot of people that have family and friends that are overseas and they support them because someone they love is in the army/navy/marines/coastguard. To me it makes sense why they are sending post cards and food and love to the soldiers; because every day there is a chance that they could die. How would you feel if someone you love went overseas and passed away in the name of freedom and you didn't support them? You would feel awful! Well I would at least. War makes everything complicated and very little has benefited from the "conflict" that we are currently in.

3/28/12

When saying that you are fighting for freedom, you are no longer fighting for your nations state but you are now fighting for the people of the world. But when you have that mentality you have to throw away the thought of valuing one life more than another. I have heard in my life that we should look at everyone as family and treat them as such. But think about it, if you see two people that need help, one from your home country and one from another, who would you feel more inclined to help? That is a type of racism towards picking which person to pick based on where they are from. This mindset isn't moral, we are all humans and our lives are all worth the same so how can we choose if we are faced with the choice to save one person over another? This is kind of a lose-lose situation but these flaws are ones that we as humans face every day.

3/27/12

When we think about wars and what we are fighting for, as Americans we tend to say that we are fighting to freedom. But if you think about it if another country is considered "more free" than another than shouldn't you be fighting for them if you are fighting for freedom? For example if you were to fight for the Afghan villagers against the U.S that are trying to suppress them but you are for the U.S and they are claiming to be fighting for their freedom, no one would say that you are fighting for the U.S even though the U.S claims that they are fighting for freedom. If we could judge out of all the countries are more free than the others, and it turns out the be Canada, should we all start fighting for Canada because they are now represent what are fighting for more than what America is. But we could never tell our soldiers that because than they would know that we really have no idea what we are trying to fight for or who we are trying to save.

3/26/12

Patriotism is the topic of the week and what it really means to "fight for your country. In patriotism there are conditions; to feel special affection for one's country, special concerns for one's country, a sense of personal identity though your country, and a willingness to sacrifice for your country. The "American Dream" is what we like to think that all soldiers from the U.S fight for, that we stand for freedom and are trying to protect the better good for others. Tolstoy thought this was foolish and immoral because if your government is acting immoral and you believe in your government than you become immoral. If you think about it he does make a good point, and brings up the bigger question, what makes the U.S.A? What is that makes people think that this is the home of the brave and that we are the "keepers of peace"? 

3/22/12

So I had a bad dream last night about hiding from a huge monster in the bushes outside my house and I woke up when the monster found me. I woke up in a state of panic and couldn't go back to bed so I had a lot of time to think about what we have been talking about in class. I am honestly interested in what that dream would mean and if there really is something that could be said about a dream like that. I also wondered what my unconscious was trying to face. I know that hiding and the scary feeling of being caught in a game like hide and seek but I haven't played a game like that in years. I know in the last couple weeks I have been going though a lot of mental stress due to picking classes so my mind has been running on overdrive. Could that be what causes dreams, the mind over-thinking something and it picks something that you have had to face at one point or another?

3/21/12

How can we make sense of something that we don't control? When we dream it comes from our unconscious, and even great minds like Freud can't make full sense of what's going on in our head without guessing. Really the only way that we could get any real data is to collectivity gather data by the dreams of a large group of people and have them write down what happened in their dreams as soon as they woke up and hope and assume that there would be some commonalities that could be compared. But even then, buy the way I see it is that people come from different places and different backgrounds so even if there are common events that happen in the dreams what do we really compare because everyone is different so what could we tell that person about what their dreams meant? I know that there are people that can tell you what certain things mean but that person knows nothing about me or where I am from so how can they tell me what my unconscious is trying to tell me?   

3/20/12

When talking about what is considered scientific, we talk about what is needed to prove that what you are claiming is true. And to prove something we need something called "proof". In every science class whenever I was trying to prove that an answer was right I would need proof that what I am thinking is true. But the real problem comes in when trying to prove something when talking about human nature. On the subject of social science, can we really prove human thoughts and habits. There are different truths in the human world and the science world but both types of scientists try to find truths in different aspects of the world. Mathematical truths are much more easier truths than humans because numbers are black and white, there is one scenario so there is one answer. With humans there are so many difference between all of us that it is almost impossible to find the proof to prove that we are what we are.     

3/19/12

In class today I learned that the concious life is like an iceburg. The concious life is what you can see, and as we all know most of an iceburg is what you can't see. The pre concious life is what is just under the surface and that can only be obtained after reflection. When we pull thing out of our mind that is something that we normally wouldn't have to think about is something that would be in the pre concious. And then there is the unconcious mind, which would be what is the bottom of the iceburg and what we can't see under the water. The unconcious is also most of the iceburg, also like on the iceburg most of the iceburg is what we can't see. These are things that we can not normally think about, or if we do think about it, it's not something we would pick up. This is the most unknown part of the thinking mind because it is something that we can not control or understand fully.

3/8/12

In most of the things in our lives we associate things as something that is feminine or masculine. One of those habits would be eating meat, when you think of someone eating a piece of stake you don't tend to think of a woman going to town on a t-bone. It is thought to be more of a womanly thing to do to eat something "safer" like a salad. But why should a woman be expected to only want to eat something safe when we are all supposed to be treated equal. A lot of this thinking is based on the belief of the way that things have been in our society and are now looked at as tradition. We are considered soft and fragile even though we are the ones that bear the children and most woman are single mom's now, that is far from weak. I know that times are changing so that is why most woman are looking to be looked as equals but I feel like we more than deserve it. If the times are changing shouldn't people's mindsets be changing to as to how we look and judge woman based on what was to be thought of us in the past?  

3/7/12

When we think of girls that we consider "pretty", usally they are the girls that have very little clothing and weigh about 90 pounds. If you think about it, that really isn't how it should be, look at all the great athletes that work hard for the bodies that they have and achieve things. And then woman get upset when men think of them as a "piece of meat" but yet we walk around with very little confidance and show little power when we belittle ourselves to that level. In the reading for this week it is said that men have similar pleasure eating as to when they see a naked woman. Woman are looked at as something to be "dominated" similar to when you are eating something. I feel that we sometimes bring this on ourselves though when we protray ourselves as "animals" that can't fend for ourselves and are something that can be easily dominated and controled. If we don't fight for the power that we rightfully deserve than we are going to continue to be treated as animals that should be treated and looked down to as animals.

3/6/12

I was thinking the other day, what makes someone feel so strongly about animals? To become a vegetarian you have to really push yourself to not fall victim to what society thinks of what you should eat. We have been taught our whole lives to eat meat, not only that but hunting and gathering is something that has kept us alive for thousands of years. No one likes to think of an animal dieing so I understand some of the driving force behind the will power of those who chose to not eat meat. I feel like this mind set doesn't effect more  people because we are not the one's that kill the animal or have to watch it die. I feel that if more people had to watch the animal that they were going to eat die they would not eat it. We no longer have to hunt for our food so we don't respect it the same way. Eating meat is something that is so common in American lives that we think nothing of the animal that died just so we don't get to hungry that day.

3/5/12

Today I learned what an eco-feminist is, the intersection of the domination of nature and the domination of women. They have the concern of individual animals while feeling that we should not be treated like animals. An example would be the feeling of that we should not be treated like animals, but yet that means that animals are expected to be treated a certin way. A really interesting point that was presented in the article was that it is harder to come out to society as a vegertian then to come out as being gay. Now why should that be if when you are chosing to be a vegertarian to be looked at differently then coming out as being gay, which isn't a choice. It is hard to come out of the social norms of eating meat because of the social pressures of what is considered to be normal. It is often looked at as a masculen thing to do to eat meat and a womenly thing to eat veggies, but why is that? What made it so strange for a girl to eat chicken wings at dinner?

3/1/12

Why do people decide to have faith? Is it something that we can decide? I know in my youth I was told to have faith in a God because he is all knowing and knows when I don't believe. Because of that faith I was required to go to church every week to show that I still am a believer and to show gratitude. Now that I am older I am l am seeing how that faith was and still is a part of my identity. When I am making a decision (either if it is free will or something per-determined) I am thinking if this is something that would be acceptable or looked down upon by a higher power. But feeling that I can't or shouldn't do something is affecting my free will if I have any. If I was given free will why would God give me the knowledge that  would make me feel bad if I don't follow his word? I should be able, under the idea of free will, to be able to make the considered a "mistake" under Gods eye and be forgiven?

2/29/12

Being in this class is starting to make me question everything that I have been taught since I was young! Because I went to a Catholic school until 8th grade I was taught to be ourselves but God has a plan for everyone and is all knowing. But today I learned that is a paradox because we are saying that God created us with a plan but yet we have free will and can do whatever we want. We this really was true than God's powers would be limited by the choices that we made and when we made them. If that was the case than how would that God be all powerful if what we did was the deciding factor in what he could do? The question came up today that if God create a boulder that was even to big for him to move? All of this is questioning if the the God that we think is a God and how much of a God he really could be. I never thought that it would be okay to question anything bigger than me.

2/28/12

How do you know if an amazing act is a coincidence or a miracle? When something is considered a miracle, it means that a higher power like God intervening in a situation that we as humans can't explain. When believing in a miracle, along with that comes faith. Faith is believing what you hear, not on something that you experience yourself. The believing in things that we can't see or explain helps us make sense of the world in a way that we can understand because there are so many unknowns. A good example of this statement is the belief in religion. The belief in religion can save us from the real world momentarily. As Karl Marx said, "Religion is like a drug, but it is also the heart of a heartless world". Because we as humans fear the unknown, we look for anything that will help us make a little more sense of a world that we will never be able to fully understand. 

2/27/12

Today we talked about the unnatural and supernatural. The basest of supernatural knowledge is the religious texts that full the basest of our knowledge on the things that we can't see or explain. Our belief in the supernatural is the belief that we are getting things right compared to what the religious text tells us. Our tradition makes us believe things like what color a wedding dress should be or what we should eat for Thanksgiving, but what makes us think that way? Is it the fear of the unknown, of how things would work if we didn't have these set "guidelines" that everyone around us seams to live by? Naturalist believe based on observation, so that we act and believe based on what we see in our everyday lives and that there is always an explanation. But when it comes to religious things like faith, we are believing because we choose to believe, not because there is any concrete evidence that there is something to believe in.

2/23/12

As an American, we hear the word free will a lot. We live in country that allows us to feel how we want to feel and say what we want to say. But in a more philosophical view free will is the humans ability to chose out of more than one option without the laws of physics interfering. It also means that nothing in our lives is determined, that the choices that we make determine what is to happen next. But to take it a step deeper, what if our thoughts and actions are determined but we just don't think they are? Like we think that we are making decisions on our own but really the world had it already determined that we would think that way. If this idea that our thoughts are already determined, there is no way we would be able to know because we cant tell the future. We can't reason our way though the illusion of free will and because of that we will never know if free will really does exist.

2/22/12

I learned today that determinism is that belief that humans do not have free will, that what we believe we choose is actually somt ething that is pre determined by the world. In the universe we have no choice which is something that is kind of scary to think about. Things change over time, and andifferent way to think about it is if time stopped, stopped all the elements of the world only then nothing would change because time isn' moving. Because we live in a world where things are always changing than there is no way to know what the future is unless you knew everything about an object like a piece of chalk than you could predict would would happen if it were to fall. Time doesn't only flow backwards, it only flows foward. In determinism it is believed that the basic laws of the world govern our thoughts even if we have no idea. This idea means that the world runs every decision that we make and we have no idea! We have no control over any thought or action even though we might think we do. Whoa.

2/21/12

So I was reading a story about how a little girl is a survivor of cancer of more than 3 years now and she wasn't supposed to live more than a year. I don't know why this struck me so deep, but it got me thinking about this class. I know it's not what we're talking about now but earlier in the class we were talking about how philosophers want an explination for almost anything and that is why we look into how we act as humans and what makes us act that way. But how could anyone explain how that little girl is still breathing? I know when we look into the world there are going to be things that accure that we will not be able to explain because we do not know everything in the world that we live in, but than why are we looking for an explination? There is going to be so much that we will never understand but yet we pick at some of the greatest minds in history in hopes that there will be some claification, I just don't understand why we toucher ourselves.

2/20/12

This weeks question was wether or not I would consider myself a compatibilist or an incompatibilist. I had no idea what either of these terms meant, so the defination I got off of Wikipedia.com is that compatibilism si the belief that free will and determinism can happen at the same time, and that it is possiable to believe both without being logically inconsistent. Incompatibilism is defined as the view that a deterministic universe is completly at odds with the notion that people have free will. It took me a long time to have an opinion on what I believed in, considering that I never really put much thought into it. But I came to the conclusion that I would consider myself a compatibilist because I feel that free will and determinism can coexist and help us make the decisions that lead us in our lives. The way that I see it is that without free will we would fully depend on other people to do something as simple as making a decision and determism gives us the drive to take the risks that help us learn and grow to lead better lives.

2/16/12

I was wondering today why it is that we listen to the ideas of these philosophers anyways, I mean they make connections with the world that don't make any sense anyways to people like me that are just trying to make sense of the world! I would be lying though if I said that the ideas that these great men thought of didn't interest me, but what bothers me is that they all make me feel bad about something I do in my every day life. Looking though my past posts I see that all of my ideas revolved around the idea that we should feel bad for any type of happiness that we feel for ourselves and if we don't examine our lives then we are not living the lives that we should be. But I think everyone can agree that sometimes it is better to just live life rather then trying to over think everything that we plan to do. What type of life would we be living if we thought about every action we took? We would never fully be living the lives that we could, and in that way wouldn't that be selfish? I think all of these readings are starting to get into my head...

2/15/12

I swear this class is making me feel that there is no act that one can do without being selfish. I learned in this weeks reading about altruism, doing something nice for someone else  but allowing yourself to feel nice about it in some way. But how nice are we allowed to feel until we are being selfish? How do you even measure the way you feel? Like if you feel more than half percent good about what you are doing than its not okay. Well what if you feel more happy about how you feel than what you are doing, can you measure that? That got me so confused thinking about how we feel bad about yourself by how we measure how we should be feeling and what we actually feel. I disagree when thinking that we shouldn't be allowed to feel some type of happiness for ourselves when doing a good deed for someone else because if we didn't feel any type of happiness than what would motivate us to what to help others? Yes I wish we lived in a world where we just wanted to help those in need but in reality that isn't the case. We help others because we feel that is what we should be doing and when we do it we feel good because not everyone would sacrifice their time for someone else.

2/14/12

What would you do to stay alive? Picture your on a boat with one other person and there is only enough food for one person to survive, would you give up the food to that person or would you except that food and watch them die? By no means is this an easy question but this was the example used in class to explain the difference between being selfish or self interested. By taking the food does that make you selfish or accepting? And what are your intentions when giving the food away, is it just so you don't have to watch the other person die? But what about the idea of being a "hero"? When you think of a hero, most think of someone that goes out of their way in an extreme mannor to help someone else. The reason that heros are so looked up too is because there aren't many real life people that would be willing to risk everything that they have for someone else. But back to what you would do to stay alive, would you be selfish enough to take the food, or selfish enough to die so you don't have to live with the fact that you are alive because someone else had to die? 

2/13/12

Today we talked about the difference between self interest and being selfish. Selfish is when acting based on own self interest and being self interested is acting based on your own health. An example would be not crossing the road during rush hour so you don't get hit out of self interest, or not crossing the road to help someone in danger and being selfish. But then there is also different ways of acting selfishly by doing nothing when you should. We used the example of someone watching a baby drown and doing nothing about and not having to go to jail based on that action. Should the person that watched the baby suffocate have to pay the same price as the person that put that life in the water? Thinking about it, it doesn't take action to act selfish, being selfish can include doing nothing at all. We live in a society that we won't harm one another, but we won't go out of our way to help one another either. We use little sayings like, "I didn't mean too!" that make us seam less involved or that there was little that we could have done to help another when in reality we could have made a difference.

2/9/12

In my class we talk a lot about what makes us human, more specifically what makes us different from animals. An example would be how both animals and humans can move freely without the need of another force, which seperates us both from plants that need the wind or another force to move them. But than what do we have that animals don't have? Now don't forget that we are animals, but with concious thought. We are able to think of questions and problem solve, we do have animal desires but we are the only species that has reason. Reason is a driving force for almost everything we do, thinking abbout what is the best way to get something done or how to solve a problem. Arostotle believe that every human body is just the shell for a soul, which defines us as a person and without the human body the soul would not be able to survive. But the soul is not a "thing", it is an enity all of it's self. It is invisible but it makes that we classify as ourselves as being human.

2/8/12

What helps you lead a happy life, is it all of the money you gain or all the friends you make? Well if you ask Aristotle he would say that to lead a happy life you have to reflect and lead a life of reason. There should be no passive enjoyment only the use of reason. Plato believed that we needed to escape the cave to see the light and find the truth, but Aristotle believed that we didn't need to get out of the cave, only see what is in front of us. But being human, it is in our nature to be social animals, but because of this nature does that not allow us to exercise reason alone and still be happy? Aristotle believed that if you couldn't test your virtues by yourself, that the interaction with others help you learn. To be good to yourself is be thought to be living the "good life", but if we don't help others we are not acting human based on our nature because we can't survive alone. We can't funtion on our own, think about it; would wouldn't be able to brush your teeth without someone getting the water to work in the sink or making your tooth brush and tooth paste. We are dependent on others from birth until death.  

2/7/12

What makes a tree a tree? I kept asking myself that when I was walking outside if I  believed that it was possible that there is a form of a tree in a different universe. Just thinking about that there can be forms of everything living in a different universe that was better than the beings here literally made my head hurt. But than I was thinking what literally makes a tree a tree? Is it just because we call it trees or is it the properties that science has proved that has made us call a tree a tree. But if science has proven all that a tree is, than how is there a better form if we have proven what a tree is? Oh! And if there is a God, does only him know what a tree is or has he given humans the power to find out what a tree is? And what about miracles, is it a God that makes them happen or just a fact of unproven nature? I like to believe that there is something bigger than us that makes things happen and that a tree is a tree because we are given the thought process to figure out what makes something what it is.

2/6/12

Today in class we talked a lot about what powers the universe. This is a question that philosophers have been asking for centuries. Aristotle believed that caused power the universe, and when I heard that I had no idea what that meant. But think about it, if nothing caused something to be set in motion than there would be nothing to happen at all. Some believe that God is reason for the things that happen in the universe, but Aristotle didn't really believe in a God that could make everything in motion. We can't prove the existence the existence of a God, but we can prove effect that happen based on cause and effect. One of the most known back and forth questions using this effect is the question, "What happened first, the chicken or the egg?" Somehow this question came up in class and it helped make sense of what we were talking about. 

2/2/12

When talking about belief or knowledge, we tend to think of them hand in hand. But believe it or not there is a difference; knowledge is justified belief, meaning it has something to back it up. Belief is believing in something and having no proof to back it up. The reason people tend to correlate the two is because sometimes we fall victim to false beliefs, or believing what we want to believe. When this happens we fall victim to losing what is real and what is what we want to see. Plato believed that if you know the truth than you will always be good, and that is where the concept of believing whatever you want to believe is the truth and how that can lead you down the wrong path. With this idea that if we know the truth than we will do no wrong, can we condemn those who do bad things if all their lives they were taught what they were doing was the right thing and in that there was truth and understanding in their actions? I like to think that I know the truth with some things, but when hearing how we sometimes that your truth might not be the right truth, but than what again what is the right truth? Who makes that call?

2/1/12

Ignorance is bliss, this very common sentence holds a lot of truth is a lot of people's lives We fear the things that we don't understand and what we don't know. For example, we tend to fear the dark because we don't know what's lurking in the shadows. But what about when those fears start holding you back from leading a better life. The metaphor of the man chained to the back of the cave is a good example. The chain's represents the things that hold us back life being "blissfully ignorant", the authorities, and our own habits. Habits was a chain that really interested me because I never really thought how the way that we do things can push us more into the cave than helping us progress in life. But there are more than these few examples that hold us back, anything that fights us from leading an examined life is considered a chain. It is hard to fight these chains because sometimes it involves changing the way you live life as you know it and by instinct we fight that. But as Plato said, "There is more to the world than shadows in a cave".  

1/31/12

One of Plato's main concepts in his teachings was the idea of "forms". When I first read about this idea, I had no idea what he was talking about, but in class we talked how forms are worldly ideas (ex. heaven) that doesn't make any logical sense but exist in your mind. These ideas are the closest to perfect as we can make them because they aren't based on any facts, just ideas. This might seam a little confusing because we have embedded the idea of forms into our everyday thinking but if you think about it, half the things we believe because other people have told us about it, not any proof that we have ever seen. For example what makes a tree a tree? Most of us know what a tree is because we were told during adolescence that the big thing sticking out of the ground was a tree and that was that. Now whenever we see a tree we know what it looks like. Realist believe that a tree because a tree is a tree and all trees have commonalities and that's what makes them tress and that is that. But if we put this concept into everything in our existence than the world of forms would get pretty crowded, so Plato made it that only natural things could fall under the concept of forms. Things in the natural world can exist in the world of forms, but what makes the idea of forms so strong is that these ideas of the things that are in our lives become more real than real things because our beliefs and idea usually never change. Now that's an idea that can really blow your mind.

1/30/12

The discussion in class today revolved on what the unexamined life is. In the reading I had no idea what Plato was talking about when he was talking about the subject but I learned that the jest of it is acting not based on feelings, but doing things with reason. Rachel brought up the example of a skydiver jumping out of plane, what if he does it not for fun but for a bigger meaning like if it was something that he wanted to do before he died? I know this sounds like a long stretch but that was one of the best ways for me to understand. But of course to live an examined life it all depends on what you are looking for. Some killers find happiness and meaning in killing others, but is that someone living an examined life? Plato explains how that is someone being "blissfully ignorant." I feel that to live an unexamined life is to live without thinking and acting purely on impulse, which sadly is a way of living that many people follow.   

Ch. 4 Response, Plato

Before reading this chapter I had never looked into Plato's theories but I had heard of him before. I learned quickly that there was a lot of differences between Confucius and Plato, especially when it came down to what drove humans to do what they do. Plato believed in these things called forms, which is a force that helps us make since of the world (ex. what makes a table a table?) These forms help us make decisions with thinking about the outcome. If we didn't have forms according to Plato, we would be acting without reason. These forms are learning tools that show us what the benefits are of acting out and helping others, or the opposite being when we do nothing and see the outcome. Also Plato believed in the human soul, which is an entity that exists before birth, is indestructible, and lives after death. Plato explains how the soul absorbs the forms, not the bodily functions. But both Plato and Confucius believed that the harmony in society was most important when describing the nature of human nature and that everyone had something to contribute. Something that I liked most about reading about Plato's theories is how he believed that love was a driving force in why we want to do nice for other people. I feel that the one for one's neighbor is so important in findings one's self, because in what other ways can we learn?

1/26/12

When doing charity it is not often thought of as a selfish act, but once again Confucius gave my class another way to look at what was thought as a common mentality. Confucius belief was that is you do anything, even if it is with the best intentions in mind, you are being selfish. Because you are doing something that makes you feel better is a selfish act. To lead a life of true benevolence we are expected to do kind things without feeling any sort of happiness for yourself for helping another. But the question is what about the people that truly do acts that involve no thought of themselves but only for others. An example would be a soldier jumping on a grenade in order to save others. Hope would that be an act of ones self when you are surfacing your own life? Confucius would say that person was happy that the soldier was content about jumping on the grenade before he died. I feel that if you are doing something that befits others and if you are willing to risk your time or even your life that it should be seen as a kind act, not a selfish thought.

1/25/12

In society we tend to like to think of the winners, the people that do great things and are somewhat role models to what we want or even what we want to be. But when there are winners, there are losers. It was pointed out that in our society that we recognize that there are losers, but our job is to not let them die. When speaking about this I started to think, is there any way for the losers to move up if all we are trying to do is keep them alive, not really help them? I feel like our actions speak louder than words. We as humans want to be the best, instead of helping bettering others around us, we fight on another for power. Confucius believed in a life where we are never selfish and are always thinking of others, but than the true of how Confucius did not fully grab the concept of morality until he was 70. Are we expected to accept this idea of living to become better people or can we work every day to help others because that's what the better thing to do? But what makes us feel that way? Is it a God that keeps us in check and keeps the "right" thoughts in our minds and soul like following the "Golden Rule"? What about those who choose to not believe in a God? Do they wonder aimlessly through their lives on just instinct and then become the people that we should want to help? What guides those to do what they do if their only driving force is themselves?

1/24/12

Being a freshman in college I have been thinking a lot about what I want to be and more importantly what I my talents are so I can go in the working field and be doing something I love. Coming in undecided has given me a lot of exploring options, but while in class the other day we started talking about destiny. One of the questions on my paper was if we all have a  destiny how do we have free will? This question ties into the finding of myself in my college experience because if it is my destiny to do something or be someone, does my free will give me the choice to pick what I want to be still? I learned in class that destiny is something that is defined as path that we are given at birth by powers bigger than us and it isn't under our control and we can't change it. I also learned that free will is defined as deciding to be "moral", so we are taught at a young age how we should act and that defines our free will or are we imprinted with a personality that defines us by our actions and decisions and that in turn decides our lives for us? As a college student that is trying to make the right decisions and one day make a small difference to the world, the thought of not being able to choose what I want to do for the rest of my time on this planet is a scary thought. If there is a destiny for me, I hope that I do something that helps others and on my death bed I can say that I did something worth living for.

1/23/12

When thinking about gravity I don't tend to think much more than the factor that keeps my feet on the ground. But what is it really that holds us here? We know it's here because we're not floating off unto space but how is it that gravity works? This is one of the topics in class today and it really got me thinking why things happen or why they're here. Another thing that was talked about in class was the concept of evil. Religious people believe that an all powerful, all knowing God created us and that is why we do good, to please. But if we were created in his or her image, than why would that God put evil in the world and let us get hurt? Also if a God is all good, than why wouldn't God create a world that is all good? And with that question why is there evil in the world? Where does it come from? As you can tell class was blowing my mind and I still have a headache!

Response to Intro and Ch.1 of the Ten Theories of Human Nature:

In the introduction of the book it explains how one of the main questions that is studied in philosophy is "why are we here?" The book goes into how some believe that we are here from God and we were created in his image to follow his word and love him, but is that really a answer to why we're here? But if that is the case than we are suppose to look for him to answer our underlying question, but if he cannot and we are left in what he gives us than how is one suppose to find one's self? And if there is a God than why would he make us suffer while trying to learn what it is we are or what we are meant to do? But this isn't the only theory of human nature, Confucianism, created by Confucius (551-479 B.C) who taught that " you not able to serve man. How can you serve the spirits?" Confucius believed morality was the fabric of the universe, and if you think about that it's true. We do things that we believe are right or things we feel like we need to do. I never thought of it as it driving us to do the things that we do but than how do we have any free thought? If this conscious thinking that makes us act the way we do, than is it possiable that we don't have a destiny, that we make up the pathes of our own lives as we go?

Interests in CL:

I think that it is very interesting how Prof. Johnson is more interested in what the students have to say rather than forcing the answers out of us. Sitting in class I listened as he explained how calling on the students that always rose their hands did nothing to improve the class, but neither is calling on the people that aren't. The handout explains how you get the grade you deserve and I feel that is how it should be in every class. If you are just sitting in class, not getting anything out of it, than there are consequences and it is nice to know that I will get what I put into this class.

About Me

Hello, my name is Justine Cozza and I'm a freshman this year at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Being from New York, I knew little of the Berkshire's area or what MCLA was even about but after my first visit I knew that this school was the place for me. This is my second semester at the school and I kept busy with my studies, friends, and keeping in shape for the woman's soccer team that I was a member of this year. I have not yet declared a major but each day is another step in the path to finding myself and the career that's perfect for me.