Which is the most universal human characteristic fear or laziness?
I believe this quotation although stated in the form of a question is really a statement. All humans, have both characteristics laziness and fear. They are both universal. The question really should be which characteristic is most influential in human behavior. I believe it is fear.
Laziness in extreme cases can be significant and have serious consequences for an individual and as a society. Laziness can lead to mistakes or bad decisions which can impact a persons life, job, and relationships. As a society, laziness again can lead to uninformed decisions, mistakes, and incompetence. Actions which can and have harmed us as a society.
However, fear, I believe is a universal characteristic that has the most adverse consequence for us as individuals and collectively as a society.
It is fear of someone different that I believe is the underlying reason for racism.
It is fear of people who are different and have different beliefs, that I believe have led to wars and such tragedies as the Holocaust.
Fear of the unknown, of course one could argue is the result of laziness. People who don't take the time to understand others, may be more likely to fear them.
"Sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled."
The first part of this quote, sanity is a madness put to good uses," I believe means, sometimes what we percieve to be sane, may in fact be a bit insane. It is sane to go to work everyday in a job that your unhappy in just so you can continue to afford to your unhappy existence? It is sane to fight wars over principles and ideology. Is the differences between communism and capitilism worth the million of lives that died fighting over them?
Maybe a little madness is necessary in life. Instead of working fifty years in a job you hate, find something you love to do no matter what it pays or how old you are. "Mad" behavior according to who? The sane. Maybe the sane are a bit insane. Lets end the fighting over our differences and focus on the fact that are similarities are much greater. No more wars, over ideology, or religion. Mad to think about the possibility? If so, I am mad and proud of it.
Yes, I believe sanity is madness put to good use.
The next part of this quote is waking life is a dream controlled I believe means that we as humans respond to things when we are awake and try to control and organize them and give them a meaning. On the other hand, our dreams are not controlled, or controllable as waking life is. I agree with this, I believe as humans we are confronted with so many decisions, so much information, that we create a filter system where we organize those things we need or want to deal with , and we ignore everything else. We try to make life less chaotic, where our dreams, are completely chaotic, they don't make sense. They just happen, and we experience them without controlling them, at least while we are asleep.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Angles of Vision
Two of our authors, Dickinson and Gaiman's definition of truth are more consistent with the correspondence definition of truth which can be defined as for something to be true, it has to agree with factual reality. Our other two authors, O'Brien and Anderson, seemed to have a post modern definition of truth which can best be described as, the truth is what I say it is.
In Emily Dickinson's poems, Dickinson's main point's about truth are that first, she believes that truth is absolute and never changes. In this belief, she comes the closest to having a correspondence definition of truth. She seems to be saying that truth is objective, "It is what it is." In Truth is as Old as God, Dickinson compares truth to the oldest things she can think of, God, and states it will endure as long. Ironically, in comparing truth to God she compares truth to something people have been searching for the truth about for a very long time.
Also, Dickinson sees the truth as very powerful, and best served slowly or it may cause damage. We see this in Tell All the Truth. I see this as somewhat of contradictory between her other point on truth, if truth is what it is and has always been, what do we have to fear from it, why can't we just accept it?
In Anderson's I Know the Moon, all the animals have their own concept of the moon, and even when they approach the wisest among them, they can't agree on what the moon is. Anderson seems to be saying that there may be more than one true answer to a question and that perhaps, we can learn something from trying to see points of view other than our own. While I agree that we should take other points of views into consideration, I think this concept is best utilized when we are discussing an issue such as, should we travel to the moon? For a question like what the moon is, I think Anderson is practicing realitivism, where the truth is deemed dependent upon the person, in this case, the animals holding the belief which means it probably is not true at all. Certainly, this differs from Dickinson's poems, where she says truth never changes, it is always the same. I agree with Dickinson that there can only be one truth as to what the moon is. Yes, Anderson is right that some questions can have more than one answer, but we call those answers opinions, not truth.
In Gaiman's, Wolves in the Walls, I believe Gaiman is trying to show us what truth is not as much as he is trying to explain what truth is. Gaiman seems to be saying just because someone, (everyone) says something is true doesnt make it so, " Everyone know it's all over if the wolves come out of the wall." Lucy was told this by her mother, father, and brother, they didn't know why it was so or who said it was so, but they believed it. This is similar to the belief that almost everyone shared hundred years ago about the world being flat, nobody knew who came up with the idea, nobody knew why people accepted it to be true but they did. Gaiman's main point about truth seems to be that we should not accept what someone says with blind faith, we should really question whether it is true.
In Tim O'Brien's chapter entitled, How to Tell A True War Story, O'Brien's main point about truth is that if a war story has a moral then its not true. If a war story makes you feel good then it can't be true. It seems at first look O'Brien is saying what Dickinson is saying in one of her poems that the truth is what it is, but really O'Brien sees the truth as a tool to get his point across. What is true, what is not true doesn't matter, what matters is the opinion about the war.
I do see some similarities between the authors. Certainly, Anderson, and O'Brien have a very broad definition of truth. They both see, truth, as a tool to achieve some greater good. Anderson wants to prove people can disagree and work out their differences, O'Brien wants to show war is evil. On the other hand, Dickinson and Gaiman seemed to have a more restricted definition of truth. Dickinson essentially says truth is always the same, and can't change, and Gaiman says don't accept things true because people tell you they are. Interestinly, both Dickinson and Gaiman also seem to agree that the truth can be strong and painful. "Truth must dazzle gradually of every man be blind," and Gaiman, when Lucy asked her pig puppet, "Should we tell them we have elephants in the walls?" And the puppet said "I am sure they will find out soon enough."
My favorite piece of literature is The Wolves in the Wall. Gaiman as I said, is making the point we should not accept something as true just because people tell us, we should question why, we should challenge people to explain their positions, challenge there conclusions. We now know the earth is not flat because people refused to simply believe what they were told. Individually, and as a society, we will be better off if we question the truth.
In Emily Dickinson's poems, Dickinson's main point's about truth are that first, she believes that truth is absolute and never changes. In this belief, she comes the closest to having a correspondence definition of truth. She seems to be saying that truth is objective, "It is what it is." In Truth is as Old as God, Dickinson compares truth to the oldest things she can think of, God, and states it will endure as long. Ironically, in comparing truth to God she compares truth to something people have been searching for the truth about for a very long time.
Also, Dickinson sees the truth as very powerful, and best served slowly or it may cause damage. We see this in Tell All the Truth. I see this as somewhat of contradictory between her other point on truth, if truth is what it is and has always been, what do we have to fear from it, why can't we just accept it?
In Anderson's I Know the Moon, all the animals have their own concept of the moon, and even when they approach the wisest among them, they can't agree on what the moon is. Anderson seems to be saying that there may be more than one true answer to a question and that perhaps, we can learn something from trying to see points of view other than our own. While I agree that we should take other points of views into consideration, I think this concept is best utilized when we are discussing an issue such as, should we travel to the moon? For a question like what the moon is, I think Anderson is practicing realitivism, where the truth is deemed dependent upon the person, in this case, the animals holding the belief which means it probably is not true at all. Certainly, this differs from Dickinson's poems, where she says truth never changes, it is always the same. I agree with Dickinson that there can only be one truth as to what the moon is. Yes, Anderson is right that some questions can have more than one answer, but we call those answers opinions, not truth.
In Gaiman's, Wolves in the Walls, I believe Gaiman is trying to show us what truth is not as much as he is trying to explain what truth is. Gaiman seems to be saying just because someone, (everyone) says something is true doesnt make it so, " Everyone know it's all over if the wolves come out of the wall." Lucy was told this by her mother, father, and brother, they didn't know why it was so or who said it was so, but they believed it. This is similar to the belief that almost everyone shared hundred years ago about the world being flat, nobody knew who came up with the idea, nobody knew why people accepted it to be true but they did. Gaiman's main point about truth seems to be that we should not accept what someone says with blind faith, we should really question whether it is true.
In Tim O'Brien's chapter entitled, How to Tell A True War Story, O'Brien's main point about truth is that if a war story has a moral then its not true. If a war story makes you feel good then it can't be true. It seems at first look O'Brien is saying what Dickinson is saying in one of her poems that the truth is what it is, but really O'Brien sees the truth as a tool to get his point across. What is true, what is not true doesn't matter, what matters is the opinion about the war.
I do see some similarities between the authors. Certainly, Anderson, and O'Brien have a very broad definition of truth. They both see, truth, as a tool to achieve some greater good. Anderson wants to prove people can disagree and work out their differences, O'Brien wants to show war is evil. On the other hand, Dickinson and Gaiman seemed to have a more restricted definition of truth. Dickinson essentially says truth is always the same, and can't change, and Gaiman says don't accept things true because people tell you they are. Interestinly, both Dickinson and Gaiman also seem to agree that the truth can be strong and painful. "Truth must dazzle gradually of every man be blind," and Gaiman, when Lucy asked her pig puppet, "Should we tell them we have elephants in the walls?" And the puppet said "I am sure they will find out soon enough."
My favorite piece of literature is The Wolves in the Wall. Gaiman as I said, is making the point we should not accept something as true just because people tell us, we should question why, we should challenge people to explain their positions, challenge there conclusions. We now know the earth is not flat because people refused to simply believe what they were told. Individually, and as a society, we will be better off if we question the truth.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Asimov's Lecture on Humanity
As a young intelligent member of the 21st century, I found Issac Asimov's predictions to be sometimes accurate, sometimes wrong, and most times still yet to be determined. When Asimov said pollution will impact the earth and affect our ability to produce food, this is certainly true. However, it is not a cooler earth that we worry about today as Asimov predicted, but actually a warmer one. When Asimov said birth rates would continue to expand and death rates would continue to go down, he was right, at least partially. Asimov said we would have 7 billion people on earth by the year 2000, we actually have 6 billion. Also in some parts of the world, more developed countries like the United States, the birth rate is actually under control.
Interestingly, Asimov is most accurate when he talks about things that will come true if we lower our birth rate which he says he doesn't believe we'll do. However, I think this is an example of Asimov's sarcasm. I believe he really believes humans will make an effort to control birth rates. This is why he spends so much time talking about the things that will happen if we do so.
Asimov uses his stories and antedotes to help us understand the points he is trying to make and also I believe to put us at ease when he's speaking about scary subjects like pollution, famine, and death. As I said, when Asimov makes predictions about the future of the world if we make the right choice, he is very accurate. For example, he said that women will have fewer children and as result they will have the time to focus on education and will hold the same jobs as men. Certainly, this has become reality especially in countries like ours. Asimov also states as people live longer they will want to learn for the sake of learning as apposed to simply having an education to get a job. He said that people will have more than one career and that learning will become a life long process as opposed to something you do only when your young. Again, certainly in countries like the United States we see this happening.
I think countries like the United States and some of the countries of Europe have taken great steps in controlling their birth rates, and as result have seen many of the good things that Asimov predicted. While other developing countries such as Asia and Africa have not and those countries have seen millions of people dying from famine and war, again just just Asimov predicted.
Our goal as a people should be to do exactly as Asimov said. Birth rate control has to be done world wide not just in parts of the world for it to truly lead to the positive things Asimov said will happen for all of the people on the planet. If we can lower the birth rate world wide we might even see an end to racism, sexism, and the end of war as Asimov predicted.
Asimov uses synoptic synthesis throughout his lecture, in fact he actually refers to Aristotle's syllogisms throughout his lecture. If you think about it, Asimov's major prediction is an example of a syllogism. Major Premise: The world can only produce enough food for a certain number of people. Minor Premise: As birth rates increase and death rates decrease the world will have too many people to feed. Conclusion: More people will have to die or fewer will have to be born for the world to survive. Asimov sarcasticly says we as a people will choose more people dying but I really believe that he believes that we will choose fewer people being born and because he is trying to make that case to us he spells out the many benefits to us as a people if we make the right choice.
Interestingly, Asimov is most accurate when he talks about things that will come true if we lower our birth rate which he says he doesn't believe we'll do. However, I think this is an example of Asimov's sarcasm. I believe he really believes humans will make an effort to control birth rates. This is why he spends so much time talking about the things that will happen if we do so.
Asimov uses his stories and antedotes to help us understand the points he is trying to make and also I believe to put us at ease when he's speaking about scary subjects like pollution, famine, and death. As I said, when Asimov makes predictions about the future of the world if we make the right choice, he is very accurate. For example, he said that women will have fewer children and as result they will have the time to focus on education and will hold the same jobs as men. Certainly, this has become reality especially in countries like ours. Asimov also states as people live longer they will want to learn for the sake of learning as apposed to simply having an education to get a job. He said that people will have more than one career and that learning will become a life long process as opposed to something you do only when your young. Again, certainly in countries like the United States we see this happening.
I think countries like the United States and some of the countries of Europe have taken great steps in controlling their birth rates, and as result have seen many of the good things that Asimov predicted. While other developing countries such as Asia and Africa have not and those countries have seen millions of people dying from famine and war, again just just Asimov predicted.
Our goal as a people should be to do exactly as Asimov said. Birth rate control has to be done world wide not just in parts of the world for it to truly lead to the positive things Asimov said will happen for all of the people on the planet. If we can lower the birth rate world wide we might even see an end to racism, sexism, and the end of war as Asimov predicted.
Asimov uses synoptic synthesis throughout his lecture, in fact he actually refers to Aristotle's syllogisms throughout his lecture. If you think about it, Asimov's major prediction is an example of a syllogism. Major Premise: The world can only produce enough food for a certain number of people. Minor Premise: As birth rates increase and death rates decrease the world will have too many people to feed. Conclusion: More people will have to die or fewer will have to be born for the world to survive. Asimov sarcasticly says we as a people will choose more people dying but I really believe that he believes that we will choose fewer people being born and because he is trying to make that case to us he spells out the many benefits to us as a people if we make the right choice.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Meaningless Lives?
"If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community will survive if it is persuaded --or even suspects-- that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless universe."
I agree with Kristol's conclusion if people were to believe or suspect there is no greater purpose than just being here, a community would not prosper. If members of a community had no reason to hope, wonder, question and they lived only for the moment eventually this community will be overwhelmed by greed, desire, instant gratification, and ultimately this community will be dominated by people without virtue and eventually deteriorate.
I believe Kristol's premise relates both to the position of Russell and Socrates. Both Russell and Socrates saw great value in asking questions, in the desire to aquire information by continiously seeking out answers. Philosophy would have no value in a community that in essence did not believe in a tommorrow. Why ask questions if the answers won't change anything? Russell believed that only by having an open mind could a community truly prosper; Socrates made the same point on the Apology. He defended himself against the accusers by essentially accusing them of being the type of person Kristol describes and pointing out that a person who has an open mind about the things we don't know for sure are persons of virtue.
I agree with Kristol's conclusion if people were to believe or suspect there is no greater purpose than just being here, a community would not prosper. If members of a community had no reason to hope, wonder, question and they lived only for the moment eventually this community will be overwhelmed by greed, desire, instant gratification, and ultimately this community will be dominated by people without virtue and eventually deteriorate.
I believe Kristol's premise relates both to the position of Russell and Socrates. Both Russell and Socrates saw great value in asking questions, in the desire to aquire information by continiously seeking out answers. Philosophy would have no value in a community that in essence did not believe in a tommorrow. Why ask questions if the answers won't change anything? Russell believed that only by having an open mind could a community truly prosper; Socrates made the same point on the Apology. He defended himself against the accusers by essentially accusing them of being the type of person Kristol describes and pointing out that a person who has an open mind about the things we don't know for sure are persons of virtue.
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