In Response Kolb's Corner (5/2/2010)

First of all, I understand your blog post, and I agree with the main idea of it; yes, people generally want more of something they like after they first get it. I agree that this is a part of human nature in a general sense, and that we see many examples of this in society. With that said, I completely disagree that this need for more is just a part of human nature, and that there is nothing that a human can do about it. Money is a great example of the need for more that you bring up. The majority of people want to have money, and once they get a certain amount, they usually have the need for more. You are correct when you outline the fact that the need for money and other related things will never satisfy a person, but I think that you make the mistake of believing that all we can do is accept the idea that nothing will ever fulfill us, and therefore we mine as well attempt to get more money.

I think I am right when I say that there are things in life that can actually fulfill us; things that will give us the feeling that no amount of money or fame could ever come close to achieving. This idea relates to the Hindu idea of the human condition. Hindu’s believe that humans have a strong desire for cravings, such as money, which will never fully be satisfied. Even though your blog post agrees with this basic idea, I think that other Hindu ideas could be beneficial for you. Using Hindu principles, it seems to me that you are making a mistake by believing that your ego is your true identity. The idea that you are addicted to money is the perfect example of this. I think that the desire for money is fine because money is great, but thinking that money is going to fill your need for happiness or some other need is very problematic.

Continuing with Hindu ideas, it seems that you and anyone else who believes that money will fulfill them would be suffering from the “Identity Problem”. Money only will fulfill people’s egos, or their false identities. According to the Hindu ideas of human nature, we all have a real self, which is at a deeper than our conscious self. While I do not agree with everything that Hindu’s believe, I agree with the idea that we have a false idea of who we are, and I feel that this applies to the need for more. I think that all of the problems in peoples lives relates to the idea that people tend to make the mistake of believing that they are their ego. I think that we can combat this problem by living in the present moment whenever we can. Leading back to my earlier statement that there are things that can actually fulfill us, I would say that the only things that actually can fulfill us are things that do not relate to our ego.

Making a difference in someone else’s life is a great example of something that can fulfill a person. This type of activity brings someone in touch with their deeper self because it brings them in touch with the world around them; what I mean by this is that an activity like this causes a person to realize that everything around them, including themselves, is a part of God. Even though I use the word God, I think that you could call this deeper sense of unity any other word; it does not have to be called God. With that said, the important thing to realize is that after performing this type of service, the person will be in touch with their true identity, as long as they did not perform the activity to help their ego.

As I said in class the other day, I think that as long as people attempt to live in the present moment, and silence their ego, then I think it is okay to want money. Wanting money only becomes problematic when a person starts to believe that wanting money is truly part of who we are. The constant need for money and other similar things is not part of the real identities off humans. I think that the real identity of humans is a deeper state that some call enlightenment. Even though few will ever reach enlightenment, I think that is important for people to understand the benefits of realizing that their ego is not their true identity. As long as person has a balance between wanting things like money, and having the understanding of a deeper self, then I think everything will work out great for them.

Do you think it is problematic that the desire for money is so great in today’s world?

In Response to Misty and Alex’s Response to My Original Post

http://bacton.blogspot.com/2010/05/benefits-of-believing-in-something.html
http://alismadia.blogspot.com/2010/05/response-to-bryans-post.html
http://themindlessadventures.blogspot.com/2010/05/greater-beings.html

As far as Alex’s response, I think that it is great, and I agree with most of the points that he makes. I agree that people generally make too big of a deal about believing in a certain God or a specific higher power. As long as someone is benefiting from believing in something greater, I do not think it really matters which God or higher power that the person believes in. This idea leads into his conclusion, which is my favorite part of his response. I think that Alex completely understood the purpose of my article, because he brings up the point that everyone should believe in something greater because it empowers him or her. Alex goes on to say that, whatever that person believes should make sense to them personally; I take this to mean the point I made earlier, that it does not matter what someone believes, as long as it works for them. In regards to Alex’s direct answer to my question, I thought it was great that he made the point that people often forget what it means to believe in something greater, and I noticed this theme in our class discussions on this topic.

It seems to me that the main issue in regards to this subject is that people get too distracted by religious principles that they do not understand my ideas about the benefits of believing in something greater. When I am talking about believing in God or something greater, I am not talking about following all of the strict principles that some religions have; people make the mistake by getting the belief in God confused with the many rules that religions teach. This goes back to my point that people need to find whatever beliefs work for them, and it is my opinion that having a belief in a higher power can be extremely beneficial. I do not think many people really ever give the belief in God a chance because they are too distracted from strict religious principles. People need to separate the belief in something greater from general religious doctrines.

I am glad Misty responded to Alex’s post because she provides an example of some general ideas about the belief in something greater that I disagree with. I do not know why other people believe in God or something greater, but I do know that I believe in God for completely different reasons from what Misty identifies; with that said, I respect Misty’s opinion, and I think she makes some great points. As I said in my first post, I believe that there are many benefits in believing in God or something greater because the belief empowers you; I think that my belief in God helps me get through the struggles in life. However, it absolutely does not distract from my process of daily living. Misty argues that people believe in something greater because they hope that it will protect them from unfortunate events. I am sure that some people do this, but this is not the point of believing in God; as I said earlier, believing in God or something greater empowers you and helps you get through the struggles of life. People should never believe in something greater in order actually reduce the number of unfortunate events.

I agree with Misty that people can do good without believing in God or something greater, but that argument does not change the point of my original blog post. I am not saying that you are a better person if you believe in God or something greater; I am saying that there are many benefits that are created from this type of belief. Sure, you will do just fine if you do not believe in God, but that is not my point; my point is that the belief in something greater can be extremely powerful in regards to making positive changes in people’s lives. I think it is perfectly fine if someone if does not want to believe in God or something greater, but there is absolutely no reason why someone should think that people believe in God because they do not want to take responsibility of their life. Believing in God or something greater is not about trying to create an excuse for life problems; it is meant to give people the faith that everything is going to be okay, even when things do not look good. The goal of my original post was to help people realize the many positives that can be made of believing in something greater; it was not to say that people have to believe in God or something greater to be a good person.

I think people with Misty’s point of view are right about the problematic nature of religion; I too feel that it is not right for people to follow a religion because they believe it will make them moral, or because it will help them go to heaven. Religions create problems because they often encourage people to follow strict moral guidelines and use fear to get people to follow them. Even though I understand that religions can be problematic, my original post is not about religion, it is about the simple idea of believing in God or something greater. I think that it is great that people with Misty’s point of view do not need God to make positive change, but I never claimed that this was what the belief in something greater should be used for. The point of my original blog post was to say that the belief in God or something greater can help give a person a greater strength than they already had. I was not trying to say that people should depend on their belief to make positive change in their life; their belief should just help them. In addition, it is important that people do not associate the belief in something greater with strict religious doctrines, because that type of association makes the belief in something greater seem problematic, even though it can be extremely beneficial.

Do you think the belief in something greater would work out better for people if they made their belief more personal (change their belief in their own personal way)?

In Response to Courtney Martin (5/2/2010)

Q: “what about people who do not believe everything of a religion, people who only choose to agree with parts of a religion? Do they have faith in that religion?”

I think that your question is a good one because I know many people, including myself, who believe in only parts of a religion. I do not think that a person would have faith in their entire religion if they did not believe in every part of the religion; the person would not have faith in that exact religion, but they would have faith in their own version of that religion. With that said, I do not think I fully agree with the idea of having faith in a certain religion. If someone asked me if I had faith in my religion, I would probably say that I had faith in God, and not necessarily my religion. The religion is a part of me, but I do not really have faith in the religion itself; sometimes I feel like people become so controlled by religious principles that they forget about what their religion is based around: the existence of God. Even though I do not fully agree with the idea of having faith in a religion, I would probably say that I do have faith in my religion, but my true faith is in God.

I was brought up as a Christian, and I have not lost my faith in that religion. With that said, I do not fully agree with all of the values that Christianity represents. Specifically, I do not agree with the very strict nature that some Christians have in regards to other Christians not following every specific rule; I feel like Christians use the idea of heaven and hell to force people to follow every type of specific rule. The point I am trying to make is that I believe in my own version of Christianity; if I were to say that I have faith in my religion, I would be saying that I have faith in my own version of Christianity. This leads to idea of whether a person is still supporting a certain religion if they do not agree with every idea of that religion. If I do not agree with every part of Christianity, then I am wondering if I can still call myself Christian.

I think the question of whether I can be a labeled a Christian is an important one, and I have my own idea of what the answer is. I think that this type of question would have to be answered on a case-by-case basis; this means that there is no solid answer of whether someone should be considered a Christian or something else. To find the answer, I would have to look at what parts of the religion that a person does not agree with. For example, I do not think that people who do not believe in God should call themselves Christian. With that said, I guess they could say that they are supporting their own version of Christianity; this is a very difficult question, and we briefly discussed this in class earlier in the semester.

Again, as far as your question specifically, I think that people generally have faith in God, more so then they do in their religion. In addition, I think that people who only agree with parts of a religion have faith in their own version of that religion and not that specific religion. Most importantly, I think your question leads to the significant question of whether a person is right to say that they believe in a certain religion if they do not agree with every part of that religion.

Can someone still call themselves Christian (or some other religious label) if they do not believe in every part of the religion? Explain.

The Benefits of Believing in Something Greater

In class last week, we spent some time generally discussing the belief in God or something greater. A theme that I noticed during the discussion was that people had generally negative feelings about the belief in God. I heard many different comments relating to the problematic reasons for believing in God. One comment I heard was that believing in God is just something people do because they are bored with the process of daily living. After hearing other comments similar to this, I felt that people were completely forgetting the many positives that come with believing in God. With that said, I completely understand the problems with believing in God as far as reasoning goes; there is no way to prove the existence of God with evidence, and this is something that we talked about in our last class (I talked about this in my previous post). In addition, I understand that the belief in God could cause problems with a person’s life because they could spend their whole life waiting for something to come after they die that might not happen. Even with these potential problems, I feel that people are wrong when they imply that the belief in God is just something that distracts people from the process of living.

My belief in God relates to the idea that I feel there is something greater than what we cannot discover from conscious reasoning. This idea that there is something greater was said to be a type of faulty reasoning in class, but even if it is faulty reasoning, I do not think that should mean that it is problematic to believe in something greater. I think that people who believe in something greater will many times have an advantage over people who do not. I feel this way because I think that the belief in God or something greater actually empowers people. Every person will go through extremely difficult struggles during their lifetime, and I feel that a belief in something greater can help a person get through these tough times. A great example of this would be something that Laura said in class on Friday. She said that she believes in God because she had some very difficult experiences during her childhood, but she was able to make it through them by praying to God every night. It seems like her faith in God gave her a type of strength that she could not have had normally. When I experience difficult life circumstances, and life just seems completely unfair, my belief in something greater is able to get me through. Even though I cannot prove that God exists, I think that my faith in God is great because it provides me with an inner power that helps me succeed in my daily life. I think it was great that Laura explained how her faith in God has helped her; her story was a perfect example of the ways that the belief in God's existence can make a positive impact in someones life.

Many times, people’s reasons for believing in God or something greater can be problematic, but because of the reasons that I explained, I think the belief in God’s existence can be a great thing. As far as problems with believing in God or something greater, I think it is a major mistake to believe in God simply for the hope of making it into a better world after death. With that said, people need to remember the wonderful things that come from the belief in something greater. I am not saying it is bad to not believe in something greater, but I just think it is ludicrous to say that people who believe in God or something greater do so because they become bored with their normal life. Believing in God or something greater can make an extremely positive impact on a person’s life and it is important that we do not forget this.

Do you think the idea of believing in something greater should be separated from believing in God specifically, or are they the same thing?

Why I Believe

Today in class, we spoke at length about the concept of faith. The conclusion of our discussion was that it is misleading to attempt to explain the existence of God with evidence because there really is none. In addition, using an event as an example of the existence of God cannot be done if there is a more reasonable explanation for that event that does not relate to God. This is why many of the people who believe in God do not try to explain God’s existence, but they have trust in God’s existence without needing proof. These people know that they cannot prove the existence in God with evidence, but they still have faith in God’s existence.

From the way today’s discussion went, it seemed to outline the idea that believing in God is mistake. If Occam's razor is correct, than believing in God would be a mistake unless there were no better explanation for why something happened except for God. I do not think there would be any events that could only be explained as God’s work, and therefore it seems that the belief in God’s existence would be an error. However, I still do belief in God’s existence, and I think that I can explain why I believe in a different way than the things we discussed in class.

I do not try to use evidence of God’s work in my life to explain why I believe in God’s existence; however, this is not saying that I do not believe that there are examples of God’s work that have shown up in my life. I choose not to use these types of examples as explanation because of Occam’s razor. I agree that as long as there are more reasonable explanations for events that I believe are examples God’s existence, I cannot try to use the events as proof of God’s existence. My explanation of God’s existence relates back to a strategy that Freud used to explain his theories. This is the idea that God’s existence or human nature cannot be explained because it does not exist at a conscious level. We cannot label what God is because we can only label using our conscious mind. For me, the existence of God can only be truly understood at a deeper than conscious level.

The reason why this relates to Freud is because Freud described his theories using the basic idea that everything really happened in a persons unconscious mind. It is hard for Freud to be wrong about what he said because he can reply to every argument by pointing out the idea that we do not truly understand the unconscious, and therefore we cannot argue against it. When I brought up a basic idea of my belief in God during class, Dr.J pointed out its relationship to Freud’s ideas;I feel that I was not able to point out that my idea is very different from Freud’s. When I am talking about the existence of God, I am trying to not make the same major mistake that Freud did. I think that Freud made an important error because he tried to explain the unexplainable; he pointed out that everything in human nature related to an unconscious that we cannot understand, but somehow he understood how it worked. When I am trying to explain my theory regarding the existence of God, I am not really trying to explain it at all; I just know that it is deeper than the conscious level. Just like Freud feelings about the unconscious, I feel that small pieces of God existence can leak into our conscious realm; however, I do not think that God’s existence could ever be explained fully with words.

My idea that God’s existence cannot be explained in the conscious realm starts to relate back to the idea of faith, because I think that you just have to know that God exists without the ability of explanation. The only difference that my theory of God’s existence has from general faith is that I think that God’s existence cannot be explained because the complete understanding of God’s existence can only be understood at a deeper than conscious level, but general faith explains that there is no need for any type of explanation for God’s existence. I feel that my idea is different because I am able to give a reason for why we cannot explain God’s existence.

I understand that the problem with my idea is that I cannot really explain the existence of God with something I do not understand (a deeper than conscious level). I would respond to this argument by saying that while I cannot fully understand the existence of God, I think that there are ways of understanding God that on a conscious level that are not fully explainable. It is a form of knowing which no one can explain. My conclusion would be that faith is very important when it comes to my belief in God, but my faith relates to the idea that God's existence is unexplainable because God exists at a deeper than conscious level.

Is the idea that God can only be understood at a deeper than conscious level just making the same mistake Freud did by trying to explain the unexplainable?

In Response to Austin Bodzioch (4/21/2010)

Q:"Do you think that people will ever go back to the simpler ways of life or do you think that humans will continue the never ending cycle of advanced technology and other incredible ideas..?"

I am not exactly sure what you mean by a “never ending cycle of advanced technology and other incredible ideas”; I does not seem like it would be a never ending cycle if we continued the same process of coming up with new technology. With that said, I think that you bring up a great question, and this question was one of the main ideas of our discussion in class.

In regards to the situation of us going “back to the simpler ways of life,” I tend to agree with the graph that Dr.J drew on the chalkboard. The graph showed the constant human process of going above nature, and then heading back down to nature. As Dr.J mentioned in class, I believe that we are already showing signs of getting back to nature or the simpler ways of life.” A great example of this would be the recent explosion of organic products. If you go to any large supermarket, you are likely to see an organic section, which is usually popular. People are starting to realize that the best foods to eat are not things labeled “low fat,” which are filled with artificial sweeteners, but are actually organic foods. The habit of shopping for organic foods is a recent craze, and I think that it is a sign that other habits will arise in the future that involve going back to nature.

As far as advanced technology, I do not think humans will ever stop trying to come up with new ideas that could change our way of life. We may start to change back to nature, but I do not think everyone will stop trying to come up with new technology; People are always trying to look for new ideas. Furthermore, I do not believe that we should ever stop trying to invent new technology. I do not believe that new ideas create problems for our society; I think that a problem is created once we start to have a dependence on these new ideas. An example of this would be our general history of transportation. Humans have created bikes and other simple ways of transportation that have not, and will never cause any problems. Humans have invented many things that have moved away from nature, but they do not cause any problems. An issue comes into play when humans start to depend on technological advances too much. I do not think automobiles were extremely dangerous to our future well-being when we first created them. Now they are dangerous to our environment because our whole world has become dependent on them to get around.

Humans should not be afraid of new ideas, but we should be careful about becoming dependent on them. As long as we do not move away from our roots in nature then I think we will be fine. I think the main problem with moving away from nature is that people think we can invent technology that is almost better than nature itself; they feel that we can come up with ways of almost beating nature. They need to learn that we will never beat nature. If people do not eat healthy because they think that a pill invented in the future will cure their health problems, then they are completely wrong. We should always be trying to improve our way of life with new ideas, but we need to make sure that we are not forgetting about nature.

What other recently new habits other than the organic food craze, can you think of that show our path back to nature?

In Response to Megan Cooney (4/22/2010)

Q: “What is it that changed the minds of people to become more accepting of atheism?”

I enjoyed reading your blog post because I think that it highlighted something that we did not really discuss in class about Darwin’s ideas. It does seem that a major consequence of Darwin’s idea was that society began to accept the idea of being an atheist.

I think the fact that people changed their minds about atheism relates to one of the main reasons why religion is popular in the first place. Most religions have a story of why humans exist, and what will happen once we die. In addition, humans are afraid of the unknown; this is exactly the reason why religion is so popular. Religious beliefs provide people with the feeling of security because it provides them with a purpose and the certainty of knowing what happens after death. There are many unknowns in our world, and most religions are able to provide answers to these unknowns.

As far as unknowns, the question of how humans were created is one of the most important unknowns that exists. For this reason, I think that Darwin’s ideas were able to use scientific evidence to prove an explanation of this unknown, and his ideas were the first that could give a scientific answer to the question of how humans were created. This leads to the idea that people began to accept atheism after Darwin’s ideas because before Darwin, there was no way to scientifically explain how humans were created. Many people accepted the ideas that religions provided as an explanation for the creation of humans because there was no other idea that could be proven.

Once Darwin’s ideas began to become accepted, people began to realize that some major religious ideas could be wrong. This is exactly why I believe that people began to accept atheism. Darwin’s ideas proved scientific evidence of why religious ideas could be incorrect. Before Darwin and other scientific breakthroughs, there was not much science that could disprove religious ideas. Once the idea of natural selection could be proven, I think people began to second-guess religion.

There are things that I like about religion, but I absolutely hate their exploitation of human uncertainty. Most people are extremely afraid of death, and I believe that certain religions, especially Christianity, take advantage of this human characteristic. I see things all the time that try to convert people into being Christian by saying that they will go to heaven if they choose to be Christian, but hell if they do not. This whole strategy turns into a type of scare tactic into getting people to convert to a certain religion. I do not believe that an all good, all powerful being like God would want people to be scared into obeying his standards. For me, religious values relate to things like peace and love, not fear mongering.

The idea that religions often use the exploitation of the fear of uncertainty to convert people relates back to your original question because Darwin’s ideas helped remove one of the human uncertainties that religions used. Even though I highly doubt it would ever happen, if someone were able to prove what happens after death scientifically, then I believe atheism would be accepted by people even more than religion was. With that said, I believe that religion will always exist.

What do you think about theories that combine Darwin’s ideas with religious ideas?

A Different Standard

In class yesterday we concluded our conversation on the ideas of Charles Darwin. I enjoyed the whole discussion, but the end of the discussion was the part that interested me the most. We ended the class discussion by bringing up an idea that seems to be very important in today’s society: the constant debate between human morality and natural selection.

During the class, there was a lot of discussion related to the idea that humans are trying to avoid natural selection by trying to find cures for anything that would lead to a premature death. People in our class kept bringing up the idea that humans are unable to let other humans die, which is something that other species do; people were trying to say that the human species is trying to avoid natures attempt at eliminating the weaker part of the human species.

I found this idea very interesting because it seemed to imply that humans should not be helping other humans that are in situations that are difficult to survive. Then the idea that humans are supposed to be moral creatures came into my head. Humans are supposed to follow the “golden rule”, which means we need to help others who are in difficult situations because we hope they would do the same for us. It seems the idea that humans should stop avoiding natural selection is completely ludicrous. If humans decide to not help others who are having trouble surviving then we do not seem to be following the “golden rule”.

I do not know if anyone in our class actually feels this way, but it seems that people were implying that humans are wasting their time searching for revolutionary scientific breakthroughs. I agree that it is smart to go natural by reducing wasteful technology such as automobiles, but there is absolutely no reason to stop trying to find ways to help more humans survive. If learning to clone human hearts could save lives then I do not see why we should not try to learn. I think it is ridiculous for people to think that we should not try to save human lives when we have the opportunity too. I know that it may seem like we are cheating the system by doing things like cloning, but I believe that it is each humans responsibility to follow normal moral values. If we have the opportunity to save other human lives then we need to take advantage of it.

My reasoning on this subject goes back to the final discussion that we had in class; Dr.J brought up the idea that some people try to find a balance of animal nature and human morals that just does not exist. People try to say that their decision is okay because animals do it in nature, and humans are apart of this same nature. The problem with this argument is that once humans use any type of human morals, it then becomes difficult to suddenly use the excuse of animal nature.

The idea that Dr.J brought up relates perfectly to my overall argument, which is that humans are not making a mistake by trying to “avoid natural selection”. It is our moral obligation as human beings to want to save as many lives as we can. We cannot let people die because of a disease just because animals die naturally of diseases all the time. Of course humans are still apart of the overall concept of nature, but humans should be looked at differently then animals are; human nature and animal nature is much different.

Do you feel that it is right to view human nature at different standard from nature in general? Why or why not?

Doing new things

I thought that Dr.J's speech about doing new things in your life was extremely powerful. His lesson was the second profound lesson that he has brought up in the last two weeks. I have read a lot about the idea of doing new things in your life in self-development books; therefore, when Dr.J brought up the idea, I found it interesting. I brought up this idea again because I think it is very important for people to gain the benefits from this lesson.

Most people constantly look for ways in which they can improve their lives. Many times, the people who want to improve their lives do not know where to go to make such improvements. They feel stuck, and they believe that nothing they can do will help. Most people in this position do not realize that the easy way to fix this problem is by making changes in their lifestyle. This may sound like an obvious decision, but most people do not realize this. In general, people are afraid of the unknown, and therefore they are uncomfortable with changing their normal habits. Making sometimes-drastic changes does not seem to them like a good idea because they do not want deal with new things. These people believe that improvement in their life will only be caused from making progress in the things that they currently do; they need to realize that making changes in their life will open new opportunities for positive change in your life. You cannot find success in the forest of life if you keep looking for it on the same path.

I feel that the reaction of some students who listened to Dr.J’s lesson shows a major problem that humans have. I could tell from many students that they enjoyed Dr.J’s lesson, but they would not implement it into their life; they are comfortable with the food they eat, the people they talk to etc, and therefore they find no reason to change. As far as I know, as long as people are not fully satisfied with their life, then there is absolutely no reason why they should not be ready to make drastic changes in their life. It is important to mention that, when I am talking about drastic changes, I do not mean decisions that will obviously cause problems. The changes I am talking about relate to things that are clearly beneficial, but people do not make them because they are different. One of the worst obstacles with success is being comfortable. If someone is not ready to change the current habits that they have, then it is not likely they will see improvement in their life. If you keep doing what you have always done, then you will keep getting what you have always gotten.

Dr.J’s lesson was important in itself, but I think that his act of teaching this lesson shows something important. Some of the most important things that I have learned from my professors were not a part of the curriculum at all; I find this fact interesting because it shows that the so-called life-lessons that we learn are often the most important. In addition, I believe that is important that people listen to any type of advice that they receive. I think that many people were too quick to throw away Dr.J’s lesson on trying new things, and that it is the main reason why I wanted to bring up the idea again. People need to understand that getting too comfortable with their lifestyle can be a waste of their life, and I believe that functionalists would be strongly against the fear of change that many people have.

Do you think the fear of change exists? And If so, Do you believe that it is problematic in the lives of most humans?

In Response to Megan Cooney (4/17/2010)

Q: “What do you make of the phrase "live every day as if it were your last?"

We went over the idea of living everyday as if it were your last day in class briefly, but I would like to expand on it. Dr.J originally made the point that it is irrational to live everyday like it was your last because there is an extremely high probability that we are going to be alive the next day. I think that Dr.J made a great point and he is completely correct, but I also believe that your point at the end of your post is important to analyze. You make the point that the phrase of living everyday as if it is your last could be helpful if people followed the idea of the phrase and not the phrase itself. I think this is a powerful idea because it seems that people could benefit from thinking of everyday as their last day to live.

It seems to me that the act of implementing the phrase of living everyday like it’s your last needs to be a balancing act. As long as a person does not cause major problems for their future, than I believe that living everyday as if it is your last is a great idea. I think it is great that you mention that living everyday like it is your last is similar to living without fear. While I do not believe that the living without fear is exactly what that phrase means, i think that living without fear would be extremely beneficially to people. Fear is something that causes a lot of trouble in the lives of people, and therefore I feel that people need to find ways to start living fearless. Taking risks can cause many benefits, but most people are too afraid of the possibility of failure. Many books on success that I have read bring up a similar idea; they ask the question of what would you do if you knew you could not fail. I think that this is a very powerful question because I believe there are many things that people would do if they knew they could not fail. Fear of failing can be helpful but I think that it also can hold people back greatly.

The phrase of living life if it was your last day can be extremely helpful if people used the idea to take more smart risks in their lives. By smart risks, I mean risks that have a much higher rewards than risks. Sometimes people are afraid of making a decision because of possible problems that are not that bad. An example of this would be going to a party, or joining a group that you never have experienced before. Many people are afraid to do things like this because of the problems that could happen as a result from making the decisions, but the rewards greatly outweigh the risks. Even if some risks may cause problems, at some point at least one risk will be very beneficial. I think that the phrase living everyday like it was your last could be very helpful if the phrase was looked at as meaning living with out fear. If people started to live without fear, but not take unintelligent risks, then I believe that their lives would be tremendously improved.

What types of decisions would you make differently if you started to live everyday like it was your last?

Existentialism is a lesson that all college students should learn

After learning about existentialists, I personally feel that every college should learn about some of their values. More specifically, I feel that every student needs to learn the problems with living for a future moment. It is scary to me how many young people are so focused on their future lives that they forget about what is going on in the present moment. The problem is that people believe that some future moment in their life will fulfill them or make them happy. I have read many stories about successful people who could never reach satisfaction with their lives. These people would keep telling themselves that some future moment will make them happy, but once that moment arrived, some other future moment became the new moment that will make them happy. A person who is internally unhappy will never become happy because of some external event.

College students need to stop thinking that their college experience is only a bridge that will get them some future dream job. I have seen personally the problems that people who think this way will face. The main problems that they run in to relate back to the decisions that they make while in college. Students will become business majors so that can become wealthy after they get out of college; most times they will never reach the wealth level that they want, but even if they do, they will never feel fulfilled.

If college students began reading about existentialism, then I feel they would reach a sort of wake up call in their lives. Their reading may cause them to rethink what their true purpose in life is. Even though existentialists say that there is no absolute purpose in life, I still feel that people who read about existentialists may feel that they need to be looking for a deeper purpose in life. I feel that college students may realize that the main purpose in life does not relate to anything outside of them, such as money, and other materialistic things. After reading about existentialists, they would start to understand that they could only be fulfilled by living in the present moment, and living for future fulfillment is a major mistake.

I feel that existentialism is group of beliefs that would be extremely helpful for people to understand in today’s society, but it would be most helpful for college students. I do not agree with all of the ideas that existentialism represents, but I believe that college students could learn a lot because they generally have an open mind about things that they learn. Existentialism goes against many things that our society teaches, and I feel that it would be good for college students to learn about something that goes against society’s norms. Society teaches us the importance of having wealth, and that having materialistic things will make us happy. Society also tells us that certain ways to live are the right ways to live, and everything else is wrong. Existentialists instead encourage people to enjoy the process of living moment by moment, and they also tell us that there is no exact truth, and therefore people should find out what is true in their own lives.

Are the ideas of existentialism to vague to be taught as a class in college?

Response to Laura Laureano (4/10/2010)

Q: “Why [do humans] not have the ability to understand dreams?”

I believe that humans may have the ability to understand dreams, but there would be no way of scientifically proving this ability. There have been numerous theories about what our dreams mean, including Freud’s, but the problem is that we can never prove that these theories are correct. There is no black-and-white answer when it comes to understanding something like dreams. We have nothing to base our ideas about dreams off of, and therefore we can never know if our ideas are correct.

I thought the idea of describing dream theories as an attempt to describe what is in a closed box was a great idea. The fact that we may remember some of our dreams may provide us with the ability to shake the box, but we can never fully know what it is in the box. That is why Freud’s theory on dreams is interesting, but it can never be used as empirical evidence. I think it is great when certain Freud supporters will say that Freud’s ideas are just a gateway to an improved theory. I do not believe we could ever understand what dreams meant, but I do like the idea that we could use Freud’s theories as a gateway to maybe a improved theory of the human mind.

I also find that your question could be looked at as maybe wondering why humans are not biologically capable of understanding dreams. If this was the point of your question, then I think I may have an interesting answer. If humans are biologically not capable of understanding dreams, then maybe dreams do not have a true purpose. I say this because, in natural selection, Humans develop things that would give them an advantage to survive; therefore, I feel that if dreams have a true significance, then humans who could understand them would have a great advantage over other Humans. For example, if my dreams were telling me an internal conflict that I was hiding from my conscious, then I could discover it and then solve my conflict. Maybe Humans do not have the ability to understand dreams because dreams do not actually have any purpose; dreams could just be a random activation of experiences that are stored in the brain.

I think that one of the most interesting ideas related to understanding dreams is the act of lucid dreaming. The fact that there have been scientific tests that proved that people could be conscious in their dreams is extremely interesting. Lucid dreaming provides me with another reason why I do not believe that dreams hold any significance. If people can be conscious in their dreams, and then control their dreams, then I do not see how a dream could really have a purpose. How can my dream have an inner meaning if I am controlling every part of it? I feel that dreams have always been analyzed to find a true meaning only because dreams are part of the unknown. Anything that people do not know will constantly be analyzed, and people will make theories about it. With that said, I do feel that Freud’s ideas about dreaming are important; for this reason, I did dome research about Freud and lucid dreams, and I found out that Freud actually wrote about them briefly. When discussing his own lucid dream, Freud said, "I won't go on with this dream any further and exhaust myself with an emission." It seems that Freud did not want to discuss lucid dreams because they brought up too many conflict into consciousness.

What do you think about Freud’s feelings regarding lucid dreams?

Response to Alex Massar (4/3/10)

I think that your revisions are good, but I still think that you are forgetting about the fact that we are talking about humans. Much of your theory depends on the human ability to follow a set of strict rules that prohibits individuality, which is not something humans are not good at doing.

I understand your idea to pay people differently on how much they do or contribute to society, but I think that this solution has problems. Who is going to decide how much a worker should be paid, and do you really think every worker would be satisfied with this process? It seems to me like this would not solve the problem of workers being angry because another job receives more money than theirs does. Deciding whether one job should earn more money than another, when each job is totally different is not a simple process, nor do I expect every worker to agree with the decisions made. Also, if people were paid for how much they contributed to society, then it seems like this is getting away from the main idea of a socialist community; it does not seem like anyone should be paid more than someone else because that would provide people with the ability to have more material possessions than their neighbor; paying people different wages sound more like a mixed economy, rather than a socialist one.

As far as workers not being satisfied with their jobs, I do not feel that the punishment you outlined would be a perfect solution. I do think your idea makes sense, but my problem relates to deciding which people should be punished. I feel that some people may not put in their best work at their job, while others put in effort but they still get punished; it seems like this type of punishment will create many unhappy workers. Even if the punishment did work, I do not see how a person would not just slack off at their new job; these people who were punished could not be left unemployed because a socialist society wants everyone to work. Also, if they were forced to a job with no pay, then I doubt they would want to work to their full potential.

All of these ideas lead up to your finally point, which is to create a rehabilitation type of jail for people who do not want to comply with the governments rules. I think this is absolutely your best point because it fixes most of the issues I have raised so far. If people complained about how much they were being paid, and therefore did not work to their full potential, then they could be sent to this type of jail. I think that having this type of facility would fix most of the problems within a socialist community because it could teach them to follow the rules of the community. Furthermore, if this rehabilitation center taught the idea of caring about the whole of the society more than the individual then I think it would help the people of the society function correctly under the socialist standards.

I do think a socialist type system could have a chance to work if a rehabilitation type jail like you pointed out was created, but I feel that the long term outlook on this type of system would not work. Unless there was an overall awakening in the human consciousness, I do not think humans could handle not living in a society where the whole is more important then the individual.

Does the idea of certain jobs being paid more than others (depending on their value to society) get away from the whole idea of having a socialist government?

What if Humans Did Not Have Superego's?

In class, we talked a lot about Freud’s description of the three parts of the human psyche, which are the id, ego, and superego. This discussion soon lead to the topic of how animals relate to these principles. I found it interesting that most animals have an id, ego, but not a superego. This means that many animals will understand how their actions relate to the environment, but they will not have a greater vision of what is going on in their world. It seems like the superego is a purely human characteristic, and even if animals will have enough intelligence to understand their world in a human-like fashion, they will never have a superego; these animals will never be truly human.

I feel that these ideas bring up an interesting point when you look at some of the main characteristics that humans have different from animals. The main characteristic that comes to mind is the human ability to have strong emotions about any type of situation. For example, I do not think a monkey would ever be sad about the way they look, or because they did not have enough money. I understand that monkeys do not handle money, but the point I am trying to make is that human’s develop strong emotions over learned wants, and desires. Animals can be happy when their simplest needs are covered, while humans have trouble staying happy even when all their simple needs are covered. Animals tend to be always in the present moment, focusing on what task is in front of them, while humans tend to be stuck always thinking about the past or future.

The fact that animals are generally easier to keep happy is very interesting to me. I have read books on human spirituality and happiness, and many times, one of the main subjects in the books is the present moment. If humans can stay in the present moment, all of their stress and worries will disappear; once you fully immerse yourself in the present moment, it is extremely difficult not to be happy. Ancient spiritual practices like meditation and prayer all have something in common: they cause the person performing the actions to be in the present moment. Since being in the present moment seems so important, I find it interesting that animals are good at doing this because animals also do not have a superego. All of this has lead me to wonder if humans would benefit from not having a superego.

I understand that there are many advantages to having a superego, but if every type of being in existence did not have a superego, it seems like our world would function better. I do not think humans would want to take advantage of other beings as much as we do now if we did not have a superego. I also think that the environment would be in a much better situation then it is now. Most importantly, if we did not have superegos, I believe we would be a generally, much happier.

What do you think would happen if humans did not have superegos?

In Response to Jennifer Johnston (3/31/10)

Q: "Do you believe dreams can become reality? Is it just because we spend so much time subconsciously dwelling on situations, that they secretly become our desires and needs?"

I do believe in principle that dreams can become reality, but not in the way that you outlined. As far as I know, everything in the universe is made up of energy; are thoughts are no different. I feel that because of this, things we think about tend to manifest in our outside environment. I know that everyone has had crazy coincidences where something happens that they were just thinking about. People tend to think of the term coincidence as meaning a random occurrence of something that relates to something else. I myself tend to think of the word coincidence in the same context as the math term coincide, which means that two things correspond with one another; this means that coincidences are not random at all.

I feel that once you begin to think about something a lot, that thing will show up in your universe in some way, shape, or form. I do not think it will always be exactly the way the you thought about it, but it will show up. As far as I know, none of this can be scientifically proven (or has been), but I personally feel that there is some relation between are thoughts and our reality. With that said, I tend to think of dreams from an anti-Freudian point of view which means I do not believe they should be looked at as having significant meaning. I think Dr.J was right when he brought up the point that our brain functions at a lower level during sleep, and therefore the pieces of each dream are randomly put together. With that said, I do believe that our brain does choose significant thoughts in our lives to be put in dreams, but I just think that the way it organizes the complete dream is random.

The idea that dreams secretly become our desires and needs is a little to Freudian for me. I think people just make up a story that something was in their unconscious when they cannot explain a theory related to Freud’s Idea's. This relates back to the idea that Freudian supporters often will try to make his theories scientific when they absolutely are not. I think Freud brought up many ideas about our unconscious that have been extremely helpful with modern day science, but the use of the unconscious to explain things like dreams appearing in real life is problematic. The main issue with explaining the unconscious mind is that in principle, it is not testable. For that reason, I am not going to say my theory of why dreams appear in real life is better because I cannot prove my theory scientifically either. I just feel that the energy we send out to the universe through our thoughts (which could be in our dreams) tends to come back to use through the experiences that we have in reality.

Do you think that finding meaning in your dreams would make a significant improvement in your life?

In Response to Austin Bodzioch (3/27/2010)

Q:” If all parents disciplined and didn't spoil their children then do you think that the world would have better appreciated people rather than alot of spoiled, snotty and uncaring people?”

I believe that the answer to this question actually exposes a problem with your blog post; there are many other factors that cause children's behavior other than parenting. Children do not spend all their time with their parents, and parents are not the only way that children are influenced. I agree that parents are a major influence on their children, if not the greatest influence, but children do not develop into a certain type of adult just because of how their parents treated them.I feel that you draw too much significance to the effect that parenting styles have on children.

You say you “have heard of many instances where children are completely spoiled”, and that they act this way later in life, but I feel that this cannot be proven in any way. For as many instances as there are were spoiled children become spoiled adults, I feel there are also many situations were spoiled children mature into caring adults. I feel that it is just people’s assumption that all spoiled children become spoiled adults; people who make this assumption tend to forget the many factors that affect the way human’s act over their lifetime. Furthermore, I think the people who make these assumptions are at their own major fault because it seems that they are quick to make assumptions about people who they do not know.

Even though I do not agree with your blog post, I completely understand where you are coming from because parenting does have a major affect on society in general. For this reason, I find your question very interesting, but I feel my previous rant answers the question itself. Since there are many things that can affect a person over their lifetime, I do no think parenting by itself will make much of a difference in the people that make up our world. Things like schooling, reading, and the general media will have a huge affect on children as they become adults. However, I do feel that just like are schools, parenting in our society could be much improved. With that said, I feel we have more important issues than worrying about what type of people we have in our society, and I completely disagree that the world is made up of “a lot of spoiled, snotty and uncaring people.”

It is good to focus on the overall significance of parenting in our society, but I feel it is a major mistake to assume that adults develop into uncaring individuals just because of the way they were brought up. If parenting were to generally improve, I do think there would be more caring people in the world, but I feel that you are making this issue to simple; it is hard to define exactly what good parenting is, and parenting is definitely not the only factor that affect children’s development into adulthood.

Would parenting be improved within a Socialist Society? Why or Why not?

Do not forget we are talking about Human's.

At the beginning of today’s class, we discussed what might be the obvious issues with a socialist economy. I brought up my point that humans naturally want to be different from other people and so equal pay would not allow this. Alex then said that he felt equal pay could work if each person would be allowed to use their money however they wanted to. I think Alex brought up a great point, but I immediately responded that this would not make people feel equal because there would be too many problems that would arise. I explained that people would take advantage of the system in which the economy runs buy, and therefore people would not feel equal. Even though I got my basic point across, I was not able to back up my argument with actual evidence of what would go wrong in Alex’s plan.
I think that Alex’s idea is very good because people should feel different from others when they are allowed to spend money in their own way, but I feel that this idea would fail in other ways. This idea may fix the basic problem of individuality, but I feel it would be impossible to find a balance between being equal and having individuality in this system. Firstly, I am assuming that everyone receives equal wages. This would be problematic because people would need to be assigned to different jobs. People would complain that they had a more difficult job than a person making the same amount as them. I understand that people should be worrying about the whole and not themselves, but I believe that the creators of this type of economic system are forgetting that they are dealing with humans. I believe that socialism would work out perfectly for any type of high-function being that does not have a sense of self, but not humans. Humans constantly compare themselves with others; Alex’s idea covers the basics of the human need for individuality, but I feel that it forgets about the many other aspects of humanity. Human’s have a sense of self that constantly evaluates its own situation compared to others; I believe that this sense of self would cause the majority of the problems with this economic system. Lets first look at what this type of government expects: everyone to do his or her job. In most jobs, not everyone does perform as well as each other. It seems like someone who performs well would be frustrated if someone else, who performed poorly, was being rewarded the same amount as them. I do not even have to be talking about money when I use this example. Maybe the person performing proficiently is not even being acknowledged for their good work; it does not seem like this person would want to work hard any longer.
The main problem with Alex’s idea of letting people spend their money how they want would be people’s ability to take advantage of the system. It seems like people in this society could have trouble with spending too much of their money; if someone did not have enough money to survive because they spent it all then it would be interesting to see what would happen next. It seems like the government would have to step in and give aid to the people who need help, because if they did not, these people would want to rebel against the government. If the government does provide aid, then other people would feel like it was unfair and ask for aid themselves. I feel that they are too many situations like this for this type of government to succeed. People always find some way that the government system was unfair to them which would cause them to rebel.
It seems like this type of economic system could only work if the individuals of a society cared more about the whole of the society than they cared about themselves; since I do not see this as possible, I feel that a socialist government would inevitability fail.

Do you think that the human sense of self causes problems within society?

In Response to Megan Cooney (3/25/2010)

Q: “We idolize actors and athletes, but we search so hard for a scandal to bring them down. By doing so, are we just trying to bring down the people we have idolized so high?”

I do not believe that the search to bring actors and athletes down is as common as some people may think. There is clearly and obsession about scandals involving actors and athletes, but I believe this obsession is created from something different then people wanting to bring these actors or athletes down; this obsession relates more to the general interest people have in these actors and athletes. With that said, I feel that the people who want to bring these celebrities down are not the ones who idolize them.

I feel that to understand the obsession about scandals involving actors and athletes, we must first understand the general interest that people have of celebrities. Pop culture is interested in actors and athletes because most people are interested in anyone else who is more famous than they are. People in our society become interested in people who are famous because they are trying to escape from their own life. The obsession with celebrities is very similar to the purpose of reading a novel or drinking alcohol in many ways; people are just using these things as means to stop thinking about the stressors in their daily lives. If I read that some famous celebrity cheated on their spouse, I am interested not because I have always had interest in that celebrity, but because their drama-filled life is currently interesting, and I am trying to avoid thinking about my own life. Following celebrities is often the most interesting form of entertainment because the events are extremely dramatic, but it is all real.

I would not agree that we necessarily “search so hard” for scandals that will bring actors and athletes down. I think that people are extremely interested in these scandals, but I do not believe they go out of their way to look for one about their favorite actor or athlete. I understand that people buy celebrity magazines and read websites to find scandals, but I do not believe this is because people want to bring down a specific celebrity; people are just looking for a new story that will distract them from their own problems. With that said, people do exist who will try to bring down a certain celebrity, but I feel that these people are rare compared with the general population.

Many people do make negative comments about celebrities during scandals, and that is why I understand where your idea about bringing down actors and athletes is coming from, but I do not feel that this negativity is related to people wanting to bring their idols down. In general, the people who idolize someone that is in a scandal are interested in the scandal, but they do not want the person they idolize to go down. Sometimes these people will make a comment about a famous actor’s or athletes problems, saying that the famous person made a stupid mistake and is an idiot, but this relates to people trying to feed their own egos. People who idol a certain athlete or actor do not suddenly want their idol to have major problems; they are only interested in what is going on with their idol. Occasionally, these people will be angry at their idol, and they will tell others that they hope their idol has problems because they deserve it, but I do not believe that these people truly want their idol to struggle.

There are people who idolize athletes and actors, but I feel that you confused the people who truly idolize with the people who are generally obsessed with celebrities. If someone truly idolizes an actor or athlete who gets involved in a scandal, he or she will be interested in the scandal, but they are not trying to bring down their idol. The people who want to bring down celebrities are usually the ones who are obsessed with pop culture, and they never truly idolized the specific person that they want to bring down.

What do you think the obsession with celebrities says about our society as a whole?

In Response to Israel Diaz (3/14/2010)

Q:"What if humans were radically compassionate? Would that be dangerous?"

I honestly have trouble thinking of ways that radical compassion could be troublesome for the human race. If each human only cared about others completely then things could only improve for the human race from where things stand now.Many of the major problems with humans relates to our tendency to make egotistical decisions. Many of the rich seem to only care about getting richer; they do not have intrest in helping people below them in socio-econmic staus. An example of this would be the Walton family,the owners of Walmart.Each member of the family owns billions of dollars, but as a family, they have donated less than 1% of their wealth. It seems that our society could greatly benefit from more compassion no matter how radical it is. The only major problem that radical compassion would create would be the results that decision making would have on the people making them; if people only made decisions for others and they did not care at all about themselves it could be troublesome. Before a person learns to take care of others, they first need to be able to take care of themselves. If radical compassion involved people unable to take care of themselves then I believe it would be extremely dangerous, but if people could be radically compassionate while still engaging in personal care, this type of compassion would have no problems. I actually think that our society as whole needs to have a lot more compassion, and to question whether compassion could cause problems is ludicrous. I understand that it is scary to imagine if there were no egotistical values in our society, but it is hard to find any problems that more compassion would create. With that said, it seems that like the Walton family, many people in our society do not have a large amount of compassion. This is why I am wondering whether our society encourages compassion or discourages it.

Do you think our society encourages compassion for others? (Why or Why Not)

Let's not forget about Positivity

When I recently opened Dr.J’s blog, I immediately felt frustrated after seeing all of the posts he had involving problems within our country. Even though the information was very interesting, I did not really enjoy reading the articles because they were so negative. This feeling of frustration reminded me of many of the recent conversations we have had in my Nature of Human Nature class; most of our recent discussions have lead to the many problems that America has right now. America problems themselves are not the main reason for my frustration; the people who represent America’s problems are what frustrate me. When I see posts like “Dumbest Poster Contest”, and when I listen to many people my age talk politics, I am constantly reminded about how many problems our great country has. I sometimes cannot believe how ridiculous people’s ideas about politics are, mainly because people will comment on something that they do not understand. An example of this would be the common misunderstanding that people have of the concept of socialism. I become extremely aggravated when people comment on something that they do not know anything about. Even though Dr.J’s blog brought back my feelings of frustration, one post helped me realize that our country has many great people, and a lot of hope. When I read the article that was attached to Dr.J’s blog post named “The Cheneyists Continue to Invent Reality”, my thoughts about America immediately became positive. The article itself discussed a very negative topic, but I realized that as much as I read about American’s who represent the problematic nature of America, there are actually a lot of American’s who are leading the fight towards positive change. The author of the article, and most of the people who left comments seemed to have intelligent views about the issues in our society, and I felt pretty good about the future of our country. This good feeling about our countries future reminded me of all of the great discussions I have had during my first year of college. In many of my classes, I have discussed many important issues and I have heard great opinions from other bright young minds. I feel that with all of the negativity in the media and all of the problems in our country, we sometimes forget that we have some great people that are leading us into a brighter future.

Do you believe that our society often forgets about the positive aspects of our world? Explain.

In Response to Megan Cooney (3/13/2010)

Q: “Why, do you think, parents will sometimes go to the extremes of either overprotecting their child and giving into every demand of their child?”

Parents act these two different ways for reasons that are related, but the relation between the two parenting styles is not immediately obvious. When parents overprotect their child, they often try to be perfectionists and attempt to prevent anything bad from happening to their child. They believe that if they work hard enough at parenting, then nothing can go wrong for their child. These parents believe that they have complete control over how their children develop, and nothing else affects their children as much as they do. Parents who give in to all their children’s demands usually are the less strict types of parents. These parents believe that they only have a small effect on their children’s development, and so they want to make sure they have a positive effect. This style of parenting involves giving into all of their children’s wants, which usually means little rules and small punishments for misbehavior. It is clear that each style of parenting relates to the amount of control that parents feel they have over their children. I think that parents should know that they do have a significant amount of control over their children, but they also cannot control everything; even more importantly, they will have a small amount of control once their children become adults, so they need to let them learn lessons on their own. I think parenting is one of the main areas of life that involves finding a balance; the two parenting styles involved in the question clearly have not found a balance. Parents go to these extremes because they believe that their actions will have a positive effect on their child if they act a certain way. Even though these parents believe they are doing the right thing for their child, they are usually wrong. The problem is that parents will often not listen to others about their parenting because they believe that their parenting should not be changed. Parents need to be less stubborn about accepting help because their children’s future well being depends on their parenting.

1.Is bad parenting one of the main problems of our society, and if so, how can we fix this problem? (If not, what are the main problems?)

Bias Society

In class on Friday, we discussed Rousseau’s ideas as being right in principle, but wrong in practice. Dr.J made the point that many times in our society, people are correct about their principles, but no one will accept their principles because the person is wrong about the ways in which we should practice their principles. Thinking over this class discussion, I immediately began to realize a common theme from the different ideas we have studied over the course so far. Almost everything we have studied seems to be correct in some way, but many times people will discredit whole ideas because they have a few problems. I feel that if our society is going to make progress, we will need to be less quick to ignore ideas that we do not fully agree with. When we first studied Christianity, many people were quick to ignore all the ideas that this religion offers just because they disagreed with a few. I think it is important that we use some of the ideas that Christianity offers; things like peace, love, and turning the other cheek could be very useful if they were more important in our society. I think another example of this would be Hobbes’ principles. Many people are quick to avoid his ideas because the ideas are pessimistic. If people would actually study his ideas, they would be very useful. Our society is known for being afraid of accepting ideas that are different, and I believe this is one of the major flaws of our society. If we would use our reasoning to consider the actual usefulness of people’s ideas, our society would run a lot more productively.

Is our society bias as a whole, and if so, how can we reduce this bias?

In Response to Megan Cooney (3/6/2010)

Q:“Why do we have phrases like "follow your heart," "gut instinct," etc? Why is it not like listen to what your mind tells you?”

Phrases such as "follow your heart" and "gut instinct” are popular in our society for the exact idea that your question brings up. People often do not want to use their mind to make decisions because listening to your mind is a type of reasoning. Having a "gut instinct" is more of an instant feeling because you do not have to think about it. A good example of this is a multiple-choice question that you do not know, but you have an instant feeling that one of the choices is the correct answer; a problem soon arises because you start to think about the choices and you begin to think a different answer is the correct choice. At this point, you must make a choice,either go with your “gut instinct” or listen to "what your mind tells you". I understand that the mind controls the “gut instinct”, but I feel that anytime you use the word mind, you are talking about a type of reasoning. I believe that “listening to what your mind tells you,” means that you trust in simple reasoning. The “gut instinct" is more of an automatic feeling that you do not know where it came from. I feel that a true “gut instinct” is something that is impossible to explain; it seems like it may be an unconscious process because we just feel something that we cannot explain the origins of. For this reason, I think that people often say that they used their “gut instinct” when they actually used simple reasoning. When making decisions, people often come up with two choices because of reasoning they use. They may say, “Most people want me to do this, but I’m going to use my gut feeling and do this instead”. Many situations like this do not represent a true “gut instinct” because the person had to decide between two choices, which both were discovered through simple reasoning. With that said, if the person decided to make a choice using a feeling that they could not explain, then that would be an example of using a “gut instinct”. This brings up the idea that “following your heart” and using your “gut instinct” may be two different things. I feel that “following your heart” is used in situations where a person has to decide between two different choices, and they decide choose their original feeling. It seems that “following your heart” could be defined as when a person chooses to follow their “gut instinct” instead of deciding to trust in their reasoning; therefore, I feel that “following your heart" and using your "gut instinct” are not the same concept but relate closely. Even though I understand exactly what these concepts mean, I am wondering when exactly they should be used. It seems like there are examples in our world of situations where using “gut instinct” has worked and other situations where reasoning has worked better than “gut instinct”.

1.Do you think that we should ever follow our “gut instinct”, and if so, in what situations should we use it?
2.What do you think that Plato and Aristotle would feel about using “gut instinct”?

That's not what Aristotle meant.

Today in class, we discussed Aristotle’s ideas about happiness in relation to being virtuous. Aristotle was a realist because he believed that people could be miserable, even when they are virtuous. Aristotle went against Socrates idealist beliefs because Socrates felt that people who are virtuous would always be happy. In class, I stated my point that Aristotle may be wrong because everyone has the ability to be happy, no matter what situation they are in. Even though I made my point in class, I feel that I was not able to expand on this idea in a way that I truly wanted. I do not think that people realize the great flaw that Aristotle‘s argument regarding happiness has; I feel it is important for people to understand that in many ways, Aristotle did not outline what happiness truly is.

It makes sense that Aristotle is a realist because his background is in the sciences. This is the reason I understand why he believes that being virtuous does not mean being happy. I agree with him that there are good people who are completely miserable. The major problem is that people often misinterpret Aristotle’s ideas. People often feel that Aristotle meant that we cannot be happy from just living as a good person, but we must look for happiness on the outside of us. I do not think Aristotle meant this, but his argument seems to point to this idea. What people need to realize is that happiness is inside of us; we create our own happiness. For some reason, most people think that happiness relates to what happens to a people in their lives; this idea is simply not true. It is a simple fact that we determine how we feel about the world around us. It does not matter if I have a million dollars, or one dollar, I can be happy whenever I want to. We can change our feelings, by changing the way we view our surroundings.

It is obvious to me why there is so much depression in highly economically developed countries like America. People do not understand that they control their own ability to be happy. There is major problem with flawed cognitive reasoning in our society. People need to realize that what our society provides for information is not always true. People grow up thinking that the happiness is created from things outside of themselves. These people need to follow Socrates advice, and begin to examine their lives. The problem is that people are too busy in their hectic lives to realize that they will never reach happiness until they change the way they feel about their surroundings. I feel that Aristotle may be right that being vitreous does not mean you will be happy, but I think that people our misunderstanding his point. There are good people who can be miserable, but they also have the choice to be happy; being happy does not relate to the what happens in a person’s life, it relates to their thoughts about what happened. Everyone has the choice to be happy, no matter if they are virtuous or not.

1)Do you think it is better to be a realist, or and idealist? Support your opinion.

2)Do you find it interesting that the occurrence of mood disorders is a lot higher in economically developed countries then other countries? Explain.

In Response to Austin Bodzioch (2/25/10)

Q:"If there was one ultimate truth and goodness, do you think that there would be social conflicts between people of how to be good and true?"

I completely understand what the question is asking, but I think truth and goodness would need to be explained differently from what you explained it as. The examples you used did not really seem to show people having completely different Ideas of what is good and true. If my friend’s mother thinks her son only does good when he gets straight A's, and my mother thinks I did good with C's and B's, It does not necessarily mean that each mother has a different Idea of what Is ultimately good. My mother could know that A's are truly what is good, but she chooses to support me If I get C's because she knew I tried. I feel that you outlined the idea that people have different standards for what is good, but I think you used examples that follow your own opinion about the subject. You made the point that certain people follow religious Ideas of what Is good and these ideas do not apply to all of us, but we cannot really know whether they do not apply to all of us. Maybe certain ideas are actually the truth about what is good, but we just choose not to believe them. You say that someone can be just as good when they do not go to church, but I do not understand how you can know that. Your first claim is that you do not feel that there is an ultimate truth or goodness, but from the examples you use, it seems like you do have an Idea of what is ultimately true and good.I think it is also interesting that you point out that people think being gay or bisexual is wrong, even when people who are gay or bisexual may be nice or true people. I find it interesting because it seems like when you make this claim, you are saying that what gay and bisexuals represent is ultimately good, but before you said that there is no such thing as ultimate truth or goodness. The point I am trying to make is that everyone has their own Ideas of what is true and good, even If they say they do not. For this reason, I feel It would be difficult for everyone to agree on what is true and good because humans naturally have different Ideas of what they believe is true and good. With that said, I feel that if every person were proven what is ultimately good and true, there would still be social conflicts. Even If everyone knew, what is good, people would still commit evils, which would cause conflict; this would happen because people commit wrongs, even when they know what is right. I do not feel this is Important because there could be one ultimate truth about what is good right now, but we might just not know it. I believe it is human nature for people to have different opinions about what they believe is true and good ; even when people deny that there is ultimate good, they still have an idea of what they believe is good.
If we all have some idea of what is good, are we born knowing the basics of what is good, or do we develop it?

The effect that Plato's ideas have on decision making in todays society

Yesterday in class, we discussed Plato’s idea of selective breeding and the idea of a guardian class. At first, it seemed as though Plato’s ideas regarding these subjects were completely wrong, but my idea on the subjects completely changed once Dr.j explained Plato’s ideas. Dr.j outlined the idea that Plato felt that Humans can be either rational, or emotional. This idea immediately made sense because Humans have one thing that separates them from all animals, the ability to use rational reasoning. Dr.j explained that Plato felt that humans need to take advantage of their ability to be rational and avoid using their emotional side. Plato applied these concepts specifically within the leaders of a community. Plato felt that the leaders of a community should use rational reasoning when making decisions; they should use their intellect to make decisions that will help the community and not just help themselves. Plato did not want any leaders who cared about advancing their own property and wealth. Plato wanted a class of leaders, called the guardian class, which would be made up of people who only make rational decisions that are in the best interest of the community. The only reason Plato suggested selective breeding was because he wanted this type of ruling class to be created.

The classroom discussion regarding Plato’s ideas soon lead into the affect that Plato’s ideas could have on the leaders of the United States. At this point, I became extremely interested because it seemed like Plato’s ideas relate a lot to what is going on with the United States Government. I feel that there is a ruling class of America, and the majority of this class is made up of people who only care about their own property and wealth. I think that Plato’s ideas could be very helpful for the people of America. Humans have the ability to reason, and make rational decisions; we need to take advantage of this by evaluating the process that the government uses to elect our leaders. I think that if people put more thought into who is truly making the decisions for our country,then our country would work in much more of a fair way. It seems like most people care most about their emotions when they make decisions. People need to listen to Plato and use their ability to reason rationally when they make important decisions.

It seems that examples of people using their emotional side over their rational side are obvious in today’s society. In almost every election for government positions, people seem to care more about the people running themselves, rather than focusing on how the issues in their life would be affected by the people running. People make major mistakes by electing the wrong people, only because they used their emotional side to make decisions. It seems that most people do not realize how useful Plato’s ideas could be for our current society. Even though the emotional side of humans has its purpose, I feel that Plato may be right that this side is over used in Humans lives. I do not think that all of Plato’s ideas are correct, but I feel that his ideas regarding human’s use of rational reasoning is completely correct; humans in general need to use less of their of emotional side, and more of their rational side when making decisions.

Do you feel that people’s use of their emotional side in their decision-making is a major problem? And,
Do you think that the use of Plato’s ideas could make a positive impact on today’s society? In which ways?

In Response to Megan Cooney (2/19/10)

Q: “Is trying to define who we are just a ceaseless task that we will never solve? Can we not just settle for who we, ourselves think we are?”

I find this question very interesting because one of the most important parts of life is finding our true self. I feel that the question of who we are relates to many of the most important aspects of people’s lives, such as religion. People feel that once they understand who they are they will have a better understand of their purpose in life; I completely agree with this idea. I feel that this question implies that the search for who we are may be pointless; assuming that it is pointless would be a major mistake.
We may not be able to fully define who we are in a way that is universally accepted, but I feel it is imperative that everyone attempts to answer this question over his or her lives. Knowing who we are gives our life purpose and meaning. I feel that the small roles people play in their lives do not show who someone truly is. The fact that I am a Boston Celtics fan may be an important part of my life, but I do not believe it is a part of who I truly am. The important part of the search for who we are should involve a person finding something they want to devote their live to. Malcolm X is an example of this idea. He thought he knew exactly who he was by the small roles he played in his life until he went to prison. Once his family introduced him to the Nation of Islam while hew was in prison, Malcolm found true purpose in his life. He explains in his autobiography that there was a moment of awakening, where he absolutely knew who he was; he felt like his true identity had been hidden from him his whole life. I feel that other people will find who they are in many other types of ways, but almost all of these ways relate to helping others.
I feel that it may be impossible to describe absolutely who we are with words, but I believe that people will know who they are once they discover their purpose in life. Too many people become identified with the roles that they play in their lives, such as their job, what religion they associate with, their political party etc. I feel that people will truly know who they are when they stop thinking that these things as a part of themselves. Malcolm X was a Muslim, but I do not feel that this identified who he was; he was a person that was on a mission to teach blacks the truth about who they were because he felt it would improve their lives. People need to focus on a purpose in their lives, and stop trying to identify themselves with words.
I feel the idea of who we are is bigger than the actual question itself. I do not think we can ever fully answer the question of who we are because the answer will be filled with roles that we play in society. Even though I do not think it is possible to answer the question, I feel we should use the question to find a purpose in life; I think a purpose in life causes people to feel truly fulfilled, which is something that identifying with roles will never do. Furthermore, I do not feel we should even get to the point of settling who we think we are, because who we think we are still ends up being an attempt to define ourselves with the roles that we play in society. We need to stop trying to identify ourselves with roles that society determines; we need to find a purpose in our lives.

Can we describe who we are without using the roles we play in society as the descriptors?