And because I was late, I missed out on a good chunk of Brock's presentation. I felt really rude coming in and disturbing his presentation and rather sad because from what I heard, it was very interesting. An alternate universe? How exciting. It made me remember an episode of Futurama when they deal with alternate universes and how everything was the opposite from the 'normal' universe, just as Brock was saying. Except that, of course, the basics were still the same, it was merely the colors and people whom were different.
Jordan, to me, had a very sturdy idea to me that I found I could hardly argue. I think it was interesting the different break down of knowledge type and how we obtained information from it. What I really appreciated was how she never said 'knowledge is always true', because as the discussion was circulated, it seemed that two bits of knowledge could be in conflict, such as the formulate and emotional knowledge. But I suppose even if one or the other was wrong to someone else, it'd be true to oneself.
Sarah's paper to me presented an interesting topic, mostly because we as artists heavily rely on sight. Not to mention, I need to wear glasses/contacts at all times otherwise I can't see and everything becomes blobs of colors. I think it's a good point to say that sight isn't the best but that it's one of the more important factors to obtaining true knowledge.
Issac presented a topic that I found enjoyable but slightly controversial. I really, really enjoyed that God is a being created and sculpted from our own experiences. However, I disagree with the idea that we have to have an experience to know God. I feel that even if we don't have an experience with God, that would still shape an understanding of him a bit.
More food for thoughts. Yum,
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Really...Short
Yesterday's class was rather short. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoy the extra time to do other work, but I've begun to really enjoy the presentations. Even if I don't normally speak, I really find them interesting. I wish the other two presenters had been there as well. Oh well, hopefully Wednesday we'll have everyone.
I really enjoyed the presentations yesterday, as usual. Kirsten's paper presented a more general topic rather than some of the narrowed down ideas that we've seen before. I think what I enjoyed the most was that she took on both sides of the change aspect: most people do have the ability to change and better themselves, but some people are incapable of it. I found myself nodding with this opinion because I find that the majority of the population can change and probably wants to, but for some people it's too difficult or they simply don't see their wrongs and thus don't do anything to change.
Then there was also Evander's paper. He put a lot of research into it and I could feel that he was trying, but like most I was slightly lost by what he was trying to accomplish. I agree with everyone else that if he narrowed down a bit more and, as he even stated, found a thesis, he'd be able to put all that research to good use. One point that stuck with me is that he briefly mentioned how babies are born with no knowledge. The more I thought about it, I thought how strange that seemed. I vaguely recall studies being shown that a baby understands the mother's voice and I want to say that Emily mentioned something about the gene coding in a child being so complex and wise that they have this preprogrammed notion of the world even before they truly understand it. Hmmm...
Overall, wonderful job. I can't wait for tomorrow's presentations.
I really enjoyed the presentations yesterday, as usual. Kirsten's paper presented a more general topic rather than some of the narrowed down ideas that we've seen before. I think what I enjoyed the most was that she took on both sides of the change aspect: most people do have the ability to change and better themselves, but some people are incapable of it. I found myself nodding with this opinion because I find that the majority of the population can change and probably wants to, but for some people it's too difficult or they simply don't see their wrongs and thus don't do anything to change.
Then there was also Evander's paper. He put a lot of research into it and I could feel that he was trying, but like most I was slightly lost by what he was trying to accomplish. I agree with everyone else that if he narrowed down a bit more and, as he even stated, found a thesis, he'd be able to put all that research to good use. One point that stuck with me is that he briefly mentioned how babies are born with no knowledge. The more I thought about it, I thought how strange that seemed. I vaguely recall studies being shown that a baby understands the mother's voice and I want to say that Emily mentioned something about the gene coding in a child being so complex and wise that they have this preprogrammed notion of the world even before they truly understand it. Hmmm...
Overall, wonderful job. I can't wait for tomorrow's presentations.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Phew!
Hello all! I wanted to first congratulate all those who have presented thus far; I feel everyone put a lot of effort into this assignment and it showed! And hey, now we're done, hurray! Also, for those of you yet to present, best of luck! I'm really looking forward to seeing how differently (or similarly) people's opinions are on these subjects, and of course, for the questions and thoughts they will spur. Again, best of luck to you all!
Sunday, May 1, 2011
I haven't been blogging even close to enough...
There were two presentations in particular that I found very interesting. The first was Julie's, and the second was Natalie's; though I liked them for different reasons.
I was thinking a lot about Julies, not because I found it terribly fascinating in and of itself, but I'm very intrigued as to why so many people reacted so strongly to it. After awhile of contemplating it, I think I've come up with a possible answer; there are two different ways of interpreting the concept of knowing everything. One is the way that Julie took it, and is hard to argue with; this is the literal way, that argues that it is impossible to know everything there is to know, because it will never be possible to know the facts of every individual person, let alone every individual creature. This is a strong argument, and not really possible to refute.
However, knowing everything can be taken in a different way, and this is the way that descarte though of it; he broke it down into systems rather then individuals. He believed that if he could understand the system by which people thought and functioned, it wouldn't be necessary to know the individual person, because people all functioned the same way.
I think half the class was in one pool of thought, and half the class in the other, and neither could understand the perspective of the other.
Natalie's I loved because it was almost spot on to my way of thinking, and my views on the subject were very similar. I think it was beautifully presented and though provoking. There is of course much more that could be argued and taken into consideration on the subject, but that would have taken all day. I thought it fit the assignment perfectly.
I was thinking a lot about Julies, not because I found it terribly fascinating in and of itself, but I'm very intrigued as to why so many people reacted so strongly to it. After awhile of contemplating it, I think I've come up with a possible answer; there are two different ways of interpreting the concept of knowing everything. One is the way that Julie took it, and is hard to argue with; this is the literal way, that argues that it is impossible to know everything there is to know, because it will never be possible to know the facts of every individual person, let alone every individual creature. This is a strong argument, and not really possible to refute.
However, knowing everything can be taken in a different way, and this is the way that descarte though of it; he broke it down into systems rather then individuals. He believed that if he could understand the system by which people thought and functioned, it wouldn't be necessary to know the individual person, because people all functioned the same way.
I think half the class was in one pool of thought, and half the class in the other, and neither could understand the perspective of the other.
Natalie's I loved because it was almost spot on to my way of thinking, and my views on the subject were very similar. I think it was beautifully presented and though provoking. There is of course much more that could be argued and taken into consideration on the subject, but that would have taken all day. I thought it fit the assignment perfectly.
I've really enjoyed most of the presentations we've seen so far, I feel like we're getting know each other pretty well because of them. Individual personalities are coming through, because although the research aspect is important, the subject matter displays personality more then anything else. In a way I feel like these are very private things we're being asked to share, and they show how we have formed our identities.
I feel like some of them took a very broad topic, and narrowed it down a bit to far. I know that it is hard to cover the scope of the topic, and that sometimes it felt like it was necessary to make it more manageable, but in some cases I think it took away from what the assignment was meant to be.
I feel like some of them took a very broad topic, and narrowed it down a bit to far. I know that it is hard to cover the scope of the topic, and that sometimes it felt like it was necessary to make it more manageable, but in some cases I think it took away from what the assignment was meant to be.
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