Thanksgiving Reflection

During the break, some of my family and I took the traditional trip to visit my oma (grandmother in German) for Thanksgiving. It's an interesting holiday for me in that we take both my Japanese and German influences. Rather than simply having turkey, mashed potato and gravy, etc., we have sushi and apple strudel as part of the feast also.
Also, since my oma is Catholic, another important part of this is the dinner prayer. It's funny though that every year, however, my relatives and family friends bicker over who should be the person to say it (because no one wants to do it!). I find it also amusing that among our group, we have some who are religious, but some who are atheists as well. Because everyone is close, conversation, including the topic of religion as well, is usually filled with humor and not with serious arguments like some of the readings we have had!
I have found that I have traditional and cultural influences mixed in the a holiday celebration that is probably different from many others. What is culture exactly and how does religion become intregrated in this? On looking back to my break I ask myself : What is my own culture exactly? It seems to me that culture is usually defined to a society as a whole, but not usually on an individual basis like I would think for myself. Just some random thoughts I had : D.

So..about love?

During this week, I saw this video and was amazed at the arguments the man made concerning prop 8. You should watch it!! He brings up startling points I have not even heard before (the issues of marriage and slavery). Although I think it is an extremely controversial issue, it is definitely applied to the conflicts we face in class now. Do we really have free will and what does God become if there is so much evil in the world? He makes points about God being a universal love and how it is applied in the perception of gay marriage. When you see this video, do you think he is right in his point of view? After watching this, I am wondering how the opposite view could support their own claims as well.

The Odds

I remember a certain statement from an actor (but I don't remember who!):

Depending on our faith, there are four things that can happen to us when we die. If there is a God and we believe in him we will go to heaven. If there is no God, even though we believe in him, we will not go to heaven. If there is no God and we don't believe in him, nothing will happen. However, if we don't believe in a God, and he does exist, then we will go to hell. Therefore, believing in God give us a better chance of what becomes of us after we die.

Although I think this thought may have come from a previous philosopher, I think the actor made a good point. The odds of getting into heaven are better for us if we do have a belief in God. However, does believing in God become the only factor in determining this? I think that the statement is too general because we can start to include other religions, one which follow different ideals or even more than one God. Even for people who are agnostic do not really fit into what this statement is saying. What do you think?

Justifying The Atomic Bomb

If there is a morality, then we must come to the conclusion that a person can be bad or good. But what exactly does it mean to be immoral and moral? Is it based on how many bad choices we make in comparison to the good? Surely a killer would have done a good deed once in his life, or even a devoted Christian could have committed a crime. I am having difficulty with answering this, because even "good" people have caused terrible atrocities.

In August of 1945, the United States of America made the decision to drop the first atomic bomb. Hiroshima, targeted for it's communication site, was desecrated. Over 140,000 people (mostly civilians) were incinerated and numerous others died from the effects of the bomb's radiation. There are so many terrible and sad stories out there. While learning this in high school I realized there is so much we were never told about.

How do we justify a creation of a bomb used to annihilate a part of our human race?
Sure it's intention was to end a war and show a nation's nuclear power, but look what it has done.

This is What Happens When You Don't Do Your Homework

So can we say that our lives have already been determined for us?
I would like to say that I have free will, rather than saying I have no choice in my future at all. For at least in this cartoon, I would like to think the fish hopes so too. This sort of hope, or ideal way of perceiving life makes us optimistic that there is room for change. If we believe in determinism, I feel that we are much more prone to remaining guiltless and unambitious since our actions were supposed to happen anyway.
If we were to say that determinism is what truly dictates our lives, then what good can come out of it?

So you walk into a forest...

Personality Test! Take it : D!
http://www.personalityquiz.net/relational/reflection.htm

In relating to self-identity, what is composed of our personality?? Is it something we inherent more than have an adaptation to? Or is it something more?

I think we try to define ourselves in any way we possibly can. Taking personality tests, such as this one, aim to tell us aspects of who we are: what is important to us, if we are ready for situations, etc. But this particular one only tests actions. Is that all we need to determine our personality? I think our dreams, our perspectives, our pasts, and our ideas can be more of just thoughts rather than our actions. But can these also be the influences of our behaviors?

Lady Luck

In taking this course, I find myself stumbling upon old thoughts and readings I have analyzed before. While studying for the MCAT, sadly, one of the most interesting articles still lingers in my mind (and hopefully accurate in my description here).
In the study of depressed versus non-depressed peoples, a set of experiments were created in which luck could be attributed to winning events, such as the lottery. Although winning is based on probability, the results showed that people who were not clinically depressed continued to participate in these events. The depressed, however, refused to continue further, even though they were winning consecutively.
The conclusions stated that people who were not depressed felt that they were able to influence their odds of winning, such as their luck, and, therefore, would keep trying to win. The depressed, on the other hand, saw the probability of the events without outside factors and felt they could not influence the outcomes.
Are these conclusions valid? Can we say that luck becomes a factor according to our moods, or, in this case, a certain state of mind? To me, this would suggest that we would be less likely to see a clinically depressed person gamble or depend on good luck charms, such as a rabbit's foot. What we contribute to our actions becomes influenced on how we perceive ourselves. We say that each person has their own perception, but can we say that we each have a set of perceptions, based on what we are feeling? I'm still thinking about this..haha. :)

Philosophers on Strike

Philosophers on Strike-"Support Epistemologists","No More Search For Truth Until Our Demands Are Met","We Are Right And I Can Logically Prove It."

Discussion in our class are becoming less of what we want to accept as our own beliefs. With the abundance of theories and their problems, there seems to be an impossibility to find the truth. However, I think these philosophical ideas will never go away; they are the foundation for questioning. Philosophers on strike, in my opinion, is the response to many of the rejections of the ideals we chat about in class. To see "outside the box", and in "someone else s shoes", we broaden our minds to preceive different perspectives. In watching movies, such as The Matrix and The Truman Show, we are shown realities that maybe before we may have not been able to grasp on our own. I think that although we can view truth cannot be found, philosophy brings in infinite possibilities of what our reality can be.

Virtual Insanity

I'm sorry that I could not post this directly, but WATCH THE VIDEO! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJmX1z1NY2c

Virtual Insanity-Jamiroquai Lyrics:
It' a wonder man can eat at all
When things are big
That should be small
Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doing for us.
And I'm giving all my love to this world
Only to be told
I can't see, I can't breathe
No more will we be
And nothing's gonna change the way we live
Cuz we can always take and never give
And now that things are changing for the worse,
See, it's a crazy world we're living in
And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin
Is all we have to give these

Chorus
Futures made of virtual insanity
now always seem, to be governed by this love we have
For useless, twisting, our new technology
Oh now there is no sound for we all live underground

And I'm thinking in what a mess we're in
Hard to know when to begin
If I could slip the sickly ties that earthly man has made
And now every mother can choose the color of her child
That's not nature's way
Well that's what they said yesterday
There's nothing left to do but pray
I think it's time I found a new religion
Whoaaa it's so insane to synthesize another strain
There's something in these futures that we have to be told.

Now there's no sound if we all live underground
And now it's virtual insanity
Forget your virtual reality
Oh, there's nothing so bad, I know yeah

Forget the goofy hat that Jamiroquai is wearing, this 90's music video is one of my favorites (props to "Think Tank" who incorporated video in her blogging). I hope you notice how he just slides around the room without moving around himself and wonder: how in the world were they able to make that happen? His topic of reality brings back the beginning discussions we had in class before. Philosophy studies who we are and, ultimately, brings forth understanding to why we do the things we do. In our lives, whether it be illusion or a reality, are we true to ourselves? Do we get too caught up in the changes in life to stop and think if it is making ourselves better people? Jamiroquai presents the perspective if this life is a reality, it is becoming an illusion, or what he names it as: virtual insanity. The lyrics cast topics I think we need to be concerned with as well: Our faith, advancements in technology and science, our future. In my opinion, he displays the optical illusions in our modern times. We need to find a way to see beyond this and to find what is true for ourselves. You do know that in the music video it is not the floor that is moving right? It is actually the walls. Enjoy : D

Quantum Suicide

What is truly there if we haven't seen it with our own eyes? Does a falling tree make a sound when no one is around? In questions stemming from what we believe is true and what is really there is presented in the interesting case of Schrodinger's cat. For those who have not taken physics, the experiment places a cat in a sealed chamber with radioactive material and a Geiger counter triggered poison. Basically the experiment works as follows: If the material decays, it will cause the counter to break the bottle of poison causing the cat to die. If the material does not decay, the cat will live. Simple enough, we can open the box to see if the cat is alive or dead. However, does this mean that the cat is in that resulted state before we open the box? According to the quantum mechanics of superposition(for which is much more complex to explain), the cat is simultaneously dead and alive before the observation is done. This is known as the observer's paradox: "the observation itself affects an outcome, so that the outcome as such does not exist unless the measurement is made." So if we were to look at the box, does our actions affect whether or not the cat survives? Although the case presented is strange, it relates in that the there may be much more than "what meets the eye". I greatly enjoyed this new approach because it shows mechanisms of which can allude the human mind, and, ultimately be of things we could never be aware of. To me, it explains that we are limited in our senses and that we can only wonder what is occurring before we open that box. Is this a too outrageous to be considered a truth? Let me know what you think!