More Paradigms

The other day while stumbling around on Stumble Upon with my cousin I came across this page which i found very interesting given our current topic in class.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/25eN7G/informationesthetics.org/documents/scienceMapPrintMockupEd2.jpg

Try it out its very interesting.

Preference over Paradigm

Music is something near and dear to my heart and I have certain ideas of it that i feel are true forever. The idea that different genres of music are a preference not a paradigm, to me is ridiculous. Music is such a general term used for so many different forms of expression with sound. it is almost unbelievable that european classical music and tribal music from indigenous tribes of Australia are both called Music, because they are so contrasting. BUt Music is the general term that in my mind is an expression with sound. These varieties in music though, the different genres i would never say one is written and created in existence because of a persons preference. They are often written for someone to express an emotion such as love or hurt or even expresing a time period or idea like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture Portraying the downfall of Napoleon. To say a composers preference influenced music more than his life view and his beliefs and morals and true self is a bit ridiculous. If we are thinking even of modern day songwriters, their lyrics and different beats aren't always becasue they like that ryhthm over all else or a certain word is cooler than all the others. They usually would choose something that is the best means of conveying their idea to an audience. THinking across the ages its not a preference to a certain sound that brings it about, it is the lifestyle, beliefs and social system of the time that influences different music types. Aboriginal people here in our province used buffalo skins to make drums becasue that was what was available to them and their society relied on the buffalo for everything, so naturally music came from that as well. The lyrics and ideas spread in modern day songs are often about someones social sitation or the north American ideal that relationships are the most important thing in life. A persons paradigm directly affects them and whatever affects a person is often thing they express. Music is expression, My favorite quote ever is "Music is what feeling sounds like" and it is one hundred percent true.

Emotions are the basis of all knowledge.

I have an actual argument today for why I disagree with that all knowledge comes from emotion. In Biology we learn that chemicals and hormones in our bodies are what cause emotions. To me hearing that emotions are caused and are a result of chemicals in our blood translates from the original statement that knowledge is simply chemical releases in our bodies. Now this might work in some ways, that knowledge comes from within us and that every human being has the potential for knowledge in everything if it comes from those chemicals but i believe humans are more than primal animals that live off of instinct. I believe that the ability we have to reason and see past the ordinary to learn and discover and research means that a basic hormone release will not have that much of an influence on our knowledge. If knowledge is justified True belief, maybe i will be more motivated to research something but even if i have no emotional response to something or less of one than someone else i will still have knowledge. Maybe i won't have as much understanding as that person since they were motivated but I have knowledge anyways. Therefor we can say that emotion brings on knowledge because there are areas of study that happen because of other workings in our brain. Emotion does play a part but does not play the main part. The main part of learning in my opinion is a combination of language, reasoning and perception with little emotion in some subjects and more in others.
Just my opinion.

Logic puzzles

On Friday we were given a logic puzzle to figure out in class. My mind clicks with these sorts of puzzles. I don't know if this means I am linear or not but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a definite way to prove that reasoning is a form of knowledge because from the clues I had to think deeper and analyze to find the answers. You can't just perceive the answers unless the people who teach the reef not and the bowtie actually exist and you see them holding their favorite flower while they are doing it.

Secondly we watched a segment of the Hour with the author of the book Kluge. The idea behind the book was that the human body in particular the brain is not of perfect design. It was a huge political statement that supported evolution over creation. I was intrigued. I am on the fence with creation and evolution. But the ideas behind hte fact that our bodies are imperfect is not often brought up in society. We always seem to think we are the best of the best. We try to categorize things and explain all phenomenon but I don't think there is a good explanation supporting creation that explains why we are imperfect. All in all its confusing. I need to do other homework but I am going to ponder this.

Logical fallacy

Well I have yet to find an example of a logical fallacy as we were discussing in class on Monday but I thoroughly enjoyed the short film we watched on Here Be Dragons. Our teacher brought up why we should believe what we were told and how we can know its knowledge. I am not completely sure. I feel logically and that with my reason by considering what he said, it makes sense. He wasn't denouncing things completely or without cause. He was simply stating how there was no science to back it up and I love that because that works with my brain. Logical thinking and proof and science and math and rules all work in my mind. This film seemed to tell us to think my way. Thats a first in philosophy that keeps throwing new ideas to us left right and center. I do understand and agree with some of whats discussed but too often I don't agree with just one persons opinion. I follow parts of each one. For example I support Hume for his reasoning behind simple ideas and denouncing complex ideas(Hume and reasoning...ironic i think) but I also support Descartes for his ideas of reason and its benefits but i don't agree with either that either perception is the only tool of knowledge or that reasoning defeats all else. The four forms of knowledge rely on each other to function. Knowledge would be difficult to pass on or explain without language, perception often gives us ideas to reason about and Emotion helps us reason and perceive since it is a sense that can sometimes distinguish between right and wrong suboconsciously. Thats a broad statement.... hmm oh well its late. Ta ta for now.

Hume vxs Descartes

Well Hello there. I am really terrible at keeping up with this whole blog concept so please forgive me.

Now last week we had a discussion in class among students that was supposed to be a portrayal of a debate between Rene Descartes and David Hume. From this discussion I felt the students heavily preferred Rene Descartes view on philosophy rather than Hume's. Now a quick overview of the two men's ideas.

Rene Descartes had the opinion that true knowledge is only obtainable through reasoning and that we cannot trust our perception. David Hume on the other hand had the opinion that perception gave us knowledge. He however also had ideas of complex ideas and simple ideas and how to use whether we have perceived a complex idea in and of itself all at once or whether our mind has simply used various other simple ideas to form a false complex idea for example....

A person's ego. If I think about myself i would say I am open minded, pleasant, quiet, and responsible. This is my entire view of myself (well not quite but we will pretend it is) and it is a complex idea. However if I use Hume's idea of comparing simple and complex ideas I can realize that i have never been all of those qualities at one time. Therefore it is impossible for an ego to exist since it is actually many simple ideas that the mind has put together falsely.

Now in the debate with the students, i felt that this point was never given much attention by the students defending Hume. People were simply going back and forth saying Reason is better because... then saying Perception is better because..... I felt it was very to one side as those portraying Descartes were often very agressive and would call out how perception can mislead us. it overall seemed a very one sided debate.

I myself am a supporter of both I believe but I think I support Hume's theories more. His use of perception to distinguish between false ideas of the mind and not really intrigues me.

Ways of knowing.

We had a discussion and listened to a case study on whether the words in your language give you knowledge or the ability to have certain knowledge or if having certain knowledge is separate from having language to express that in. We were also asked how perspective and reason work with knowledge. Here are more of my thoughts.

For myself, there are many people who can have knowledge in something that isn't spoken. Math is a language that you can't completely express in spoken words, visual art is a form of communication, and people who have knowledge of how to track people through the woods have a knowledge that they didn't learn completely from someone telling them. It was primarily from trial and error, seeing something, reasoning it out. Language does not lead to knowledge, it just is the most outwardly showing form of knowledge. Challenge this if you want, but someone who speaks in lectures of quantum physics is going to be thought by many people to have a large amount of knowledge but an artist who paints in a certain style and maybe spent years perfecting it isn't going to be seen to have knowledge in the same way because what they do they can't truly be expressed in words but in their art. They are seen as artistic not knowledgeable. They still have knowledge.

As for perspective and reasoning. I argue that a persons perspective warps or changes their reasoning. Someone who supports the Liberal party will have different reasoning as to where money should be spent by the government than someone who supports the Green Party. Certain reasoning may be the same for some people but their perspective is different. People who come from different cultures are influenced to consider certain areas of life more important than others and this alters their reasoning. So I don't believe reasoning and perspective are completely separate. Also I think Language alters a persons perspective. An example of this is the case study we listened to of the people in South America who only have vague numbers in their language for one and two. To them numbers aren't important, their perspective on things like economics aren't going to be the same as someone who from kindergarten has learned that 1 comes before 2 and 3 comes before 4 and 5. Their perspective is different because of their language and their reasoning will be different because of their perspective.

My thoughts.... ish

Unfortunately the last ToK class I took was almost a week ago and my mind is in a million different places right now but I hope I can explain myself clearly.

The quote I am most going to digress on is the quote "Who does not know another language cannot know his own."
In this I feel very strongly being bilingual and at the moment being in a situation with francophones, bilinguals, and anglophones all in one place mashed together. In the area of knowledge, Language, whether your first or your second gives you more than one perspective on a topic and broadens your knowledge of it. Two people don't translate a sentence exactly the same way, there interpretation is differnt because they have learned something about their own language or their second language that differs from someone elses. I also feel that you need to know and truly understand another language not just be able to say a few phrases in order to gain knowledge of your own language. When I was young, I knew how to count to ten in Japanese, that knowlegde of those words in that language gave me no further insight to English, and yes I was very young but it never did even when I retained that knowledge through the years. Now that I am fluent, or at least was and now am gaining it back, in French, I feel more in tune with English, and can say that it has given me new perspectives.
That is all I have time to write today... Another time I suppose then. toodles.