Write your quiz answers down on a sheet of paper, we'll go over them in class. You can claim a base for each correct answer (and a run on the scorecard for every four bases, up to 5 runs per class). Also claim a base for each posted alternate quiz question, discussion question, response to a discussion question, other comment, or relevant link. Keep track of everything you post in a dated personal log that will be collected later. Claim a RUN for posting a weekly 250+ word essay on the relevant topic of your choice.
1. Who labelled the early 6th & 5th century philosophers "PreSocratics," and what did they invent?
2. Aristotle said the Milesians were the first what?
3. Why does Gottlieb say Thales was not simply silly to suggest that H2O is the origin and essence of everything? OR, What must we do in order to refute him?
4. What essential facet of scientific thinking did Anaximander's work exemplify?
5. What famous poetic image do we associate with Pythagoras?
6. What was a good Pythagorean supposed to study?
7. What did Bertrand Russell, echoing Pythagoras and Plato, consider the mind's "highest good"?
8. How does Gottlieb think Aristotle was unfair to the Pythagoreans in his interpretation of their claim that numbers are the principles of all things?
FL 5-6
9. What made Anne Hutchinson "so American"?
10. How was freedom of thought in early America different from that of Europe in the 17th century?
11. Did most people in New England believe in witches, during the infamous Salem witch trials?
12. What's Protestantism's enduring influence?
(Post your suggested alternate quiz questions...)
Discussion Questions (Post your DQs too, and comment on mine and others' before class. Each gets you a base.)
- What do you think Xenophanes meant when he said the following? Do you agree?
But if cattle and horses and lions had hands
or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies
of such a sort as the form they themselves have. - Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?
- Is it a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation?
- Can we make sense of our experience without invoking invisible causes? What makes some invisible phenomena preferable to others, scientifically?
- Anaximenes was "struck by the fact that people breathe and corpses do not." (15) Was he onto something important? Is breath the essence of life?
- Are you "comforted" by the turn from Milesian speculations about nature to ethical questions about "the proper way to live" (17)? Or do you think both kinds of philosophizing are necessary?
- Followers of Hippocrates "did not divide the world into the divinely mysterious... and the naturally explicable" (18) but instead tried to explain everything naturalistically. Was that an important milestone for medical science? Are modern-day "alternative" healers anti-Hippocratic?
- Pythagoras famously had both a scientific/mathematical and a mystical/superstitious side. Do you find this incoherent, or intriguing?
- Do modern humans unwittingly worship Dionysus, seeking some sort of transcendence via self-indulgent sensualism? (27) Is there anything to be said for that?
- Do you believe numbers can "unlock the secrets of how the world work[s]"? (32) Or does the world include important qualities and experiences that cannot or need not (should not?) be quantified? Is it "madness" to relate everything to a corresponding number?-eg, maleness=2, femaleness=3, justice=4...(34)
- Do you share or reject Shakespeare's "pure Orphism" in Merchant of Venice? (38)
- Do you share or reject young Russell's "feeling that intellect is superior to sense"? (42)
- "Disbelief was eventually permitted (in America), at least legally." But President George Bush said in his view atheists and agnostics were not "real Americans." Do you think most Americans interpret freedom of religion as including freedom from religion, for those who prefer it?
- Is there something in our national makeup as Americans that accounts for the witch-trial phenomenon?
- Post your DQs...
The Genius of Pythagoras... Three Minute Philosophy: Pythagoras
==
Quiz Feb. 1 DR 3-5. Post your own alternative quiz questions (especially from the latter half of each chapter) and claim a base for each. You may also answer alternative quiz questions posed by classmates and claim bases for answering correctly, up to the total number of questions on the quiz that day.
1. How does Gottlieb think Heraclitus would reply to Aristotle's complaint about his ambiguous syntax?
2. Why did Heraclitus compare us all to beasts, drunkards, sleepers, and children? What did he say we fail to grasp?
3. What did fire symbolize, for Heraclitus?
4. Who were Parmenides' famous teacher and student?
5. What was Parmenides' surprising claim (aside from the idea that everything is eternal)?
6. How did Parmenides say language and thought connect to the world?
7. What was Zeno trying to discredit, with his famous paradoxes of motion?
8. What did Aristotle say Zeno invented, and how did his aim differ from Socrates'?
9. How does Gottlieb solve the Achilles paradox?
==
FL 7-8
10. What did pious congregants begin to do in The Great Awakening?
11. Who popularized for Christianity in America the idea of being "born again" ?
12. Who told his nephew to "question with boldness the existence of a god"?
13. Who said the Framers forgot to mention God in the Constitution?
14. What does Sapere aude! mean, and whose slogan was it?
DQ (Claim a base for each DQ you post and/or comment on.)
==
Get Up and Move. It May Make You Happier.
When people get up and move, even a little, they tend to be happier than when they are still, according to an interesting new study that used cellphone data to track activities and moods. In general, the researchers found, people who move are more content than people who sit.
There already is considerable evidence that physical activity is linked to psychological health. Epidemiological studies have found, for example, that people who exercise or otherwise are active typically are less prone to depression and anxiety than sedentary people.
But many of these studies focused only on negative moods. They often also relied on people recalling how they had felt and how much they had moved or sat in the previous week or month, with little objective data to support these recollections.
For the new study, which was published this month in PLoS One, researchers at the University of Cambridge in England decided to try a different approach. They would look, they decided, at correlations between movement and happiness, that most positive of emotions. In addition, they would look at what people reported about their activity and compare it with objective measures of movement.
Writing Your Way to Happiness JAN. 19, 2015
How Exercise May Protect Against Depression OCT. 1, 2014
Work. Walk 5 Minutes. Work.DEC 28
To accomplish these goals, they first developed a special app for Android phones. Available free on the Google app store and ultimately downloaded by more than 10,000 men and women, it was advertised as helping people to understand how lifestyle choices, such as physical activity, might affect people’s moods. (The app, which is no longer available for download, opened with a permission form explaining to people that the data they entered would be used for academic research.)
The app randomly sent requests to people throughout the day, asking them to enter an estimation of their current mood by answering questions and also using grids in which they would place a dot showing whether they felt more stressed or relaxed, depressed or excited, and so on.
Periodically, people were also asked to assess their satisfaction with life in general.
After a few weeks, when people were comfortable with the app, they began answering additional questions about whether, in the past 15 minutes, they had been sitting, standing, walking, running, lying down or doing something else.
They also were asked about their mood at that moment.
At the same time, during the 17 months of the study, the app gathered data from the activity monitor that is built into almost every smartphone today. In essence, it checked whether someone’s recall of how much he or she had been moving in the past quarter-hour tallied with the numbers from the activity monitor.
In general, the information provided by users and the data from activity monitors was almost exactly the same.
Of greater interest to the researchers, people using the app turned out to feel happier when they had been moving in the past quarter-hour than when they had been sitting or lying down, even though most of the time they were not engaged in rigorous activity.
In fact, most of the physical activity that people reported was gentle walking, with little running, cycling or other more strenuous exercise.
But the links between moving in any way and feeling happy were consistent for most people throughout the day, according to the data from their apps. It also didn’t matter whether it was a workday or weekend.
The researchers also found that people who moved more frequently tended to report greater life satisfaction over all than those who reported spending most of their time in a chair.
In general, the results suggest that “people who are generally more active are generally happier and, in the moments when people are more active, they are happier,” says Gillian Sandstrom, a study co-author who was a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge and is now a lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex.
In other words, moving and happiness were closely linked, both in the short term and longer term.
Of course, this type of study does not establish causation. It cannot tell us whether being more active actually causes us to become happier or, conversely, whether being happy causes us to move more. It only shows that more activity goes hand-in-hand with greater happiness.2COMMENTS
The study also is limited by its reliance on cellphone data, Dr. Sandstrom says, because it may not have captured information about formal exercise. People often do not carry their phones when they run, cycle or engage in other types of vigorous activity, she and her colleagues point out in the study. So those types of workouts would not be reflected in the app or the phones’ activity monitor, making it impossible to know from this data set whether formal exercise is linked to happiness, for better or worse.
Still, the size of the study group and the consistency of the findings are compelling, Dr. Sandstrom says. They do indicate that if you get up and move often, you are more likely to feel cheerful than if you do not. nyt
==
1984
George Orwell’s classic book “1984,” about a dystopian future where critical thought is suppressed under a totalitarian regime, has seen a surge in sales this month, rising to the top of the Amazon best-seller list in the United States and leading its publisher to have tens of thousands of new copies printed.
Craig Burke, the publicity director at Penguin USA, said that the publisher had ordered 75,000 new copies of the book this week and that it was considering another reprint.
“We’ve seen a big bump in sales,” Mr. Burke said. He added that the rise “started over the weekend and hit hyperactive” on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Since Friday, the book has reached a 9,500 percent increase in sales, he said.
He said demand began to lift on Sunday, shortly after the interview Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to Donald J. Drumpf, gave on “Meet the Press.”
In defending a false claim by the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, that Mr. Drumpf had attracted the “largest audience ever to witness an inauguration,” Ms. Conway used a turn of phrase that struck some observers as similar to the dystopian world of “1984.”
(continues)
==
Quiz Feb. 1 DR 3-5. Post your own alternative quiz questions (especially from the latter half of each chapter) and claim a base for each. You may also answer alternative quiz questions posed by classmates and claim bases for answering correctly, up to the total number of questions on the quiz that day.
1. How does Gottlieb think Heraclitus would reply to Aristotle's complaint about his ambiguous syntax?
2. Why did Heraclitus compare us all to beasts, drunkards, sleepers, and children? What did he say we fail to grasp?
3. What did fire symbolize, for Heraclitus?
4. Who were Parmenides' famous teacher and student?
5. What was Parmenides' surprising claim (aside from the idea that everything is eternal)?
6. How did Parmenides say language and thought connect to the world?
7. What was Zeno trying to discredit, with his famous paradoxes of motion?
8. What did Aristotle say Zeno invented, and how did his aim differ from Socrates'?
9. How does Gottlieb solve the Achilles paradox?
==
FL 7-8
10. What did pious congregants begin to do in The Great Awakening?
11. Who popularized for Christianity in America the idea of being "born again" ?
12. Who told his nephew to "question with boldness the existence of a god"?
13. Who said the Framers forgot to mention God in the Constitution?
14. What does Sapere aude! mean, and whose slogan was it?
DQ (Claim a base for each DQ you post and/or comment on.)
- Should philosophers be deliberately enigmatic and impenetrable? Can an obscure epigrammatic statement be profound? Or should philosophers always strive for clarity? Do you find Heraclitus "tantalizing" or "annoying"?
- Heraclitus was both introspective and empiricistic, valuing both the "inner stage" (45) and the evidence of the senses. Are you more introspective, more curious about the world around you, or both?
- What do you think Heraclitus meant when he said you can't step into the same river twice?
- Did Zeno draw the right implication when he said his paradoxes show Parmenides was right? (69)
- What do you think of Goober's pre- and post-beard persona (see "Goober the philosopher" above), and of the why his friends react to him when he changes? What moral do you think the show's writers were trying to tell, with this story? Do you agree or disagree?
- Do you expect your friends to be themselves and not change? Or do you encourage them to become themselves by changing?
- What do you think of the SoL's advice for dealing with a crisis of meaning (see below*)? Does it help to position yourself in a wider frame of reference, with respect to the "big picture" view of yourself as a small contributing part of a species, occupying a blip of time in a vast cosmos?
- What do you think of the SoL's "problem with our phones"? Do they create a crisis of meaning, does tech generally pose an "existential threat" to life as we've known it? Or is this just more change we need to embrace and manage?
- An old pop song proclaimed "I hope I die before I get old." (Some of the band members did, in fact.) The alternative to growing old, of course, is dying young. Will you embrace aging and the changes in lifestyle and physical capacity it represents, or resist it?
- COMMENT: A recent article says: “While most people enjoy relative continuity over the decades, being able to adapt to the changing context of our lives is the key to success throughout life.”
- [Post your DQs]
The rest of the Dostoyevsky quote: "And having no respect, they cease to love, in order to occupy and distract themselves without love they give way to passions and to coarse pleasures, and sink to bestiality in their vices, all from continual lying to others and to themselves."
Get Up and Move. It May Make You Happier.
When people get up and move, even a little, they tend to be happier than when they are still, according to an interesting new study that used cellphone data to track activities and moods. In general, the researchers found, people who move are more content than people who sit.
There already is considerable evidence that physical activity is linked to psychological health. Epidemiological studies have found, for example, that people who exercise or otherwise are active typically are less prone to depression and anxiety than sedentary people.
But many of these studies focused only on negative moods. They often also relied on people recalling how they had felt and how much they had moved or sat in the previous week or month, with little objective data to support these recollections.
For the new study, which was published this month in PLoS One, researchers at the University of Cambridge in England decided to try a different approach. They would look, they decided, at correlations between movement and happiness, that most positive of emotions. In addition, they would look at what people reported about their activity and compare it with objective measures of movement.
Writing Your Way to Happiness JAN. 19, 2015
How Exercise May Protect Against Depression OCT. 1, 2014
Work. Walk 5 Minutes. Work.DEC 28
To accomplish these goals, they first developed a special app for Android phones. Available free on the Google app store and ultimately downloaded by more than 10,000 men and women, it was advertised as helping people to understand how lifestyle choices, such as physical activity, might affect people’s moods. (The app, which is no longer available for download, opened with a permission form explaining to people that the data they entered would be used for academic research.)
The app randomly sent requests to people throughout the day, asking them to enter an estimation of their current mood by answering questions and also using grids in which they would place a dot showing whether they felt more stressed or relaxed, depressed or excited, and so on.
Periodically, people were also asked to assess their satisfaction with life in general.
After a few weeks, when people were comfortable with the app, they began answering additional questions about whether, in the past 15 minutes, they had been sitting, standing, walking, running, lying down or doing something else.
They also were asked about their mood at that moment.
At the same time, during the 17 months of the study, the app gathered data from the activity monitor that is built into almost every smartphone today. In essence, it checked whether someone’s recall of how much he or she had been moving in the past quarter-hour tallied with the numbers from the activity monitor.
In general, the information provided by users and the data from activity monitors was almost exactly the same.
Of greater interest to the researchers, people using the app turned out to feel happier when they had been moving in the past quarter-hour than when they had been sitting or lying down, even though most of the time they were not engaged in rigorous activity.
In fact, most of the physical activity that people reported was gentle walking, with little running, cycling or other more strenuous exercise.
But the links between moving in any way and feeling happy were consistent for most people throughout the day, according to the data from their apps. It also didn’t matter whether it was a workday or weekend.
The researchers also found that people who moved more frequently tended to report greater life satisfaction over all than those who reported spending most of their time in a chair.
In general, the results suggest that “people who are generally more active are generally happier and, in the moments when people are more active, they are happier,” says Gillian Sandstrom, a study co-author who was a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge and is now a lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex.
In other words, moving and happiness were closely linked, both in the short term and longer term.
Of course, this type of study does not establish causation. It cannot tell us whether being more active actually causes us to become happier or, conversely, whether being happy causes us to move more. It only shows that more activity goes hand-in-hand with greater happiness.2COMMENTS
The study also is limited by its reliance on cellphone data, Dr. Sandstrom says, because it may not have captured information about formal exercise. People often do not carry their phones when they run, cycle or engage in other types of vigorous activity, she and her colleagues point out in the study. So those types of workouts would not be reflected in the app or the phones’ activity monitor, making it impossible to know from this data set whether formal exercise is linked to happiness, for better or worse.
Still, the size of the study group and the consistency of the findings are compelling, Dr. Sandstrom says. They do indicate that if you get up and move often, you are more likely to feel cheerful than if you do not. nyt
==
1984
George Orwell’s classic book “1984,” about a dystopian future where critical thought is suppressed under a totalitarian regime, has seen a surge in sales this month, rising to the top of the Amazon best-seller list in the United States and leading its publisher to have tens of thousands of new copies printed.
Craig Burke, the publicity director at Penguin USA, said that the publisher had ordered 75,000 new copies of the book this week and that it was considering another reprint.
“We’ve seen a big bump in sales,” Mr. Burke said. He added that the rise “started over the weekend and hit hyperactive” on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Since Friday, the book has reached a 9,500 percent increase in sales, he said.
He said demand began to lift on Sunday, shortly after the interview Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to Donald J. Drumpf, gave on “Meet the Press.”
In defending a false claim by the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, that Mr. Drumpf had attracted the “largest audience ever to witness an inauguration,” Ms. Conway used a turn of phrase that struck some observers as similar to the dystopian world of “1984.”
(continues)
8.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a good listener because I pay close attention to what the speaker's main point is when they address me.
Section 9
ReplyDeleteAlternative Quiz Questions:
1. What notion makes it's first appearance in Anaximander?
2. What is the name of Anaximander's youngest son?
3. When was Miletus destroyed by the Persians?
4. Who was Hippolytus?
5. In the works of which Ionian poets were earthquakes caused by Poseidon?
6. What disease was commonly called 'the sacred disease' by Hippocratic doctors?
7. What are the two basic concepts in Pythagorean thought?
8. Who was the first man to make a serious attempt to apply mathematics to find laws of celestial motion?
This comment has been removed by the author.
Deletesection 8
DeleteAnaximenes
Section 9
DeleteQuestion 1: Notion of elements in conflict
Question 2: Anaximenes
Question 3: 494 BC
Question 4: Christian apologist of 3rd century Rome
Question 5: Homer & Hesiod
Question 6: Epilepsy
Question 7: The limited and the unlimited
Question 8: Johannes Kepler
#8
Delete2) Anaximenes
6) Epilepsy
6. epilepsy
ReplyDelete9 - I just have to say that the George Orwell news is both hilarious and sad.
ReplyDelete10
ReplyDeleteIt seems that Xenophanes thinks that people are close minded. I believe that alot of people don't challenge how they think of something enough.
2. I favor naturalism. I consider a naturalist to be someone that only accepts the reality of something once sufficient evidence has been collected through testing and observation.
3. Sometimes certain ideas or occurrences may be complex, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't find a simpler way to understand it.
4. We can come to logical conclusions about our experiences without invoking supernatural causes. Some people may prefer to think its supernatural causes because they may not think that a certain entity has to be observable or fit certain criteria to be considered real. Or they may believe that they have seen a supernatural entity and that experience enforces their beliefs.
5. All organism breath in some form or fashion to continue to living. So you could consider breath to be the essence of life I guess.
6. I consider both kinds of philosophy to be important.
7. If by alternative-medicine you mean Holistic care It can come off sometimes as anti-Hippocratic. Holistic care can be good treatment depending on what it's treating such as diet and exercise to stay healthy. Medicinal care though is a major breakthrough though with a very high success rate and should be used if necessary.
8. Because of the time he lived in it is intriguing, but those two thoughts of mind are very counter intuitive.
9. I'm sure some people are like that. I think some people may see the idea of heaven as a sort of reward for having suffered in life.
10. I think mathematics can be useful to get a direct answer for something, But those numbers are useless and less you understand the concepts behind them.
12. I think intelligence and sense go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other
section 8
ReplyDeleteAnaximines saw the world as if it were a modern planetarium, where we sit looking up at a doomed ceiling with models of the stars moving above us. How do you view the world?
Maddy Russell
ReplyDelete10
I consider myself a naturalist and look at natural causes for things. Although I am a naturalist I think a person can do both. Just because a person believes that things happen because of natural causes, does not make them an atheist. A person can separate the two and believe in supernatural causes and natural causes
8
ReplyDeleteDiscussion Questions
I think that Xenophanes is trying to say is that we always assume God looks like us but we only think that because we assume he is like us and that if other animals were as smart as humans than they would think that God looked like them
I think that you can believe in God or some supernatural being and still think in a naturalistic way. For example some people might say that science dissproves the existence of a god but god could have created science.
It is good for scientist to try and make things as simple as possible. I know there is a quote that says something like if you cant explain something simply than you dont understand the thing enough.
I think we could make sense without invoking an invisible cause but I think we just do that to try and rationalize something we dont understand yet.
I dont know what he was thinking but I do think that breath is the essence of life because when you stop breathing you are no longer alive.
Discussion Questions :
ReplyDelete1 - That is a curious thought, that if the animals would create artwork, would they depict the gods as in their image? I believe that if the animals could paint would then they be animals? The idea of "animals" is that they (however you believe that they came about) are different than humans. They do not have rights, they do not make decisions, they do not form societies or governments. So, say that they were in the position of humans having the ability to draw. Like if they were just another race of people like American, Asian, African, Pacific Islander, etc. I believe if they fulfilled that position, then yes, they would possibly draw the gods as in their image.
2 - I believe that a supernatural being designed and created a natural world to function as it was designed to function. We study the natural world as we see it today, but I firmly believe in divine intervention, because you can see how the natural world is "supposed" to function, and history tells us, and eye witness tells us, and personal experience tells us that sometimes things happen that shouldn't have happened, and things don't happen that should have.
3 - Aprofessor told me once that if you can't explain a concept in language that a 3rd grader would understand and comprehend, then you don't understand it yourself. With that being said, I know how important it is to be able to grow you r mind in what you can learn and understand. I guess the idea is that you should never get too far into you r head that you can't come back down to earth to explain it so a child.
4 - The one goes back to the previous question. There are some things that happen in our lives that just can't be explained by mathematical or scientific description. Things like why does a pregnant mother with stage 3 cervical cancer not only survive (her and her child) but the cancer completely going away? How does a head on collision result in both parties walking away unharmed when they should have both died? Things like this I believe are things that are unexplainable. But you also have the mysteries of science and math that are what drive brilliant scientists and mathmaticitions to fulfill their life's calling to truly and answered questions of this world. That's where you gat the great thinkers, and philosophers who ask impossible questions in order to open their minds.
6 - before the " naturalistic" view on medicine, I know that the people attributed illness to demons, and bad fortune and getting hurt to kings not of this world. In the revolution of science and how we have evolved our thinking of why people get sick, it has helped in our treatment of said illnesses. So yes, i believe it is goood that we have moved away from that view of illness, to a more naturalistic viewpoint.
7 - I find it intriguing. Many people groups have been that way; both very scientific, and yet, superstitious in there own right. Now, it may seem incoherent from the outside, but from the viewpoint of their culture, it was just a way of life. The same could be thought as true with religious cultures, and polytheistic cultures when looking at them from the outside. I think superstition can be developed in a culture for many years, and it comes down to respect of that culture's history when you are looking at their lifestyle.
Discussion questions continued...
ReplyDelete8 - As I have stated before, we live in a broken world, and I do not think that we as humans with sensual desires are worshiping the intently or thought or idea or story of Dionysus. I believe that that is the way that we were created and not that we are following the ingrained path presented by Dionysus, just the desire of the heart/flesh that we were born with present us with the decision to act on those sensations and desires or to use self control in inappropriate situations. That decision belongs to us regardless of where the passions come from, but I personally do not think that they come from the theme of Dionysus.
9 - the beauty of numbers is that they have no units. They can not be told to quantify anything, or that they are not allowed to quantify something. The idea of numbers is a fascinating thought, because you have a means by which to in essence " describe" the world though the idea of numerical values. As Aristotle said, not that the world is litterelly made up of numbers, but numbers and calculations can be used to describe the world in which we life in.
10-
ReplyDeleteDiscussion Questions
1.) I agree with Xenophane's statement that we, as people, perceive god in a figure that suits our own due to out inability to think of as any other than being perfect from out own. This could be due to our inability to think outside the box, or due to ourselves made in god's image.
2.) I believe natural explanations of phenomena of this world that can be explained, but also believe that naturalists can turn to a religious explanation to things we can not understand, answer, or perceive in this world, hence heaven and hell.
3.) It is a good practice to reduce complex phenomena to a more simplified explanation as we can get it for others to have/ gain a chance to understand the concept and our thought process to help spread the explanation for others to conceive. A way to share knowledge easily from one to another.
4.) We can come to an explanation of our experiences without invisible causes/ supernatural, unless the cause is uncertain to us or difficult to face, thus resulting in an easy solution to say other invisible, uncontrollable causes resulted in an experience.
5.) the ability to breath is of life as water is. As living things we require air/ oxygen to live as we also need water to live.
6.) Both are necessary questions to have. Ethical questions are more easier to understand and solve logically, rather than questions of nature, as to why we are here. Many questions as to what the world is made of have already been proven as well.
8.) I find it intriguing how Pathagoras looked at both the arts and mathematics to explain things of this world, but seems that he also turned to the mysterious to questions new or unproven ideas.
10.) I don't think see it as madness to relate every thing to be associated with a number. The concept is rather silly in a way, but part of it is true on how everything of this world can be solved mathematically. There is mathematics all around us, many things of our world today come from the sciences/ mathematics fields.
DQ alternate quiz
ReplyDelete10-
1.Who is Heraclitus of Ephesus?
2.Where is Miletus located?
3.Aristotle divided early Greek thinkers into two. Name both thinkers.
4.What is Thales of Miletus famous for?
5.Why did Thales choose water as his interest?
6.Why was it difficult to distinguish Pythagoras' own thoughts from those of his followers?
Bonus
1. Who is the author for the dream of reason?
2.,When was Bertrand Russell born and how long did he live?
3. Who was Dionysus?
#8
DeleteThe author of the Dream of Reason is Anthony Gottlieb.
8- It's Gabrielle Armour again. And, I don't have an official profile. However, my group has decided to do our midterm report on Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
ReplyDelete#9
ReplyDelete2.I prefer the side with the most factual evidence, in most cases. I believe in God, which would be considered a "supernatural" cause, but other than that I definitely go towards the side with the most evidence to prove theories. I believe as people, we should be able to claim any side we want to without having to be labeled as one thing or the other. If someone prefers a supernatural meaning and is a naturalist, I don't believe they should have to claim to be athiestic or agnostic.
3. I think it is a good practice to simplify complex phenomena, especially for those who do not understand it. If a professor can only explain his terms in his own means and not simplify to make for a better understanding for his pupils, is he really a good professor?
4. Anaximenes was certainly onto something, but I do not believe breath is the essence of life. Corpses do not breath because physically they are no longer alive. If you believe in an afterlife, (and I do), then you might partake in the idea that spiritually that corpse is still alive, though he is no longer physically breathing.
7. Pythagoreas having two sides to him makes his person very intriguing to me. It brings him out of the text and to real life. The fact that he wasn't just a mathematician, but someone who also portrays similarities to people outside of his academic realm.
9. I believe there are several ways to unlock many of the secrets this world holds. One of those ways would certainly be numbers. But mostly I believe the world's secrets cannot be unlocked just by hand or by equation. I believe unlocking the power of how the world works would be by experience and gaining knowledge of not only textbook, but by the things in nature.
#10
ReplyDeleteDQ 2. Anyone who claims only to believe in that which is factual and proven is either lying or confused. The reality is that virtually nothing is proven, and almost everything that we believe today will be modified or discarded at some point in the future.
We all believe things, however strong we believe the evidence to be, which are unproven; just ask Sir Isaac Newton, whose theories were, after all, wrong, despite having very strong evidence supporting it. Often people believe they are living their lives "rightly," but rarely do two people agree that someone else has made all the "right" choices in life.
One great example is the argument for or against abortion: one side says, "life begins at birth," and another, "life begins at conception," but in reality, science has yet to nail down a definition of life that seems functional, much less objectively correct! We've mostly come to agree that a tree is alive, but what about a virus? We accept bacteria is living, but half of our population believes that an infant that hasn't filled its lungs yet is not a living thing. Regardless of a person's position on such things, the reality is simple: if you believe anything, then something you believe is bound to be subjective, unproven, or, frankly, untrue. It may happen that we find an exception to this statement at some point - some perfect human who, believing, believes only the proven, and, ignorant, acknowledges his or her ignorance with humility and grace... but I don't expect it to be today.
#9
ReplyDelete2) Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?
I favor natural explanations of phenomena because I am a very skeptical person when it comes to the supernatural. Natural explanations can be observed with the naked eye, while supernatural explanations are simply speculation in most cases. I think that naturalists should see themselves as agnostic or atheistic. When naturalists believe in the supernatural, gods, and a form of afterlife, then they begin to contradict his/her way of thinking.
#10
ReplyDelete2) Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?
Personally, I favor natural explanations of phenomena. Sometimes I wish I favored religion because believing in another "realm" would immensely aid me in dealing with death and mortality overall. It is very possible to be a naturalist who also believes religious claims because although science has many explanations, sometimes it's easier and more comforting to reside in a religious mindset.
#10
ReplyDelete2) Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?
I personally believe in supranational explanations of phenomena because I have never needed to physically see something to believe in it. I do not believe a naturalist, by given descriptions, can consider themselves anything other than agnostic or atheistic. Their standard beliefs rely on the physical evidence and explanations religion can not provide. While I would love to believe naturalists could invite religion into their lives (as naturalists), it would completely contradict their thought process.
#10
ReplyDelete1.Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?
I personally believe in the natural explanations of phenomena. i need to see and understand things to believe in them. However i think that it is possible to be a naturalistic who also believes in unproven religious claims. That is because history is proof of such people existing. Newton, Mendel, Pascal, Galileo, Faraday and a number of other scientists were religious(like most people around them) but also questioned the real reason behind natural phenomena. They made various important contributions to the science we know today and that was because they didnt let one aspect of their lives govern the other. I think a person can believe in how the earth and the solar system came to be (scientifically) and also fall back on his/her God for hope and support.
#10
ReplyDelete2.What do you think Xenophanes meant when he said the following? Do you agree?
But if cattle and horses and lions had hands
or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies
of such a sort as the form they themselves have.
At first i completely agreed with that. I thought that people like to relate to their god. People like to see a part of themselves in God. They humanize God so other animals would probably do that too.
But then a lot of religions and mythologies have gods that are half human and half animal. Maybe animals would so too?
#10
ReplyDelete3.Is it a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation?
Yes absolutely. All complicated problems or scientific phenomena are made up of smaller less complicated theories and formulas. It always helps to break these difficult or unanswered problems into smaller ones because it helps understand the problem from the root.
For example if you want to calculate the average of two number (i know thats really simple but for the sake of the answer just imagine it to be a hard problem): 1.You would need to know the formula for doing so 2. you need to know how to add and divide and the problem becomes easier to solve.
even in philosophy, i think you could break your thoughts down into simple ideas which you can put together and maybe find answers to the questions you had been asking yourself.
#10
ReplyDelete4. Anaximenes was "struck by the fact that people breathe and corpses do not." (15) Was he onto something important? Is breath the essence of life?
Yes he was onto something. Even though it was put into very simple and uninformed statement, he picked up on the right thing. But to me, breath is one of the essences of life. Yes it is very important because our body needs the oxygen. but what use is that breath if someone has no food or water and they are starving to death?
#10
ReplyDelete5. Pythagoras famously had both a scientific/mathematical and a mystical/superstitious side. Do you find this incoherent, or intriguing?
I find it intriguing because even though im aware of many scientists being mystical or religious, i would like to know how they think. when someone gives birth to a stillborn, do they wonder what caused it scientifically or do they attribute that to something bad the parent did in the past? I am really fascinated with naturalists who are also religious.
#6
ReplyDelete1. I think he's making a point for the refutation of religion, as he claims our gods only look like humans because we are human. And I agree with that point, and would add: if sentient, advanced alien life were discovered, would they also, by necessity, look like our gods (human), as religions claim intelligent life does?
2. I vastly prefer scientific explanations for natural phenomena. As it's impossible to disprove the supernatural, I think it's perfectly fine for naturalists, scientists, etc. to hold religious beliefs, so long as they don't posit divine explanations for their unexplained physics.
3. I believe it's true that the simple answer is usually the correct answer, and I believe nature is just an intricate amalgam of simple problems. For instance, the weather as a whole can be perfectly predicted via an X function, meaning it involves so many variables it is virtually incomputable. However, these many, many variables are simply things like wind velocity, temperature, and cloudiness. Taken individually, nothing in nature is truly complex (until we're on the quantum level, of course).
4. Given enough information, we are able to explain anything in the universe without needing some unknown force at play. However, that knowledge is a luxury ancient peoples simply didn't have. For instance, gravity is an invisible force that, seemingly magically, holds us to the ground, the moon around us, and us around the sun. The problem is: it's invisible; there is no chain holding these things to one another. Because of this, it is much easier to just claim something wills the things together.
5. Absolutely not. His claim is that, because things breathe, breath is the essence of life. By the same token, things eat. So is food not also the essence of life? What about producing sound? Movement? The problem with using such vague terms is that they cannot defend specifically their point as correct. Anaximenes cannot disprove Anaximander's theory of water as the essence of life, and vice versa.
6. Personally, as I prefer scientific explanations for nature, I'd rather the philosophers move on to ethics, where there really are no absolutes, and thus an eternal need for discussion. I'd rather they leave the nature of the universe to the physicists.
#6
ReplyDelete7. I think it was a good step forward for the medical sciences to start thinking of things purely in terms of natural causes and effects. It's lead to much of the advancements in medicine today. I can't imagine an industrialized country that still thought of epilepsy as a divine illness. I suppose, by that definition, that would make alternative healers anti-Hippocratic, as, as far as I know, it relies entirely on metaphysics and something about crystals.
8. I think his scientific / mathematical side was rather important, even if many of his more famous accreditations were actually the work of his students. However, I see his superstitious side as ... embarrassing. For one, his Harmony of the Spheres is completely absurd. There's no air in space to carry sound. Furthermore, things are quieter when further away, on an inverse square. When the "spheres" passed near one another in their orbits, they would be vastly louder than normal. Overall, I see it as a step up from before, as at least people know right triangles and string octaves now.
9. I don't think that you can unwittingly worship something, as otherwise I could make up a devil that's the god of reading responses to question #9, and therefore call you a devil worshiper. As far as the sensualism is concerned, I'm convinced there is no afterlife, so people should enjoy themselves in life while they can. If that involves carnality, then to each his own. If nothing else, it's truer to our animalistic nature to not abstain from indulging in our desires for fear of cosmic, divine, and eternal damnation.
10. There's something to be said for numbers in the roots of nature. The Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, etc.) is very prevalent in nature for mysterious reasons (though there are theories). For the most part, I don't think numbers are e secret of the universe so much as their relations (i.e. formulas). It takes more than knowing the mass of just one object to know how heavy it is. That requires also knowing the mass of whatever planet it's on. I did think it was a stretch to go as far as numbering everything in an enormous enumeration. Those things are entirely unrelated, and the numbers have no deeper meaning than the names they're attached to.
11. I'd have to reject the notion of Pure Orphism, as it's entirely just a corollary for Pythagoras' Harmony of the Spheres to better explain why we don't hear it. In fact, it just explains more about something that was never proven, which is an awful way to implement a teleological theory. Although, it is an interesting theory to tack onto a religious belief. It adds an enlightenment system that's present in many asian / indian religions.
12. While intellect and the mind are very important, our sensory input is not to be ignored. Casting aside our senses as untrustworthy is what leads to things like Pythagoras' Harmony of the Spheres, wherein he asserts that there is a literal sound that the planets make as they travel, but, rather conveniently, we can't hear it. We still need to be able to scientifically explain what we perceive in nature. So I wouldn't say intellect is superior to sense, but that they're both of equal importance.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete#10
ReplyDeleteI believe it is a good practice in science to try and reduce explanations down to simpler terms (especially in the times of plato and Aristotle). A lot of people do not understand a lot of scientific reasoning especially if it is advanced. By reducing it down to a much simpler explanation, you are able to present your findings to a much wider audience.
#10
DeleteI agree with you. Understanding science or how the world works can get very confusing since there are usually different variables that play in part. In addition, those variables need to be further explained as of why they are part of the theory. Though, I can visualize how hard it is to simplify complex scientific reasoning.
#10
ReplyDeleteDo you believe numbers can "unlock the secrets of how the world work[s]"? (32) Or does the world include important qualities and experiences that cannot or need not (should not?) be quantified? Is it "madness" to relate everything to a corresponding number?-eg, maleness=2, femaleness=3, justice=4...(34)
I think that numbers can unlock the secrets of the world to an extent. Numbers are important from basic counting to creating shelters/buildings. However, numbers cannot quantify certain aspects of the world, such as human personality, genders, morality, ethics, etc. I think it is absurd to label these aspects with numbers since they cannot be quantified. Overall, numbers are used for calculating problems that can be quantified or generally for counting. Each number should not have a “meaning” or label.
I agree with you since there are many aspects or concepts in life that are not quantifiable.
Delete#10
ReplyDeleteI am of the belief that reducing complex scientific topics can help one more easily familiarize themselves with material. Until a certain threshold of difficulty is reached this is an effective method of study. Once that threshold is passed you must emerse yourself in the difficulty of that knowledge and embrace confusion in order to grow as a thinker.
Is it a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation?
ReplyDeleteIt is good to try to reduce complexity to simplicity, however, science is not a black and white view. There are many gray areas that cause us to continue to dig and dig until we are satisfied with an answer. Of course, once we are satisfied, there is another reason to find another answer. Science is not a simple subject and it never will be.
I completely agree. I thinks it's better to see if this extra information with help someone to understand. Or if it's going to confuse them when it wasn't necassary to become a confusing concept. Which thats more towards the practice of Science, because like you said it's a gray area. There is always more information and discoveries found. Which is from these scientists digging deeper for a more complex answer, and tearing that apart to turn it into a question, then do it again.
DeleteEssay
ReplyDeleteI believe it is possible to be a naturalist who believes in the supernatural. You sometimes have to separate parts of your lives, depending on profession or specific moral views.
Personally, I would consider myself a naturalist only in cases of science. As a science major, what I believe in has to be proven, hard factual information. I can’t understand the science of something if I cannot actually see it for myself. Science is also based on studies, experiments and results.
However, in my views outside of science, I believe in the supernatural world because I believe in a God and higher power. Sometimes, there are no exact answers in the world, no black and white portrait of society, so looking to the supernatural for answers can be soul cleansing for some.
I would not say that naturalists should be considered atheistic because some people just do not like to cross their views. I don’t like to cross my views of science and religion if I am studying one or the other because they tend to cloud each other. There is a wide spectrum on philosophy, where you have science on one end and a belief system on the other. It is really about finding the happy medium between the two and have reason.
I find myself in the middle of the spectrum, as a moderate, in all types of debate on topics because I am willing to hear both sides of the arguments to formulate another opinion and become a bit more educated.
I agree with what you just said about separating parts of your lives professionally and moral views. I am also a science major myself, so coming from a Christian, I throw out my beliefs once I hit the classroom. It seems bad to some but it makes me have a grip of my passion of being a scientist but also leaving room for my morals and religion.
Delete#6
ReplyDeleteDQ #5
I think he was onto something important, and his observation that people breathe while corpses do not does have significance, obviously. However, I don't really think that breath is the essence of life. It's a scientific fact that in order to be considered alive. That being said, I think the thing that makes us really be alive and present beings is thought. That's what makes us all different and our own unique selves.
#6
ReplyDeleteDQ #10
I think that numbers can unlock the secrets of science and how physical things are made up, and also how the systems of our physical body work. However, I do not think there is an equation that may help people figure out their thought processes or maybe anxiety, or even why they love someone. Of course, there is probably an equation to figure out the chemicals in our brain that give off endorphins or other things that give off feelings, but I don't believe there are numbers behind figuring out life. Just my thoughts.
#6 Discussion Questions
ReplyDelete5. Maybe i'm not thinking out of the box on this one. I see this in a medical aspect. Everything works together to keep you living. The lungs for example, they fill themselves with air that you physically breath in. Which they are able to do this from the blood pumping through-out your heart to your lungs etc. There is a lot more that goes into the human anatomy and how everything connects. But if an organ this stops working you can potentially die. That makes it where your brain stops sending electrical currents to your heart to pump blood to allow all of your other organs to functions. Which it has been said that someone who has recently deceased releases a breath. All that is, is the last of the air in your lungs out of your body when they collapse. The corpse isn't physically taking a breath. So I also am not befuddled to know corpse's don't breathe.
Now, if I am completely over thinking or under thinking this tell me what i'm missing please!!
#6 Discussion Answer #3
ReplyDeleteI think it really depends on the situation. In general going more in depth on a topic helps everyone better understand, or could answer questions they may have. Because if you are trying to explain something to someone or make a point and leave out some information that you may think is small, could leave the other party completely lost. They may need that little bit of information to piece everything together for themselves. BUT!!! You also may not need to do this at all. Maybe the more information given the muddier the topic becomes, and gets far off topic. For me I base that judgment on what I am talking about with someone and think, " is what I'm about to say going to better help this person or make it more complicated for them"?
DQ:1 I think Xenophanes means that if animals were, in a sense, the same as humans then they would certainly have their own beliefs. Just as every person has their own certain way of viewing things. As humans we seem to think that we are above all (here on earth) and we view our "Gods" in a human figure just because we would like to think that a higher power is something we can relate to. (Less scary to us.)
ReplyDeleteDQ5: I think what he's getting at here is that not all people who are "alive" are truly living. You can live your life to a certain point but if you aren't uncomfortably happy, then are you living? Some could argue that to be be content is how you should live your life, but I think that people should go out of their comfort zones, live on edge, make mistakes, and truly find happiness.
•Do you believe numbers can "unlock the secrets of how the world work[s]"? (32) Or does the world include important qualities and experiences that cannot or need not (should not?) be quantified? Is it "madness" to relate everything to a corresponding number?-eg, maleness=2, femaleness=3, justice=4...(34)
ReplyDeleteI think the world is to vast to think of it as numbers. Knowledge is infinite.
What do you think Xenophanes meant when he said the following? Do you agree?
But if cattle and horses and lions had hands
or could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies
of such a sort as the form they themselves have.
This is difficult for me to unravel. Can someone explain?
•Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?
I think I favor both. Some things can be explained but some and its the things that cant that spark. I also think people should consider themselves to be whatever they want. There are an infinite number of people in the world and everyone has their own thoughts the world.
•Anaximenes was "struck by the fact that people breathe and corpses do not." (15) Was he onto something important? Is breath the essence of life?
I think he was onto something. Id like to explore more into this thinking. What makes a human a person? or does being human make you a person?
#6
ReplyDelete1- I don't agree with Xenophanes because each one has an important rule to fulfill and we all have to be different in order to keep everything going.
2- I favor natural, I think it is possible to be a naturalist and also believe in unproven things because in science there is nothing called absolute truth and we still don't know everything yet, therefore we have to admit that there is God who is the creator of everything.
3- yes, it is possible, but it is never easy to make science and/or philosophy simpler.
4- Yes to some extent, scientists are unable to prevent things from happening, for example, they expected a hurricane Harvey to come and destroy some cities, but they couldn't prevent it which claims that even though we have advanced equipments and knowledge, yet we still couldn't prevent it.
5- I think breath is one of the many essences of life. We can breath and eat, and not leave any works that could keep us alive even after our death.
6- I think both ways are important, personally I think that as humans we need an explanation of nature as well as how to act toward nature.
7- I think it was important for the medical science, and I think today's doctors are anti-Hippocratic because they rely to much on technology to let them figure out the causes of the disease and sometimes they admit that they can't do anything to heal the patient.
8- I think it's incoherent especially with mystical/superstitious side because you it's very hard to find a correlation between them.
10- I believe that numbers can unlock the secret of how the world works, we can look into many of the fields and we will see that numbers are very essential to them.
#6
ReplyDelete2. I favor natural explanations of phenomena because they are easier to grasp than supernatural explanations. I believe naturalists can have both beliefs that some things happened naturally while others supernaturally.
3. Complex phenomena should only be reduced to a simpler explanation if the simpler explanation states completely valid points and not because we do not understand the complexity of the occurrences so we make a simpler explanation with invalid points.
4. We can at least try to make sense of our experiences without bringing up supernatural causes. Invisible phenomena is something preferred because people do not know how else something could have happened so they say it had to have been because of a supernatural occurrence.
#6
ReplyDeleteIs it a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation?
It depends on the topic, but most times there can be a misunderstanding if the explanation is too simplified because it can leave out the most important things.
#8
DeleteI agree with you. Simplifying something could leave behind important information that is needed and may actually fully define what the phenomena is. Either way, because it's a phenomena, it's hard to be explained.
5. Breath is most definitely the essence of life.
ReplyDelete#6
ReplyDeleteDo you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?
I, personally favor natural explanations of phenomena, but at the same time am very religious. I do believe that it is possible for a naturalist to believe in claims about God(s), heaven, eternal life, etc - so you don't necessarily have to be agnostic or atheist to believe in an unexplained natural world
#6
ReplyDelete1. Lions and cattle and horses would make their god look like us because we have proven ourselves to be the dominant species.
2. Both
3. Yes
4. No
5. It was a nice observation but no, it is not always the essence of life.
6. Both
7. It helps to explain but doesn't help to push the boundaries. Double-edged sword.
8. It is necessary.
9. Yes. No.
10. Yes.
11. Both.
12. Reject.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete5. The essence of life is preferably breath. Without it, what exists?
ReplyDelete#10
ReplyDeleteQuiz questions:
What is the idea of static motion?
What is Heraclitus' philosophical idea about life?
For centuries people have questioned happiness and where it derives from. In this day and age many people misinterpret happiness with luxury. The mindset, or the American dream, is to have so much money that you can be “happy”. This means owning the nicest cars and clothes and living in the largest houses. I’m positive that most people in America correlate happiness and money. There is some truth to this correlation, you need money to do what you want to do. But then what? What happens after everything you’ve wanted to do has been accomplished? This is why money has been shown to only cause temporary happiness. If I buy an expensive sports car I will definitely be happy, at least for a couple of days or weeks; however, after time passes my happiness will lower. When it comes to materialism and purchasing expensive and luxurious items happiness may seem like the way to go but it’s not. Personally I’ve been my saddest in my richest times in life, and vice versa. For example, I once went on a really nice trip and bought a bunch of stuff yet I felt miserable. Today I attend college have absolutely no money, yet I am happier than I’ve ever been before. The following analysis is completely personal and may not relate to everyone’s experience with happiness. I’m happiest when I’m around my friend and family. I could care less about cars and clothes. I believe that the true key to happiness is simplicity.
ReplyDelete#8
ReplyDeleteIs it a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation?
I feel as though that is not a good practice considering it takes away from the depth of the phenomena which is its' importance.
#8 I disagree with that. For further explanation on why i disagree, you can scroll down to my comment.
DeleteWhat do you think Xenophanes meant when he said the following? Do you agree?
ReplyDeleteI feel as though he's discussing the point that humans depict gods as humans when he compares how cattle and horses would draw their gods. I'm unsure whether to agree or disagree taking into consideration all religions.
#8
Delete#8 Couldn't agree more.
Delete#8
ReplyDeleteThis YouTube video talks about that quote, further explaining it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOMc1WmC88k
I really like this video. I think it was really beneficial. Thank you so much for enlightening me with this.
Delete#8
ReplyDelete. I feel like Xenophanes was trying to use the horses and cattle as them being human beings. I do not know if I should agree or disagree with his saying on it.
. I believe that you can be a naturalist while also believing in unproven religion. When you're a scientist for example, you should have a space between your beliefs as proof and your religion.
. It is not good to try and denounce a religion with proven science. To me, it is taking it to a personal level and try to attack the unproven supernatural from the religion and its followers.
. Former president George Bush took it way to far to call out the Atheists and the agnostics for not being, "real Americans." I do agree that America takes the freedom of religion as a freedom from religion. I honestly feels like this divides our country apart with the criticism and stereotyping others. I do though think that having freedom of religion is very important in our country because it gives way that no person should follow a specific religion.
#8
ReplyDelete1. If horses and cattle could do the same things that humans could do, they to would think that higher beings looked as them. I do agree with him.
2. I believe in natural explanations of phenomena. It is possible to believe in heaven and other similar things and be a naturalist.
3. It is a good practice to give a similar explanation.
4. Some were just raised to believe in invisible sources as explanations.
5. You only live if you are breathing and that makes it the essence of life.
6. Everyone has to believe in what they believe.
8. I find it intriguing because he used math to base things off of and he used mystical things to base other things off of.
9. I don't think we unwittingly worship Dionysus.
10. I do believe that numbers can unlock secrets of the world. We have used numbers to discover new thinks for centuries.
I agree that it is a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation.
ReplyDelete#8 This is a great article on life lessons.
ReplyDeletehttps://jamesclear.com/life-lessons
#8 This article is about procrastination and brief guide on how to overcome it.
ReplyDeletehttps://jamesclear.com/procrastination
#8 This is an amazing article on does god really exist?
ReplyDeletehttps://io9.gizmodo.com/the-7-most-intriguing-philosophical-arguments-for-the-e-1507393670
#3
ReplyDelete-I fall under the supernatural explanation category as there are so many things in my own life that can not be explained by anything that can be tested with our 5 senses. Is it possible that someone can occupy multiple trains of reasons? Absolutely. As long as they do not become a walking contradiction.
-I don't believe that it is Always good practice to simplify things. As there are some concepts that lose their weight and value if you do.
-Is breath the essence of life? I would say that, the distinction Anaximenes made about living things breathing and corpses do not is cut short. When something is alive it is breathing or it is moving. Interacting with the rest of the world with the purposeof changing it. A dead lifeless thing is changed by the world with no choice it's outcome.
DQ:
ReplyDeleteEven if the framers of the Constitution did not intend for "freedom of religion" to include "freedom from religion," it should absolutely be included as a person's basic human right protected by/from the government. The framers must have known that the country would change after time, so they made rules for amending the law of the land. Giving this important document the chance to be changed in times of need or democracy (e.g. Amendments 13, 14, 15, 19, 26). It would be hard for women, non-white Americans, and anyone over 18 to vote if Amendments 19, 15, and 26 were not added years after the Constitution being written. The Constitution is a living document (i.e. it changes depending on the formal changes American government approves). In a time where atheism and agnosticism is increasing as a demographic, it makes sense that the people who subscribe to this notion of thought are protected also under the Bill of Rights.
Alternate Quiz Question:
How similair were the stories of Hutchinson and Williams? How do their stories relate to modern Americans?
Seperate Question:
If the church did not subscribe to believing in the supernatural until Martin Luther revived that idea, then how did believers change their feellings towards the supernatural so quickly?
#3
ReplyDeleteSome alternate quiz questions straight from the reading DR 1-2 and FL 5-6:
Who was thought to be the “pupil and successor” of Thales?
Who, different from Thales who believed that everything is made of water, said that everything is made of air?
What discovery led some of Anaximenes’ successors to credit him for?
Who is likely to have been one of the inspirations for Plato’s famous ‘philosopher-kings’?
What are the two basic concepts in Pythagorean thought?
Who were key inventors of American individualism?
What does The Crucible by Arthur Miller say about the play’s villains, accusers, and judges as it significantly shaped our contemporary understanding of the Salem witch trials?
Alternate quiz questions
ReplyDelete1. Do you think Anne Hutchinson believed everything she preached, or was it all for show?
2. Who did Governor Winthrop say people looked at as "a prophetess?"
3. Anne Hutchinson lost her battle in Cambridge, but why did she finally "win the war?"
4. How were Hutchinson and Williams similar?
5. In your opinion, did the girls from the Salem witch trials truly believe they were possessed?
DQs
- I prefer more natural explanations to phenomena. However, I don't believe people should have to declare themselves atheist because they prefer natural explanations because not everything has/needs an explanation.
- I believe it is a good practice to reduce complex phenomena to simpler explanations because good theories shouldn't be super hard to understand.
- I find Pythagoras's two sides intriguing. Most people tend to think you can only be one or the other, but Pythagoras proves that theory wrong.
-I think a lot of Americans view it as freedom from religions, but I wouldn't say most do.
#8
ReplyDelete1. I think animals would depict their gods with similar appearances to themselves if they were intellectually capable of doing so.
2. I believe in God, which I suppose makes my answer that I believe in supernatural explanations of things. I am sure it is possible to feel both ways though depending on the topic.
3. Yes, because the simpler things are, the easier they are to understand.
5. No, breath is not the essence of life, not by itself at least. Literally, a heart beat is, but you argue a person is not really alive even with a heart beat and is breathing if they can not interact with people or express themselves, such as someone who is in a coma.
#3
ReplyDeleteDiscussion Questions
1. I think he meant that cattle, horses, and lions would be no different from us if they had hands. I do not agree because they would also need to be able to speak in a manner that was understandable to humans.
2. I would say natural. Yes, because I think we all come from dirt and we return to dirt once we are dead and I believe that because that is what is taught in the bible. I think it depends on what their definition of being a naturalist is.
3. No, just because something is complex and hard to grasp doesn’t mean we should have a simpler explanation because how would someone prove that the way they interpret it is the way it is meant to be interpreted.
4. To some people they would rather worship a statue or an animal. So, I think if that is what you believe then yes.
5. Well I guess that is all depending upon what you believe in. I think there is life after death.
6. I think that it is important to recognize that we do come from the dirt but I believe that there is something greater than us that created us.
7. I think that it is important when scientists can discover new ways to cure things that are done naturally but I do not believe that we should worship nature because of this.
8. I think it is interesting that someone could believe math is the reason we are here and alive but I do not agree with Pythagoras.
9. I think some people do worship themselves and think they are better than everyone else.
10. I do not believe that numbers can unlock the mysteries of the world. I think that if all the answers to the world were locked behind a vaulted door that had a number key pad on it then yes but there is no such thing.
11. I think it takes a very smart person to become superior to a lot of people but I do not think it makes you superior if you can sense it.
12. I think Americans do think that freedom of religion is the same as freedom from religion but I do believe that the way people interpret it is up to them.
13. I think a lot of people no matter who or what they believe in will want anything to do with evil/witches.
2. "Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?"
ReplyDeleteI think natural explanations have more weight, there's tangible and plausible evidence to go off of. I think naturalists can still believe in the potential of gods and so on, but can still stand by their naturalist beliefs. On my last note I don't think naturalists should be either atheist or agnostic. If they have theories about the spiritual world or completely have a naturalist stance then they should represent themselves as they please.
"Is it a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation?" I think it's good simply so more people can comprehend the subject/ get more involved.
ReplyDelete1. To the naturalist question it depends on the situation. We can try to understand it as best we can ,but there are somethings that the human mind will never comprehend and be supernatural. The question of what he or she can believe is up to them they have the choice to believe or not.
ReplyDelete2. I think its good to understand our world around us and just live in deity ignorance.
3. Yes we can explain things without invisible involvement because we are humans it what we do is explore.
"Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?"
ReplyDeleteI prefer hard scientific facts when it comes to explanations of phenomena. I believe that naturalists can believe in other religious/metaphysical claims, as I believe spirituality and nature are separate. However, there are those who consider God to be part of everything on Earth, including nature, which blurs the lines on the perspective of this theoretical naturalist. Is God found in nature, or is it the reverse? That is the difference between the naturalist and the religious.
"Is it a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation?"
In science and philosophy, simplicity isn't the ultimate goal for a given explanation, rather, the breakdown of a phenomena into bite-sized chunks of knowledge.
I disagree because humans have worshiped gods with animal characteristics. I believe Science cannot explain everything. On top of that I believe that the creator of this world made natural laws that are to be followed unless one has supernatural power. I think it’s a good idea to reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation as long as the simpler as long as that explanation isn't reordered as fact. I believe that breathing is one of essential functions for life but there are many other factors that play a part. I believe we can make sense of our experience without invoking invisible causes. Scientific reasoning is made to explain thing by also avoiding invisible causes. I believe that modern-day "alternative" healers are anti-Hippocratic because they don't abide by the Hippocratic oath.
ReplyDelete#8
• Do you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.? Or should naturalists consider themselves atheistic or agnostic, with respect to the objects of such claims?
ReplyDelete-As a member of the christian faith this is a difficult question for me. I believe in my God. But I also believe in the science of things. I believe in evolution, in dinosaurs, etc. So for me the answer is that Naturalists can be a part of a faith, but their faith must be separate.
• Is it a good practice in science and/or philosophy to try and reduce complex phenomena to a simpler explanation?
-For me the right answer is the only answer. And I'm well aware that "right" can be a matter of perspective, but 2+2=4. I cannot argue that. So I believe that finding the CORRECT answer should always be the goal.
• Anaximenes was "struck by the fact that people breathe and corpses do not." (15) Was he onto something important? Is breath the essence of life?
-Yes. All life requires intake of some form or another. Weather its CO2, Oxygen, or Light, everything BREATHS.
• Are you "comforted" by the turn from Milesian speculations about nature to ethical questions about "the proper way to live" (17)? Or do you think both kinds of philosophizing are necessary?
- I just wish everything was black and white.
• Pythagoras famously had both a scientific/mathematical and a mystical/superstitious side. Do you find this incoherent, or intriguing?
-Intriguing. Because for me, that's the way I behave as well. I follow my religion, and follow science. Finding balance is very difficult, but find it he did, and find it I will.
• Do you believe numbers can "unlock the secrets of how the world work[s]"? (32) Or does the world include important qualities and experiences that cannot or need not (should not?) be quantified? Is it "madness" to relate everything to a corresponding number?-eg, maleness=2, femaleness=3, justice=4...
-It doesn't matter if I'm flesh and bones or metal and circuitry, it's the way I think that matters.
• Do you share or reject young Russell's "feeling that intellect is superior to sense"?
-Definitely. senses can be fooled. Intellect however, is simply the way we behave and react, so it is far superior to something as simple as senses.
• "Disbelief was eventually permitted (in America), at least legally." But President George Bush said in his view atheists and agnostics were not "real Americans." Do you think most Americans interpret freedom of religion as including freedom from religion, for those who prefer it?
-Of course! People who follow aitheism don't harm other people with their views. In fact they often are the groups that make the most astounding scientific discoveries. It's the ones who follow religion that often have an issue with their beliefs.
Brendan McGee #8
#3
ReplyDeleteI have a very supernatural view about how everything happens around me and not just phenomenas. I feel that there must be god that made all the creation around me and that this world didn't just come into existence by pure coincidence; I find that very hard to believe in. Therefore, God who created me has answers to all that happens in my life. If god didn't exist it would be very hard to explain stuff like feelings and emotions because from where would have these things came from. I also do think that many who believe that there is a natural explanation to everything are atheists, not that there is anything wrong with it but it's just very hard for me to believe in such a thing. Also, another reason is that it's very easy for me at least to argue against atheism or evolution for example, but when it comes to argue against there not being a presence of god there is much evidence to disproof therefore I personally think it's impossible to believe that there is no god.
#8
DeleteBola, I completely 100% agree with you. I feel as though God put everything and everyone on this Earth for a reason and it's not by coincidence.
#8 bola, how can I ever disagree with you.
Delete#3
ReplyDeleteI do not expect my friends to be themselves and not change, because in that sense if they are not growing, learning, and changing then they are not becoming their true self. I strongly encourage my friends to become their true selves by learning and developing. I don't think people should have the same mentality and personality as they did when they were younger. It is important to grow up and learn more about yourself.
To some extent I say that technology advances are a change that we need to accept, but I also think that it is an existential threat as we know it. It is nice to have information at our fingertips and be able to communicate effectively. However, people have began to take advantage of it, and I think in the future social media and of the like will have a negative impact in the future. In some ways, it already has made a negative impact. There are also many conspiracies that the government is "tracking" us through our phones and if this is true or came to be true it could become a huge disaster for us as we know it.
DeleteI can see how growing old is not ideal for some people, however at the same time growing old has many benefits to yourself. You get to watch your children grow up and hopefully grandchildren. If you're married you get to spend much more time with your significant other. You also get to push yourself to become wise and knowledgeable and hopefully pass that down to your family. Growing old may not be ideal, but I think it is vital for a happy life.
Delete#8
DeleteI completely agree with you on the topic of your friends changing because they're growing. It makes sense.
I also agree, and i think that the two of you are amazing friends for encouraging your friends to grow as people so that they aren't left behind in this rapidly growing world of ours.
Delete#8
ReplyDeleteDo you favor natural, or supernatural, explanations of phenomena? Do you think it's possible to be a naturalist who also believes unproven religious or metaphysical claims about god(s), heaven, immortality, the soul, etc.?
I 100% believe in the existence of God. I understand why there are atheists because understanding the concept of God is hard, so people have a hard time believing in the existence of God. However, I myself have experienced so much, as well as people around me, to not believe in God.
#8
ReplyDeleteAlternate Discussion Question:
If some things in science can't be explained, yet people still believe in its' existence or that it occurs, does the same apply in religion?
I believe it all has to do with faith. In my opinion (as a Christian), true faith comes when you can whole heartedly believe in something even when you've never seen it.
Delete#8
ReplyDeleteAn old pop song proclaimed "I hope I die before I get old." (Some of the band members did, in fact.) The alternative to growing old, of course, is dying young. Will you embrace aging and the changes in lifestyle and physical capacity it represents, or resist it?
I would embrace getting older. It's inevitable and something we've seen occur all around, so it's not like we should be surprised. With getting older comes experiences, memories, maturity, the ability to grow who you are. Embracing it is key to being happy.
#8 I 100% agree with you. Embracing getting older is the key to happiness.
Delete#8
ReplyDeleteAlternate quiz questions:
FL 7-8
Who did the "march of progress" comprise of?
What did Johnathan Edwards say was the job of a good Christian?
Who could become a preacher in these times?
DQ's
3. A river is different in every spot. No to spots are alike just like no two humans are alike.
6. I like my friends to be themselves and not have to change because someone else wants them too.
9. I don't know how I will react to getting old. I am trying to enjoy where I am at in life and enjoy my time in college.
2. The job of a good Christian was to sin less
Delete3. Anyone could become a preacher.
#3
ReplyDeleteDiscussion Questions
1. What do you think Heraclitus meant when he said you can't step into the same river twice?
The water moves and so that same place in the water is not the same as the water the first time. I think he is relating it to the world and how it is always changing.
2. What do you think of Goober's pre- and post-beard persona (see "Goober the philosopher" above), and of the why his friends react to him when he changes? What moral do you think the show's writers were trying to tell, with this story? Do you agree or disagree?
I think someone can change their appearance and feel like a new person but it does not mean that they are a new person. I think they were trying to show that people change. I definitely do not agree.
3. Do you expect your friends to be themselves and not change? Or do you encourage them to become themselves by changing?
I think you are who you are. I hate when people say that they have changed and all that. I do not believe someone can truly change because the person who has “changed” will sooner or later go back to their old habits.
4. What do you think of the SoL's advice for dealing with a crisis of meaning (see below*)? Does it help to position yourself in a wider frame of reference, with respect to the "big picture" view of yourself as a small contributing part of a species, occupying a blip of time in a vast cosmos?
I think that sometimes looking at the big picture does help. Some people may think that they are in something deep when in reality it can be easily fixed. I think as humans we tend to stress over the little things.
5. What do you think of the SoL's "problem with our phones"? Do they create a crisis of meaning, does tech generally pose an "existential threat" to life as we've known it? Or is this just more change we need to embrace and manage?
It almost seems as though that we do not have a life outside of our phones a lot of the time. It is causing a very big issue especially with younger generations. A lot of younger people have really hard time with talking to other people and seems as though that they are not good at conversing.
6. An old pop song proclaimed "I hope I die before I get old." (Some of the band members did, in fact.) The alternative to growing old, of course, is dying young. Will you embrace aging and the changes in lifestyle and physical capacity it represents, or resist it?
I think that I will embrace growing old because become wiser. It also seems that older people tend to enjoy life so much more. My grandma is the wisest most intelligent person I know and I think the world of her. She makes me look forward to being old.
I agree with your opinion on looking at the big picture. I once heard the analogy that when you're presented with a problem it's like you're stuck in a maze and you just see the walls around you and feel completely lost. The people around you can help you see the big picture and find your way out just by looking at the big picture (the maze from above.)
Delete#8
ReplyDeleteTo me, "you can't step into the same river twice" means that every thing in the world is constantly changing. When you step into a river and take your foot out of it, by the time you put your foot back in the water, that water will be somewhere on down the stream. You will never put your foot back in that same water that you put your foot in the first time..
I love this look at it!
Delete#8
ReplyDeleteI definitely encourage my friends to become themselves BY changing. Simply because we are so young and if we were to not change as people, just grow older, we would be behind other people our age that did allow themselves to change.
#8
ReplyDeleteI feel like something like phones are something that everyone should just allow themselves to get used to because the world is only becoming more reliable on technology and if you don't keep up with the technology you won't be able to communicate in the world in this day in age.
#8
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd rather grow old instead of dying. Simply because I dont know what the afterlife is like or if there is even an afterlife in the first place. I am usually a very curious person but death is not one thing that im too curious about right now, my death anyways.
I agree that I too am curious about a lot of things. Being a Christian, I believe I know where I'm going when i leave this earth. So I'm choosing not to dwell on the end of my life, but living it to the fullest while I still can.
Delete#8
ReplyDeleteDQ: Is suicide a selfish act?
(Feel free to reply with your answers! I'd love to hear you guys' opinions!)
Plus, you get a base for it so why not?
Delete#8:
ReplyDeleteDQ: Are we TRULY entitled to our own opinion? Even when no ones cares/asked for it?
I think we are entitled to our opinion, because we do have the right to think and believe as we wish. But, if no one particularly cares to hear your side of things I think you should respect that but never be afraid to speak up for what you believe in and are passionate about.
DeleteWhen Heraclites said not to cross the same river twice, I think he meant not to dwell on things too much.
ReplyDeleteI encourage my friends to change, so long as it is productive and betters them as a person and not the other way around.
I think technology is a change we need to embrace. We'll never stop the change, and most of it is good, so we need to learn to adapt.
I believe you're only as old as you think you are. Obviously people age physically and there isn't much we can do to slow it down, but I believe people limit themselves too much by thinking they are too old.
I think I am more worried about the world around me. I need to work on being more introspective.
I agree with your comment about technology! I feel like technology is only going to get more advanced from here and at this point you need to be able to use technology in order to get certain jobs, do school work, etc. It's definitely something people need to adapt to because whether they adapt or not, the world is moving along with or without them!
DeleteI agree with you on your comment about aging! Mindset is everything.
Delete#3
ReplyDeleteDC questions
1. I don’t think the philosopher should be deliberately enigmatic or impenetrable, but I don’t think they should feel any obligation to search for clarity. The philosopher’s job should be to find truth in whatever form it may come, be it simple or complex.
3. I would imagine that he meant that you can sleep in the same place in the river, but the water flowing around you, and the time moving around you, will never be the same as it was before.
6. I’m not sure I encourage my friends to change or try to keep them from changing in any way. I feel like people tend to change over time anyway, so I think I’ll just try to accept them as they are, whether that’s the same as always, or something new
#3
ReplyDeleteDQ
1.) Do you expect your friends to be themselves and not change? Or do you encourage them to become themselves by changing?
I encourage my friends to become themselves by changing. Everything around them is always changing, and they're always learning what they should do by the mistakes they made by doing what they shouldn't have done. You live and you learn in life, and I think that requires you to change to become a better version of yourself and, ultimately, who you're supposed to be.
2.) An old pop song proclaimed "I hope I die before I get old." (Some of the band members did, in fact.) The alternative to growing old, of course, is dying young. Will you embrace aging and the changes in lifestyle and physical capacity it represents, or resist it?
I personally will embrace aging. I love talking to people that have grown wise with their years. They have experienced more in life than i could dream of at this age and i want to see and do as much as I can while I'm still on this earth.
3.) What do you think Heraclitus meant when he said you can't step into the same river twice?
I think he meant that there's no take-backs in life. Once you make a decision and cross a bridge, the bridge burns in a sense. So live your life and do things with purpose because you can't turn back no matter how bad you might want to.
I think what Heraclitus meant when he said you can't step in the same river twice was the idea that we can't make the same mistake twice. However if that is what he was saying i would have to disagree. Although most learn from their mistakes, many people make the same mistake over and over again.
ReplyDeleteI would say i do expect them to be themselves, however I wouldn't say i necessarily don't want them to change, rather than change i encourage my friends to grow. Not grow by themselves but also to help me grow. However, I wouldn't say i expect them to always be them same as when we first became friends.
ReplyDeleteI would say that as far as whether or not i will embrace aging, i would rather embrace it than resist it. Everyone gets old it's a part of life and i would rather embrace aging rather than dying young. Mostly becauase of the fact that as you get older you tend to gain wisdom and i am looking forward to that.
ReplyDeleteQ: What do you think Heraclitus meant when he said you can't step into the same river twice?
ReplyDeleteI believe that him saying that is consistent with his views that the world is ever-changing. In his mind, after one steps out of a river, that river changes, and one will never step in that particular river again. #8
DQ
ReplyDelete"What do you think Heraclitus meant when he said you can't step into the same river twice?"
I think it basically means you can't follow a direction in life more than once
DQ
ReplyDelete"Do you expect your friends to be themselves and not change? Or do you encourage them to become themselves by changing?"
Everyone should be able to evolve into their truest self. Preventing this is selfish and steals someone's right for personal growth and fulfillment
#8
ReplyDeleteComment on Dream of Reason
I really enjoy Parmenides idea that the universe has always been fully developed. He argues that the universe could not have developed over time or came into existence from nothing; implying that it still would have to have been a reaction of something, or have come from some sort of ingredients.
I think philosopher should try to be understanding. That does not mean it has to be super clear, but contains logic and explination for an outsider to understand.
ReplyDeleteHeraclitus meant that the river is constantly changing, therefore it can never be the same river.
My philosohpy is that i will help my friend with whatever i can, but it is up to him or her to figure themselves out.
Getting old has its ups and downs, but overall you gain experience and the goal i wish to achieve to share that experience with others.
We must be adaptable to change, because that is all life is is change so to try and stay constant is futile.
#8
Do you expect friends to be themselves and not change? Change is good and sometimes bad. I always want my friends to change if there changing for good i always encourage them to be there selves and if that's require changing than i fully support them changing. #8
ReplyDeleteDQ
ReplyDeleteAn old pop song proclaimed "I hope I die before I get old." (Some of the band members did, in fact.) The alternative to growing old, of course, is dying young. Will you embrace aging and the changes in lifestyle and physical capacity it represents, or resist it?
In my young mindset I don't want to experience being old. I've seen firsthand how downhill it becomes when age hits you
What do you think Heraclitus mean when he said you can't step into the same river twice twice?
ReplyDeleteI think he meant that when you are changing than you can't go back into the same river and back to the way you were
#8
ReplyDelete"Disbelief was eventually permitted (in America), at least legally." But President George Bush said in his view atheists and agnostics were not "real Americans." Do you think most Americans interpret freedom of religion as including freedom from religion, for those who prefer it?
ReplyDeleteI think everyone should have the right to believe whatever they would like in America as long as what they believe isn't hurting anyone else or going against our Constitution. Atheists choose to believe that there is no God and they should have the freedom to believe that. It isn't hurting anyone and it doesn't go against our Constitution. Everyone should be able to think for themselves and be able to search for what they believe is real. Other people shouldn't be able to tell people they aren't allowed to choose what to believe. In fact, even if they did tell them they couldn't believe that... you can't make someone believe like you do. They may stop talking about what they believe, but they won't leave it if they truly believe it. #8
Do you expect your friends to be themselves and not change? Or do you encourage them to become themselves by changing?
ReplyDeleteIt is my believe that all of us should strive to be better people by always changing and constantly realizing where our flaws are. I think I would rather have a friend who wanted me better rather than staying the same.
#8
DeleteWhat do you think Heraclitus meant when he said you can't step into the same river twice?
ReplyDeleteI think that he was saying that you may have similar opportunities but you will never be able to have the exact same opportunity that you have had in the past. Something will be different the second or third or fourth time.
What do you think of the SoL's "problem with our phones"? Do they create a crisis of meaning, does tech generally pose an "existential threat" to life as we've known it? Or is this just more change we need to embrace and manage?
ReplyDeleteI think that phones are an excellent invention that both bettered us as people and harmed us as a people. I personally think that they benefits outweigh the consequences, but there are consequences nonetheless. It doesn't pose a problem to our existence... but we definitely need to learn manage our uses of phones.
#8 What do you think Heraclitus meant when he said you can't step into the same river twice? - No matter how many times you keep doing the same thing day after day. There will always be something that happens that will make it different. Therefore, you can't step into the same river twice.
ReplyDeleteDo you expect your friends to be themselves and not change? Or do you encourage them to become themselves by changing? -I encourage them to become themselves by changing. I believe that change is a vital thing to our lives. It allows us to survive in a forever changing world and to be able to change yourself in someways, you're allowing yourself to be best fit for the next change to come.
An old pop song proclaimed "I hope I die before I get old." (Some of the band members did, in fact.) The alternative to growing old, of course, is dying young. Will you embrace aging and the changes in lifestyle and physical capacity it represents, or resist it? -I wouldn't mind the change mentally, however I will most definitely resist the physical change of my body. I refuse to allow myself to depend on someone to do for me things that I at one point could do on my own. I agree with the song and would much rather die young, rather than be old and unable to live a normal life, at least physically.
Pythagoras famously had both a scientific/mathematical and a mystical/superstitious side. Do you find this incoherent, or intriguing? -I find it very intriguing because science and math are both very logical ways of thinking about things. It is always looking for an actual answer to things and a more logical way of looking for them. Then you have the mystical and superstition side which never has an actual answer to things. There is always questions as to how and why things happen. I think that having both points of view, is very intriguing because they're so opposite to each other, but they both have one similarity which is that they exist because of human's need for answers to things and when they can't seem to find a logical explanation, ironical, the only logical way to answer it is with something like mystical/superstitious.
Measures and weights Multiple Choice Questions for those who are looking for it.
ReplyDelete