Up@dawn 2.0

Friday, September 13, 2019

Quiz Sep 18/19

Democritus, Diogenes, and the Sophists; Trevelyan, "Walking" (JW); FL 11-12. [NOTE: Don't confuse that Diogenes with either the biographer Diogenes Laertius, or Diogenes the Cynic-"How To Be A Cynic," Philosophy Now]... Democritus and the Sophists @dawn-LISTEN.

George Trevelyan has "two doctors, my left leg and my right"... Atoms (Democritus, Maria Popova, Alan Lightman... "restlessness & empty space")... "Ask an Atheist Day"

ALSO RECOMMENDED: Democritus: Empirical Rationalist (Philosophy Now); The Sophists (SEP)

1. Democritus said everything is constructed of what?

2. Democritus' theory involved a "strong distinction between" what?

3. Diogenes of Apollonia (not to be confused with the Cynic) was said to be the last of what?

4. What evidence did Diogenes offer for his rejection of pluralism in favor of "one single thing?"

5. What pre-Socratic project did the Sophist Protagoras doubt?

6. The wide range of pre-Socratic thought includes what topics? 


Trevelyan
7. What's the reward for "an honest day's walk"? 

8. What comes in every person's youth and is best met with a "grim" walk?

FL 11-12
9. What did Arthur C. Clarke say about technology?

10. What's the upside of homeopathy?

11. Who invented a religion that said pain, suffering, and disease are not real? What is that religion?

12. What pseudoscience based psychological traits on "topographical details of a person's skull [felt] through the scalp?"

13. How did the California Gold Rush alter Americans' view of reality?

14. What job category can be traced to the inception of America?

15. How are Americans like ants and grasshoppers? 







"For Democritus all of life was to be enjoyed and understood; understanding and 
enjoyment were the same thing. He said that “a life without festivity is a long road 
without an inn.” Democritus may have come from Abdera, but he was no dummy..."

DQ
  • If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)
  • Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?
  • If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?
  • What difference does it make, if particles are inseparable from forces and fields and bundles of energy and thus cannot be proved to be "unsplittable" (as the ancient atomists said)?
  • Is it "reasonable to suppose that every sort of world crop[s] up somewhere"? (109)
  • Comment on Dawkins' "selfish gene" statement about meaning and design. (110)
  • What do you think of Democritus's view of children (112)?
  • What do you think of Democritus's "preaching"? (112)
  • By Pericles' definition, do we have a democracy? (115)
  • Was Socrates a Sophist? 
  • Was Protagoras a relativist?
  • What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?
  • Sometimes, pseudosciences like phrenology have worked to reinforce racism. What other instances are there of pseudoscience's involvement in supporting bigotry?
  • Entrepreneurism is essential to many understandings of the American economy (consider the emphasized importance of small-businesses and self-starters). What do you think of Andersen's criticism, that there are the "forgotten millions of losers?"
  • Have you ever taken a "grim" walk in response to life's stubborn difficulty? How does it compare to what the author describes? Do you think there are critical life-moments that harden a person's character into "some lifelong shape of good or bad?" 
  • [Add yours]


8. Presocratic Atomism

The pluralism of Anaxagoras and Empedocles maintained the Eleatic strictures on metaphysically acceptable basic entities (things that are and must be just what they are) by adopting an irreducible pluralism of stuffs meeting these standards that could pass on their qualities to items constructed from them. Ancient atomism responded more radically: what is real is an infinite number of solid, uncuttable (atomon) units of matter. All atoms are made of the same stuff (solid matter, in itself otherwise indeterminate), differing from one another (according to Aristotle in Metaphysics 985b4-20=DK67A6) only in shape, position, arrangement. (Later sources say that atoms differ in weight; this is certainly true for post-Aristotelian atomism, but less likely for Presocratic atomism.) In addition, the Presocratic atomists, Leucippus and Democritus (Democritus was born in about 460 BCE in Abdera in Northern Greece, shortly after Socrates was born in Athens), enthusiastically endorsed the reality of the empty (or void).[11] The void is what separates atoms and allows for the differences noted above (except weight, which could not be accounted for by void, since void in an atom would make it divisible and, hence, not an atom) (Sedley 1982; see also Sedley 2008).
Like Anaxagoras, the atomists consider all phenomenal objects and characteristics as emerging from the background mixture; in the case of atomism, the mix of atoms and void (Wardy 1988). Everything is constructed of atoms and void: the shapes of the atoms and their arrangement with respect to each other (and the intervening void) give physical objects their apparent characteristics. As Democritus says: “By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color: in reality atoms and void” (68B125 = B9). For example, Theophrastus says that the flavors differ according to the shapes of the atoms that compose various objects; thus “Democritus makes sweet that which is round and quite large, astringent that which large, rough, polygonal and not rounded” (de Caus. Plant. 6.1.6 = 68A129). Simplicius reports that things composed of sharp and very fine atoms in similar positions are hot and fiery; those composed of atoms with the opposite character come to be cold and watery (in Phys. 36.3–6 = 67A14). Moreover, Theophrastus reports that the atomists explain why iron is harder than lead but lighter; it is harder because of the uneven arrangements of the atoms that make it up, lighter because it contains more void than lead. Lead, on the other hand, has less void than iron, but the even arrangement of the atoms makes lead easier to cut or to bend (de Sens. 61-63 = 68A135).
Adopting a strong distinction between appearance and reality, and denying the accuracy of appearances, as we see him do in the above quotation, Democritus was seen by some ancient sources (especially Sextus Empiricus) as a sort of skeptic, yet the evidence is unclear. It is true that Democritus is quoted as saying, “In truth we know nothing; for truth is in the depths” (68B117). So for him, the truth is not given in the appearances. Yet, even Sextus seems to agree that Democritus allows for knowledge...

9. Diogenes of Apollonia and the Sophists

In the last part of the 5th century, Diogenes of Apollonia (active after 440 BCE) revived and revised the Milesian system of cosmology, claiming that “all the things that are are alterations from the same thing and are the same thing” (64B2); he identified this single basic substance with air, like Anaximenes more than a century before (Graham 2006, Laks 2008, 2008a). Diogenes takes care to give arguments for the reality and properties of his basic principle. In B2 he says that only things that are alike can affect one another. If there were a plurality of basic substances, each differing in what Diogenes calls their “own proper nature,” there could be no interaction between them. Yet the evidence of the senses is clear: things mix and separate and interact with one another. Thus, all things must be forms of some one single thing. Like Anaxagoras, Diogenes claims that the cosmic system is ordered by intelligence, and he argues that that “which possesses intelligence (noēsis) is what human beings call air” (B5). Humans and animals live by breathing air, and are governed by it —in them air is both soul and intelligence, or mind (B4). Moreover, Diogenes argues, air governs and rules all things and is god (B5). Thus, like Anaxagoras, Diogenes has a theory grounded in intelligence, although Diogenes is more fully committed to teleological explanations, insofar as he states explicitly that intelligence (noēsis) orders things in a good way (B3). In presenting his arguments, Diogenes fulfills his own requirement for a philosophical claim. In B1 he says, “In my opinion, anyone beginning a logos (account) ought to present a starting principle (archē) that is indisputable and a style that is simple and stately.” He notes that his theory that air is soul and intelligence “will have been made clearly evident in this book” (B4).
Theophrastus says that Diogenes was the last of the physical philosophers, the physiologoi, or “inquirers into nature,” as Aristotle called them; Diogenes Laertius gives that title to Archelaus, saying that he was the teacher of Socrates (Lives II.16-17). There was also another group of thinkers active about this time: the Sophists. Many of our views about this group have been shaped by Plato's aggressively negative assessment of them: in his dialogues Plato expressly contrasts the genuine philosopher, i.e., Socrates, with the Sophists, especially in their role as teachers of young men growing into their maturity (youths at the age when Socrates, too, engaged with them in his discussions). Modern scholarship (Woodruff and Gagarin 2008, Kerferd 1981, Guthrie 1969) has shown the diversity of their views. They were not completely uninterested in the theoretical problems that concerned others of the Presocratics. Gorgias of Leontini questioned the possibility of the certainty that Parmenides sought. In his On Nature, or On what-is-not, Gorgias claims that nothing satisfies Parmenides' requirements for what-is (Mansfeld 1985, Mourelatos 1987b, Palmer 1999, Caston 2002, Curd 2006). Protagoras, too, doubted the possibility of the strong theoretical knowledge that the Presocratics championed. The Sophists raised ethical and political questions: Does law or convention ground what is right, or is it a matter of nature? They traveled widely, sometimes serving as diplomats, and they were both entertainers and teachers. They gave public displays of rhetoric (this contrasts with Diogenes of Apollonia's comments about his book, which seems to imply a more private enterprise)[12] and took on students, teaching both the art of rhetoric and the skills necessary for succeeding in Greek political life. With the Sophists, as with Socrates, interest in ethics and political thought becomes a more prominent aspect of Greek philosophy. SEP

10. The Presocratic Legacy

The range of Presocratic thought shows that the first philosophers were not merely physicists (although they were certainly that). Their interests extended to religious and ethical thought, the nature of perception and understanding, mathematics, meteorology, the nature of explanation, and the roles of matter, form, causal mechanisms, and structure in the world. Almost all the Presocratics seemed to have something to say about embryology, and fragments of Diogenes and Empedocles show a keen interest in the structures of the body; the overlap between ancient philosophy and ancient medicine is of growing interest to scholars of early Greek thought (Longrigg 1963, van der Eijk 2008). Recent discoveries, such as the Derveni Papyrus (Betegh 2004, Kouremenos et al. 2006, Janko 2001, Laks and Most 1997), show that interest in and knowledge of the early philosophers was not necessarily limited to a small audience of rationalistic intellectuals. They passed on many of what later became the basic concerns of philosophy to Plato and Aristotle, and ultimately to the whole tradition of Western philosophical thought.
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This granular life
That the world is not solid but made up of tiny particles is a very ancient insight. Is it humanity’s greatest idea?

According to tradition, in the year 450 BCE, a man embarked on a 400-mile sea voyage from Miletus in Anatolia to Abdera in Thrace, fleeing a prosperous Greek city that was suddenly caught up in political turmoil. It was to be a crucial journey for the history of knowledge. The traveller’s name was Leucippus; little is known about his life, but his intellectual spirit proved indelible. He wrote the book The Great Cosmology, in which he advanced new ideas about the transient and permanent aspects of the world. On his arrival in Abdera, Leucippus founded a scientific and philosophical school, to which he soon affiliated a young disciple, Democritus, who cast a long shadow over the thought of all subsequent times.

Together, these two thinkers have built the majestic cathedral of ancient atomism. Leucippus was the teacher. Democritus, the great pupil who wrote dozens of works on every field of knowledge, was deeply venerated in antiquity, which was familiar with these works. ‘The most subtle of the Ancients,’ Seneca called him. ‘Who is there whom we can compare with him for the greatness, not merely of his genius, but also of his spirit?’ asks Cicero.

What Leucippus and Democritus had understood was that the world can be comprehended using reason. They had become convinced that the variety of natural phenomena must be attributable to something simple, and had tried to understand what this something might be. They had conceived of a kind of elementary substance from which everything was made. Anaximenes of Miletus had imagined this substance could compress and rarefy, thus transforming from one to another of the elements from which the world is constituted. It was a first germ of physics, rough and elementary, but in the right direction. An idea was needed, a great idea, a grand vision, to grasp the hidden order of the world. Leucippus and Democritus came up with this idea.

The idea of Democritus’s system is extremely simple: the entire universe is made up of a boundless space in which innumerable atoms run. Space is without limits; it has neither an above nor a below; it is without a centre or a boundary. Atoms have no qualities at all, apart from their shape. They have no weight, no colour, no taste. ‘Sweetness is opinion, bitterness is opinion; heat, cold and colour are opinion: in reality only atoms, and vacuum,’ said Democritus. Atoms are indivisible; they are the elementary grains of reality, which cannot be further subdivided, and everything is made of them. They move freely in space, colliding with one another; they hook on to and push and pull one another. Similar atoms attract one another and join.

This is the weave of the world. This is reality. Everything else is nothing but a by-product – random and accidental – of this movement, and this combining of atoms. The infinite variety of the substances of which the world is made derives solely from this combining of atoms.

When atoms aggregate, the only thing that matters, the only thing that exists at the elementary level, is their shape, their arrangement, and the order in which they combine. Just as by combining letters of the alphabet in different ways we can obtain comedies or tragedies, ridiculous stories or epic poems, so elementary atoms combine to produce the world in its endless variety. The metaphor is Democritus’s own.

There is no finality, no purpose, in this endless dance of atoms. We, just like the rest of the natural world, are one of the many products of this infinite dance – the product, that is, of an accidental combination. Nature continues to experiment with forms and structures; and we, like the animals, are the products of a selection that is random and accidental, over the course of aeons of time. Our life is a combination of atoms, our thoughts are made up of thin atoms, our dreams are the products of atoms; our hopes and our emotions are written in a language formed by combinations of atoms; the light that we see is composed of atoms, which bring us images. The seas are made of atoms, as are our cities, and the stars. It’s an immense vision: boundless, incredibly simple, and incredibly powerful, on which the knowledge of a civilisation would later be built.

On this foundation Democritus wrote dozens of books articulating a vast system, dealing with questions of physics, philosophy, ethics, politics and cosmology. He writes on the nature of language, on religion, on the origins of human societies, and on much else besides. All these books have been lost. We know of his thought only through the quotations and references made by other ancient authors, and by their summaries of his ideas. The thought that thus emerges is a kind of intense humanism, rationalist and materialist.

Democritus combines a keen attention to nature, illuminated by a naturalistic clarity in which every residual system of mythic ideas is cleared away, with a great attention to humanity and a deep ethical concern for life – anticipating by some 2,000 years the best aspects of the 18th-century Enlightenment. The ethical ideal of Democritus is that of a serenity of mind reached through moderation and balance, by trusting in reason and not allowing oneself to be overwhelmed by passions.

Plato and Aristotle were familiar with Democritus’s ideas, and fought against them. They did so on behalf of other ideas, some of which were later, for centuries, to create obstacles to the growth of knowledge. Both insisted on rejecting Democritus’s naturalistic explanations in favour of trying to understand the world in finalistic terms – believing, that is, that everything that happens has a purpose, a way of thinking that would reveal itself to be very misleading for understanding the ways of nature – or, in terms of good and evil, confusing human issues with matters that do not relate to us.

Aristotle speaks extensively about the ideas of Democritus, with respect. Plato never cites Democritus, but scholars suspect today that this was out of deliberate choice, and not for lack of knowledge of his works. Criticism of Democritus’s ideas is implicit in several of Plato’s texts, as in his critique of ‘physicists’, for example. In a passage in his Phaedo, Plato has Socrates articulate a reproach to all ‘physicists’. He complains that when ‘physicists’ had explained that Earth was round, he rebelled because he wanted to know what ‘good’ it was for Earth to be round; how its roundness would benefit it. How completely off-track the great Plato was here!

(Carlo Rovelli, continues)
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Bertrand Russell on Democritus:  Their [Leucippus' & Democritus'] point of view was remarkably like that of modern science, and avoided most of the faults to which Greek speculation was prone. They believed that everything is composed of atoms, which are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible; that between the atoms there is empty space; that atoms are indestructible; that they always have been, and always will be, in motion; that there are an infinite number of atoms, and even of kinds of atoms, the differences being as regards shape and size. Aristotle ‡ asserts that, according to the atomists, atoms also differ as regards heat, the spherical atoms, which compose fire, being the hottest; and as regards weight, he quotes Democritus as saying "The more any indivisible exceeds, the heavier it is." But the question whether atoms are originally possessed of weight in the theories of the atomists is a controversial one... (continues)
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Russell on Protagoras: There is a story about Protagoras, no doubt apocryphal, which illustrates the connection of the Sophists with the law-courts in the popular mind. It is said that he taught a young man on the terms that he should be paid his fee if the young man won his first law-suit, but not otherwise, and that the young man's first law-suit was one brought by Protagoras for recovery of his fee. However, it is time to leave these preliminaries and see what is really known about Protagoras... (continues)
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Physicist Alan Lightman on the Illusion of Absolute Rest
The beautiful and disorienting science of why we are mostly restlessness and empty space.
B
Y MARIA POPOVA

...Millennia after the ancient Greeks first hypothesized the atom as a perfect and indivisible entity — atomos, Greek for uncuttable — a cascade of discoveries unveiled the true nature of matter, and of us: The atom is not a unit of stuff, but a tiny center of matter swarmed by nearly weightless electrons orbiting at a great distance and a great speed. We are mostly restlessness and empty space.

Lightman frames the ancient conception of matter as a vessel for the illusion of the absolute:

Atoms were the ultimate Oneness of the material world. Perfect in their indivisibility, perfect in their wholeness and indestructibility. Atoms were the embodiment of absolute truth. Atoms, along with stars, were the material icons of the Absolutes.
[…]
Atoms prevent us from falling forever into smaller and smaller rooms of reality. When we reach atoms — so the thinking went — the falling stops. We are caught. We are safe. And from there, we begin our journey back up, building the rest of the world.

He contrasts this with the modern understanding of material reality, accelerated by the discovery of the electron in 1897 (the year of the disastrous expedition to the North Pole by air balloon):
The hard nut at the center of each atom, the “atomic nucleus,” is a hundred thousand times smaller than the atom as a whole. To use an analogy, if an atom were the size of Fenway Park, the home stadium of the Boston Red Sox, its dense central nucleus would be the size of a mustard seed, with the electrons gracefully orbiting in the outer bleachers. In fact, 99.9999999999999 percent of the volume of an atom is empty space, except for the haze of nearly weightless electrons. Since we and everything else are made of atoms, we are mostly empty space. That vast emptiness is perhaps the most unsettling consequence of dividing the indivisible.
With an eye to the menagerie of subatomic particles discovered in the century-some since — quarks, pions, kaons, rhos, sigmas, xis — Lightman adds:
Are we falling and falling without end? Are there unlimited infinities on all sides of us, both bigger and smaller?
This question, and its myriad fractal implications reaching into every nook and cranny of existence, is what Lightman explores in the remainder of the wholly fascinating and enchanting Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine. Complement this particular portion with Pico Iyer on stillness and the art of presence, then revisit Lightman on our yearning for permanence in a universe of constant change, the psychology of creative breakthrough in art and science, and his poetic ode to the unknown, illustrated by a self-taught teenage artist in Bangalore. Brain Pickings
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Democritus


Another side of Democritus

Democritus was a native of Abdera in northeast Greece. He supposedly lived to 90, from 460 to 370 BC. The amazing thing about Democritus is his anticipation of modern science. He promoted the idea that everything is made of atoms, indivisible and indestructible – not unlike Parmenides’ One, except for their plurality and motion. Democritus believes that there are an infinite number of atoms, and they are always in motion – always have been and always will be. The atoms move and collide, and can combine and interlock if they have compatible shapes. Whole worlds can be created through this long process, some with suns and moons. (I would be remiss if failed to stress that Leucippus, the mentor of Democritus, is actually considered the founder of atomism. Historians say it is difficult to disentangle the pair, but Democritus is thought to have greatly elaborated the atomic theory.)

Democritus says that every world has a beginning and an end. This runs somewhat counter to Heraclitus’s idea of things never reaching being but always becoming. Democritus goes further: he says life arose from a primordial soup, consciousness developed gradually, and thought is a kind of motion that may cause motion. To Democritus, both perception and thought are physical processes. He believes that morality, the soul and mental life are made of material and imperceptible atoms. So his atomic world view takes into account emotions and ethics. Think about it: perception and thought are physical – made of atoms. This idea is astounding to me!

Democritus is clearly a materialist, yet his atomic theory is obviously a metaphysical construct, for in his time there was no empirical evidence for atoms. It took over 2,000 years and the development of sophisticated technology, the atomic theory of John Dalton around 1800 and the development of the Periodic Table by Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907), to prove their existence. Russell says the atomists were simply lucky with their theory; but I think Democritus came to the theory through a fusion of luck, thought and perception, and in so doing gave the first clue to the blending of empiricism and rationalism. To be sure, he was suspicious of sense perceptions: still, he thought that once the sense data were sifted and examined, conclusions could be drawn regarding their patterns and relationships. So he used inductive reasoning in his thinking. William S. Sahakian’s History of Philosophy (1968) offers support for this. Sahakian says that the atoms of Democritus, while not detected by the senses, are apprehended by the intellect. And, as the imperceptible atoms collide and interlock, they form substances which are manifest to the senses and so subject to empirical investigation. Philosophy Now
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The Sophists

The Greek word sophistēs, formed from the noun sophia, ‘wisdom’ or ‘learning’, has the general sense ‘one who exercises wisdom or learning’. As sophia could designate specific types of expertise as well as general sagacity in the conduct of life and the higher kinds of insight associated with seers and poets, the word originally meant ‘sage’ or ‘expert’. In the course of the fifth century BCE the term, while retaining its original unspecific sense, came in addition to be applied specifically to a new type of intellectuals, professional educators who toured the Greek world offering instruction in a wide range of subjects, with particular emphasis on skill in public speaking and the successful conduct of life. The emergence of this new profession, which was an extension to new areas of the tradition of the itinerant rhapsode (reciter of poems, especially of Homer), was a response to various social, economic, political and cultural developments of the period. The increasing wealth and intellectual sophistication of Greek cities, especially Athens, created a demand for higher education beyond the traditional basic grounding in literacy, arithmetic, music and physical training. To some extent this involved the popularization of Ionian speculation about the physical world (see Presocratic Philosophy), which was extended into areas such as history, geography and the origins of civilization. The increase in participatory democracy, especially in Athens, led to a demand for success in political and forensic oratory, and hence to the development of specialized techniques of persuasion and argument. Finally, the period saw the flourishing of a challenging, rationalistic climate of thought on questions including those of morality, religion and political conduct, to which the sophists both responded and contributed. It is important to emphasize the individualistic character of the sophistic profession; its practitioners belonged to no organization, shared no common body of beliefs and founded no schools, either in the sense of academic institutions or in that of bodies of individuals committed to the promulgation of specific doctrines. In what follows we shall illustrate the diversity of sophistic activities, while considering the extent to which we can nevertheless identify common themes and attitudes... 

Protagoras is the only sophist to whom ancient sources ascribe relativistic views, and even in his case the evidence is ambiguous. A key text is the famous ‘Man the Measure’ sentence, the opening sentence of his work entitled ‘Truth’, which runs ‘Man is the measure of all things, of the things that are that they are and of the things that are not that they are not’ (Plato, Theaetetus 151e, Sextus Against the Mathematicians VII.60 (=DK 80B1)). In the Theaetetus (our principal source for this aspect of Protagoras' teaching) this is interpreted as a claim of the relativity of the truth of all judgments to the experience or belief of the individual making the judgment, i.e., as subjectivism. On that interpretation, the way things seem to an individual is the way they are in fact for that individual. First illustrated by Socrates, who quotes this sentence, as a claim concerning sensory appearances, e.g., that if the wind feels cold to me and warm to you then it is cold for me and warm for you, in the course of the dialogue Socrates expands it to apply to all judgments, including itself, yielding the result that every belief is true for the person who holds it (and only for them), and hence that there is no objective truth on any matter. That this subjectivist interpretation was current in antiquity is shown by Aristotle's attribution to Protagoras of the view that ‘it is equally possible to affirm and to deny anything of anything’ (Metaphysics 1007b20–22) and by Sextus’ evidence of Democritus' critique of Protagoras mentioned above; Sextus reports Democritus (and Plato, see Theaetetus 170e–171c) as having argued that, given Protagoras' thesis that every appearance (phantasia) is true, the thesis that it is not the case that every appearance is true, ‘which is itself in accordance with appearance (kata phantasian huphistamenon)’ is true; hence Protagoras' thesis is self-refuting. But elsewhere in the Theaetetus (167c) Socrates explains Protagoras' view by claiming on his behalf that ‘whatever things seem to each city to be fine and just are so for that city, so long as it maintains them (heōs an auta nomizēi)’: i.e., the truth about what is fine and just (which appears to indicate the truth of moral judgments generally) is relative not to the judgment of the individual, but to that of the society to which the individual belongs. If the wind feels cold to me, and I consequently believe that it is cold, there is no objective fact of the matter by reference to which that belief can be false; but if I believe that infanticide is wrong, whereas infanticide is sanctioned by the laws and customs of the state of which I am a citizen, then my belief is straightforwardly false, though of course it would come to be true if the state of which I am a citizen changed its laws and customs so as to condemn infanticide. Within a single Platonic dialogue, then, Protagoras is represented as maintaining both universal subjectivism and limited social relativism, though those two versions of relativism are mutually inconsistent. And there is a further twist. In the very passage of the Theaetetuswhere, according to Socrates, Protagoras maintains the social relativity of moral judgments (167b–c), he gives a pragmatic justification of the role of the expert, both in the individual and in the social context. In the individual case, while no appearance is truer than any other, some appearances are better than others, and it is the role of the expert (for instance, the doctor) to produce better appearances instead of worse (as those appearances are then judged even by the patient); while in the case of cities, some judgments of what is just etc. are better than others, and it is the role of the expert (in this case the expert orator) to persuade the city to adopt the better judgment. (He adds (167c7–d1) that the sophist improves those whom he educates in the same way, implying that not merely collective judgments but also individual judgments (about what?) may be better or worse.) This account of the role of the expert may imply that there are matters of fact of what is better and worse independent of the judgement of those whom the expert persuades. E.g., a city might initially judge it right to pursue its individual interest without any consideration of obligations to other cities, but then be persuaded that it was more in its long-term interest to respect treaties. That persuasion presupposes that the question of what is in the city's long-term interest is a matter of fact, not merely a matter of how it now seems to the city... (SEP, continues)
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TPM Philosophy Quote (@tpmquote)
Man is the measure of all things: of those which are, that they are; of those which are not, that they are not.--Protagoras of Adera
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"How To Be A Cynic," Philosophy Now

Diogenes the Cynic (c.412-c.323 BCE) lives on in folk-memory as the ancient Greek philosopher who lived in a barrel (actually a kind of storage-jar), and who supposedly told Alexander the Great to move out of his sun. In his own time his fame was such that Aristotle in his work on rhetoric could refer to him simply as ‘the Cynic’ without need of further identification. For Plato he was ‘Socrates gone mad’, on account of his having taken Socrates’ simple way of life to extremes. To posterity he seems something of an eccentric, or an exhibitionist, the subject of numerous anecdotes, many of them of highly dubious historical worth. No writings of his remain, if there ever were any – only numerous records of his ‘sayings’ and deeds, some in mutually contradictory versions, and many of questionable accuracy.

Yet if Diogenes remains by far the most famous of the Cynics, he wasn’t the first of his line. That honour belongs to his teacher Antisthenes, who had in turn been influenced by Socrates, whom he knew. In general the Socratic inheritance of Cynicism lies in an indifference to wealth, comfort, and convention, and the emphasis on living one’s life in the single-minded pursuit of virtue. Diogenes took over this inheritance and remade it as his own. Socrates, after all, may have had little taste for material comforts, and may have gone barefoot, but, like most people, he lived in a house not a barrel; he had a wife and children: he even had a profession, although he rarely seemed to practise it. The Cynic, by contrast, has no family, no ties to kith and kin, thumbs his nose at all social conventions, is averse to work except in times of extreme necessity, and revels in his freedom from constraints.

Diogenes was no isolated eccentric, simply the most famous exponent of a philosophical movement that lasted (with intermissions) close to a thousand years. Saint Augustine in his City of God (426 AD) reports with a certain distaste that “Even today we still see Cynic philosophers” although by then they were beginning to be a diminishing species: the last known Cynic, Sallustius of Emessa, expired at the beginning of the following century. Cynicism was a serious issue to early Christian apologists, and Diogenes was the subject of a surviving work by Emperor Julian of Rome (332-363 AD, known as ‘the Apostate’ because he tried to reintroduce paganism to the Roman Empire). In it Julian praises Cynicism in general as “a type of philosophy – not the worst or meanest either, but one of the best” and sets Diogenes up as an exemplar of how to live, comparing him with the decadent Cynics of his own times. (It should be said that Julian’s Diogenes is a somewhat sanitised version.) In general, it appears that Cynicism enjoyed less popularity among the Romans than the Greeks – perhaps because it offended too much against reverence and custom – and flourished best in the Hellenized cities of the Eastern Provinces. In these cities Cynics – recognized at once by their ‘uniform’, consisting of a single cloak (folded double when it was cold), a walking-staff, and a travelling-bag, and by their matted hair and unkempt beards – were, it seems, a familiar sight, anticipating hospitality in return for a display of wit and wisdom: that is, for their satirical tongues and their unlicensed telling of home truths... (continues)

175 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:47 PM CDT

    Jacob Hamm
    H-03

    [Is it "reasonable to suppose that every sort of world crop[s] up somewhere"? (109)]

    This introduction to primitive versions of modern science, like that of atoms and psychology, mimics what we now theorize about the possibility of a multiverse. Multiverse theory states that for every potential event, there exists an universe where that action is reality. So if we look at the "sort of world" as an entire universe, we could theorize an unlimited number of them could potentially exist.

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  2. Anastasia Hanes H-032:49 AM CDT

    Since today's reading seem to be about science and spirituality, do you think that the two can both be held harmoniously? Or do you think that the two fields will always be used as the sort of warring mindsets they are often presented as? Is it in any way subversive to one field to try and make them fit with the other?

    I have had a lot of debates with people saying changing the concepts of an abstract belief system to make them fit with a concrete principle is against the point of having faith in one's beliefs or saying that to truly understand and explore the explanations of the hard sciences you have to let go of any preconceived notions about "supernatural" forces. I am just curious what you guy's thoughts on the matter may be.

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    1. H-03

      I guess I am one of those who believe that the two can be held harmoniously. I hate this line that says you have to be one or the other. I look at nature and I can acknowledge that God created this and this and this and that. However, that doesn't and should not stop me from exploring the process of creation.

      It rained last week. The Imam/Priest/Rabbi says God made it rain. Cool, but that doesn't mean we should not learn how rain forms and falls. I see our world and the universe as organized systems, that at the core of it all, God created these organized systems and that our belief in God should not stop us from learning what God did. Why is learning about the world not appreciated as a religious act of its own? Why is it only considered religious to sit and pray and be a 'decent person'? What better way is there to practice belief in God than to learn about the natural world and understand the complexity of how everything works and appreciate it that way? To be a scientist is just as much of a religious act than being an imam, a priest, or a rabbi. That's how I see it.

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    2. Science and spirituality seem to be two drastically different things. But, in truth, both of them are just ways of trying to understand the world. We rely heavily on science and shun spirituality because there is proof in science. But then again, the only thing we know for certain is that we know nothing. Spirituality could be just as reliable to understand the universe as science.

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    3. Erica Combs3:58 PM CDT

      H1- I believe that a higher being created the science we know and love so I think in some sense the two can be held harmoniously.

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    4. Sky Strube H014:58 PM CDT

      This post and its comments actually reminded me of a cutscene from Mass Effect Andromeda! Suvi kind of covers what was mentioned here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRTj00nvxWg

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    5. H01- I do not see the two as mutually exclusive at all. To me, there is an amount of faith you must possess in either doctrine to fully adopt it. In some cases, combining the two doctrines together makes it easier to justify and understand our world.

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    6. I mix science and spirituality. Most people don't know that since I usually pronounce my liking of facts, but on a deeper level I like to mix the two.

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    7. Abby Pittman section 6
      I feel like this is a difficult thing to argue. Science is our understanding of the physical world and how it works. There's proof in science, but spirituality is mostly faith based. It's difficult to ignore the facts of science, but with religion, you can choose which beliefs you want to follow. They're two different things, but I do think they can function together.

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    8. Section 13
      I believe similar things as most of the replies; I don't think that spirituality and science are mutually exclusive at all. Even though spirituality is reliant on faith, science is also not completely infallible most of the time. People put blind faith into science as well, trusting it to tell them the truth in the same way that believers do with spiritual things. To me, science is more reliable, but it doesn't mean that I can't have spiritual aspects that I believe in.

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    9. It seems to me that they are mutually exclusive. Science is based solely on fact and when not the most likely option with as many factors pointing towards it as possible. If not proven science does not guarantee it is correct. Spirituality is based on faith and belief. There is no proof in what spirituality is involved in only the idea that it is correct. I see the two as naturally compatible.

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  3. H-03

    1. If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)

    - It's a more than a reasonable belief to think there is no life after death. Religious faiths suggest that there is another part of you- your spirit that lives on after you die, so that although your body may not be physically in the afterlife, your spirit/soul is. I believe in some sense that there is more to you than your physical body and presence in the physical world.

    2. Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?

    - Yes, definitely. Practice in faith should not prevent us from gaining knowledge about the world, about ourselves, and what makes us. Just as philosophy embraces various other philosophies to understand life better, religious institutions need to motivate this thought as well.

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    1. Your body is made of atoms as far as we know, but the only thing we can know for certain is that we know nothing. So there can most definitely be something more to you than you physical body as you say.

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    2. Erica Combs3:56 PM CDT

      H1-Your response to the first question reminds me of the poem "Body and Soul" by Charles Wright. The poet Rumi also has several poems on the separation of the physical body and the soul that resides in it.

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    3. I've never really had a strong stance on if I believe that there is a separation between body and soul. I always leaned more towards no because each person has their own personalized soul/spirit, but I guess if people want to believe that you live on after you die, they have to connect to your spirit

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    4. Section 13
      The way that I make sense of the entire life after death argument is the first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed. So, as crazy as it seems to think that there is some type of life after death, there are some things that could make it believable.

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  4. Anastasia Hanes H-0311:04 AM CDT

    DQ1
    I feel that the concept of the afterlife is a bit too abstract to be disproved by the atomist framework alone merely because even in modern times we cannot fully claim to understand everything about these minuscule building blocks of matter. Ancient atomism put a heavy emphasis on the differences between appearance and reality in many cases which leaves it open to criticism in it’s take on the soul because since the soul cannot be observed it may to may not differ from the perceived limitations of observable atoms. Democritus himself spoken on the kind of knowing which is achieved through senses and another which is achieved through understanding, which he believed to be purer according to the text. Since, from a modern perspective, we know that everything is in fact made of atoms but not atoms in the exact way described by the Presocratic atomists yet we continue to believe in an afterlife could be explained several ways. Perhaps, like the American’s of Fantasyland, we chose to continue to believe in an afterlife despite the evidence of atoms simple because we can make the choice to believe what we wish and ignore reality. Perhaps it is because the differences in the Presocratic idea of atoms and our current understanding of them differs to the point that their use as evidence against life after death is similarly changed. My personal belief is that an afterlife can exist even though everything is made of atoms because the soul can be bound by a different set of rules, like we discussed with the dualism of spirit and body in eastern philosophy. Anchoring more heavily into science though, we have evidence of things that do not behave like normal atoms such as photons and other energy waves that could possibly be argued support the possibility of the soul and thus a state after after death without discrediting that the world is in fact made up of atoms. Hard science can’t really answer those types of questions alone however which is why it pays to think in more abstract and spiritual terms as are learned through philosophy.

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    1. I like your answer. Just like we can't expect spirituality to answer every kind of question we have, we also can't expect science to answer every question either.

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    2. H02: I agree with you Arif, I have the same belief that science can't always answer ever question.

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    3. I don't think science will ever be able to answer every question. Every time a question is answered it results in even more being asked. Spirituality fills the cracks that science leaves. Almost as mortal fills in and holds a brick in place.

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  5. Jonathan Wagner H0-312:18 PM CDT

    Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?

    Atomism, through Democritus’ eyes, freed the believers from the lies of priests. It now is scientifically close to proven, and less important to our understanding of life. It inherently answers only a few questions about the building blocks of nature and has no bearing on the lives of the people atoms make up. He believed knowing more about the scientific pieces to everything made him “liberated”. His feelings have more to do with his theory having scientific merit than it does his theory being life-changing

    What difference does it make, if particles are inseparable from forces and fields and bundles of energy and thus cannot be proved to be "unsplittable" (as the ancient atomists said)?

    As with the apple example, there is no piece of anything that isn’t jagged and uneven at a molecular level. His understanding of the “unsplittable” atom reinforced his idea that everything is one thing, mixed and interacted with itself. Because the atoms are impenetrably strong, they are building blocks that come together.

    DQ Fantasy Land:
    Does the romantic reality that Americans felt after the Gold Rush imply a negative shift in the entrepreneur spirit that created America?

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  6. If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    Thought cannot be boiled down to a simple reaction between a few atoms. There is a lot more going on in our minds like electric pulses and releasing of dopamine to remember in the PFC. Since there is so much going on in the mind, we freely think to what our minds enable us to.

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  7. If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?

    I do not believe the argument against this is necessarily stating if there is actual life after death, because the short answer is yes, there certainly is. Single celled organisms continue to thrive and prosper within our bodies long after we are decomposed and merged into the soil in the ground. I think the real question that everyone is wanting to inquire about is: is there consciousness after death? Are we able to perceive another life through our system of understanding, or do all the lights just go out and everything in our realm of what we knew to exist just becomes void?

    Personally, I believe there is no consciousness after death. The reason why our personalities and quirks and characteristics are the way they are is due to the firing of different neurological receptions within our brains. And all of that essentially ceases to exist once the blood stops rushing to our head, and our most important organ is deprived of the life giving oxygen it needs to function, aka: when death occurs. Once those fine tuned, sensitive connections are disrupted, we no longer embody the aspects of ourselves that gives each one of us a ‘soul’. So, when death occurs, we become a lifeless collection of cells that are not able to represent our persona the way we were when we were alive. It is a cynical way to look at life after death, and I would like to believe that there is some kind of realm where we can exist as the personality we presented to the world, but the biological reality is too loud to tune out completely.

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  8. H03

    It's astonishing to think about human's like Democritus who were pondering the big questions at the dawn of deep thinking. Some questions included: what's the smallest (indivisible) thing, how big is our universe, and where did it all come from. My interpretations of these questions compared and contrasted with Atomism are dumbed down versions of possible answers to these questions. Roughly a couple thousand years ago, Democritus determined that the smallest (indivisible) thing in the universe is an atom. Of course, later we found out we could break it down a little more, but that's as far as we got. Although, Democritus might have been reaching for an answer in his time, we can now say for sure that he was in fact mostly right just lacking all scientific backing. These little "atoms" determine us as biological beings, so to say we then simply die and degrade is completely factual in my mind. Simply, science has proven as much. But as humans, the argument is, we must consider two attributes about ourselves: the mind and the body. I am referring to our biological being and our spiritual being. In turn we created religion long before Democritus developed his theories about the atom. The general way humans look at these two areas two different entities... the one that dies (biological being-Science) and the one that lives forever (spiritual being-Religion). When we could look at them as connected through time and space: if one dies the other dies, if one lives forever then the other lives forever. But if we are purely talking about atoms and their properties then we all die, decompose, and become something else (give way to new life). No matter what theory you choose there's one problem in common with them all. No knows for sure. Heaven or not I believe ones atoms won't make it to heaven. They will stay on Earth and give way to new life. And as for my spirit... well I'm still trying to figure that out.

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  9. H03
    Alt. DQ:

    Are humans indivisible at the atomic level? In other words, are humans proven chemistry thus indivisible at the atomic level or is there something scientific beyond the atomic level that could be studied that makes up human spirituality?

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    1. That's an interesting question. I'd like to think that there's a way to study human spirituality, but at the very least I want to say we're just not that advanced yet. When it comes to spirituality though, each person is different, so while we're all made up of the same thing, what makes us different is our spirit/soul

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    2. I agree, I feel that everyone definitely is different spiritually. We all have qualities about ourselves that set us apart from others out there. I think that chemistry may not be at that level yet but soon, it might.
      (section 12)

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  10. Erica Combs3:35 PM CDT

    H1-
    What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    Practices such as numerology and the law of attraction are two types of pseudoscience that are prevalent today. Numerology is the belief that each letter of the alphabet is given a number and each number has a certain vibration. A person's characteristics can apparently be determined by combining the number's vibrations in relation to the letters in their name, the spelling out of their birthday, etc. The Law of Attraction also has to do with vibrations. this "Law" states that everything vibrates a certain frequency and to attract those things into your life, you must vibrate at a similar frequency. For example, positive attributes of life vibrate at a higher frequency and therefore one would wish to vibrate at a higher frequency. You can raise your frequency by eating certain foods, wearing certain stones, and doing many other things.

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    1. Sky Strube H014:52 PM CDT

      Wow, I'm guilty of this and I didn't even realize! I have a rose quartz stone and they're always said to attract love (which is super important to me) so I wear and carry it all the time. I didn't know about this so thank you for informing me!!

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    2. I've never stopped to really think that each person could be separated by something like vibrations. This is an extremely interesting perspective and I had no idea it was considered a form of pseudoscience.

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    3. Erica,
      I never knew that you could change your frequency by doing things as simple as eating a particular food. That's quite interesting!

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  11. Erica Combs3:42 PM CDT

    H1-

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?

    Atoms make up the physical world that humans know and only know. After death, I believe there to be a state of existence that is abstract. We would need no type of sustenance to maintain atoms and the atmosphere around us would be unlike anything we've ever experienced. I do not believe the afterlife to be like anything that we have experienced on Earth.

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    1. Does that means that there is a spirit within us that manifests this abstract afterlife?

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  12. Sky Strube H014:41 PM CDT

    What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    A form of pseudoscience that's practiced today is hypnosis. Some people swear by it and some people say it didn't affect them in the slightest.

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    1. Sky Strube H015:04 PM CDT

      Another is Feng Shui! I know, though, that it's not originally a Western concept and that we've morphed the phrase into meaning what is more aesthetically pleasing instead of it's concrete meaning.

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    2. My first year at MTSU, a hypnotist came and performed in the Tucker Theater. At one point he had about a dozen participants up on stage and he would tap them on the shoulder as he went along to tell them to make their way off the stage, and he did this because he could tell that certain people wouldn't properly participate in the act. Hypnosis isn't proven to work, and an experience like that makes me think that it probably never will.

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  13. This is in tandem with the question on what controls our minds. Our brains are what ultimately control us, thus I think that even calling us spectators of our brains is giving too much credit.

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  14. This is a response to the question of the afterlife. The afterlife is a construct created by those who don't like the unknown that follows death. We, as humans, simply die and decompose and become a part of the earth. On an atomic level, the "afterlife" is the life we give to the earth by dying.

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  15. H01

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)

    I wouldn't say there are no life after death. Even though your physical body is not alive, the atoms that make up your body is still around. Your spirit can also live on in those that are closest to you.

    Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?

    I believe atomism does indeed liberate us from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of pritests because what is there to fear after death if we are all going to break down into atoms.

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    1. Marie Hussels H0111:33 PM CDT

      I like your interpretation of atomism liberating us from the fears of life. It is a comforting thought to believe that at the end of the day no matter what happens we all will be just atoms. In a way this could show us to live in the moment.

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  16. H01

    By Pericles' definition, do we have a democracy? (115)

    Pericles' definition of democracy is the governing of a nation in the "hands of the first citizen."

    What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    Some forms of pseudoscience I see today is ESP which is extra sensory perception. ESP includes supernatural happenings and fortune telling.

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  17. responding to "Sometimes, pseudosciences like phrenology have worked to reinforce racism. What other instances are there of pseudoscience's involvement in supporting bigotry?"

    Well sure, the slat earth society has been hostile to people for thinking that our planet is round, people who believe in astrology use their 'sign' as an excuse to be negative to people. For example " sorry Im a tuarus I cant help it" its like no you just are mean. I have met fake moon landing people who get very fired up and hostile about their beliefs. but that may be related to the type of person who follows such a thing not what it teaches. so I change my answer to no.

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    1. Section 13
      I really believe that psuedosciences are a product of people being afraid of admitting they do not know or cannot explain something. I know many people who are extremely passionate about their horoscope, and I truly believe that it is because they have something that can define them so they do not have to do it themselves.

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  18. i think this was a separate question so i will answer it as such "Do you think there are critical life-moments that harden a person's character into "some lifelong shape of good or bad?"

    Id defiantly say yes to this. its like the phrase "life changing event" for example if god forbid that someone's mom died in a car wreck, they wont have their mom anymore. so that will forever change their trajectory of what a person could be.

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    1. H02: I also agree with you. Many people's perception of good and bad or just life in general is shaped by critical life moments that they have lived through. These things, good or bad, can alter a person's perceptions for the rest of their lives.

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    2. Maclae,
      I do agree as well with Chance that people perceive things based on how they were raised, and what they have been through. Simple things to other people may be considered as scary to others. It really can have a lasting effect.

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  19. Marie Hussels H0111:30 PM CDT

    "If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)"
    Not necessarily, the afterlife may also be composed of atoms. Considering we do not see what goes on on a molecular level it is impossible to tell what truly happens after death. If the answer was that simple people would know by now.

    "What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?"
    Today a lot of people are turning to cure-all herbs and natural substitutes. Every time I look through social media without fail I will see a post about some substance that is guaranteed to cure everything from headaches to lung cancer. Of course, natural medicines may cure some ailments but it is a bit far fetched to say that people should try and cure themselves of severe diseases with unproven remedies.

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  20. Marie Hussels H0111:37 PM CDT

    "Does atomism "liberate[us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?
    I believe that it does. At the end of time, we will all be just atoms and so we should live our lives in a way that is not held back by fear. If we live as just atoms we live in harmony with the universe.

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  21. Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?

    H01- I personally do not have a fear of death. I am pretty comfortable with the reality that I will die, I would like to think. But I think many people who are scared of dying, are scared of the oblivion that comes in death and the way they will fade from others' memories and consciousnesses, leaving them essentially forgotten. In this example, I do not think the idea that we are all essentially atoms would be freeing or comforting because it would reinforce the fear of life after death as oblivion.

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  22. H01
    (If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100))

    I don't really like to think of the afterlife much, mostly because I'm just interested in living my life as it is now. If I had to think about it though, I think that there's a stage after death that we're just not consciously aware of. It's hard to make an educated assumption when no one's every experienced it before.

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    1. I agree it is best to think of the present and what you can do for your future rather then the afterlife.

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  23. answering DQ "Entrepreneurism is essential to many understandings of the American economy (consider the emphasized importance of small-businesses and self-starters). What do you think of Andersen's criticism, that there are the "forgotten millions of losers?"

    Well I think that the fundamentals of America are no guarantees, and the only person holding you back is you and a lot of people are not willing to throw everything they have out there in pursuit of a successful life. so I think that is what Anderson means, but who is he to classify millions of people as losers? For example if there is a husband and wife both working at somewhat medium level jobs, living comfortably but they have kids and good family, are they considered losers? Because if I had a wife that loved me and maybe some kids and I lived in America with a house, that's pretty freaking good if you were to ask me?

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  24. H01
    If thought consists in the motion of mind-atom, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    I believe that we are capable of thinking freely when we choose to do so. A majority of the time we believe that we know best. We know how to handle certain situations. We know everything. That is not the case. There are times in our lives when the best thing for us to do is to allow things to play out. This is when we become spectators.

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  25. H01
    Do you ever feel the need to sit back and allow things to just past you by?

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    1. 1030-10
      Yes, and for a while its nice, its like theres no pain almost nothing in general. Its like your under laughing gas or something. But then I realize I'm letting my whole life slip away and I don't wanna "wake up" to late and not be able to go back.

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    2. Anonymous1:02 PM CDT

      Yes, because i believe sometimes there's nothing you CAN do, and you just need to sit back, watch and learn.

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  26. Samual Shapiro H0210:47 AM CDT

    "If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?"

    This is the most recent edition of the infamous "free will" question. If our brains are just made up of atoms and currents, which are under the laws of physics, undergoing reactions to simulate thought, are we actually thinking, or just in the middle of a long chain of chemical reactions? If we can predict the traits of certain particles, can we eventually examine every particle of our brain and know every thought our brain could think? As an amateur physicist and philosopher, I would say maybe. Because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, knowing the exact velocity and position of a particle is impossible, so we could never fully predict the thoughts a mind is capable of, even if it is composed of atoms. However, this does not guarantee that our minds control themselves. I certainly feel like I control myself, but I can't deny the possibility that I only feel that way because of the way the particles that control my mind interact with each other.

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  27. H01
    “Grim walk”

    I think most of the time I take walks as a form of therapy. Being able to breath and slow down ask focus on only my thoughts and the pattern of the movement of my feet is soothing and calming. Walking usually helps me to gain much needed perspective.

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    1. H-02
      I feel like it provides an environment free from other influences. It can help you achieve an objective view of the problem at hand.

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    2. H02: I also walk as a way to relieve stress. I agree that when walking if I only focus on my thoughts, it helps me to calm down and relieve stress. Sometimes when I am mad I will take a walk and it often helps me to get things straight in my head.

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  28. DQ "What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?"

    I think today we see most commonly things like astrology. Also commonly there are posters of phrenology in pretty hip stores like urban outfitters. but we live in TN so there are not a lot of those here really. In my opinion

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  29. h1

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)

    I believe that there is no afterlife for the physical body. The spirit of a human is a different matter. It is not a physical entity, so it is not tied to the restrictions of an atom. I say that to day, there is an afterlife for one's spirit, but not one's body.

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  30. h1

    Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?

    No. Atomic science deals with the physical. The afterlife deals with the spiritual aspect of a being. The tyranny of priests is present though. Christians, in their aggressive evangelical efforts, become counter productive. They freak people out and push them away.

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  31. h1

    If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    The mind-atoms are simply the physical mechanism of our free thought. This means that we can freely think our own thoughts. Where our thoughts originate are a matter of what information we take in (of which all is stored in the inner consciousness) and how we interpret it.

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  32. h1

    What difference does it make, if particles are inseparable from forces and fields and bundles of energy and thus cannot be proved to be "unsplittable" (as the ancient atomists said)?

    That means that everything today is made of the same exact atoms that beings of the past are made of.

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  33. h1

    Is it "reasonable to suppose that every sort of world crop[s] up somewhere"? (109)

    To me, this sounds like a question of multiple universes. Referring to Rick and Morty, there seems to be infinite universes containing all the possibilities for each world. I do not have enough information to have my own opinion on the matter.

    ReplyDelete
  34. H1

    Comment on Dawkins' "selfish gene" statement about meaning and design. (110)

    The selfish gene is at play in all of our beings. One of our main struggles as humans is to eschew our selfish impulse and act based on what is best for the world.

    ReplyDelete
  35. h1

    Proposed DQ: Are we inherently selfish? Why?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. H-02
      We are absolutely inherently selfish. The primary drive for our instincts is to keep us alive. While we've got the capacity to put others before ourselves, ultimately we aim to keep ourselves alive and healthy.

      Delete
    2. Mehraeil Zaki1:19 PM CDT

      Very interesting question that I have thought about multiple times. The way we grow up teaches us to take care of ourselves. We as humans love being safe and if anything can hurt that safety, we avoid it. I do not think that is a bad thing anyhow.

      Delete
    3. H02: I agree that the way we are often thought is to take care of ourselves which can sometimes lead some to become a person who only focuses on themselves. Yet this isn't always an awful thing. Many times I have found you have to look out for yourself because not too many people are.

      Delete
  36. H1

    What do you think of Democritus's view of children (112)?

    Children are raw beings. They have not yet learned the ways of society or whether these ways are right. They cannot hardly discern between right and wrong and have yet to begin to consider other people i.e. the world revolves around them.

    ReplyDelete
  37. H1

    Proposed DQ: How do your views of children relate to those of Democitus?

    ReplyDelete
  38. H1

    What do you think of Democritus's "preaching"? (112)

    Democritus is definitely a preacher. He gets on rants and feels very strongly about his positions. I think this is fine. He has thoroughly thought through his stances, but that does not mean that agreeing with him is necessary. It is not wise to believe someone based solely on their passion.

    ReplyDelete
  39. One phrase I really liked from the Joys of Walking was on page 68-69, and it read, "The secret beauties of Nature are unveiled only to the cross country walker." This was in the section we were meant to read, and I think it's important because of a discussion in class of the author who would walk in nature so he could create a story that he could write when he got home

    ReplyDelete
  40. H1

    By Pericles' definition, do we have a democracy? (115)

    Pericle defines a democracy as a nation run by the first citizens. I believe that by "first citizen" he means the original citizens. By these definitions, I do not believe that we have a very effective democracy. There are not equal voices, and those with money have the power.


    ReplyDelete
  41. One question that I would like to add is about the Mark Twain quote that described the faults of homeopaths.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Another good question is what did they mean by the line, "History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. H-02
      I feel as though is it ultimately saying that history repeats itself but not always exactly. For example, the rise of dictator has happened over and over but never been exactly the same.

      Delete
  43. H1

    Was Socrates a Sophist?

    Yes. He was in search of wisdom, making him a shophist

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brian Perez1:26 PM CDT

      Sophists used their opinions things and various forms of deception to teach people and make money off of them.
      Philosophers are people who use their love of wisdom to seek the truth. Socrates, one who believed truths were absolute, had no interest in making money off of what he found truthful.

      Delete
  44. Ethan Young11:50 AM CDT

    (H02) If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)

    From one view, yes. Atoms are material substances and all things are made of atoms. So, it is logical to assume life ends when our current atoms decay and cease to exist. However, with the emergence of dark matter and the void, this sort of antithesis of life yet alive ideology can be taken as afterlife. If life does exist after death, it is possible it could exist in this anti matter form or some ethereal form of it.

    ReplyDelete
  45. H1

    Entrepreneurism is essential to many understandings of the American economy (consider the emphasized importance of small-businesses and self-starters). What do you think of Andersen's criticism, that there are the "forgotten millions of losers?"

    American capitalism and entrepreneurship are fueled by self-motivation. One will get out of the economy exactly what they put into it. The "losers" have none but themselves to blame, but I would not call them losers. That is a very black and white view. There are plenty of people in the grey area of the economy who have not lost or won.

    ReplyDelete
  46. H1
    Discussion Q's
    1) The thought of life after death comes from a spiritual belief, and cannot be affected by atoms.
    2) Short answer is no. Atomism just says that our atoms will always exist but our soul and the way we live will change with death.
    3) Free will could mean that we are the ones changing those atoms.
    4) This means that everything in the world is somehow connected.
    Alternate discussion Q's
    - If everything is made of atoms, for those that believe in god(s) is God made of atoms?
    - If the technology was not there to se atoms, why did so many people believe Democritus?
    - Can people's belief of atoms not be compared to that of religion?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. I'm sure if God(s) is made out of atoms, even though everything else is made out of atoms. But if they are not made out of atoms, then what are they made out of?
      Interesting and Challenging Questions

      Delete
  47. H1

    Have you ever taken a "grim" walk in response to life's stubborn difficulty? How does it compare to what the author describes? Do you think there are critical life-moments that harden a person's character into "some lifelong shape of good or bad?"

    Yes, taking a walk to sort through the grim matters of life has been a great way for me to sort through those issues. given that the author is a peripatetic, I assume his view is similar. These grim happenings in one's life definitely can affect them. Their interpretation of the events will have the greatest impact on what direction the effect will take.

    ReplyDelete
  48. H1

    Proposed questions: Where do atoms come from? What is their source of energy that causes their constant motion?

    ReplyDelete
  49. Ethan Young11:59 AM CDT

    (H02) If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    It is two-fold. We are conscience thinkers, yet some thought is sporadic and comes unconsciously. The difference is in awareness. We can be aware and think in specific terms or a certain way, but sometimes our mind wonders and is active by itself, thus we become passive observers of our minds.

    ReplyDelete
  50. H1

    Proposed DQ: How does you intersect the scientific and religious world to reach truth? Need there be an intersection?

    ReplyDelete
  51. H1

    Proposed DQ: What is the role of thought in the world? Is it physical? Does it create reality?

    ReplyDelete
  52. H-02
    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)
    If taken at surface value, one can assume this equates to no life after death. I mean, the human personality is made up of electrical surges and nothing more. However, this is true of every other animal, and humans are the only one with consciousness. One could attribute this to evolution and other things, but the pure coincidence of humans being the most advanced species is evidence enough of the afterlife for some.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Ethan Young12:39 PM CDT

    (H02) What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    Some so called "natural" methods of healing or rejuvenation are among the most popular. Ads for ancient technics or special concoctions that our ancestors used centuries before modern science and medicine that is more affective and "healthier' than others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting! I completely agree with you, but it's funny, your description also reminds me of commercials for pharmacy medications! They make it seem like life is happier in every way if you just take this pill, which is essentially a compressed "concoction" of chemicals with numerous side effects that can make you sick in other ways.

      Section 13

      Delete
  54. H01

    Well, atoms cannot be created nor destroyed, so it seems that in that thought process, there is life after death since atoms just become repurposed.

    Although dependent on one’s point of view or ideals, it would seem like it would liberate us from such fear or superstition because of the facts about atoms.

    I feel like we freely think our own thoughts and our ‘mind-atoms’ create new bonds and become repurposed after such thought and beliefs have been established.

    It would create issue with such belief that atoms will just continuously be repurposed thus changing what atomism is. I don’t believe that particles are inseparable from forces and fields and bundles of energy. Atoms and energy cannot be created nor destroyed, however it is just continuously used, recharged, and repurposed in many ways, shapes, and forms.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mehraeil Zaki1:15 PM CDT

      Your first sentence is very interesting actually. Never thought to think about the idea of after death with relation to atoms being indestructible.

      Delete
  55. Ethan Young12:43 PM CDT

    (H02) Have you ever taken a "grim" walk in response to life's stubborn difficulty? How does it compare to what the author describes? Do you think there are critical life-moments that harden a person's character into "some lifelong shape of good or bad?"

    I have before and it has been quite helpful to regain optimism when one undergoes a variety of pessimistic circumstances. I wouldn't say such experiences or life-moments define your character, but they can certainly influence your thinking and opinions about life or your situation, From that, it is quite possible to fall into pits of good or bad for prolonged periods of time.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Topher Kashif12:43 PM CDT

    H01

    Well, atoms cannot be created nor destroyed, so it seems that in that thought process, there is life after death since atoms just become repurposed.

    Although dependent on one’s point of view or ideals, it would seem like it would liberate us from such fear or superstition because of the facts about atoms.

    I feel like we freely think our own thoughts and our ‘mind-atoms’ create new bonds and become repurposed after such thought and beliefs have been established.

    It would create issue with such belief that atoms will just continuously be repurposed thus changing what atomism is. I don’t believe that particles are inseparable from forces and fields and bundles of energy. Atoms and energy cannot be created nor destroyed, however it is just continuously used, recharged, and repurposed in many ways, shapes, and forms.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Section 9

      When I die, I might dissolve into discreet components that will end up in a rock or a fish. Since we're composed of atoms and our consciousness is a mechanism of that material knowing itself, where does consciousness go after the atoms disperse and reconfigure themselves? I don't think individual components will know of themselves (or their prior roles) when they become a part of a new, different composition, so in that sense, it seems the consciousness would die.

      Delete
  57. Mehraeil Zaki1:12 PM CDT

    DQ: Why do we trust historical evidence over historical testimonies?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1030-10
      I think we involuntarily think that with "scientific" evidence whatever the claim must be true. Fact is the only thing we have to fall back on. I think we think, again involuntarily somewhere deep deep down in the subconsious, the evidence has just existed since the beginning of time, that the evidence has no human error. While with a testimony it has come from a person, whether under oath or not any person can lie, and we have seen people under oath lie. We know people lie and when we think testimony we think human.

      Delete
    2. Testimonies can have different viewpoints but evidence is solid which is why it is more preferred .sec 13

      Delete
  58. Quiz Questions:
    1. What did Diogenes the Cynic tell Alexander the Great to do?
    2. What is Cynicism and why was Diogenes a Cynic?
    3. Who was the only sophist to whom ancient sources ascribe relativistic views?
    4. According to Democritus how did life arise?
    5. How does Democritus' view of the world relate to Heraclitus’s idea of things never reaching being but always becoming?

    Discussion Question:
    1. Was Protagoras a relativist?
    Protagoras was a sophist, but he was the only sophist with relativist views. However, even those were problematic.

    2. If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?
    According to Democritus' theory everything is composed of atoms. His theory was eventually proven, because we now know for certain that everything is composed of atoms. Democritus also believed that this is part of how the world begins and ends which supports the idea of there being no life after death.

    3. Is Socrates a sophist?
    No, Socrates is a philosopher and was interested in philosophical questions and ideas, however he was not a sophist. Even so, he still commented on Protagoras' ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  59. 1030-10

    1)Alternate quiz questions:

    a)Who said, “By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color: in reality atoms and void?”
    b)Who wrote the book, “The Great Cosmology?”
    c)What is the legend regarding Leucippus?
    d)Who was Leucippus’s disciple?
    e)What does Democritus say about every world?

    ReplyDelete
  60. If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)
    If everything is composed of atoms, I much rather think that there is life after death. In science, matter and energy cannot simply vanish. It simply passes on from one place to another. We are all but a ball of matter and energy and atoms. Should we pass, our energy and matter, our being, would simply be transferred from one place to the next.

    Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?
    I do not think it liberates us. Our nature is to to be superstitious and to fear death. If we pursue religion, we will always be surrounded by some form of tyranny from priests. What may separate us as atomists is the way that we handle these things.

    What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?
    I see the form of pseudoscience with simple things such as not vaccinating your children. It is proven that vaccinations will give you the antibodies you need to be able to fight off the better part of a disease, but many people do not vaccinate and, instead, choose simply to say that it isn't vaccinations that help but the food that they eat or the environment that they are in.

    Have you ever taken a "grim" walk in response to life's stubborn difficulty? How does it compare to what the author describes? Do you think there are critical life-moments that harden a person's character into "some lifelong shape of good or bad?"
    I have taken a grim walk before. I have taken a grim walk when I realized that there are simply some things that I cannot change no matter how much I want to change it. I believe that it does harden our lives. It truly rocks our world when we first learn of it as we may have been told different since our childhood, but when we know differently, it destroys the very foundation that we have had. But when we overcome it, it hardens us. It makes us sharper than ever.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 006
      DQ Questions

      1. Do you think with the ease that different forms of religion are created back then could influence someone to create a form of religion now? How easy is it to create one? How easy is to believe in it?
      2. Do you agree with what the first job category is? Why or why not?
      3. Is life simply comprised of atoms? If so, what should motivate us to do anything?
      4. What are some instances in your life that you take a grim walk but realize it had no true effect?

      Delete
  61. Myia Wright 1030-006
    DQ
    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that their is no life after death?
    From a scientific stand point, energy does not die, it just passes through and transforms. So, I believe there is life after death because our energy and atoms just pass into our next form

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree, in a sense, but I can't say what that could mean in terms of the afterlife or what it is.

      Delete
  62. Section 9

    If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    Try to stop thinking about a thought. It's nearly impossible. The flow of thoughts is a constant current. Some we pay attention to with our consciousness, others pass through our mind unnoticed.
    My question would be, if the consciousness is made of atoms, who or what is directing them when you make a choice?

    If your answer is "me," and me is a collection of atoms, who or what is controlling the orientation of them that results in free will?

    ReplyDelete
  63. Section 9

    I think Anderson is a little harsh on the entrepreneurial spirit in America. Yes, many more businesses will fail than turn a profit, but those that are successful are the drivers of new industries. Large sectors of our economy have been created from ideas some saw as harebrained schemes. Those that fail to turn a profit are still trying and contributing to the economy.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Owen Martin11:37 AM CST

    DQ: What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?
    A: There is a lot of actual belief in magic today in witchcraft and new age movements that seem to be becoming more popular.

    DQ: If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)
    A: Not necessarily. The idea that everything is composed of atoms is by definition a physical rather than metaphysical thought and wouldn't have much say on the idea that the mind or soul could live on after the physical has died. If everything physical is made of atoms, then there is still room for a soul which could continue into a life after death.

    DQ:Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?
    A: For the same reason as the last DQ, atomism does not free us from metaphysical thought on its own, so it does not necessarily free us from superstition, fear, or responsibility to religion. For the same reason as well, if things are entirely material and there is no spiritual mind or soul, this would free us however.

    DQ:If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?
    A: If our thoughts are purely made of physical nature reacting to events around us in this manner then we do not have complete control of our thoughts if we have any at all. In this way, we would at least to some degree be spectators upon our own minds.

    Alternate quiz question: Who were the pair of sister who claimed to be mediums and "spiritualists" who could talk to the dead and decades later admitted to their false claims?
    A: The Fox Sisters

    AQ: What did Revered Darby consider a "harbinger of Armageddon?"
    A: The telegraph

    ReplyDelete
  65. If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)

    Yes, I believe that essentially we are only able to produce thought from the collective team work of atoms in our body, that then in turn make up our cells. Our cells came together on a standpoint of increased survival. From the unification of countless cells we are able to think, to feel, to do anything our bodies are capable of, but once we die. Our atoms will just dissipate into the surroundings. We will just cease to exist, or cease all thoughts. There is no life after death, because we lack the atoms and cells to produce thought. So maybe we will scatter throughout the cosmos, and still be "there", but we wont be sentient or conscious.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?

    Yes I believe it gives you a kind of perspective of relating your small existence to the scale of the neverending cosmos, it makes you feel unimportant. And that feelings, that viewpoint is portrayed on other by thinking atomistically, because we view things in should a mundane way, we could think, "Whats the point?", or "Why bother?". Therefore, thinking like that generally makes those problems seem less of a bother and just plain and simply there, nothing more, nothing less. For example, if a priest threatened you, by saying you will burn in hell if you don't do X. Well... technically you both would return to the earth as nutrients for the land, and their mental capacity will vanish. We wouldn't be aware after death.

    ReplyDelete
  67. If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    I strongly do not believe we are just meager bystanders in our mind, and logically speaking, those mind atoms ARE us. They are a part of us from the many atoms coming together to form our body, and how "thought" is perceived, I think once we receive stimuli, our neurons fire to our brain, and we think and act accordingly, we are unconsciously doing all of these chemical processes to think, to ponder. We are the ones making those atoms moves, for example, we see a fork, the fork is captured in our eyes and sent as signals to the brain, the brain uses stimuli from the signal and memory from the hippocampus to act according behavior and physiological processes. Long story short, we are the ones subconsciously making those mind atoms move, to give us thought and reasoning. You mind isn't thinking for you, and if by some chance you are reading this, just think of something completely off topic, that's you thinking, not your atoms.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I totally agree, thanks for breaking that down

      Delete
  68. What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    Astrology, or horoscopes. The belief that phenomena in the distant, endless cosmos, somehow affects our lives. It seems completely, illogical to think that just because these celestial bodies are formed in the shape in space, it can give me good luck or something. Another great one is Numerology, the belief that there is a occult or supernatural relationship between numbers and events. Scientology is a pseudoscience in my opinion as well, some of their core beliefs believe that humans are essentially immortal, and that their past experiences transcends multiple lifetimes, even also believing humans have infinite potential or possibilities.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Phil 1030-009
    Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?

    Absolutely. Or at least it should. However many are so ingrained in their faith that they allow it to trap them in their own fear.

    ReplyDelete
  70. Phil 1030-009
    DQ:
    Are we responsible for our subconscious? Does it control us or do we control it?

    ReplyDelete
  71. Do you agree with what Arthur C. Clarke said about technology?
    Is there to life than atoms?
    Are Americans really like ants and grasshoppers?
    Would you believe in Mary Eddy's religion?

    Gold Rush
    https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-gilded-age/american-west/a/the-gold-rush

    ReplyDelete
  72. PHIL 1030-009

    If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    That is an interesting question. Are our thoughts made up of atoms in motion? We obviously don’t know for sure, but the idea is fascinating. I wouldn’t even know how to answer this question, but it will definitely be something that I will be thinking about, which I guess is what philosophy is all about.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Sometimes, pseudosciences like phrenology have worked to reinforce racism. What other instances are there of pseudoscience's involvement in supporting bigotry?

    Eugenics, the belief that to improve genetic quality of a human population, you exclude certain genetic groups, judged to be less desirable, which in this case could mean humans of different races.
    Some instances of sociology can be deemed racist, as one study suggest that black people are generally not as smart as Caucasian people, and really it depends on how you take it. Does this statement stem from genetic predisposition or on a basis of strictly data, and that the statement provided is fabricated from the data that supports it. An instance of CLEAR scientific racism appeared in pathology, where one physician used to attribute the reason why slaves ran away was because of Drapetomania, which was a disease causing slaves to go crazy and flee. He stated this because he claimed slaves didn't have the mental self-determination to run away and argued they would only run away when afflicted by Drapetomania.

    ReplyDelete
  74. Section 9

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?

    It definitely makes sense scientifically that there is no life after death. I believe that is very possible. However, if there was life after death wouldn’t there be no way for us to understand it scientifically. If there was a god or some kind of universal power that controls life after death, and it didn’t want you to know about life after death, then you wouldn’t know. Before you start to make deductions on everything based off the science we have access to today, remember, you don’t know what you don’t know.


    If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?
    I believe that motion of atoms is us. Our thoughts are us. we can control our thoughts, so we are in control of those atoms.

    Alt DQ: What are some things you know that I wouldn't know I didn’t know? Ex: You may know you don’t know cell theory, but you don't know you didn’t know there was an underground city in West Virginia.

    Link on how humans aren’t as good as we think at identifying the gaps in our
    Knowledge:
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucekasanoff/2018/03/21/you-dont-know-what-you-dont-know/#38ec9689573d

    Can we control our thoughts? According to science:
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-we-control-our-thoughts/

    ReplyDelete
  75. Phil-10
    3) I believe that we freely think our own thoughts, I'm not sure about being a spectator of my mind.
    12) What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?
    A form of pseudoscience I see today are UFOs and the syfy mechanics of these flying objects. Also, the practices of how psychics learn about people's future seems confusing.

    Possible Alt. DQ:

    Do you believe you have a soul? Or do you believe you are a soul?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stephen Byers1:57 PM CDT

      Stephen Byers Section 13
      I think that a soul is a figment of our imagination as a grouping of certain emotions and feelings that generally replicate conscious thinking - and we call it a soul. Everything is science of the brain. Obviously there's no physical 'soul', it is just the term we use to describe certain feelings we have.

      Delete
  76. PHIL 1030-010
    "If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?"

    I definitely think we are capable of free thought! Our brains function in very complex manners, but even if our minds are only a clump of mind-atoms in the greater scheme of things, I believe we are able to think for ourselves and our actions. However, I also believe that the personal thought process that each person goes through is difficult to dictate, and we, personally, might have little control over a lot of our thoughts.

    We are also very much influenced by the way in which we see the world and how we process that information; thus, we have a sense of control over our minds to a certain extent, but I believe that the specific thought process is much less easy to monitor and navigate consciously.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Section 9

    Alternate DQ-

    Is consciousness material or spiritual? Why? Do you think machines can ever know themselves the way we do, and if so, will they have a "spirit"?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stephen Byers1:59 PM CDT

      Stephen Byers Section 13
      Consciousness is material. In a way all humans are just like extremely complicated machines. I believe in the far future we will be able to program a machine so insanely developed and intricate that it could imitate human thought and growth and learning.

      Delete
  78. PHIL 1030-010
    "If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?"

    I think in the logical path to this conclusion, yes - but I also believe that we, as beings, were made from a substance that has spanned the universe since forever and that we might have a purpose beyond our current lives; this question also boils down to the religious affiliations that an individual might have, so while I can see the logical path for this thought, I personally believe that there very well could be a life after death!

    ReplyDelete
  79. I found this https://youtu.be/fbT1fCHOjfI interesting episode of the twilight zone.

    ReplyDelete
  80. quiz question

    Which group of philosophers consider all phenomenal objects and characteristics as emerging from the background mixture?

    ReplyDelete
  81. Dean Cheevers Section 10
    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)

    Although I undertsand what the idea is trying and attempting to say, I think there is more to to life and Universe than that. I think Science will one day dsicover more than the atom.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Madona Kozman5:26 PM CDT

      Section 13
      I agree that one day scientists will figure out a way to discover life after death

      Delete
  82. Dean Cheevers Section 10
    If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    I think we can freely think our own thoughts. I do not see us as spectatotrs of our own mind.

    ReplyDelete
  83. Elizabeth section 10

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?
    If you are looking at the science aspect of it then no there is no life after death however if you are looking at the religious view then there is a life after death whether it be nirvana, heaven, or reincarnation. But seeing as no one knows who is to say there is no life after death it has never been proven but then again who is to say there is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I tend to enjoy the scientific view, but that doesn't mean there is no "life" after death. Sure you might not be around to see it, but the atoms that your body is composed of are still going to here
      -13

      Delete
  84. Dean Cheevers Section 10
    Have you ever taken a "grim" walk in response to life's stubborn difficulty? How does it compare to what the author describes? Do you think there are critical life-moments that harden a person's character into "some lifelong shape of good or bad?"

    I have taken similar walks, where I was able to contemplate the negativity of a certain situation, but unlike the author, I have not ever accepted a grim outlook to the degree of his perspective. Hard moments are crucial to life, and those who come out on the other side are better people because of it.

    ReplyDelete
  85. Dean Cheevers Section 10
    Entrepreneurism is essential to many understandings of the American economy (consider the emphasized importance of small-businesses and self-starters). What do you think of Andersen's criticism, that there are the "forgotten millions of losers?"

    I really understand Anderson’s point. People outside America have a perspective that the “American Dream” is quite easy to achieve, but it is truly difficult and despite the many success stories, there have been just as many failures.

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  86. Dean Cheevers Section 10

    What difference does it make, if particles are inseparable from forces and fields and bundles of energy and thus cannot be proved to be "unsplittable" (as the ancient atomists said)?

    I think this will cause much controversy with modern scientists because many of the scientific discoveries concerning the atom, have been developed by splitting the atom.

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  87. Abby Pittman section 6
    [DQ1]
    This question is slightly difficult to answer because your point of view on the subject can vary based on your religious beliefs, but if you focus on the logical aspect of it, you could see how this could be true. Atoms aren’t subjected to death, but they are passed on to the next life form. Following this logic, your atoms would be passed on to something else upon your death, so technically I guess there could be a possibility of no life after death based on this logic.

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  88. Madona Kozman5:18 PM CDT

    Section 13
    Was Socrates a Sophist?
    He was because he used deception instead of loving the wisdom as his philosophy

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  89. Madona Kozman5:24 PM CDT

    Section 13
    Alternative quiz question
    The overarching thesis of Fantasyland is that Americans have come to believe that "opinions and feelings are the same as facts." Does the author make a convincing argument? What evidence does he marshal to support his premise?

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  90. Section 11

    Many times people believe someone's first person account because they appear to be trustworthy. Also depending on what the event was, people may not question what actually happen because their initial thought will be to reaction to the person telling the event. So what I basically mean is that person telling the account makes sure to use logo, ethos, and pathos in order for the audience to believe the story.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:38 AM CDT

      Section 11
      It is much easier to believe something the first time you hear it compared to the 4th or 5th you hear it if the stories don't add up.

      Delete
  91. Section 13

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?
    -The concept of life after death and whether you believe it or not is based of your beliefs. Personally for me, I believe in heaven. So when you die, your SOUL goes to heaven. It's not like your actual body composed of atoms rises from the ground into the sky. It's a spiritual thing.

    In the reading "Diogenes of Apollonia and the Sophists", the question of "Does law or conventions ground what is right, or is it a matter of nature?" stuck out to me. I think that personal morals ground what is right more so than laws do. Because honestly, if something like the purge were to happen in real life, I still wouldn't go out and commit any crime.

    Was Socrates a Sophist?
    - If I interpreted the text correctly, I would say that Socrates shared similar beliefs and interests with the Sophists.

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  92. Section 13

    DQ: What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    Essential oils. Don’t get me wrong, things found in nature definitely provide medicinal remedies, there is no doubt. I’m a fan of witch hazel and aloe, definitely useful. However, the essential oils craze is a drastic oversimplification of how medicine works. I don’t believe rubbing oil on my body will cure an illness or mental disorder, it might me feel better because it smells good, tingles, or is mentholated. It might even be anti-bacterial, but it’s not a cure all.

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    Replies
    1. Section 11
      I think essential oils are neat. They smell nice. But there's no way a bit of lavender oil will cure my diphtheria.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:53 AM CDT

      Section 11
      You're just not believing in then hard enough lol

      Delete
  93. Section 13

    DQ: If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?

    Not necessarily. To me it just means that matter, the physical essence of life, is composed of atoms and will follow similar "rules" (for lack of a better word) of existence. Consciousness is not tangible, it’s not matter, at least in our current understanding of it, so we cannot assume it follows the same rules of existence, death, or decay as matter would. We don't know if the consciousness continues after the body dies, or even if it existed before you were "you." We can only theorize about what happens to the consciousness both before and after death.

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  94. Cameron Ghalami
    Section 12
    1. I wanted to comment on the debate regarding weather or not it is fair to label philosophers on the basis of pre or post-Socratic. I do not think that should even be debated. I think that this method provides a clear mark of a new era in philosophy and does not take away from the fact the the pre-Socratics paved the way for Socrates and others to follow in their footsteps.
    2. https://youtu.be/epCOGAa7tRQ
    3. https://youtu.be/Nxn2LlBJDl0

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  95. Section 12

    DQ: What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    I think one of the oddest, yet decently widespread, pseudoscience trends in modern day is the idea that the earth is flat. Flat-earthers seem to have a distrust in modern science (and government), yet still attempt to back up their viewpoints with pseudoscientific explanations that don’t entirely make sense.

    DQ: Have you ever taken a "grim" walk in response to life's stubborn difficulty? How does it compare to what the author describes? Do you think there are critical life-moments that harden a person's character into "some lifelong shape of good or bad?" 

    As a psychology major, I definitely think that critical life-moments can potentially harden a person’s character. Our life experiences, even if it is one major life event, have the power to shape who we are and how we view the world in which we live.

    COMMENT: Here is a video about Democratis on Youtube, for those who want to learn more!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEdAvTMYNRU

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  96. If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    I find this to be a very interesting question. I wouldn't go as far as saying we are spectators in our own minds but some thoughts definitely have a way of forming themselves, whether due to a mental connection floating around in there or external stimuli.
    -13

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  97. If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? Depends on your personal views, I noticed a comment above that stated as a christian a persons soul goes to heaven and not anything physical. If you are like me and think it is just lights out, then you can look at in a way that the atoms of your body still continue to serve some sort of purpose.
    -13

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  98. Seraphim Sherman9:10 PM CDT

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)
    Strictly speaking, no. However, humans are composed of atoms, but we have a conciousness. No one has an inkling of what conciousness is, so there is no guarantee that conciousness does not continue after death of the physical body.

    Was Socrates a Sophist?
    Negative, ghost rider.

    What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?
    I mainly see astrology. I know so many people that strongly believe that astrology is real and that the positions of the stars influences their mood and behavior. Polygraphs are another form of psuedoscience.

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  99. Ruj Haan10:46 AM CDT

    Section 13

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?

    The answer is fully dependent on a person’s views and beliefs. No one has a solid argument for what happens after death, some like to believe that there is another life after we die, or some like to believe that your body shuts down and that’s it. We as humans don’t like unanswered questions, so we try to answer them based on our knowledge and beliefs. I personally don’t believe that there is an after life, we have never heard of someone who came back from life after death.

    What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    There are a lot of forms of pseudoscience out there these days that make a lot of promises. One thing that I have seen a lot is the astrology. There is advertising for astrology everywhere, in clothing, home decor, jewelry, and so on. I remember there used to be a section on the newspaper that would tell you how your month is going to be based on your Zodiac sign. I just don't understand how can the month you were born affect the rest of your life.

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  100. Section 12
    I don't think anyone can just verify beyond a shadow of a doubt that this or this happens after death, how could one know for absolute certainty without some sort of faith in something.

    I think people who genuinely believe in horoscopes are probably a little out there, as if the position of the stars has anything to do with you.

    Socrates doesn't appear to be a sophist

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    Replies
    1. I agree with you about the first part. The question of life after death is sort of just one of those burdened questions. On the other hand, I don't see the harm in having faith in one's own interpretation. Of course, every take is for the most part baseless. Then again, if the interpretation somehow makes whoever believes it more in-tune with one's self or just a better person then more power to them. I suppose it's a similar situation to religion.

      Delete
  101. Howie Schubert12:21 PM CDT

    Section 13
    I believe Socrates was a sophist because of the way of his teachings and his views he had and his own philosophies too.

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  102. Section 12

    If everything is composed of atoms, does that follow that there is no life after death?

    I think the composition of matter is answered by science through the scientific method. However, the afterlife is something we cannot measure nor prove or disprove through science.

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  103. 12
    -Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"?
    As a philosophy atomism can do a lot to help fight superstition. However, atomism isn't exactly the liberating principle that that quote seems to paint it as.

    -If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?
    In a lot of ways we are just simply passive spectators, but it is plainly obvious that people are capable of thinking freely for themselves. In many circumstances we can lose that ability, the free mind is a very fragile thing and any number of factors can influence a person to lose their's.

    -What difference does it make, if particles are inseparable from forces and fields and bundles of energy and thus cannot be proved to be "unsplittable" (as the ancient atomists said)?
    If what the atomists claimed is true, which some things they claimed seem to be, then it goes far in assisting our scientific and logical understanding of the universe. However, atomists have made many assumptions that i would consider to be a bit of a leap of logic.

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  104. Daniel Dupuy Section 12
    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? I'll have to put my "scientific perspective" glasses on (i believe we all have energies to us since we are born, and like the law of conservation of mass/energy, our energies cannot be destroyed). When we die, our atoms die- we do not come back to life, at least that has never happened before.

    Does atomism "liberate [us] from superstition, fear of death, and the tyranny of priests"? Yes, it should. It is okay to have religious points of view, however, for or own well being, it's not correct when we forget about Reality. It should give us peace of mind because in some way we understand what IS, and not other superstitions. Also, religion and the pressure some priests put on believers can cause hysteria, fear, and several subconscious disorders in the human brain.

    https://around.uoregon.edu/content/researcher-religion-influences-behavior-%E2%80%94-both-good-and-bad

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  105. What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    I do not follow any magical practices, nor do I really see any. I have seen it in movies and TV shows in the past. Now pseudoscience? I have seen several different theories on the internet, I have seen astrology as well, etc.

    Science vs Pseudoscience https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-pseudoscience-2795470
    http://www.vermareport.com/2019/08/on-philosophy-and-science-of-atoms.html
    Philosophy of Atoms

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  106. Brian Perez1:10 PM CDT

    Section 12
    Was Socrates a Sophist?
    the main difference between how Socrates and a sophist taught was through an financial stance. Sophists targeted the wealthy (like merchants) to try and make them "improve themselves." Socrates, however, thought that everyone had their own absolute truths within them and that those truths could not change; Socrates also accepted no fee for his teachings.

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    Replies
    1. I believe you hit the nail right on the head. Financial incentive seems to be the biggest determinant in Socrates's case. Whether or not every Sophist's goal was to gain money in exchange for advice is debatable. However, the fact that Socrates didn't charge for his teachings confirms his genuine dedication to his craft.

      Delete
  107. Brandon Beech1:31 PM CDT

    DQ: If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death? (100)

    This is a tough question and has undoubtedly been thought over alot over time. I believe that (although scientifically it does not make sense to us yet) there is life after death. No matter what your belief in religion, I think our "energy" when we are alive turns into something we have not yet been able to discover.

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  108. Brandon Beech1:36 PM CDT

    DQ: If thought consists in the motion of mind-atoms, can we freely think our own thoughts? Or are we passive spectators of "our" minds?

    I think we are still able to freely think our own thoughts. All of the atoms are designed in such a way that humans are still understanding many of the ways of the mind. Thinking and energy are and are not the same thing...

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  109. Stephen Byers Section 13
    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?
    Yes, I believe that there is no life after death, and your brain just stops thinking and there is nothing left of your consciousness. Your brain works because of your body working and nerves and blood pumping, afterwards I dont believe that you can access all of your brain somehow from an inhuman form...

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    Replies
    1. Alejandra Lopez Section 119:58 PM CDT

      Even when you die and your body shuts down, aren't the atoms in your brain still working? Just because your physical being dies doesn't necessarily means every aspect of you dies. You obviously don't use your organs any more or any of your body parts, but don't you think the particles that compose these things are still living?

      Delete
    2. Are atoms considered "living", though? I see it more as the person ceases in all facets and their remains are re-purposed through decomposition. Anything that sticks around is still just as lifeless, but the atoms are simply stagnant.

      Delete
  110. Stephen Byers2:02 PM CDT

    Stephen Byers Section 13
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apbSsILLh28
    Very interesting and motivating TED Talk.

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  111. Section 11

    What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?
    A common form of pseudoscience commonly seen today is astrology. There is no prove that to support astrology's theories and believes even when scientific research has been made. Other examples of pseudoscience are conversion therapy and that vaccines cause autism.

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  112. Alejandra Lopez Section 119:44 PM CDT

    If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?
    This question goes beyond just the idea of science. When it comes to life after death, people tend to believe that there is some sort of afterlife or they're reincarnated into something. or, if you don't believe in any religion and think everything on a logical aspect you might think that there isn't any life after death. But if we're on the subject of atoms and how atoms can't be destroyed, would that mean that our bodies would go decompose into something different thus leading to more life? I believe there is life after death. It doesn't need to be on a spiritual level but if I'm buried when I dies and my body decomposes into the earth, I could potentially create new life.

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  113. Logan Taylor1:33 AM CDT

    Section 11

    Discussion Questions
    1. What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?

    A common one seen in today's culture would definitely be the concept of astrology. People believe that they have these varying qualities about themselves, not based around their personalities or interests, but rather around their date of birth and their astrological sign. I mean, it's ok to base a few characteristics off of this, but some people will go so far as to not date people with specific astrological signs because they are "not compatible".

    2. If everything is composed of atoms, does it follow that there is no life after death?

    I would think there would be an afterlife, considering that the spirit or soul of a person is not really something of this world. There are many religions that teach that the soul is indestructible, which means that the soul could possibly be made up of something other than atoms.

    Alternate Quiz Question: According to Simplicius, what are the qualities of an object composed of very sharp and fine atoms?

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  114. Section 11
    What magical practices or forms of pseudoscience do you see today?
    Bookstores seem to have a thing for modern witchcraft. Spell books, tarot cards, and crystals line the shelves of booksellers large and small.
    Sometimes, pseudosciences like phrenology have worked to reinforce racism. What other instances are there of pseudoscience's involvement in supporting bigotry?
    In Europe, witch hunts were somewhat common in the late middle ages and renaissance. Women were the typical targets. Women who showed competence in anything other that cooking or sewing were thought to be witches.

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  115. Entrepreneurism is essential to many understandings of the American economy (consider the emphasized importance of small-businesses and self-starters). What do you think of Andersen's criticism, that there are the "forgotten millions of losers?"

    There is the idea that for one to succeed another must fail. Anderson is right that many of Americans have failed, but they learn from their mistakes and move forward. I was told at a young age that you only fail if you do not learn from the experience. As many others have stated it is a narrow viewpoint in which its seen as black and white only winners and losers. When in fact many people do not fail only the ones who do not learn fail. There are also the many who do not attempt entrepreneurship these are not in the "race" to succeed. Additionally, there are people also succeed off of the "winners" success.

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  116. Cody Maness Section 1112:07 PM CDT

    Have you ever taken a "grim" walk in response to life's stubborn difficulty? How does it compare to what the author describes? Do you think there are critical life-moments that harden a person's character into "some lifelong shape of good or bad?"

    I have taken the odd walk to clear my mind after a tough argument, decision, or situation. It helps me move past what has happened and think of what actions I should take to improve.
    I do not think someone is stuck to being good or bad because of a critical life-moment. I have a more optimistic point of view. I think people have a wonderful ability to change and grow. They take no lifelong shape and are always changing. Unless they somehow bring their life to some sort of stasis.

    - Cody Maness Section 11

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