Blogging Around

Best of the Week: Philosophy
By Andrew B

In this article Andrew discusses his apprehention to reading Sophie's World. He continues to discuss the nature of the book and how he finds it creepy the way the mysterous character acts with Sophie.

I agree with you on this Andrew. Starting Sohpie's World was something I thought would be bad because I had heard stories about its awfulness. But upon reading deeper into the book I began to really enjoy it. Most of my studies of philosophy have been more eastern based and I really enjoyed this progression of philosophy from the very roots of the word. Sophie's character has been a strange one especially her interactions with Alberto and the mystical characters that seem to be appearing in her life. I am not sure if I enjoy the book because I move between highs and lows while reading it. All In all this book has provided me with more questions about reality then I had going in.


Best of this Week: Presentation
By Raina P

Raina's blog entry was very powerful. It used distinct language to help bring the reader to visualize how she felt. She altered the fonts to help drive the details down. Her blog discussed the movie Born into Brothels and it's effect on her.

For one, I really like how you formated this blog post. Instead of just reading it, it took me on a journey. When you discussed the way the movie made you feel I felt myself being pulled back to those moments. The way you worded everything just flowed and connected. I felt the same way when you talk about how the documentary made you feel like you were in India and how it made the kids matter. Even if I hadn't seen the movie I think I would still be able to sense the power out of it by the style of your writing and the ideas you bring up.

Get Organized: A tribute to Aristotle

The project that laid before me was to organize me closet. This, well, was not going to be an easy feat. The aftermath of an atomic bomb could be equivalent to the mess that stood behind those doors. I was hesitant at first to actually do this. I thought about just writing the response and not doing anything but, after some reflection, I realized that cleaning the chaos would be for the better.

It took some time to pull myself to start the retrieval. I always seem to clean a mess by making a bigger one. I pulled out the junk that was at the bottom of my closet and and organized it into clothes, garbage, and stuff that needed to leave. This step took some time but was fairly simple and was done with ease.

Then I removed the junk off the shelves. I knew my clothes on hangers were fine where they were so I didn't need to organize them. The amount of stuff that was on top in my closet was much more then I thought. I found a whole bunch of camping and climbing equipment that I thought I had lost. I then again organized between needed things and unnecessary goods. The objects that I wanted to keep I rearranged and put back in groups of likeness. Books with books. Games with games. Climbing and scouting equipment all together.

In the long run it didn't take that much time at all. The clothes, which made up most of the mess, were put into the laundry to be washed later, into the hand-me-down bin (every year my family sends clothes that I can't fit into anymore to family friends children) or they are cut into rags. I cleaned it up and it looks super nice. I even had extra time to organize my hangers.

From this I realized that if you don't think about the work and just do it it goes by faster than if you worry and let is consume your mind.

An Inconvenient Truth: We Are Not Equal

  It has been drilled into us before pre-k. All man has been created equal and is equal amongst each other. But is that really the case? Are we all equal? Because I don't think we are.

   

  As living organisms there is variation from parent to child. New mutations and new genetics. As they said in first grade, "Everyone is unique. Just like a snowflake". Well that got me thinking. If everyone is unique how can we be equal. Yes, like the snowflakes, we are all human but we have differences. No two people learn information the exactly the same way. As studies have shown there is better ways of learning but everyone is unique. People also have different learning speeds and comprehensive abilities. So no two people are equal on an curriculum standpoint. 

  Under the premise of education there also needs to be consideration for the what kind of education the students receive. Some communities don't have good school systems. It is not always their fault but it causes inequality. 

  Communities that are different has vast diversity among the people. How can anyone say that a korean american immigrant is equal to a white suburban child? It just isn't real.

EQUALITY DOES NOT MEAN EQUAL

  I do firmly believe that everyone should have the same rights and opportunities to succeed in the world. That there should be no discrimination due to race, color, creed, sexuality, family history, or genetics. The fact that we need equality is that people are not equal.

   The inconvenient truth of this world is that people aren't equal. Students should stop being taught that everyone is equal because that statement is a big fat lie. Instead, students should learn about others differences. They should be educated about the world and how people range in culture and belief. If people are taught about why people are different they are more willing to stand up and unite for equal opportunity.

Because the world we live in vastly colored and so unbelievably diverse. Even though we are not all equal. We should still uphold the ideas that everyone deserves that chance. 

Connection: Socrates and Test Tube Babies

   For about twenty-five hundred years Socrates has been claimed to be one of the worlds greatest philosophers. Her is the base of all questioning and the real start of the "What is Humanity" movement. His interesting questioning process led him to be renounded for challenging the status quo. His challenging of what is thought to be right and what should be looked deeper at.   Socrates appears in our classes novel Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. He is the bases for the main character, Sophie, to understand how little we know as people and knowing that we know little makes us wise. He is a explorative tool that can open a world to new possibilities by trying to understand what is out there.
   Recently, a huge push in scientific research has brought the attention of genetic engineering into the inner circle of daily science. This new, profound, way of making life is challenging the current views of many ethics. Now, you may be saying "what does socrates have to do with gentic engineering" but the truth is, he has everything to do with it.
   He is the push. The looking forward of new life. Test tube babies are a new creation that can limit disease and perfect humanity. It can accelerate learing and reshape humanity. However, like all things in science, ethics is apart of the decisions. Socrates always challenged what was known. And, at the root of it, that is what science is. There is the continuos test of pushing boundaries and making new limits. Socrates would challenged why create new life? Is there consequences? Does it lose humanity?
   But wouldn't he also ask why not? Wouldn't he try to find the answers for the good in it? He would look to learn about why people want this science. Why people would want better children.
   It may seem like a stretch to compare the insanity of one man twenty-five hundred years ago to a radical new science of current day, but they're both closely intertwined in the nature of what is to become of science in the future. 

Metacognition: Being aware

    This first quarter has been an interesting year. I have found that my mind has been blending a lot of my classwork together from my other studies. I have noticed that my connections have been fueled by my own mind trying to find reason for all this information. 

    I constantly find myself talking about nothing. I am in my head going over what I see, reviewing what I know. My conversations may seem a bit insane but for me, it's healthy digestion. This first quarter has talked about the creative aspect of human nature. How, to be creative, we must blend all sides of the spectrum into one. Sometimes I think that I do this on a daily and in other instances it never happens. My brain tends to wander when I am as exhausted; especially recently because of an overload of course work. When my mind is wandering I pull on all the ideas that have been circulating my mind. The creativity that has been shown in humanities somehow blends into a mixture with my psych and bio class. This results in one jumbled mess of life and culture. 

     In bio we were discussing how life started with one point and that one point broke apart and grew and grew until it became the diverse multi-specie world that we live in today. This kinda of relates to the fractal topic we recently covered. I found myself going over the many different ways we use fractals in our lives. So much of our organization starts from one idea, then breaks down and down until it is so complex that I no longer looks the same. 
     So much of this class has been taking what we know of art, literature, and creativity and applying it to real world applications. We begin to focus on what we know and by how we know what we know, we make something knew. We are constantly thinking about ourselves. Wanting to upgrade and improve what we are to what we should be. If it is the pressure from parents, friends, or society as a whole. There is this inner push that we create for ourselves. Understanding that we are constantly thinking of this push is something I think we notice but not enough that we think about it. 

Blogging Around

For starters.... Everyone is really good at writing. All the blogs I have seen are extraordinary.

ninaf2012humanities: Captured Thought: Full-blast Living

In this blog entry Nina talks about how being aware of the world and creativity opens people up to understanding the many view points of people. 

I really enjoyed this reading. Your understanding of this article was so deep that it led you to a really powerful conclusion that I really liked. I liked how you said "After reading, I understood that creative people don't want to be compared to others of the same gender, or ones of the opposite. They want to feel equal to others, regardless of gender". I really found that you saw from his article that creative people are just people who want to be felt. Yes, as equals but also as people. They don't want to be alone, separated by ridged roles, they want to fit the complexity of all human thought. I really enjoyed reading this. It gave me a new insight into how creativity can open ones mind.

samj2012humanities: What If?:Learning to fully understand thigs before I reject them.
Sam's blog talks about his realization of human viewpoints and how he wants change himself and has changed for the better.

I really like your point on how sometime you don't see everything for what it fully is before you reject it. I know I do this more that I should and suffer it's consequences. I feel like through your experience on those mission trips, as I have experienced as well because we went on the same trips, that we can only become truly more aware of the world around us from others. They gave us the ability to listen to some of the most awe provoking musicians on the face of this planet and they showed, at least me, that I can see more than what is just there. I agree that being open to new things makes the world a brighter place. If you close your mind off you fail to see what is there and the vast multitude of color life brings. I really enjoyed reading your realization of this fact of humanity.

Best of Week: [Creating Art]

From class we've read articles and talked about art and creativity but something really stuck out to me in  "Sea of Information". The authors writing really got into my soul. It showed me how art takes time to be formed. The energy that comes from literature doesn't just flow out all the time. It takes diligence. There is a driving force behind it. Sometimes I feel like life is like this. It is this constant push that keeps us moving but we have to put so much effort into making it worth wild. If we just live the art of our life is meaning less, but as Andrea Barrett illustrates through her writing art take constant studying and revision to make great. You can be a good artist/singer/performer/whatever but it takes studying and practice to make a masterpiece. Sometimes, I feel that art is overlooked. It is seen as something it was not supposed to be. In writing the sounds of words are so great. The first time listening to poetry can be the most beautiful thing. However, there are works that the more you look into the more they mean. A good song, for example, is something that on the hundredth listening can be so much more than it was the first time. I feel that is what makes art.

Our MindBooks are a vast exploration into what this world of art is. From just sitting and looking at others I have seen such creative ideas that come out of single thought. This thought, however, was more than just an instantaneous post. It was cultivated. The idea of bring in outside information and refining it to fit exactly, or as close as possible, in the form of which the creator wanted. Sometimes, I look at these MindBooks and wish they can hold more than just the physical. I wish that sounds could be captured. That the actual emotion could be locked up in that book. But then again that is what art is. The capturing of emotions and feelings without explanation.

I think that this week, as many weeks have been and most likely will be, was an exploration into the world of creating art. We read how difficult ideas can be in  "Sea of Information" by Andrea Barrett and we acted on that by trying to do something new in out MindBooks. This is were our best conversations and discussions came from during this week.

Captured Thought: What Makes Something Interesting?

In life we experience so much. We see beauty, we hear humor, and we feel love. But what causes us to feel these things? In what aspect does life do we choose between good and great. As a person who wants to do well in life I have always compared myself to the great. Good enough, usually isn't enough. However, I've seen people try so hard to be good at something and they've missed the point. They missed the reason why they did it in the first place.

Art is the best way to explain this. Some people are so amazing at drawing, or painting, or dancing, or whatever but no matter how good they are they don't stand out. What makes someone who is technically perfect so much less than someone who may be flawed in their skills but you feel them? Is it because we as humans know perfection isn't real? And when we experience it we are bored by it or we ignore it?

This occurs so much in school. The student who spends their life working on their textbooks and pushing to be that perfect five point o always seems to be the one that misses out. Well that or they are the most miraculous person in the world. It seems that the student who work for the grade and the end result miss out on why they are their in the first place.

I have many friends who are so upset with school. "It's so much work! Why am I here," said by many of my friends, even myself at times. It can sometimes be hard to see the end result when your in the midst of construction but we wouldn't be in school if it was useless. The classes I do the best in are the classes I like the most. I can't tell if I like them because I do well, or I do well because I like them but I know that in both cases they are the classes I learn the most from. The hardest part is understanding that when it gets hard and things turn for the worst we need to put the most effort in staying afloat. It could be that we find things interest  because they fit within what we are good at.

But does that explain for why we enjoy art? Music, dance, paintings they are all something that people pay huge amounts of money on yet many don't excel in those areas. Could interesting things be caused by passion? By their creation? Is something interesting because we don't have all of it? These questions I don't know the answers to. But I have the rest of my life to search because in the end I want my life to be interesting. I want to be remembered. Things that are boring never get remembered.

It Matters: United States Growth Of A Creative Nation

In class we have discussed the importance how how being creative has lead people to create wondrous things. However, we have noticed that this form of creative thinking has been slowly declining from American society. The once impressive nation of inventors and innovators has become the arrogant and overpowering nation; filled with egotistical brutes and uneducated citizens. In exploring the world around us we have noticed that we have slipped in the ranking of prestige. This video from the new HBO show The Newsroom, I feel, hits deeply the message that needs to be spread to Americans.

The main speaker in this clip longs for the times when we used to view America as what it could be rather than who it was or who it is. He wants to have a better nation; a place were justice is the forefront of our decisions. In discussion with our relation to China's education system that we talked about in class the ironic nature is that we think we are the greatest nation in the world but, like any great competitor, the focus should be on how can we better. 

I find that it does matter in how we live our lives. Creativity comes from the want to be more. To explore the world and find new things. Our education system has declined on the focus for more and now is focused on the what was. There is always room for improvement. And seeing that there is more to life than what just is is creativity. Seeing life in its full is creativity. This looking, this wanting, is the bases in which we must form our education system. The basis in which we should form our society. Instead of praising those who have money and fame we should be praising those with talent and ingenuity. We are the deciders of this world. We are the parents of the future. It is our place to lead. "America is not the greatest country in the world anymore," but it has all the potential to be more than this.