Philosophy de Alismadia

Imagine the Unimaginable

2012-02-08T07:09:00.001-08:00

Another thing I wanted to mention from classes that we had last week was a small topic that came up in use as a hypothetical proof. It was not something that was particularly relevant to the discussion of what literature is, and I do not even remember its original context, but the question as it was posed still seemed quite fascinating, and has been lurking in my mind ever since.

The question as it was brought up was: "try to consider what a new color would look like"

This seemed simply enough as something that should be shunned immediately from to much thought for its obvious impossibility in completion. However, as I was considering this fact over the course of this last week, I actually stumbled on a color that I had never seen before, and felt that it was necessary to bring this topic back to the drawing board. As silly as this may sound at first, I saw what infra-red actually looks like in trying to prove whether or not something I had heard was real. The test proposed to me was that in looking through a camera you can see the infra-red light that is emitted through things like t.v. remote controls, as can be seen in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgsbjlXQMLw

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I wanted to then pose this question:

Do you think that it is possible that we are as philosophers simply ignoring some of the things that are of relevance, even though it just seems as if we can't see them?

Literature, the Oral Tradition

2012-02-08T06:59:00.000-08:00

One topic that came up in class last week that I have yet to comment on, but still think to be truly interesting, is the argument over whether or not oral tradition should count as a form, or as part of the definition of literature. In my opinion, this is very specifically a touchy line to walk along, for many people disagree that talking is considered to be the same use of language as writing is. However, when I think of the way that language impacted stories before stories had the opportunity to be written down, I can only go with the opposite of the aforementioned statement and declare that literature (whatever that actually means) is very much inclusive of oral tradition, it does not even get a choice in the matter. For without the stories that existed before written language, there would not have been many of the stories that we still know of today, that we consistently refer to as literature without even realizing it. Thus, when it comes down to it, I think that it would be impossible to consider literature as non-inclusive of the spoken parts of our written language; that is unless you were to consider pieces such as the Odyssey or Beowulf as non-literature.

From the Q&A, Part 4

2012-02-06T05:43:00.000-08:00

As a second part of this conversation, I will also walk through the other question that i posed when discussing the topics of literature in my Q&A. This question becomes a little bit more philosophical than it does come down to descriptions, for I begin to wonder if the term "literature" needs to, or even should exist as a useful term in the artistic styles within writing.

The question comes down to this: In understanding the difficulty that there is to be had with trying to come up with the best description for literature, why do we try to make it a term that only confuses and distorts the much better descriptive term of simply "writing". To help explain this confusion I have, consider these two points: 1. what does the word literature really mean to you? and 2. Once you have a good solid understanding of it in your head, what does it really tell you that the word writing could not also tell you?

To help, let us consider an example posed in class. 1. At one point someone mentioned the possibility that literature functions as a good way to describe a "good piece of writing". With this in mind: 2. thinking of it as a good piece of writing literally supersedes the necessity of the word literature in the first place.

Are there any good examples hat you can think of as a descriptive force that better elaborates what Literature actually is without arguably replacing writing as the proper descriptor?

From the Q&A, Part 3

2012-02-06T05:34:00.000-08:00

As was discussed in class a lot this past week, I have been wondering very seriously about this conversation concerning the definitions of "Literature" and I think that after some time I have finally come to some of my conclusions on the subject. In my Q&A for last week I posed two questions that somewhat confound the definability and necessity of the term Literature, and I am going to discuss them here.

The first problem that I had with this concept comes down to the simple fact that it is a term that, if used the way that it has been argued by writers, sets the other forms of artistic expression out of balance. To elaborate, consider this: there is no other word that even remotely resembles the term "literature" within the fields of art or music (the other major figureheads of art in my opinion). With this being the case, literature as a term can be seen as somewhat of a braggart descriptor of writing in general, for all that literature really tries to do is make up a better description in the eyes of people trying to sell their novel; suggesting that their work is better than simple writing, for it is rich with "literature".

This is my first issue with the concept of literature, and I pose it as a topic I am interested in discussing further... so what are your thoughts?

The Great

2012-01-29T19:45:00.000-08:00

I was pondering one of the things that was discussed in class earlier this week and began trying to get down to a conclusion of some sort. The question seemed easy at first, but then I began to struggle with the reality of it more and more as time passed. In talking about literature, a contradiction was posed asking whether or not a great piece of literature could exist without anyone who liked it. My initial reaction was to dismiss it immediately, that it was simply just silly that such a thing would be unanswerable, for I was thinking from the perspective of "liking" meaning specifically that it was read, not that it was thought to be good. I did not realize that the reality of "great" could very well mean great in a terrible way, and this is where I began thinking.

Despite the fact that it may be terrible in nature does not necessarily qualify it as unlikeable, but I could only phrase this in metaphor. Consider, if you will Hitler, a person that everyone in the world hated for his brutality. Even though he was very much the boon of the happiness of so many, and so greatly hated, there are still people who liked and appreciated his "greatness" even though it was a dark great in nature. Thus it is my conclusion that even if almost everyone on earth did not like something, admitting that it remained great, I believe that it would at this point be statistically impossible that someone didn't like it... But I suppose that would be something fun to try and prove wrong.

From the Q&A, Part 2

2012-01-27T06:46:00.000-08:00

The second question I had posted to myself within the Q&A offered this week is actually somewhat correlated to the concept of the other post on the subject. In having considered what style I thought was more significant, I began wondering exactly what it was that I thought to be the best form of transportation within the conveyance of philosophy. Taking the extra time to think about this I have come upon very little success, for there are just realistically so many possibilities.

However, there is one genre that I have always fallen back on with respect to shear appreciation of some concepts that I have witnessed within the genre itself, and that is animation. Now I must say quickly that when I mention animation, I am not talking about "anime" for I find that this generally has a different goal in mind, and thus is considered a different genre. But consider the movie that came out this past year titled "The Illusionist" (I know, you probably haven't seen it, but you should try it some time), it is a film that achieves a monumental derivation of of thought, emotion, and sense of how to live life; which when it comes down to it is like a definition of philosophy. More importantly though, this concept coordinates with two genre's that would seem at first, to be incapable of transferring this philosophy: Art and Sound, without Word or Language. It is this fact that I think sways my decision in the end to say that Animation currently takes he cake as the true conveyance tool of philosophy.

The Literary - Philosophy Continuum

2012-01-26T10:11:00.000-08:00

One of the discussion topics that was brought up in class yesterday was whether or not Literary and Philosophical styles of writing were their own respective categories, or rather that they belong on a continuum of technique. Having taken a little time to contemplate this, I have been wondering about both sides quite a bit.

On the front of keeping them separated, I think that it would be more simple for the hope of trying to organize the situation at large. I say this because with the advent of being able to categorize any piece of work by simply declaring that it is either a piece of pure philosophy or an unspecified example of literature, we would be able to get through a lot of examples very quickly for not many works would fall into the pure philosophy category. The only difficulty this process of organization presents is the potential complication of setting the dividing line of what designates the pure philosophy form.

However, the potential to fix that problem is the second option that we had contemplated in our discussion, which would be to organize all of it onto a continuum. This seems at face value to make the most sense, for continuum's are very favorable of organization like this, where there is not necessarily an issue anymore of what the middle ground anymore. The real issue with this concept though is that there would be some serious difficulty in attempting to actually construct this continuum, and it would be very non-descript in its conclusions beyond simply giving an answer to the problem.

Thus, it appears that neither option is the wiser without further adaptation and quite a bit of effort to give elaborate examples; that is unless the goal was to achieve some simple argumentative conclusions. So I ask you oh fruitful blogging community, what do you think? can the continuum / non-continuum argument offer itself as a useful tool to us in this class? and which would you prefer?

From the Q&A, Part 1

2012-01-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

On the Q&A for this week I found myself asking my two questions a slight bit more introspectively than I usually do, and having taken some time to consider the things that I asked, here is the first of my thoughts. The first question I had asked of myself was whether I found myself leaning towards literary style or pure philosophical style in my desired interpretations of knowledge and meaning. Do I prefer the literary illusion? or is raw knowledge, non-confounded, straight to conclusions better?

What I have decided is that it is certainly the literary talent that holds my attention the best when I am attempting to accept a new piece of information, but at the same time scares me a slight bit more. The reason I am intimidated by this style is that I believe the possibility of a swayed decision is much more likely, and that the bias' that may be created in a literary work are much more difficult to ignore. However, this still does not ignore the fact that I simply learn better and with much more ease if I can follow a story that derives meaning rather than just reading through the rule book.

The Philosophy Toolkit

2012-01-19T17:35:00.001-08:00

Having just read through the various sections of the philosophy toolkit on the DKJ blog, I must say, the thing that I found the most interesting was the declaration of the seven Intellectual Virtues of the highly reasonable thinker. It seems that these were very wise things to have chosen for this category, specifically on the front of the three forms of intellectual responsibility. These are listed as Intellectual: Honesty, Humility, and Courage, and when it really comes down to it, I think that these are potentially the three most important things on this list. To hone in on what I mean, the other four primary pieces of this equation seem to focus primarily on the general respect of all information that surrounds the self. However, when analyzing the three aforementioned intellectual responsibilities, these are the things that make up the receptive rules of the knowledge that we must collect to ascertain our reality; and this tribunal covers exactly the most important parts when doing such. Thus, this is the thing that I wanted to discuss, for I find it to be very true and very useful to consider when in a phiosophy class.

Who Am I?

2012-01-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

For once I was and since have stopped; but returned I have to post a lot.

This is the blog that has endured philosophy about art, and belief, and life; and today it returns to discuss the things that I think when given literature as the topic at hand. To remind some people who may not have been to this blog in the past, I am Alex Massar and as it is right now I am a student by profession, specifically in music, but just about anything is interesting to me unless you want to talk about politics.I have blond curly hair, blue eyes, and I am excited that you are reading this because it means that you have made the first step in getting to know me, but there is not much that I could tell you via the blog that I feel would truly represent who I am; thus if you really wanted to know who I am, I would prefer if you just asked me about it anytime you may see me (its ok, I don't bite).

As for the blog itself, I have but one rule when it comes down to using this blog and it is thus:

I write this blog in hopes that someone reading this blog has something that they would like to add to the conversation I pose, and I invite those inquiries openly with the request that you leave your response as a response on my post, rather than just saying that you have responded on your own blog: this aggravates me more than anything you will ever say about anything I have said.

With that being said, I look forward to the semester, and I hope to have many blogging conversations.

Life Philosophy

2011-05-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

So, in class last week we discussed the various different ways that different terms could be organized to help direct a flow to how we think and live. The terms that we had available to us to be organized were as follows: Creativity, Imagination, Knowledge, Emotion, Understanding, Intuition, and Instict. Needless to say, this was not something that was going to be simple, but to help try and make it all a little more clear, I added the terms: Desire, Wisdom, Intelligence and Results.

The way that I have laid out these terms allows for a cycle of repetition that allows the format to be repeated however many times it needs to. The chart when organized looks like this:

~Click to Enlarge~

I like this chart because with the way that it is now organized, it can be used to visually explain how I think when choice making / problem solving thought process's go on in my head. What I am now interested in is seeing how you feel about this organization, do you thinkin the same fashion as I do? do you think that this chart would be organized differently to how you think? Let me know what you think...

Response to Natalie's Post

2011-05-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

In response to the post found here: http://npozzetti.blogspot.com/2011/05/paulo-coelho.html?showComment=1305134941397#c4861583029047587684 these are my thoughts:

This "art equates out to miracle" suggestion is an interesting proposition. I do not necessarily agree with the way that this is implied on a few levels of what you have suggested, especially to have come to this conclusion.

The first thing would immediately be that I do not think that art is typically made out of love; for there are various other foundations of emotion that art can be derived from whence being created. In fact I would even argue that love is rarely the inspiration for art that is indented to be witnessed by anyone other than the one whom is loved, thus most art that is grounded on love is something that typically would not be seen.

Secondly, I do not give love the grace of being considered a "miracle". Love is rare, and though it is something that should be meddled with carefully, love is real, love is achievable. I think that looking at love with the title of miracle will forever undermine the real love you have in your life; one must be careful, for the use of a word as strong as love should be considered greatly before applying to another word as strong as miracle.

Which brings us to the most controversial point to me. Art is not a miracle. Viewing art is not a miracle. Art is possibly about the farthest thing possible from a miracle in my mind. It has no ties to the ethereal as it stands by itself. However, one of the best things about art is that it is a portal to the ethereal, the aesthetic universe, the mind and imagination. It is one of the strongest forms of communication, but that does not make it any more a miracle than the fact that you can read this sentence and know what my meaning is.

I do not want this response to come off as offensive, but it is a particular frustration of mine when love and art are used in such an immature fashion. I can’t support the suggestion that having art in our life is a miracle any more than still being able to still see is a miracle.

Response to Kurt's Post

2011-05-09T10:09:00.001-07:00

In the conversation of video games as art found here: http://kurtwords.blogspot.com/2011/05/digital-art-part-2-video-games.html?showComment=1304960945781#c7096904235939138875 This is my input:

As I was looking for the response to my post I stumbled upon this on your blog, and let me tell you I am extremely happy that I did. This is an argument that I have been wondering about and have been a part of almost from the beginning of the "consol gamers’ era".

Here is how I would preface my conversation: there are two series of games that I have been following for most of my life as they have been released as consol games.

The first and foremost is certainly the Legend of Zelda series, I have played all of the games that are worth playing that have come out in this series. Having the opportunity recently to do a lot of research on the subject for another class, I would argue that the core games of the Zelda series with respect to the main story that has been posed is something that will forever be archived as part of Nintendo's history. To make sure we are on the same page, the core set that I am referring to is thus:

Zelda -> Zelda II -> A Link to the Past ->
Ocarina of Time + Majora's mask ->
Twilight Princess + Windwaker

The important thing to remember here is the divide in timelines of the same story that comprise the Majora & Windwaker games in this lineage.

However, to keep to the conversation, I think that the sheer girth of story that is made up of these seven games is on par if not cooler than the girth of story that is found in any good series (like Star Wars for example), and can certainly be considered art if the movies are.

Now, to return to the note at the beginning, the other game series that I have fallen into as I have grown up is the Elder Scrolls, to which I have played the third and fourth games in the series extensively (for the first two games were computer based and not part of my life till far past the Xbox). The thing that I have to say specifically about these games is that they are so good that I would be willing to argue that most of my academic interest nowadays can certainly be tied back to things I had been interested in while playing these games.

The notable difference between this and Zelda though is a key factor here in terms of different styles of artistic video games. Zelda poses a story for you to follow with help as to the linear aspect of the game. Where as The Elder Scrolls is a sandbox game that allows you to immerse yourself in the feel of the society in the game and become part of an alternative world that you can explore. This aspect allows you to follow any number of different outcomes in the game if you so choose, to the extent that I rarely even care about the linear game they program into it.

When it comes down to it, I think that the point of a piece of art is to let your mind become a part of the artist’s world for the time that you spend in the presence of it. Thus, if you can get so involved in a game that it sometimes feels like you have been to these other places, and have experienced exactly what the artists want you to, how can it be argued otherwise that a videogame can't be art?

A Map for Collingwood

2011-04-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

Having now discussed Collingwood in class, I thought it would be interesting to show what my interpretation of his art concepts were when I read through the description of his thoughts:

T0 help elaborate on what the picture is showing, here is my interpretation of Collingwood. I think that when it comes down to it, Collingwood's most interesting point of conversation is the addition of the "Feeling" into the description of how an artist translates any sort of information via art to an observer. It allows us to focus on what exactly is happening in the head of the artist by pointing out the following process: 1. Artist Conceives Feeling 2. Feeling is dumped into pool of limitless Expression Outlets 3. Artist works with raw expression and a preferred medium to which eventually turn into Artistic Representation of "Expression 1".

Now the next interesting thing is what happens after the artist has an oppertunity to put fourth artwork, as seen by the second process that takes place: 1. The Observer witnesses Artistic Display of "Expression 1" and 2. Interprets the piece as "Expression ?" which can be one of almost as infinite as the infinite pool of Expression as mentioned before;

3. However, if the oppertunity arrises that the Observer may talk to the Artist on the subject of their piece, then the Observer understands the original feeling that is now sugar coated in artistic expression. Thus the best description available to be heard is implimented to the translating of how the artist came to try to explain the original feeling that they experienced; even though they may not even know it themselves as the artist.

I personally think that this is a particularly interesting and clever tool of showing how the various ways of interpreting of art can be put into a chart like this one and not be overcomplicated. I especially enjoy the concept of the possibility that the artist could get the true message across via other means if the artwork couldn't display the perfect thought process everytime. I additionally like the fact that this chart makes it pretty clear just how unlikely it is that we will ever be able to tell exactly what it was that was going through an artists mind at the time of the creation, because its true.

What are your thoughts on this chart? / Theory

Response to Brycen's Post

2011-04-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

In response to the post that Brycen created, found here: http://brycen-honorsartandphilosophy.blogspot.com/2011/04/performance.html?showComment=1303753976831#c2154931601607662769 I wrote:

I read through this post and kim's response, and I must say I am certainly one to lean more towards what Kim has said. I think that the signifigance of either side cannot be declared as better or worse on the whole. It is also specifically important to point out that their differences are the reasons each can be qualified as an interesting an independant for of its own art.

The concept of the live show being more "real" or "imperfect" only allows you to see the actual actions of what the live performers are doing at x,y,or z showing. The recording of their work though is the closest thing that we can witness and experience to what the artist was trying to convey... it is the closest we have to the perfection that they concocted. And when it comes down to it, both sides of this coin are equally interesting and valuable towards our goal of having something to listen to and enjoy as receptors of art.

Do you personally feel that the concept of live show or stagnent art are equal or that one is better... and why?

Artistic Philosophy: Anthology Puns

2011-04-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

So I was flipping through my notes earlier this week andI remembered that I had been doing this thing for most of the semester where I would write down the name of the philosopher that we were talking about in any given week, and a little joke about what their standpoint on the subject is. So, in looking for things to blog about, I figured I would show you some of the ones that I could find in my notes:

Bell: -Art is the successful avoidence of Science-

Dewey: -Art is Everything-

Weitz: -Why Define Art?-

Hume: -How good is Good?-

Goodman: -It is Art.... but only for right now.-

Danto: -Art is a club of dedicated persons... did you bring your membership?-

Dickie: -Can we justify some of the people breaking the rules some of the time?-

Piper: -Art is a power that pieces of art do not represent-

Collingwood: -I do not think you see what you think you see-

That's what I have thus far, I know most of them are pretty silly, but I feel that some of them are actually pretty funny. How accurate do you feel these claims are of these philosophers?

The Perceptions Complex

2011-04-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

Three people look out into the distance and see a tree. This massive tree immediately peaks the interest of the three traveling men. Noticing one another, the three men each declare what it is that they have seen in the tree:

The first man looked out into the distance and pointed, declaring in a booming voice:

"My, What Beautiful Lumber!"

The second man disagreed, speaking out in his defined and wise voice:

"No, it is but the perfect place for my house!"

The third man disagreed even further, declaring:

"No, this is a magnificent location for me to paint this beautiful tree!"

All three of the men started to quarrel with one another on the subject, trying desperately to prove that they are indeed more correct. While arguing a fourth man approached and listened to their plight. The original three men requested the truth of this old and knowledgable looking man who has thus been innocent to the conversation.

The Fourth man looked out into the distance and laughed.

"I see all of these things. I see none of these things."

Then he walked away....

Response to Gina's Post

2011-04-19T05:40:00.000-07:00

In response to the post that Gina put up, found here: http://gmarieexistence.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-more-comment-on-dickie.html?showComment=1303216806160#c8786751146794309360, this is what I had to say:

Yea, I can definately see where you are coming from on this point. I definately was not that fond of what Dickie had to say when we went over him in class. I think that he is a classic example of someone trying to sound smarter than they actually are, and most of his point have been brought up in different conversations about other philosophers anyway.

The biggest issue that I have is that he is horribly vague. Obviously art has to be an artifact, its about the only distinguishing factor between human intereaction and nature. When it comes down to it though, I feel that the classifications of what makes art the art that it is requires more defining, despite how difficult that may be. All in all, I feel that Dickie was just a cheap reiteration from our past genius' and he does not get that much praise in my book.

Improvments on Color Wheel Theory

2011-04-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

So previously, I had made a post about my theory on how the color wheel could be utilized in order to help understand how to organize where genre's of art derive from in terms of the hierarchy of original major genre classifications. Alas, as I would only expect, there were some problems with the way that I had laid things out, thus this will try to reorganize a few of the concepts with a better description and some revamped pictures.

So for starters, it is important to understand how the placement of the color wheel idea fits into the entirety that becomes the hierarchy chart that I have just mentioned. The simplistic layout of the hierarchy would look something like this:

Fine and Performing Arts

Color Wheel

Division of Lesser Genre's

Thus, starting at Fine and Performing Arts as a singular title, we break into the three primary figureheads that are the basis of the Color Wheel: Music, Writing, and Art; which can then be subdivided once more into the lesser genres in various ways. I also point out that as of right now, the artistic qualities that pertain to scent and taste are not listed here on the color wheel level, for they would change the rules a little bit with how they relate to everything else on the color wheel.

With this established, we can now take a look at the layout of the Color Wheel, which I have now filled out the Primary (Red, Blue, Yellow), Secondary (Orange, Green, Purple), and Tertiary (RV, BV, BG, YG, YO, RO) positions of Genre's that are unique of each other and combinations of each other:

(Click to Enlarge)

Now that this has been established in a more complete and organized manor, we can begin to clearly see how the first major level within the hierarchy logically divided away from the concept of just "Art" to which I continue to label as "Fine and Performing Arts".

Interestingly enough, this division continues on to a third level, to which we can subdivide the concepts that have already been laid out here. There are however some things that are important to note when observing how this chart progresses to the next stage. First off, it is significant to note that there are many options for how the viewer may need to use this chart in order to find the proper subcategory that they may be seeking. As an example seen in the image below, when taking note of the subcategories that pertain to music, the choices available allow for numerous categorizations that are unique to the major subject of music; when one is chosen, we can observe the specific examples to choose from in describing our goal. To this last degree we designate the concept of the Tone Chart to lay out the various different qualities that the spread of genre's allow us to seek variety with, as seen here:

(Click to Enlarge)

Now the road map of the genre's can become more clearly visible for describing the exact location of where ones interests lie.

The curious thing now though is the reason we would ever even be interested in where we stand in terms of these locations. Well from what I can discern, this is not only a map to the "art world", but this concept also functions in a manor of allowing one to be able to point out the shape that the web creates of one's concept of art. For if it shows the locations of the things that you personally pertain to in the art world, then your definition of art will stand in relation to that webbing of interests, with special consideration to where more or less of the cluttering of interests happens. Thus, the unique shape that person "A" has on this chart in comparison to person "X" becomes what defines art as a whole: The visual representation of what your interests are and how you use them, in combination to how you relate to any singular other person's same understanding.... and in using the artistic representation of the color wheel even makes it fun.

I hope this helps to clarify exactly what is going on in my head... if you have any questions or thoughts on the subject feel free

Response to Andrea's Post

2011-04-11T19:27:00.000-07:00

In response to Adrea's post on Hume, found here: http://momenttospare.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-hume.html?showComment=1302575018409#c4058554772067051527,

Personally, I think that the argument Hume poses for us is actually one of the stronger conversations for how to interpret art. The thing that is important to keep in mind when discussing this however is the concept of setting a precedent, which is exactly what Hume did best.

To elaborate on what I am talking about, obviously no single person could possibly be perfect at judging something with the concept of freedom from influence. However, a person can try to take this standpoint while taking in and interpreting a piece of art. By attempting to focus your view of a piece of art from the standpoint of no influence from other art, then you can most accurately attempt to see the beauty of the thing itself without preconception. You don't have to be perfect at it, but the better you are at this, the less convolution you have to fight past when judging art.

Additionally, taking this standpoint with the idea that you are attempting to achieve as close to perfect as possible, rather than perfection, then objectivity / subjectivity becomes arguable. Taking the standpoint of no preconceptions would mean that you would be judging from the standpoint of the people as a whole, thus removing subjectivity from the equation.

Do you feel that this standpoint makes any sense?

Color Wheel Theory

2011-04-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

So in recent classes one thing that I had been considering was what the best way to understand what all of the genre's are of any given art form, and how they could be classified amongst other art genre's. Well after trying to just "think" of all of them in relation to how I have thought about them before, I changed the rules a little bit and came up with this:

This is an interesting device that I have been trying to use in the same fashion for what it was designed, with a twist of how it is laid out. The standard color wheel divides up and clarifies where every color visible to the human eye can be placed on a map of how to get there. Thus I concluded it would be wise to try and use it for this same purpose.

The way that the wheel is laid out allows for the most important "heads" of categories to be displayed as new colors that are a result of the combining of other colors on the wheel. This allows for dividing the complicated multi-genric categories in authority position, for when art and music are equally mixed we get Green, or Animation which would be an artistic film with just music.

Then, the next important thing to note is that the Tone qualities of color can be utilized to divide up all of the sub-categories or sub-genre's of the staple title colors. Thus when it is brought up that there are many genre's within "Music" it can be easily clarified that they are just seperate tones, not seperate colors.

What are your thoughts on this concept?

Response to Kim's Post

2011-04-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

In response to the post that Kim put up here: http://kimsartandphlilosophyblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/goodman-and-tolstoy.html?showComment=1301843217055#c3368452113288105104 This is what I hs to say:

This is an interesting question you have brought up about Tolstoy and Goodman being similar in theories. I would say that they certainly do have similar views, but that Tolstoy isn't where we need to stop this conversation. I think that when it comes down to the synthesis of Goodman's concepts into similarities, there are three pillars that he pulls together into one:

Tolstoy is certainly the emotion side of his theory,

Plato's argument of the forms comes back into play,

and Bell's concepts of aesthetics is the final piece.

With the three of these theories brought together, we begin to see what the inspiration behind Goodman's work is. So yes, I do think that it is certainly a taste of Tolstoy, but I feel that we can't forget the other two in this discussion, for otherwise we begin to hide away from some of the other important things that are Goodman's philosophies.

Some Stuff from my Notes... Part II

2011-03-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

When discussing the art philosophies that we have about David Hume, I have been noting the things that one would probably have to do in order to properly understand what the most logical objective vs. subjective solution is. What I have determined is that I disagree with the prospect that the book offers when it says that only one who is free of prejudices can accurately classify what is good or bad art. My though is as follows:

:: One must have an understanding that encompases all aspects of art in order to properly understand what good or bad art is, for only a blending of objectivity and subjectivity is what will lead you to the correct answer. Thus the solution becomes a mission to have an objective view to which we can all agree on the truth that it lays out for us to which we can begin our subjective dismantling of it as a whole.

:: If the entirety of art can be categorized into similarities in the same fashion that programs such as "pandora" or "genius" lay out music, then we would have a basis to which we can display our different taste and interests in art. What one person considers art does not necessarily need to agree with anyone else's in this layout, for being able to see the whole grid would allow to quarrelist's to realize that there are no similarities in their taste in comparison to the whole.

How does this sound?

Some Stuff from my Notes

2011-03-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

So when it comes to blogging, sometimes I have trouble coming up with something new to discuss that I didn't bring up in class. So today I am going to put up a couple of my thoughts that I have jotted down during class over the course of the past few weeks.

First off, I have this interesting tab from the days that we had spent talking about Dewey. The concepts that I had been considering was the possibility of animals being able to learn how to communicate with us as humans so that we would be able to learn from them. I thought that this was a particularly interesting thing to ponder, for the vast number of things taht we could take away from different animals based on their opinions would be fascinating.

So, I began to wonder what would ned to be done in order to make this concept a reality. The first thought was that we would have to probably pick a subject that the animal would be able to communicate within, but what would be the most logical to start with? Math? Music? Art?

What would the view of art from a birds perspective be?

The Concept of Pianistic Perfection

2011-03-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

When taking note of the video posted on the DKJ phlog, I had originally claimed (silly..ly) that pianistic perfection would have to be that of the Well Tempered Clavier, basing my argument on the concept that the piano would not exist as we know it today without the it.

However, I have since the moment I posted the Well Tempered Clavier comment been thinking about what exactly would fulfill the actually graspable concept of "Pianistic Perfection", and thus far this is what I've got:

:: From the musical standpoint of a flute player, whom has dabbled here and there amongst various categories and mediums of music, I think that the strongest argument for someone who claim's to have perfection on a musical front only has to truly be able to do only one thing, which inevitably has two results. Ironically, this one thing is that you must be able to respond to any given aesthetic desire possible when it is necessary to display that aesthetic to whatever audience it may be that you are attempting to come in contact with.

:: The fascinating thing about this single requirement being that the reason we as musicians typically lean towards a genre at all is that the aesthetics that become inherent with sed genre are the ones that appeal to us most in one way or another. Thus the second result becomes obvious, in that perfection not only display's that you readily understand and can translate any of the aesthetics, but also that you have discovered and display the one that aesthetically represents thyself whenever necessary.

What are your thoughts?

In Response to DKJ's Definition of Art

2011-03-15T20:19:00.001-07:00

Amidst the conversation about Professor Johnson's definition of art, found here: http://critojazz.blogspot.com/2011/03/ap-my-latest-attempt-to-define-art.html, I had the following input to be added:

I would certainly agree that Art is all a matter of levels and degrees. It is a complicated path that you have to follow to end with the conclusion of defining art though; for the two most distracting factors are certainly always muddling with our judgment of the final result. These two factors of course being: 1. if it is indeed art and 2. whether your perception of it is based on your recognition in its quality

Definitively, I would say that all of the requirements are undeniably fulfilled in the personal original experience of witnessing 4'33, (being careful to note the original reveal of the surprise is at least a small piece of the overall aesthetic derived from the artistic display to any audience member). Thus, though many people were disappointed by the piece's result, it was at least to some degree fulfilling all of the original requirements and remains as art to me.

As for the conversation of degree's in respect to the definition; I certainly feel that it is important to consider any and all forms of already created, and yet to be created art on scales of continuum's, using the afore mentioned necessities in defining art against the scale of time. For in my opinion, these necessities are in continuous influx based on their time of creation in comparison to what has been created. The primary reason for the continuum factor being that a piece of work may seem significantly less like art to us in this moment than it did to anyone else in their moment; especially to the degree that a requirement may have failed over time (thus resulting in a piece no longer fulfilling at least one of the requirements of art). With this being said, the definition would allow for our hermit in a closet creating art to be a correct statement, in that he himself did experience the art he made in that moment to which we can no longer partake.

So Said the Daydreamer...

2011-03-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

So in order to catch up on some of my blogs, I had some interesting things to mention about my thoughts from the section on Clive Bell. The philosophies of Clive Bell were pretty interesting, for in his opinion the concepts of art that are most important are those of the form and how the represent aesthetics properly, thus being a big fan of abstract art.

Now the thing that I found particularly enticing about this concept of his is how what he was interested in about peoples reaction to art can be quantified somehow. To help elaborate, I will talk about some of my brainstorming on the subject:

:: Now in order to figure out what it is that Clive Bell believes in, one would have to fill in the lexical gap that is the descriptor for how one feels when witnessing a piece of art. In other words you need a way of describing the emotion felt when you see something that is artistic and does not necessarily fit quite right under any other title.

:: In his defence, Bell discusses the concept of the Aesthetic Emotion, which is sort of designed as a term to help with the previous problem, but then the new problem that arises is that of how one aesthetic emotion differs from another...

So my question for all of you out there is thus: would it seem reasonable to declare that Aesthetic Emotions are actually just the raw and pure forms of the regular emotions we feel all the time? Thus suggesting that the overwhelming sense you feel about certain pieces of art set off such a powerful reaction in that emotion that we sometimes confuse it for inspiration. What are your thoughts?

Response to Bryson's post about Bell

2011-03-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

In response to what Bryson had said here:http://brycen-honorsartandphilosophy.blogspot.com/2011/02/representation.html?showComment=1299198983406#c3333453850994794858

Alright, personally, I have a lot to say on this subject to which I feel is a particularly juicy debate about art.

First I want to talk about photography as an art, because in our current day and time, photography is much less an art form than what it once was. However, to preface this statement, there are two things that are necesary to point out about photography to which are the different aspects of its art. The first is that photography is an art of being able to capture an aesthetic in its purest form or representation in real life imagery. The second is that it is an art of being able to manipulate the outcome of the final image that you will have. There is one thing that has to be noted about the second art though; and this is that electronic manipulation to achieve the image you desire does not qualify in the true art of photography, for it involves none of the actual strain inherent in achieving your goal. With this being said, photography is certainly capable of being art still, but its really only half art unless you are efficient enough to use a dark room.

Now to answer your second questions, a lot about life is more artistic that one would expect, for I personally agree with the concept of aesthetics being art in their own respect. So technically, there would be a lot out in nature that would appeal to the view of the artist, which can evidently be captured in an image by a camera.

Does this format of looking at photography make sense in the realm of defining things about art?

Response to Kim's Post

2011-02-23T12:59:00.001-08:00

In response to Kim's post about Frued, found here:
http://kimsartandphlilosophyblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/art-as-communication-using-freuds-view.html?showComment=1298494752680#c5748496592258441370

I think that with respect to Frued's belief's within art, there is more to the concept of releasing repressed motions than he lets on to or even understood himself.

The primary reason I bring this up is that repressed emotion very specifically does not have to be a bad thing. An artistic person may experience something that derives good or bad emotions within them to which they can focus into the creation of a happy image. The thing that makes this most interesting is that to the artist this may be used simply as a cathartic exercise, but with the successful creation of the art it can be of monetary or even simply just emotional value to another human being.

I think that artists being unhappy people is a fairly strong stereotype about artists because the act and experience in creating art is so strong as a cathartic exercise. Typically I would say that the greater portion of morbid artists are artists that have expended to much into their work / focus too long on something that is very difficult to finish. The best example of this being someone who has writer's block; they cannot think of any new ideas and seem to have blown their creativity in the past until something triggers them to do what they are good at successfully again.

A Note About Our Frued Conversation

2011-02-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

So to catch up my blogging from last week, I forgot to mention one of the things that I found most interesting about the conversations we had about Frued in class. The topic that I am reffering to is the one where we discussed the comunication and understanding of the subconcious in its relation to how it affects artists.

To catch up on the point that we were making, the discussion was suggesting that the artist must successfully tap into their subconcious to derive the best creative work they can create. To which once we had decided that this is indeed what Frued would say on the subject, we began to talk about how interesting the concept of tapping the subconcious in creation of a piece of work can be. The biggest point deriving from this concept was suggesting that if an artist must tap into his subconcious to create art, that the viewer of the artwork would be exposed and expected to derive meaning from the origin's subconcious. Thus, we concieved the possibility of artists being able to communicate on a seperate level from normal conversation, a level of subconcious thought so to speak.

This was the most interesting to me because I had never considered this possibility previously, and really enjoyed the concept of a secret language between the best of artists. When brought up in class, we initially shunned the idea, but I think that there is some merit here that we are not considering. The key feature to which would be the concept of analyzing art amongst peers. When looking at a work and discussing the meanings and other important information that can be derived from it, we are simply talking about exactly what the artist intended to communicate through his/her subconscious as according to our experiences through art. When really considered like this, I feel that the secret language is at work all the time and frequently goes unnoticed to the bystanders who consistently overlook it when not considering art. Thus in the end I feel that the secret language is more present that we would think and that it may be a key feature to deriving the true understanding of art.

How do you feel about this concept?

An Attempt to Define Art - Continued

2011-02-22T16:17:00.001-08:00

Throughout the corse of this class I have been trying to piece together my own little theories about art here and there between my blogposts. After having created the image that I did to help explain my equation from the first week, I tried to help explain one of the variables used in the equation, thus this post is to help explain Inspiration, based roughly on how I thought of it when reading Tolstoy:

In Response to Davion

2011-02-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

In response to Davions Post:
http://hartphilosophy.blogspot.com/2011/02/with-great-power-comes-great.html#comments

Interestingly enough, I would say that you are right about the fact that art can be one of the most influential things that humans as individuals can create. When it becomes a question of power though, the answer is substantially more difficult to come by. For I would be put in the position to say that Art is only as powerful as we let it become.

Now strangely enough, the thing that makes this conversation interesting is that I feel there is at least one other variable to attend to when considering the power of art. For when you think about it, if we were to assume that this sort of power can be derived from art, then there must be something that seperates one piece from another.

To me, the answer is all about the masses. The dangerous, powerful artist is the one that can create a piece of work that convey's the same emotion to the largest number of people. If an artist can create great pieces of work that influence masses of people to believe in and follow their ideals, then art would be just as strong as any other form of influential communication. This would be a scenario to which the use of art would be to much power for people to control. Once this has been determined though, would we consider things like advertising to be a similar threat?

Response to Kate's Post

2011-01-31T10:06:00.000-08:00

Personally, I would argue that perception of what is art has very little to do with the limitations of what can be art. Rather, the perception of art is more similar to the idea of Aesthetics to me. For one who understands their personal aethetic value for something in conjunction to understanding the aesthetic potential of others around them is what leads to art.

Now that being a little bit much to take all at once, to simplify I would say that human's naturally understand what is art to them and to people around them, it is an instinct of sorts. When it comes down to analyzing a specific piece of work, if it cannot be understood then it is an error of communication of one of the two parties involved (either the creator or the observer). These types of errors are the loopholes that crack through society and create the problem of your questioning of your own perception of the whole.

Do you feel that this analysis of perception helps you to follow through with what your original intent of understanding art was?

Defining Art

2011-01-28T11:05:00.001-08:00

Today in class we talked some more about a good means as to how we can properly define art. As it turns out we discussed the definition this time in the format of an equation, to which I thought was a particularly appealing idea, so I started working on what I think is my appropriate understanding of art and how it can be defined.

What I came up with was an extention of the equation that we had in class that I feel incoorperates all aspects that I think are necessary in properly describing what art is and why it is important. The equation accomplishes two things: it shows what art is, and also gives an interesting way to determine if art is valued amongst people of the art world, and it looks like this:

How do you feel that this equation does to define art? What differences do you think make it stronger or weaker?

Response to Andrea

2011-01-27T05:57:00.000-08:00

To attempt to answer your question and touch on additional things that you mentioned in your post, I have two opinions.
First off, I'll try to answer your question, to which I think that the necessity to try and define art is more significant than it seems. Mostly because if we could come to some sort of concrete answer as to what art is and why, then lots of other things would become certainly much easier to answer by classification. Additionally, it is a frustrating thing to have a word that everyone in the world knows and understands, but can't be truly defined in a concrete manor. All in all, it would be nice if there were some sort of constant that we could agree on and attempt to hold against any formidable question.
Secondly, there is the string of comments that you left in your last paragraph, to which I think are very interesting. I think that the idea of philosopher's not defining words and ideas is incorrect; in fact I almost feel it’s the opposite. To my understanding, philosophy is a practice of unbiased understanding and proving of truth, to which defining art is a paramount example. To look at art philosophically is but to understand what art is and why it is significant to all things that it affects.

Do you still disagree?

Artists vs. Nature

2011-01-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

Today in class we mentioned the currently indistinguishable difference between art created by people, and art that is beautiful of its own existence out in nature as to whether these things qualify as art itself. Interestingly enough, we mentioned that artists specifically try to immitate what we know as the world via the skills that they have in manipulating different mediums to accomplish this.
With both of these things having been mentioned, I feel that it is interesting to take note of people who have been studying computer graphics with the intention of making the artistic world that we view much more "beautiful" than our own real life could ever allow. As an example of this, consider all of the work that went into the movie Avatar, this level of artistic manipulation is stagering enough that many people can sit to watch this movie and feel like a part of the environment that has been laid out for them.
Considering this ideal of creating an artistically better world, is it possible that artists are working towards the idea of creating something along the same lines as The Matrix to keep people entertained? Are we going to eventually need to give up our reality with the ideal of art as its replacement to keep ourselves entertained?

What are your thoughts?

Art and Philosophy

2011-01-21T07:05:00.000-08:00

Hey there everybody,

So I took the honors Nature of Human Nature class with David last year, and seeing as I enjoyed using this blog so much, I will continue my posts for the Art and Philosophy class this semester through this blog.

Please note that none of the posts previous to this one are relevent within the Art and Philosophy class, but if you are interested feel free to read through some.

Oh, and also, I put a new link on the places to go tab on the right side of the screen, I promise its not a virus, its just something interesting for you to keep busy with that i'll change with every post I put up, so be sure to come back and check it out.

Thanks, and hope for a good semester!

Alex

Philosophical analysis of the Magic of Illusion

2010-06-05T10:31:00.000-07:00

When spoken of, magic is usually blow off as a joke of sorts, that magic doesn't really exist. Well this is something I do not completely agree with, I think that magic comes in many more shapes and sizes than meets the untrained eye. The form of which takes the most simple disguise is that of Illusion.

The art of illusion works in a cryptic way depending on how it is being presented to the intended target. The magic itself is standing dangerously on the line between good and evil, for it is in key a magic of tricking the senses into believing something that they are not intended to.

Now back to the part where I mention that illusion is not commonly seen as magic. The use of illusion to simply trick the eyes of another human is quite literally that: a simple trick, so simple in fact that we usually enjoy the fun of trying to figure out what it is exactly that the magician is doing. However, there are much more complicated forms of this art that can be manipulated in an artistic and devious way. I refer to this style of illusion as dream weaving, for the artist is taking the skills of language and persuasion to weave an alternate reality for the listener. There are many forms of this, and all of which are distinctly different in their effect on the mind.

Dream Weaving within Lying

This is a skill that requires the user to issue another being constant belief in something that is not real. The more skilled the liar at remembering everything that has been altered from real existence, the more realistic the illusion becomes. There are two results of this, the beneficial outcome for the magician is that they have taken control of someone else's thoughts, and have the capability to alter reality in their favor when necessary. However, the unfortunate outcome to this use of alteration is that the magician is plagued with the memory of both realities, and these are more dangerous than one would anticipate. When the magician is weighed down to much by the pressure and stress of the brain on memories, it consumes them, and stress will lead to infinite outcomes of punishment to the user.

Dream Weaving within Fear

This is a more horrific skill. Those who become talented in the art of creating fear are truly using the capacity of dream weaving to its darkest purpose. The skill to create the illusion of true fear takes some of its own unique skills. As would be required, the user must have control over their intended target. Once this is established, the user takes that control and finds all of its weaknesses; the more talented the magician, the more things they can find to manipulate another. Then the most dangerous part, the user must give up their feeling of remorse towards any other person, for that remorse will lead to the failing of their illusion. At long last, this person is then prepared to do whatever is available to disturb their intended target. The benefit to this magician is that they have control over the person targeted, and all of their relations. However, the downside to the magician in this case is that they have nothing left to tie them down to reality, they are alone in the world and have forfeited their trust to their talent.

Life hath delt me the hand of tragedy. Even kings cannot meddle with the forces of love.

2010-05-15T22:35:00.001-07:00

Onesis

2010-05-09T15:45:00.001-07:00

As the last post that I am putting up for the class, I wanted to rewrite my theory of human nature on here in case anyone who may have had questions or comments could take them out on here. Also, I would like to point out that I am not done with this blog, when I think of other philosophical things in the future I will still post them here, so feel free to check back here every once in a while to keep your mind busy. Otherwise, thanks for participating :-)

Theory:

:: We exist for a comparatively short amount of time, and then we die.

:: We spend most of our life chaotically looking for answers about the world around us so that we can happily come to terms with what our life is supposed to be.

:: The path for coming to the complete understanding of these answers comes in three parts for those who are truly looking:

Part 1. Onesis

Onesis (Oh-knee-sis) is a term that I have made up to describe a path of coming to your own true self maturity; a sort of life epiphany, and this is what it looks like:

This path displays the timeline of an average person on their path to Onesis. I put the title "middle/high school" on the general age of about 17/18. This is the last part of the graph it is typically consistent between people, before the amount of time begins to change rapidly between how long it takes to get to the next step. The reason for this is that there is no way of telling exactly how long it will take you to reach Onesis, and as such, only you can come to this conclusion, for even though I am showing your the path, you are the only person who can discover what it really means.

When Onesis is understood, what you choose to do with it is up to you, as is represented by the break in the paths, and the symbols at the end of life, which stand for:
(+) Positive Influence, (-) Negative Influence, and (n) Neutral Influence... in Life.
These symbols also come with an analogy, where in life you choose to be the Coyote (negative), Sheep (neutral), or Sheepdog (positive).

Part 2. Logos

Logos is a word that stand for "word" and "reason", and it has a place on the path of life once Onesis has been understood. This part of life is when you have reached Onesis and you are left to choose what you want to do with the rest of your life (i.e. the Positive or Neutral path).

Logos is the second part because it represents what you do with Onesis once you understand it, and it is separated into its two parts:

:: The term "word" means that you come to understand the language in which you have most versed yourself in (i.e. music, science, art, etc.) and you slowly become more masterful in your capability to create and describe things using that "word".

:: The term "reason" represents the why in your life. Once you come to understand the "word" you are left to choose what you do with it, and reason is there to help you choose your influence on the rest of life.

Part 3. Telos

Telos is the final part of life, and literally means: "end, purpose", and "goal". This has been added to the path of life, because: "By understanding that which life consists of, we prepare ourselves for death".

Life is like a novel. You are the writer of your own fate, the architect to your own happiness; don't let it go to waste: everyone likes a good story.

2010-05-09T15:42:00.001-07:00

In Response to Austin

2010-05-09T15:41:00.001-07:00

I think that your question at the end here is very interesting for conversation.

Personally, I do not think that there will be a perfect world peace for people all across the world. My reasoning behind this is comes in a few parts.

First off, I don't think that there can possibly be a universal world peace simply because there are too many people out there who have anger in their life. The problem with this is that the many individual angry people contribute to overall anger, and when they find enough people to follow them, that is when worldly chaos happens.

Additionally, in my mind there is no single thing that could possibly bring everyone alive to come together and live life in harmony with each other. Plus, even if there was some singularly glorious thing that brought every single human being to the same bliss or world peace, there would be one major issue. The big problem would be that there is worldwide institutionalization; meaning that we are so embedded in the way of life that has already been set, and there are so many of us, that there would be no way of making that big a change happen.

As unfortunate as it sounds, I think that we are stuck here. But in the greater scheme of things, don't worry; because as it is right now there are still ways to find your own personal happiness, you just have to keep looking.

Response to Bryan's Post

2010-05-02T20:59:00.000-07:00

Bryan posted this question about believing in greater forces: "Do you think the idea of believing in something greater should be separated from believing in God specifically, or are the same thing?"

I think that the question at the end of this post is really fascinating.

I am not honestly sure that there is a difference between believing in something greater and believing in god. The way I see it, the belief of god is supposed to represent the idea of "something greater", not as the Christian god so to speak, but any god that you look up to. The real problem is that these day's things are sort of blown out of proportion, so we forget what it means to believe in something greater, it is similar to the tap water issue: if you drink bottled water consistently for long enough, then the taste of normal tap water becomes strange tasting, even though it was probably better for you than the bottled water.

In the end, I think that everyone needs to believe in something higher than themselves, because we all work stronger when we aspire to something beyond our capability. The thing is, we each need to find that thing which we truly believe in, that thing that makes the most sense to you personally. Then a personal understanding of believing in something greater will make sense to anyone who does not believe.

What do you think of this?

One man says to another: "you know absolutely everything about nothing" and the other replied: "At least I know it well"

2010-04-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

A Question For You... Yes, You

2010-04-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

In terms of theoretical situations, this one is among my favorites:

Say you were to create two robots: one that could see and explore the world with fast moving legs, and talented eyesight; and one that was very slow and had no vision, yet had arms and built in schematics for creating new robots like itself and its companion. The only purpose for this couple of robots is to create more robots like themselves, and to use any means of surrounding materials to do so...

Would this be like recreating the Garden of Eden? What sort of things would we learn about ourselves if we watched their experiences?

War on Nature

2010-04-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

While in philosophy this week, we talked about Darwin, and this was what came to mind during these conversations:

With the way that the world has been changing since the introduction of humans to the puzzle of oh so many pieces that make up the earth, there has been a constant increase in methods to avoiding the natural way to do anything. Some examples you can keep in your mind for the rest of this chat include: going out to find food, curing natural diseases, creating genetic clones of people/animals, even in some cases physically talking to another person.

The question that is reoccurring in my mind is that: will we ever fully defeat nature at this game? Is there going to be some point in time where we will fully break away from nature and create our own advanced style of living to which there are no natural flaws?

Well my argument to this is that nature's weapon of mass destruction is the ability to create variables to situations that seem to have no flaw. Nature's variables (like animals that are designed to kill us, diseases, and weather) are what it has to our advantage in this fight. The reason behind this is that unless we can defeat every single possible variable, then nature will always have a way of snapping back at us to keep humans in line.

But the tantalizing topic point here is: what if we could actually defeat every variable that nature could have provided? I think that the answer is simply this: if we manage to break away from nature, then nature’s last resort would be that it created humans with the incapacity to be completely efficient in its work. Thus the flaws that humans defeated within nature would only lead to flaws within the design of sed human creations: leading to new "human made" variables.

The answer is that even if we could defeat the nature that was given to us, we would only have become nature in the process, creating new flaws for other creatures to deal with.

Do you think that there would be a different outcome?

Response to Megan's Miraculous Animals

2010-04-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

In response to Megan's stories about particularly intelligent animals:
(http://darkworldjazz451.blogspot.com/2010/04/response-to-alex.html)
I have been thinking about this story with the horse and it is really fascinating to me. I think with respect to that specific story, I would need to have more information (to the point that I would argue that I would have needed to be there to fully appreciate the situation's intensity) so that I could appropriately argue the truth behind it.

But that is more trailing away from what I got excited about in the first place, for it is the mystical side of this specific story that is catching my attention so strongly. I think that I would like to believe that animals have certain senses that are just amazingly more talented than humans to the point that they can provide miracles as suggested in that story. But part of me can't shake the idea that even if they had the ability to tell these certain things, why would they be so interested in helping the human beings that are keeping them captive? It seems frighteningly selfless of a horse that has been locked up its entire life within a barn community to decide one day that it is going to help a little girl with her tumor situation. This makes me think that if they actually had the capacity for that much compassion, then they would indeed have a superego that is present; that they would help when they felt it was appropriate. The sheer lack of other examples of this compassion leads me to believe that it is unfortunately not present...

But then again: it did happen, and I can't deny that it was possibly purposeful. So I will leave the open minded idea that in outrageously rare occasions, animals may have brief bursts of superego that is present to give them the ability to help out.

Life is Absurd My Dear

2010-04-20T06:50:00.000-07:00

One of the more interesting conversations that came up in our class this week while talking about existentialism is this statement that "Life is Absurd". The thing that is said to explain human life as absurd is this fact that we choose to continuously occupy our time with activity for no apparent reason.

I think that my answer is two sided, for it is biological and artistically amazing that we choose to use our energy as we do. We occupy ourselves with projects that will consume our time alive as a result of all of this energy that we have, and it is just the most amusing way that we can utilize it. In the long run of things, all living forms on earth do the same thing: why does a plant grow? what is the point of a tree? The amazing part about humans is that we enjoy creating, and we are really good at it, because no other life forms on earth have the same capabilities that we do in our creativity. The reason this is a cool argument to me though comes in two parts:

The fact that we create with no reason is true, and it is absurd; however, in creating we have come to using our creative abilities to please and impress other humans, as a beautiful art form of expression: and thus not so absurd as it was just moments ago.

Response to Jenna's Question

2010-04-20T06:46:00.000-07:00

This is an answer to Jenna's question about "kill thrill" and wether or not it is occuring because of what kids are taught these days.

I think that this is an interesting question, because the biggest problem on the table in this argument is the statement that children should know better because of what they are taught. I think that since you mentioned it I have been wondering why there isn't a basic "morals" kind of class for kids who are young. Then the thought that came into my mind is that it is probably because up until recently in our history, it was just expected that you learned morals from your family... but I think that this is an ideal that is dying away quickly.

So my thought for the answer of this would be that those kids who are involved in "kill thrill" are probably not getting their expected dose of morality while at the family dinner table, because half the time they probably don't have a full family at the dinner table to begin with. Perhaps the best solution would be to teach basic levels of morality through public school... but I feel like this would end in controversy; what are your thoughts?

Ponder This:

2010-04-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to subjects that I have been keeping tab on recently that I have not had the time to sit down and make any official posts about... if one of these subjects gives you some inspiration for topic discussion, fire away in my comments section and I’ll continue any discussions that spur from this, because they are all pretty interesting topics for consideration...

Freud Topics:

1. Does coming to a perfect understanding of individual "forms" allow us to understand and use our Superconscious Intuition?
(Superconscious Intuition: the ability to realize that there is something wrong before it happens, i.e. having that unsettling feeling in your stomach right before you enter the spooky looking house that might collapse on you).

2. Can we somehow quantify the unconsciousness? And if we can... would Freud be right about his assumptions about what was going on in the unconscious?

Hobson and Soames:

3. If dreams are repressed thoughts from being an infant, then what do infants dream?

4. If dreaming is a very deep powerful state of otherworldly consciousness, then do the states of "high" and "hallucinating" just alter our consciousness enough that we are still awake, but feel like we are approaching the familiar state of dreaming, and thus allowing ourselves to explore our unconsciousness more thoroughly? (Have fun with this one)

Response to Julie's Post

2010-04-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

This is a response to Julie's post about perfect society.

I think that my favorite piece of this whole statement is that you specifically say that there is no perfect organization to what can and must be. This is such a true statement, and a lot of people underestimate it. What people don't realize is that no matter how much you disagree with certain things about life, there can never be something that satisfies every single opinion. We each need our own little slice of heaven that is reserved for the ones that you are compatible with, and can share a view of perfection.

When it really comes down to it though, you are sort of right, we need some chaos in life to make things interesting from time to time. We are tragic creatures, we strive only for our own perfection in the world, but even if we could have it, there would be so little to occupy our mind, because in the "perfect world" there is nothing left to strive for.

This is a tricky problem to overcome, but the real answer is humbling: we can only have true perfection when we allow ourselves to enjoy the simple things, like gardening for food, and sewing your own clothing... (Whats so bad about doing the dishes by hand sometimes?) My point is that we don't need to spend to much time looking for a group to conform to, we should just be, and appreciate how much fun it can be to just exist. :-)

If Only I Had a Superego...

2010-04-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

In class this week we discussed a mess of interesting topic discussions that related back to Sigmund Freud. One of these particular conversations was about the differences of the "Id, Ego, and Superego" amongst different species and living creatures on the planet. This conversation became fascinating to me when it came to describing the differences between what life is like when you only have certain pieces of this equation.

The example that we had discussed in class was that of a dog. A dog has an Id and an Ego, but lacks that of the Superego. The dog has an ambition for the pleasures of life, and it knows full well that its actions have certain effects on its ability to receive such pleasure (i.e. getting a treat for doing a trick). However, a dog does not have a superego, the dog has no ambition to get out some cleaner to go and fix what it has done to the rug when it decides to pee on it.

This conversation is interesting to me specifically because at some point in our developing as humans we came to understand and utilize this "superego". So the question that is on my mind is: what if other species are in the process of becoming fully aware and capable of understanding the same way that we understand things? Do we even know if there hasn't already been a case where other creatures can reason the same way that we are with respect to the Superego?

In class we also discussed that some birds literally use their ability to sing as a means of pleasurably making music, just for the sake that it is pretty.... are we even going to have the capability in the future to communicate with these creatures to understand if they are indeed that intelligent?

It is an interesting topic, what are some of your views?

A Response to Bryan's Post

2010-04-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

This response corresponds to the conversation taking place on Bryan's Blog, found here:
http://bacton.blogspot.com/2010/03/do-not-forget-we-are-talking-about.html
To catch you up on things, currently me and Bryan are talking about how to perfect a socialist utopian society. As a response to his post, I felt that there may be some things to add to my original argument, these are my revisions to the plan:

For starters, this conversation we had was very basic and in the birth of its coming to completion. I think that the equal wages with freedom to spend it on what interests you is still a very valid argument, it just needs some help with other potential circumstances to encompass the things that you think would be wrong with it.

With respect to the jobs situation, equal wages has to be rephrased a little bit. The real solution to that statement would be that jobs would pay differently based on how much you have to do / contribute to society. Rather than saying that everyone gets equal wages, it would be a statement of everyone gets appropriate wage caps based on their contribution to society.

Another important part to this conflict is that of the self being frustrated with this system. What you had mentioned is that the normal person would notice that they don't need to do as much work as expected and still make the same money. This is a very true statement, and thus my solution to it is that there must be a form of punishment (whether to the wages you make or the job itself) for not complying with the job that you are participating in. This would work very similarly to firing someone from the job that they are clearly not adequate for, expecting that the person who will now not have any wage coming in will find a different job that they will actually participate in.

This leads to the next interesting issue of running out, and or wasting away the wage money that you are expected to use appropriately. My solution to this brings the whole argument to a level of finally making sense. For if you have been fired from your job, and or you have been wasting your wages away to the point that you can no longer survive without government help, then you are sent to jail. This would have to be a slightly different kind of jail than what we have now though. It would have to be more of a rehabilitation to society program; where you take these people who have wasted their money away and have them do community service without pay until they make up for what they have done wrong. Once they have proven to be humbled by this means of service, they are sent back out to try again with the expectation that they can now appreciate their wages.

This concept of the jail would also make up for the people trying to take advantage of the system. For you can go back to jail as many times as you want, but it would be more efficient to keep your job and try and save your money for what you want; rather than a means of taking advantage of others.
This concept of the jail system would also take the blame on the government out of the people's eyes, because it is a standardized system that would work efficiently without bias to any one person who ends up there.

What do you think of the revisions?

A Response to Yvonne's Post

2010-03-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

So you say that the heart and mind should be balnced, but what are the extreme's of either argument?

Alrighty, this is an interesting set of statements that I want to talk about. For starters, I agree, life must consist of balance, for balance is what lets us survive most peacefully as a whole. The Heart and the Mind are an amazing example of this, for the two of them separately are each one extreme, but together, they create one flourishing system of complete understanding.

The benefit to living in the extreme of the heart is that you will endure the life of a character, as if your actual life is that of a play. For the heart is the center of all that is love and giving, and thus you will experience great happiness, and great sadness. Some people are absolutely in love with this style of life, for it leaves the idea of epic free to explore within one's personal life, which is something that should not be ignored. But be warned that great sadness is a powerful thing to deal with, and not everyone is ready to handle it.

The life of extreme knowledge is the exact opposite. You are that of a computer, one who must weigh out every decision as if it would end your life if you chose wrong. This ideal of life is beneficial since you appreciate the things that are potentially dangerous, and thus live a long safe life. But alternatively, this life will leave you with an empty feeling in the bottom of what you will think is your stomach (but it’s really your heart). You will never fully appreciate all of the stupid things that other people have done and got away with, the adventures that you could have had. But these things are also not for everyone, and cannot be forced, so let them be.

In the end, the wise warrior will appreciate what things are truly too dangerous, but will leave themselves up to take advantage of all aspects life has to offer that won't kill them. They will be fulfilled with adventure and knowledge, and thus live a happy life for the life that they have actually lived.

Only Enough Room for One

2010-03-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

In class this week one thing that we had talked about briefly was that of where philosophers get their true ideas. It had been mentioned that "No great philosopher gets his ideas by himself, that there must always be some stealing."

When this was mentioned, I really had to think about the way that it was worded. After giving it some thought, I think that this is an inappropriate statement. The way that I look at it, philosophers are descriptors and pattern seekers of things that are happening and created by other people whom they happen to be surrounded by while alive. This lead to some round about thinking, but in the end I came to this conclusion:

One cannot be a Philosopher without taking the ideas and thoughts as a collection from the people whom they are surrounded, for it is those things that influence and establish their observations. Without people to sit down and interpret and observe, then there would be nothing for the philosopher to describe and appreciate. The real issue is that there cannot be more than one person who is famous for the works that get published within their lifetime, as is similar to the idea that no two people can be singularly famous for the same piece of art.

What are your thoughts?

The Noble Scholar

2010-03-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

During class this week we spent a lot of time talking about Hobbes and Rousseau. While discussing the things that Rousseau thought about in terms of his philosophy I started to really think about his idea of "Emile" or what would be the best way to raise a child.

this concept was really striking to me because it is something that I had considered from time to time, but never really sat down and though about, because as it is, it isn't particularly urgent in my life yet. When really thinking about it though, I wonder what sort of things would be said when asked what you think the perfect way to raise a child is.

So this is my general outlook at a good parenting guide, and my question to you is, what would yours consist of?

From birth until schooling the child should spend almost every waking moment with at least one of the parents learning about life within the confines of natural skills (i.e. music, language, communication in arts, science, coordination, and understanding).

The child should be brought out into the real world in all kinds of conditions (like sun, snow and rain) so that they can begin to learn what life is like beyond the confines of their home and begin to explore the worlld around them.

I think that adventuring would be important to their life, but its not necessary that they do it alone, go out on hikes and explore rivers or other surrounding natural interesting things, let them become experienced in the immidiate world with you.

Avoid current stereotypical cartoons and "toys r' us": instead let them watch some charlie brown... break out the old lego's and brio train sets, these are things that would be more educational to them than any elmo toy, trust me.

Play to their interests, if you start teaching them about everything and they pertain to certain skills, let them thrive on that, but make sure not to give up on the other important things for them to learn about.

Julia's Happiness Machine

2010-03-14T07:20:00.001-07:00

This is a response to your thought provoking question about the happiness machine..

I think that it would be hard for me to decide on every single thing that would be different in my happiness machine especially with respect to things that would be physically possible / probable. Assuming that anything could be different in this happiness machine, I would add some fun to life in terms of super natural ability: i.e. the ability to control given surroundings with telepathy, to be able to shoot flames out of my fingertips or the ability to fly :)

however, I think that if given the option to walk into my own happiness machine... Where I am right now I don't think that I would go inside, because my life is pretty happy the way it is, and stepping inside would take away the things that I have worked for to get to where I am now. I would leave it to someone else who needed it.

Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

2010-03-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

When in class on Friday, we were talking about the theories of Hobbes’ views of human nature. The thing that absolutely caught my attention when we discussed his philosophies was our quick discussion on Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. When we had talked about this I ended up writing about why I think people help one another out in terms of Hobbes’ idea of psychological egoists. My idea of this is similar to the ideal of the psychological egoist in that we feel like we need to help someone in order to quell our own needs, but the difference in my thoughts is that it is most definitely not a selfish / selfless act situation.

To my understanding, we slingshot each other by doing good acts in order to slowly bring one another closer to the greater good. The great part about this is that even the most simple of “selfless acts” can be put through this test.

As an example, there are two people in the given situation, person “A” and person “B”. If person “A” has fallen on the ground (thus being slightly on the lesser pleasant side of their day) allowing for person “B” to offer a hand up to the fallen one; then person “B” is offering a free ride on the slingshot to happiness. By helping out, person “B” has brought “A” through a very small level of bad and left them better off than they were before, but at the same time leaving themselves back where they had started in terms of happiness. This is just part of the ladder of happiness, and if we can all help one another climb the steep climb that has been presented, then in the end we would all be better off, wouldn’t you agree?

Response to Isreal's Question

2010-03-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

This is a response to your question: Should there be perfect balance between logic/proof and faith?

When I really think about this question, there is a lot that comes to my mind. The thing that really stands out though is a theory that I have grown quite accustom to in the recent years of my life. The theory goes as follows: “It is better to ask for forgiveness rather than to ask for permission”. This relates directly to how I look at the balance of faith and logic, for it allows an understanding and fairness to both sides of the argument. The logic side to this is that it allows for you to logically take in and interpret the two situations at hand before making a decision. However, at the same time it leaves open the availability that there is some faith to the things that you end up choosing to do; for in this situation it takes some faith to believe that you will hopefully be without trouble in asking for the forgiveness.

What I am really trying to say here is that there should definitely be some balance in these types of decisions, but that as with all things there must be some moderation in everything that you do. For without balance all things begin to get out of hand, thus leading a life of strict logic would be a life that is too thought out; and a life that is too faithful would be a life lead recklessly.

Do you agree with this philosophy in terms of true human nature?

~Alex

Platolotics

2010-02-28T19:13:00.000-08:00

So this week while in class we had spent a lot of time talking about the Greeks, and their views on human nature. During our discussion on Plato, a very interesting point had come up that i wanted to elaborate on.

The statement was that: "Life leaders should not be a group of people who are all rich".

I think that this may or may not be one of the most clever solution statements that I have heard of in terms of politics in a very long time. The reason that this makes so much sense to me is that it would allow for so much more personality and equality in our society in terms of how things are run for the everyday people. Another thing that I think I really like about this is that it would be kind of scary at first to just elect people who were seemingly "unworthy" as we see it currently, but at the same time it would open up a lot of doors in terms of understanding, and I think in the long run of things really help.

The most important difference in my mind is simply this: how can someone who has been elected based on their money and importance in offic understand the poor side of civilization in their area? Unless that person had grown up being very poor then managed to become rich enough to run an official campaign, (which in my mind can only possibly be so many of the people we have elected in the past... if any) it just doesnt seem very fitting.

Personally, the number of representatives that we host per state shouldn't change, but that there should be an added distinguishing factor between them, one that represents the different class levels of that same state. In my mind this would make for the most effective means of political power change within society, do you agree?

Response to Julie's Post

2010-02-28T19:12:00.001-08:00

I personally think that the term "selfless act" is a little bit of an oxymoron, for in order to perform an act of kindness, you have to want to help that person / thing in need.

When it really comes down to it, I feel like the term "selfless act" causes more argument than is needed on the subject, for why should it be questioned in the first plac wether or not you were being selfish to help someone? In the end if you have actually been a help, that is all the matters, you shouldn't need a proof of purchase to make you feel like a better person.

After all, its almost better that the person you have helped doesn't even know that you have been there to help them, for it means that you are just genuinely good, and for a splinter of time you get to be someone's guardian angel
Do you agree?

Response to Bryan's Post

2010-02-21T17:52:00.001-08:00

I think that just about anyone in the world who owns something that they take dear to their heart as a result of earning that certain something in one way or another supports this Sophist idea. The reason I say this is that most of the things that we try to earn in the world are things that we are seeking to achieve, a personal goal for us to become fixated on, and eventually proud of. This feeling of success is what I understand to be a "Sophist" way of thought, and even though it may not represent the whole set of Sophist ideals, it is definitely something that can be considered their own.

When it comes to the American people supporting wrong principles of living, this is what I have to say. Many people in the world, not only the United States live by the wrong principles of living these days. I think that a lot of what is wrong with our society today can be pinned directly to inappropriate approaches to living life happily.

To me there is more to life than representing what we can prove to be better at than one another; for life is about becoming one with what you are meant to be, wouldn't you agree?

Feels Good Man

2010-02-21T17:33:00.000-08:00

Something that was brought up in class the other day was a fascinating discussion about what sort of things are "good" and what makes them "good". The solution that was proposed for discussion was that of Socrates, and the first that was brought up was: "Doing things that make you feel good about yourself are good things, where as things that make you feel bad are just generally bad things". I thought that this was an interesting statement when it was first brought up, since I could immediately relate to the fact that doing the right thing indeed does feel good.

But then I had a strange thought, the question that had come to mind while disputing this theory in my head was that: "If feeling good makes what you are doing good, than are the people we see as evil just taking pleasure by doing bad?"

What is your opinion?

Response to Misty's Post on Scent

2010-02-13T16:45:00.001-08:00

This is a response to a response about how smells are affective to people based on their being raised in different surroundings. Question: Do you think we would react differently to certain smells, if we werent raised to like or dislike them?

First, I personally think that your surroundings actually do not affect how you interpret a smell. To me it is more about the situation to which a smell has come into your life that determines how you are going to like or dislike that smell. For example, if you are attracted to someone and they are wearing a noticeable scent, then you are going to remember that smell very vividly as a good smell. Where alternatively if you disliked someone who wore a specific scent, then came across someone else who wore the same scent, it would have a negative effect towards you.

Secondly, I think that scent is sometimes based on what the body interprets as healthy or harmful to the body. As an example here, no one tells you that the smell of diarrhea is bad, but when you smell it you will know... I think that the reason is that your brain interprets that smell as something that is harmful to the body. Thus the nose explains that danger to the brain by making it smell bad.

Do you agree?

Limitless Knowledge

2010-02-13T16:07:00.000-08:00

While we were in class this week, there was a question that was brought up that is undeniably one of the more or less frustrating things that has been on my mind this week. The question was: "What would it be like to know something that you could not possibly know?" When it was said it was something that I knew would bother me immediately (which is why I wrote it down) but has since become something that I cannot get out of my mind. After imagining a whole collection of things that seemed supernaturally amazing and what it would be like to know how to harness such abilities, my overly active imagination was getting the better hand and I needed to submit some logic to this problem.

My first instinct was to shun the idea of being able to learn about something that is not possible to learn about. That there just isn't anything out there anymore that is really a mystery towards the human race. That when it really comes down to it, there is not really much concern that should be put towards this curiosity, for in the end, is there really anything out there that we can learn and discover which has not yet been learned and discovered?

But then I began to think of this from a slightly different perspective, give my own creativity a shot at this logic, and this has lead to some reasonable change in thought. For now that I have pondered this, I have come to the conclusion that no matter what humans have learned collectively as a race, there is always something new that you can personally take away from life everyday in your own study. That just because someone else discovered something doesn't mean you can't discover the same thing in your own way to get some experiential knowledge from it. Thus my real conclusion is that since there is no real limit to what we can learn and know, in practice you will come to understand that learning something that you could not possibly know would be incredible.

A Quick Request for NHN Peers

2010-02-04T19:17:00.000-08:00

Hey there, This is for the people of The Nature of Human Nature Class:

I just wanted to make a quick request for when anyone is interested in commenting or responding to one of my posts; would you please post your response as a comment on my original post rather than telling me that you did? I know that it is a silly little thing, but I'd like to keep your responses on here so that I can refer back to them easily.

Also, I'm not asking you not to post it on your own blog, that would be rediculous of me being that it is a requirement of the course haha, I just want to keep it organized this way!

Thanks, and I hope that this isn't to much of a pain!

~Alex

This is a Response to Yvonne's Post

2010-02-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

The Question that immediately caught my attention was "If a sixth sense exsists are people without it percieving a false world?"

I have two answers for this. The first will entertain the thought that you can in some way discover this sixth sense, for in this case you would be able to prove that there is indeed a poor understanding in the general population of the world. Thus you would have gained the ability to percieve what you think is the real world with the additional bennefit of enjoying it in a new way. But in this statement I would like to point out that I don't think that it would make the world any more correct or incorrect to you or anyone, for it would still be the same place, you could only be able to Percieve it in a new way.

Secondly. What does it matter if the world isn't the same to someone else as it is to you? In some cases, people have red and green backwards in their vision: they see a nice spring day with the simple grey sidewalk and brown tree trunks, but the grass and leaves on tress are vibrant red. Does this make the world more real for them than it does for you? Would you even be able to prove the difference of reality to them? And even if you could prove these things, what difference would this make to your understanding of the world in terms of reality?

The point is, the world is what you make of it, perception is just as much in the eye of the beholder as is beauty.
~Alex

Food For Thought:

2010-02-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

A general question was brought up in class the other day, and I think that it has an interesting and compelling argument to it. The original question started in our text asking: Do we have free will? As if this question wasn't difficult enough to wrap your head around, the more relevant question to my interests that was spawned from this was: "Do we think as a free mind, or are our thoughts provoked by others?" This question was one that I had underestimated, for it argues whether or not our personal creativity is something that we come up with, or rather something that is brought on by another’s actions. Now that I have had the time to think it over though, here is my response: I think that it is a combination of both that adds progress to human development. For we could by no possible means think up everything that is going on in the modern day world nor put it into action by ourselves; but at the same time the world that we take part in everyday has been produced. Thus my response becomes relevant, for what I feel is that the singular person can think on his own with a free mind, but there would be no growth for that person without a partner in crime to validate the process and let that thought grow. Without the input and critique of another, there can be only so much that would develop from such an individual idea. Therefore, we can think and produce thoughts on our own, but they can only be improved by the thoughts of others. Any takers?

Miracles

2010-01-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

So. There was something said during class today that I wanted to elaborate on a little bit, because it sounded so striking to me when it was said. What I wrote down during class was a combination of what was said with a little bit of my own wording to get to my point: "Miraculous events are just coincidences of which we are not familiar with the outcome or result."
The result of this being said changed my idea of miracles instantaneously. Originally I thought of miracles as something that can never be explained; but with this being said I think that miracles can only be miracles for so long before someone can explain what has actually happened. Thus whatever had been seen as a miracle previously is now just an ordinary everyday happenstance. Which makes me realize that we don't quite appreciate the things that are these everyday happenstances to us now, but would have been miracles to people in history. To someone of the middle ages, the things that we do just to prepair for our normal day include numerous miracles of their time period: think of the power to turn a handle and change the temprature of flowing water because your shower was pleasing enough!
Which leaves me wondering... is it the quality of miracles we expect to change to keep our lives exciting enough to the extent that there is still something unknown out there?

Welcome to The Blog

2010-01-24T10:21:00.000-08:00

My name is Alex, and this is the page that I have set up for use in my philosophy class. The posts that I put on here will moslty be my thoughts on things that are going on in the class, partially as assignments, and partially to keep my thoughts written down. On the side of the page here is a list of links to other things I am working on this semester that are online, feel free to check them out. Other than that, I hope your stay was pleasant, and I hope that you stop by frequently to see my work.

Thanks,
Alex