The Failure of Crowds

"Wherever there is a crowd there is untruth. The more people who believe something, the more apt it is to be wrong. The person who's right often has to stand alone." -Soren Kierkegaard This quote is describing the inconsistancies accompanied with group-think. When people are in a group, they are less inclined to speak out, instead choosing to align their beliefs with that of the majority. This means that the group's ideas are never challenged, giving them less opportunity to be thoroughly thought out. Therefore, if someone does happen to disagree with the majority, they have to speak as an individual rather than being backed by the rest of the group. Think quote ties into Kierkegaard's existential believes, and his idea of a split between reason and believe, which he used to disprove the existence of god. When people must all believe something, it instills doubt and suffering into those who happen to disagree. Considering Kierkegaard was the first known existential philosopher of his time, he probably said this with himself in mind. During his time, his beliefs were incredibly radically, and were critized heavily for being outlandish and even blasphemous. With my own experience in mind, I think that this quote is very accurate. It is a lot easier to form an opinion you believe in when you are asked individually rather than as a group. Often times during group projects at school I find myself going along with the group rather than speaking out. While sometimes this can help by providing different perspectives, it can also be limiting if everyone believes the same thing.

Existentialism --- God is causing me GRIEF!!

One opinion about our existence that I found very compelling was Kierkegaard's idea of existentialism. Existentialism is the philosophical doctrine stating tha our being as subjective individuals are more important than what we have in common objectively with all other human beings. Kierkegaard was especially concerned about his relationship to God. His doubts and fears concerned the validity of his very existence as an individual, longing to believe in God's promise. He didn't find peace in the abstract, impersonal logical relationships among diembodied forms. Because of this, he was very tortured and tormented about himself and his relationship with God. This doubt, and way of thinking was established by Kierkegaard as existentialism. Kirkegaard is acknowledged as the first existentialist philosopher. This idea of existentialism when faced with existence and God made me realize how little proof and connection we have with high powers when thinking about it existentially. I came to the conclusion that the answer to this existential problem can be answered by Descartes' logic, and is backed by rationalism. I think that even if you don't believe in god, you can still assume that a universe exists. This is because if there wasn't a universe, than you wouldn't be alive or exist yourself. According to Descartes, the only thing we can be one hundred percent sure of is our own existence. Therefore, you must know that a universe exists for you to exist in. This is a more rational, materialistic approach that I think Kirkegaard would doubt.

Social Contract - A Classroom Anarchy??

I was unfortunately not present for the social contract activity we did during class, but I was able to be here while our groups finished our slideshows and presented them. The project seemed very compelling, and putting it together with my group helped me to understand the different example of social contract in our school. One of my favorite examples we used in our presentation was a picture of students in the cafeteria. All of the students were sitting down quietly, and behaving in a normal fashion. No one was misbehaving in any way, or acting in a way that they shouldn't. This behavior demonstrated social contract, and how unspoken rules control how we behave in public. The idea that no one is enforcing you to act a certain way, and yet everyone does was very interesting to me. It got me thinking about how simple it would to hypothetically ignight the school into anarchy, much like a real country and government. All it would take is knowing that nothing is technically stopping you.

Unlocking John Locke

John Locke's philosophical ideas are extremely prominent in todays society. For starters, most of the American consitution and ideological of the founding fathers were based off of John Locke's ideas. Therefore, most of our government and the way the United States is governed is inspired by the ideas of John Locke, and his ideas of inalienable rights. For example, John Locke famously state that all men have the right to persue "Life, liberty, and the persuit of property." In the declaration of independence, that famous quote is adopted after being slightly altered by Thomas Jefferson to read "Life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness." Therefore, many controversial problems in today's society might be further argued using the logic of John Locke. John Locke's tabula rasa, or "blank slate" idea states that every person is born a blank slate, and anything added is gained only through experience. This logic could be used to argue for the right of abortions. For example, one could argue that a fetus is simply a blank slate, something that has no experience and therefore is not a person. Therefore, abortion should be a right because the fetus lacks any experience, making it something sub-human. No morals would come into play, because this fetus is not alive in John Locke's terms.

Goin' Back to the 'Hood

The idea and understanding of the word "personhood" has changed immensely through our class activity and discussion, particularly due to the "Coco" activity. While reading the description of Coco, before knowing she was a monkey, I was convinced she was not only a person, but a human. I was shocked to discover shortly thereafter that she in fact was a monkey. After learning this, and listening to my classmates speak on the subject, I defined the word human to myself as a strictly biological term; something that I am, and Coco is not. Therefore, I realized that there must be some kind of shared traits that humans and non humans can exhibit that do not inherently imply humanity. This is where the idea of personhood came up. Before this class discussion, I considered the words person and human to be synonyms. However, after the discussion I was beginning realize an important distinction. I came to believe that personhood is is trait that is human-like, but does not guarantee humanity. Some examples that came up in class were caring and sympathic elephants, language-comprehending monkeys, and particularly prideful ant colonies. These animals are not humans biologically, but express traits of humanity, therefore possessing personhood.In general, all humans have personhood, but not things with personhood are human. Additionally, I think personhood is measurable. For example, a younger child is less cognitively devloped, so it expresses less personhood than a fully grown adult might. Nonetheless, they are still both biologically human. I think the idea of personhood is a very important philosophical issue in our present time. Personhood is often comparably with a sense of self consiousness and identity, and therefore is how humans differentiate and express themselves as individuals. With our science knowledge rapidly advancing, I think it is important to consider how some animals might display personhood, and whether that makes them an individual. With that idea, it might make certain practices or treatmeant of animals considered morally wrong. I think it would be worth our time to look into personhood displayed in animals, and how that effects our perseption of them.

Describing Thoughts on the World We Can Describe

"We do not describe the world we see, we see the world we can describe." Descartes When I intially read this quote, what first came to mind was prejudice. The second half of the quote, "we see the world we can describe", summarizes how we see the world based off of how we can describe it. Therefore, if you can describe only from your own perspect, you're bound to see the world from a bias viewpont. This can cause prejudice if you do not listen to other people's experiences and perspectives as well. In the context of the "Does school exist?" activity, it can be known that we can only be sure of a school to the extent that we can describe it ourselves. If you can describe certain aspects of the schools existence, than therefore it must exist to you. Following through with this activity might make an existentialist more confident in the school's existence.

HAL - More than Just a Creepy Robot?

One aspect from class that I found especially interesting was the video clip of HAL the robot. Having watched 2001 a Space Odessey, I realized just how existential the movie is. It asked big questions about the universe, and questions the way we do things. I remember being terrified of HAL when I was younger, watching the movie. What I found so compelling was the argument of whether or not HAL was a human, if he expressed traits of human nature. The essentialism view might argue that human nautre is defined by a specifc set of characteristics, and because he does not portray all of them, he is not human. However, a more existentialist point of view would question if human nature even exists, and therefore could HAL be human? In my opinion, I do not think that HAL is human, but I think he has humanistic traits that reflect the intentions of those who made him. For example, they specifically programed him to be 100% confident in his abilities, whether or not he actually is 100% accurate. In their case, it ends up backfiring on them, demonstrating the negative intentions of the humans and of HAL.