Philosophy, opinions needed!!!!

[Iwantone2]

Reminds me of that scene in the Matrix when Neo is talking to the gifted child. Neo tries to bend the spoon with his mind and the child tells him "...Instead, try to to focus on the truth." Neo: "What truth?" Gifted child: "There is no spoon.."

[2ndgenz28]

Originally Posted by Iwantone2

uh-oh...I was afraid somebody would bring up the "Nature vs. Nurture" argument.

Whats goin on in Haiti right now proves that point.

grab someone from there, middle of Africa, some where in Asia, n grab a yuppi off the streets of LA and see how "Environment dictates out come."

‘we see and understand things not as they are but as we are'

["prima"Donna]

Originally Posted by Brokinarrow

To me that says that everyone has their own point of view. Even if an event happens a certain way, 4 different witnesses will have 4 different stories about what happened, all of which may be accurate.

+1

Very well said...I was thinking the same thing, but since you said it so eloquently, I will just agree with how you said it...

[SSE 4 2SS]

Originally Posted by AdnanHfuda

‘we see and understand things not as they are but as we are’. This statement is true since humans perceive things differently to each other, each slightly different than the one before. This logic can be applied to anything that is open to perception, is there anything not open to perception...???from something as simple as interpreting song lyrics to something as big as believing in god.

Lets have a subject A, Subject A is a teenager with a grudge against the world. As subject A is listening to the radio the words ‘have you ever been hated or discriminated against?’ come up and subject A thinks that the songwriter is a genius. Now lets have a subject B, subject B is a successful businessman and upon hearing the same lyrics as subject A he thinks that the song writer is pathetic and angry. These two completely different ideas came about by the same stimulant but due to the way that the subjects were themselves they thought differently of the song writer.

Two different subjects attend a religious speech and the speech giver is giving proof of god. Subject A is religious and Subject B is atheist. When the speech giver says that the world is too perfect to have just spontaneously come into existence Subject A agrees without arguing while Subject B is reluctant and even angered by a claim that is to him completely outrageous. Remove the religious speech giver and put in an atheist speech giver saying that the world is not perfect and can easily have come into existence of its own accord. To this subject A is angered and subject B agrees.

‘as we are’ also includes what we know so far which has a deep impact on what we will perceive something to be, there are animated movies and advertising slogans and art items that are created based on audiences intended. To achieve greater impact and therefore sales, there is innuendo or in some cases blatant target specific material within the same frame of information... I am not specifically targeting the subliminal messages either. Some of it appeals to children for it's artistic qualities and or humor, and some of it will be revealing if not outright erogenous or intimate by design...of course these all exist in standard photo movies as well, it just seems (my perception) to be more prevalent in animated shows... for example: people who have not done their homework on electric and hybrid cars believe that they are better to the environment then a normal car when In fact they harm the environment more then fueling an Hummer H2 for a few years. This harm comes about due to the way the batteries are made and disposed of. The person who knows this would buy a classic American muscle car over a Toyota prius any day seeing as the prius would then have no advantages to it over the American muscle. Even though in truth the person driving the American muscle car he may still be seen as a higher contributor to the global warming issue then a person driving a Prius

A man arguing with his grandson about mortgage laws says that George bush has made it so that a citizen cant claim his mortgage interest as a deductable. The grandson firmly does not give up and come back to the grandfather sometime later with proof that the deductable can be made. The man admitted to being misinformed yet got into the same argument again a few months later. This example show how perception can be shaped in a way that is so profound even we can no longer control it even with evidence of being wrong. Our minds eventually convince us of being right again despite the facts. This is in my opinion (perception) simply a case of being mis-informed, or lazy, or an ego'ist... someone told me wrong but I trust their word so it is.... or I know this is what it is since it was this way twenty years ago...or this is what I think and you can't convince me otherwise... "I'm Right."

All these examples have had to do with perception through seeing or hearing...touching, tasting, smelling, etc... An example of different views on something moral would be the following. A dog is lying on the ground in the middle of the street. Two people see it. Person one convinces person two to move it. As they are moving it the dog dies. Person two thinks that they killed it so moving it was a bad thing. Person one thinks that they were trying to help the dog so it is a good thing. This example shows clearly our lack of understanding and definition of what good and bad truly is giving the human mind room for different views.


done the draft which is due tomorow, seems broken up though any advice

Originally Posted by Iwantone2

uh-oh...I was afraid somebody would bring up the "Nature vs. Nurture" argument.

Nature vs Nurture is very relavent... I had a puppy that we picked up as a child in Mississippi, only male dog in a litter of thirteen... he would bark at his sisters to leave his food bowl alone while they ate, and therefore miss his meal... same sire, same bitch, same human family, same environment... Male dominanace was a trait he was born with... it wasn't taught, he didn't see it in his enviroment, in fact, he saw the opposite as his mother would not let the sire near the puppies...NATURE...
Twins reared apart with the same careers or life tracks... are stories most of us have heard... Did Nurture change their lives or did nature direct their outcomes...????

I certainly do not know the answers, but it sure makes you sit back and think...

Do we as humans see blue the same as others see blue... maybe what I see as blue is what you see as green, but since we see it in our own manner, and we were taught what it is, based on what we see, then our perception is our reality...

most of the aforementioneed items were related to selective beliefs... I want it to be so, therefore I look at it as such... I'm green so the green efforts and cars are better and the smog creating gas guzzeling Camaro drivers are evil... I must key their cars...As was mentioned in another thread, much of this is the fault of shady science, science bent on trying to achieve grant money from Gov or private sources... publish or perish...

Perception can also be affected by knowledge and experience...

If an average person happens upon a bad wreck, and the occupant of the wrecked vehicle is bleeding severly from a scalp wound, their perception of the outcome for this occupant may not be good. A trained responder would see a relatively minor injury despite the blood loss and look elsewhere for more substantial life threatening injuries...

A final thought,.... is what is correct, correct because the mass believes it or because it is what it is... correct... At one time it was thought the world was flat... sail to the end and you'll fall off... We know this to not be true now, but the majority believed it and so it was correct...

[springerpete]

My dad is a man of few words and a backwoods philosoher. His favorite saying to me growing up was, "There's two ways of doing things; my way and the wrong way."

Ya'll are too wordy.

Adnan- I'm sure Oklahoma philosophy won't fly in your class.

Good Luck though.

[springerpete]

"Do we as humans see blue the same as others see blue... maybe what I see as blue is what you see as green, but since we see it in our own manner, and we were taught what it is, based on what we see, then our perception is our reality... "

I would believe the differences in our perceptions is the reason many of us like or admire different colors. I for one like orange, yellow and brighter colors, while I have a good friend that likes blues, maroon, and the darker shades.

[DCv2]

To me it is all about projection, we only see things based on the schemas, roles, predispositions, and past experiences in our own lifetimes. Good or bad, we see a little of ourselves in everything. It may not be blatant or even noticeable to us, but by judging, expecting, or attributing certain qualities to anything, we have already added qualities that originated from our own experiences.

Good luck

[AdnanHfuda]

Originally Posted by 1bad65

Not true.

Maybe the OP could use the Bulger family as an example. Of the six children in the family, two stand out. James 'Whitey' Bulger has lived a life of crime, done prison time, is currently on the FBIs most wanted list, and has been profiled on America's Most Wanted. His brother William has lived an honest life, he is the former President of the Massachusetts State Senate and the University of Massachusetts.

actually iv got a whole philosophy about this topic. nurturing a child is the parents job but it is also done indirectly by the childs peers and teachers in school and when the child is out and about. for example that 'james' character would have had friends in school that at first seemed up to his standards so he welcomed them as friends then as time went by the other childrens parents influenced them in a different way making the child 'bad-er' who then goes on to influence james to become a worse person as well. the opposite must have been true for william.

this is also why a childs parents arent the only ones responsible for the way a child turns out but rather the whole adult community as a whole (adults can also be influnced by others by way of emotions such as anger at being fired leading to angry parenting etc etc)

also each person is not identical to their sibling and cannot truely (to the nanometer) do the same, and live the same as their simbling even if it is something as simple as a stubbing their toe at the wrong moment causing 'evil' thoughts which lead to the child veering of a little from what the parents are aiming.

[AdnanHfuda]

Originally Posted by JMM1181

It's easy to be a great person when things are going great and circumstances cooperate, but the real test is being that same good person when things are not great and you're being squeezed from all angles of life- it's at that time when you'll realize, circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.

Wooooooord

[AdnanHfuda]

started a new more serious draft, enjoy .

Human beings being the intelligent creatures they are tend to think that they see things exactly as they are on a subconscious level, even though they may consciously not believe it. Truth is human beings are part of this world that we live in and are, like any other animal, a large mass of chemical reactions. Which brings me to the quote on which this essay is based upon: ‘we see and understand things not as they are but as we are’. The quote suggests that human beings do not actually see, hear, understand, or simply perceive anything as it truly is but it is put up to the bias of the human mind and its limits. Another question that arises now is the question of how these biases are formed and if they are all the same in each human being. The most probable answer is that each human being has his or her own biases to everything thanks to their experiences in life and their mentality.

One example of differing perceptions of the same thing is the argument of the consequentialist verses the opportunist. Two people walking down a road see a dog laying in the middle of the road. One person is an opportunist and perceives the situation as an opportunity to do something good and save the dog from being run over. The second person does not object and helps him move the dog. As they are moving him, the dog dies. The second person, being a consequentialist , perceives the whole situation as negative since the end result was the dog dieing and feels great remorse for what he has done. The opportunist sees the situation as an opportunity that he seized, and that what they meant to do was to save the dog therefore guilt should not be theirs to feel. Both of these people have good rational arguments as to how the situation should be remembered, but logic will not move either of them because that is who they are, not what the situation is. The truth of the matter is if they had not moved the dog then someone coming down the road in their car might notice the dog at the last second and swerve off, by moving the dog they have saved said person. Instead of thinking this they both obsess about the death of the dog.

Physical perception can also be interpreted by the brain unconsciously differently then it truly is. For example, our eyes can only see a certain small range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our ears only hear from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Our sense of touch is different on our hands then on our backs. How can we therefore assume; something to truly look the way we are seeing, a sound to be heard exactly how it truly is, to know what the real feeling of something is whether it be what we feel when it comes into contact with our backs, or whether it comes into contact with our fingers. Scientists have no way of proving that colors really are the way they are perceived. For example, scientists still cannot scientifically prove that the way one person sees the color blue is the same way another person sees the color blue. One persons blue may be another persons red. verbally we call them the same thing because that is what we have been taught ever since we came upon the concept of color.

Human perception can also overrule basic logical thought making the person believe something that logically is not true at all. For example, a man and his grandson are talking about politics. The man feels like he knows more then the boy not because he is obnoxious but that is what his mind is telling him because of the age difference. The man argues that George bush has made it so that mortgage interest cannot be claimed as a tax deductable in the USA. The boy argues that this is not true. The argument ends with both of them walking away with the same opinion that they walked in with. A few months later they have the same argument but this time the boy has proof. He tells his grandfather that he has made a claim on his mortgage interest as a deductable and has official papers to prove it, the grandfather is forced to believe him through rational thought. A few weeks later the man opens the argument again with his grandson and, even though the son has proof, argues that the claim still cannot be made. The man has not suffered any mental disabilities and remembers and acknowledges the boys proof, yet he continues to hold on to his belief.

[AdnanHfuda]

any feedback?

[JMM1181]

It's not bad, but just a few points in an attempt to help out:

'Thinking' implies a conscious function which would therefore not be considered a 'sub' conscious level.

When discussing perception from a bio/physiological perspective, perhaps it's best to bring it down to the micro-level of quantum mechanics and discuss the role of the observer in the wave/particle debate whereby subatomic particles witnessed under the intensity of our highest powered microscopes seem to change shape depending on the thoughts of the observer so that the very parts (subatomic particles, or quanta) which form our reality itself are limited by modes of perception or observation.

From a psychological standpoint, we cannot be separate from our 'mind', and there are studies which have proven that the mind itself is not the restricted function of specific chemicals and organs interacting within the human body (i.e. the brain) but rather presuppose an existence of some form of matrix. People with significant brain damage or loss have been noted as still having the capacity for thought and conscious functioning.

Because all of our visible and physical stimuli are the responses of our perceptive feedback mechanisms, both within the mind and body, and yet only capture a fraction of the spectrum of what exists 'out there', surely and truly what we see and witness can only be an extension of not only the perceptive framework of our biological and physiological functions (i.e. our 'ability' to perceive), but are also deeply impacted by our psychological state of mind and how our thoughts, beliefs and emotions color an event.

You have good examples, and just as the very premise of your paper asks, the answers you receive will certainly reflect the personal bias of each person rather than a definitive philosophical 'truth'. Good luck