You are not connected to the internet. Well, duh. We already talked about this a bit. There is a dramatic and fun distance between signified and signifier. When we say, 'tree' the thing said is not the tree itself.
This is the Magritte problem, among perhaps other problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images
The wikipedia page should take you to the Treachery of Images painting. This painting is of a pipe, and it is realistically rendered. Underneath the pipe, it says, "This is not a pipe." (only in French).
Here is the wikipedia page about self-reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-reference
This all seems similar to Russell's paradox, which I'll explain as soon as I figure it out....
Where do we go wrong if at all?
Well one answer is that we never go wrong. Just to jazzersize for a bit; Spinoza's theory of wrong seems not to account for falsity. Everything that is wrong to Spinoza seems to be just a small part of the answer. All you have to do is zoom out. (I'm using Thomson again here.) I empathize with him. This is an extrapolation of neutral monism, which I am totally grabbing for easy and sloppy reference right now.
Ariel Levy in her manifesto Female Chauvinist Pigs, decries that when women act like pornstars or imitate pleasure, there's a difference between that and actually feeling pleasure. There's a problem from imitating pleasure and actually feeling it. People in our society, Levy argues, follow wave upon wave of mainstream culture trying to fit into these molds that mainstream culture builds. The end of the cycle is when we as consumers tell them to stop.
That is, Levy thinks that when we lose consciousness of how our actions have greater moral significance to truth; and when the relationship between reality and imitation are tainted (in this case hijacked by mainstream culture and ignorant media culture, and permutations of the four), that's when we go wrong and awry.
These are two takes on the same sort of feeling I think. The feeling is that this world is hostile to us as individuals. Spinoza's answer seems to always be: trust nature; you can always trust nature. Levy's is: yes there is a mistake, and we go wrong where we actually believe in the imitations and what we pretend to do and be.
There is a correct answer. I don't think that Spinoza was always right. He is a successful runner-up to Immanuel Kant (the namesake of this blog). Meanwhile, Levy does present something pressing and important to the discussion: it is factually a problem when it is virtually untrue or when that connection is false; when the relationship between facade and substance is false.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Considerations
A couple of considerations: does everything have a philosophical element to it? Are there anything behind facades by definition?
One of our first posts on this blog was Goldman's famous barn example. The question was about knowledge, and the example was to show that knowledge by chance is not knowledge at all.
The example goes like this: there are thousands and thousands of barn-facades in southwestern Kentucky, say for a movie. Doug and his wife Tricia are driving along the countryside when Doug points out his long hairy arm with his unkempt nails and says, "That's a barn!"
Except, this time, the thing that Doug pointed to actually is a barn. (Alarming, no?) The fact that it is surrounded by facades means that Doug could have just as easily been mistaken.
Does everything have a philosophical element to it? When I ask if everything has a philosophical element to it, I have no idea what I am saying. Philosophy, we have seen, at least in this blog, and also in our lives, can pertain to, but is not limited to:
The Art of Thinking
the Referee of the Sciences
Ethics and Morality
Theory of Genius
Theory of Success
Definitions and Lexicography
Knowledge aka Epistemology
The upper level of any science (doctorates in this country are called Doctorates of Philosophy and denote post-undergraduate studies)
The integration of sciences (this is what the Modern Philosophers were really known for. Guys like Descartes and Leibniz were able to explain what knowledge is and give pretty decent ideas of how to get to that knowledge. Much much later, guys like Russell were break out stars by crossing mathematics with the ideals of foundation, in order to make a foundation for mathematics.)
Aesthetics
Embryonic Sciences (if it becomes a science, it is out of the realm of philosophy; one example is Astronomy)
Existentialism - Why are we here?
Reasoning
Rationality
Argumentation
Regulation and consideration of Religion
Truth & Falsity (in a mathematical sense)
Truth & Falsity (in a greater sense; like what to do with the facts that we have after we get those facts)
And so much more!
The point, and the considerations of this entry are that indeed not everything has a philosophical element to it. We have to get back to this later, but I'm pretty sure of that.
Next, is there always something new to learn? Is there always something behind a facade? I think ontologically the answer is yes. Ontologically here means by definition, and I think by definition something must have something behind it. I'm thinking here of a great big facade of a building, and then you look behind and it's a prop for a movie studio. There's tons and tons of air behind the building. What is air? What was I doing in a gigantic movie studio?
One of our first posts on this blog was Goldman's famous barn example. The question was about knowledge, and the example was to show that knowledge by chance is not knowledge at all.
The example goes like this: there are thousands and thousands of barn-facades in southwestern Kentucky, say for a movie. Doug and his wife Tricia are driving along the countryside when Doug points out his long hairy arm with his unkempt nails and says, "That's a barn!"
Except, this time, the thing that Doug pointed to actually is a barn. (Alarming, no?) The fact that it is surrounded by facades means that Doug could have just as easily been mistaken.
Does everything have a philosophical element to it? When I ask if everything has a philosophical element to it, I have no idea what I am saying. Philosophy, we have seen, at least in this blog, and also in our lives, can pertain to, but is not limited to:
The Art of Thinking
the Referee of the Sciences
Ethics and Morality
Theory of Genius
Theory of Success
Definitions and Lexicography
Knowledge aka Epistemology
The upper level of any science (doctorates in this country are called Doctorates of Philosophy and denote post-undergraduate studies)
The integration of sciences (this is what the Modern Philosophers were really known for. Guys like Descartes and Leibniz were able to explain what knowledge is and give pretty decent ideas of how to get to that knowledge. Much much later, guys like Russell were break out stars by crossing mathematics with the ideals of foundation, in order to make a foundation for mathematics.)
Aesthetics
Embryonic Sciences (if it becomes a science, it is out of the realm of philosophy; one example is Astronomy)
Existentialism - Why are we here?
Reasoning
Rationality
Argumentation
Regulation and consideration of Religion
Truth & Falsity (in a mathematical sense)
Truth & Falsity (in a greater sense; like what to do with the facts that we have after we get those facts)
And so much more!
The point, and the considerations of this entry are that indeed not everything has a philosophical element to it. We have to get back to this later, but I'm pretty sure of that.
Next, is there always something new to learn? Is there always something behind a facade? I think ontologically the answer is yes. Ontologically here means by definition, and I think by definition something must have something behind it. I'm thinking here of a great big facade of a building, and then you look behind and it's a prop for a movie studio. There's tons and tons of air behind the building. What is air? What was I doing in a gigantic movie studio?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Types of lies
Lies are the happiest facades we can ever know, if we understand them:
White Lies: Lies here are those with the best of intentions. Say that someone has a terrible haircut and their friends tell them that it looks great. This is the standard white lie.
Lying to yourself: Neitzche said that memory yields. We can change or distort our reality to ourselves. This has to do with error and skepticism; but it could be more and less active. It can be more and less dictated by the will.
Straight up lying: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lying
[lahy] 
Show IPA noun, verb, lied, ly⋅ing. –noun
Bullshit: Harry G. Frankfurt makes the distinction between lies and bull shit. Lies are deliberate distortions of the truth, but this still indicates a sort of reverence and respect for the truth. Bullshit has no such boundaries.
Partial Truth: I met a kid who never "lied" to his parents. He did it by systematically telling them only parts of the truth that were relevant to the conversation, but also only the ones that told the story that he wanted to tell them. Sure, he never lied, but this is something devious in and of itself.
Exaggeration and Hyperbole: My girlfriend gets me for this constantly. Exaggerations are almost by definition untrue. Nevermind your experience. It's not true and you know it.
Partial truths and lazy mistakes: Now we are further and further into the nebulous world of ethics. When, praytell, is a person lying if they are too lazy to look something up. Could we fault someone for saying that Pluto is a planet? Is that a lie.
Moreover, it seems that ethically speaking, a lie is always wrong. But by utilitarian standards, there are of course times when lying is correct, or right. There are some big and fun ethical issues that we will get to in later posts.
White Lies: Lies here are those with the best of intentions. Say that someone has a terrible haircut and their friends tell them that it looks great. This is the standard white lie.
Lying to yourself: Neitzche said that memory yields. We can change or distort our reality to ourselves. This has to do with error and skepticism; but it could be more and less active. It can be more and less dictated by the will.
Straight up lying: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lying
lie
1 [lahy] Show IPA noun, verb, lied, ly⋅ing. –noun | 1. | a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood. |
| 2. | something intended or serving to convey a false impression; imposture: His flashy car was a lie that deceived no one. |
| 3. | an inaccurate or false statement. |
Bullshit: Harry G. Frankfurt makes the distinction between lies and bull shit. Lies are deliberate distortions of the truth, but this still indicates a sort of reverence and respect for the truth. Bullshit has no such boundaries.
Partial Truth: I met a kid who never "lied" to his parents. He did it by systematically telling them only parts of the truth that were relevant to the conversation, but also only the ones that told the story that he wanted to tell them. Sure, he never lied, but this is something devious in and of itself.
Exaggeration and Hyperbole: My girlfriend gets me for this constantly. Exaggerations are almost by definition untrue. Nevermind your experience. It's not true and you know it.
Partial truths and lazy mistakes: Now we are further and further into the nebulous world of ethics. When, praytell, is a person lying if they are too lazy to look something up. Could we fault someone for saying that Pluto is a planet? Is that a lie.
Moreover, it seems that ethically speaking, a lie is always wrong. But by utilitarian standards, there are of course times when lying is correct, or right. There are some big and fun ethical issues that we will get to in later posts.
Portfolio 12 - Help you help yourself
http://www.technicianonline.com/viewpoint/help-you-help-yourself-1.1816943
Help you help yourself
Published: Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Updated: Tuesday, August 18, 2009
As undergraduates, our minds are our tools. We need to learn to use them in order to do our work.
To start with, psychologists Elliot Aronson and Carol Tavris, in their book "Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me" think cognitive dissonance is to blame for the failure to perform work. Cognitive dissonance is the resolving nature of brains. When we are conflicted between two thoughts, our minds resolve much stronger toward the idea we choose.
For example, say I have two conflicting thoughts, "I have to do my homework," and, "I want to play computer games." If I end up playing computer games, cognitive dissonance theory states that I am going to justify the playing action more because I had to fight for it.
It is easy to trick myself into thinking I am doing more work than I actually am. Worse, self-delusion is easier than deluding anyone else. This is because what I report to myself is a large part of anything that I can know about myself.
Therefore, the clear answer is to work to justify actions before I do them, instead of the other way around.
In light of this, Professor of Rhetoric Jason Ingram explained why Francis Bacon in the 17th century said that rhetoric is the application of imagination to the will. When I am at the dining hall and I want a doughnut but I know it will make me fat, I use my imagination of the negative consequences not to eat the doughnut. We should use our imaginations to influence our decisions.
Bacon's rhetoric is similar to a contemporary article by Stephen Wray from Newsweek last year. According to studies, if I think about concrete aspects of a task, I am closer to physically doing that task (read: less likely to procrastinate). In one of the studies, people assigned to tasks such as opening a bank account were asked to consider the kind of carpeting and what it would be like to go up to the bank teller. Whereas the other group was asked to consider more abstract thoughts like what banking is, the first group was more likely to do its task.
Use cognitive dissonance theory to be more aware about what you are doing and what you want to do. If I want to have better grades, great, but cognitive dissonance theory can at least help me own up to that. This theory helps in understanding why people end up justifying seemingly worse behaviors. Rhetoric, as self-persuasion by using imagination, can help the formation of better choices in the first place.
Finally, imagining material aspects of tasks, such as being in the library or studying the books, brings a person physically closer to doing that task.
When you do your work, life gets better now and also in the long term.
Send Jake your thoughts on cognitive dissonance to technicianonline.com.
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