Gut decisions

Can you write about an intuitive decision that made recently? How did it turn out? How would it have been different if you had used reason?

I sometimes make gut decisions when I step into the Albert Heijn of Zuidplein. I usually have the intention of simply buying a coffee, but then I always end up buying also something else, either the triple chocolate cookie or the chocolate muffin, especially when one of those it's on sale and it only costs 1 €.

It's mostly a decision taken because of the smell of chocolate that takes over my conscious will or the irrational need of chocolate to get through a school day... Only one thing it's sure: reason has nothing to do with it.

When I take a bite of my muffin/cookie I'm usually overwhelmed by a feeling of satisfaction and delight that make me forget for a moment of the extra sugar I've fatten my body with, something I know I'll regret next time i'll look at myself in the mirror. However, I like to believe that -to some extent- it's better to regret something you've done than something you haven't done, so I don't make THAT big deal out of it, and i promise myself next time I'll be wiser.

If I had to use reason, I'll think that I don't need that cookie/muffin to get through the day, it's not that highly nutritional for my body and however cheap it can be, it's still too much for something I don't need. However, this kind of reasoning is way too hard to be made in the morning, when my conscious will is still basically sleeping or busy listening to music, so that my instincts and my subconscious take over. Maybe some of these days I'll learn.

Emotion as a way of knowing?

Is emotion a way of knowing or an obstacle of knowing?

As I'm doing TOK more and more, I've understood that there are no black-or-white answer in life, especially over the problem of knowledge. 

Emotion can be either a way of knowing or an obstacle, depending on the situation you're in.

An example of emotion as a way of knowing can be the instinctive reaction of running/stepping back when we cross the street and we see a car coming. On the other hand, emotion can be an obstacle when, for example, we are so biased by a passion (not only for a person, it can also be for an idea) that we can't see the bad aspects of that. 

Nevermind the situation, emotion does strongly relates to the other three ways of knowing: with language, because through language we describe our emotions and, in the other way round, emotions can often affect the way we talk or write; with perception, because the two things often work together, like when you eat something that you find disgusting and you don't want to eat anymore; with reason, because, sometimes, only in the balanced of the two the wisest decision are made.

Besides, it is clearly a way for someone to know himself: is through emotion that we understand our tastes or your desires. I decided where I mostly want to apply at university when, reading about the PPE course index, an indescribable feeling made me understood that was something I really really liked. Another example is when you like someone: sometimes you don't get "butterflies in your stomach", sometimes you get a smile on your face when you see that person. THEN you know you like him/her.

In conclusion, although it's hard to describe emotions, I believe they are a very important way of knowing. I can't really explain why, it's just a feeling :)

Does reason have enemies?

After watching the videos on Richard Dawkins (including the one with Bill O'Reilly), can you say that reason has enemies? Can atheists be angry like religious fundamentalists? What is wrong with believing in a God, in the stars, in pseudo-science, in superstition, in magic, etc.? Whether all of these things are wrong or right is beside the point. Can they really be harmful to man-kind?

Of course reason has enemies, reality sometimes is really hard to believe; sometimes we simply don't want to.
For some reasons, human beings need to believe everything has a meaning. We are struggling every day to find meaning to our lives. Reason is of course a way to find meaning of things, of natural phenomena, for example. What human mind can't really easily accept is that certain things happen just for a coincidence. It is something scary, because we can't have control over chance. And we want to be in control of everything. We want to see order and meaning, we are so scared of the unknown that our minds is willing to believe literally everything, from tea leaves to stones, from planet positions to people charmingly claiming to have paranormal powers. Can all these believes be harmful?
History have taught that people that have strong believes that go against reason have the tendency to impose them on others, usually in very violent ways. Dawkins, at the beginning of the video, says something very important: that we live in dangerous times when superstitions is gaining ground and rational science is under attack. That makes me think of the Medieval times, when superstitions had many fellows and the scientists were persecuted. Is this happening again? I don't think that the situation is now as bad as it was, but yes, superstions and believes can be harmful: let's just think of all the people that spend lots of money and become addicted to this "magician"  that claim to solve their problems.

But, after all, is there something that men can use without being harmful? Science can be harmful as well if used for the wrong purposes. 

In what I disagree with Dawkins is the fact that he wants to "get rid" of the superstitions. This is impossible and useless because, as I've said, humans need to have a faith and worship something. There was a South Park episode in which there was a future that, thanks to Dawkins himself (and miss garrison - by the way) was now completely atheist. The thing was that people still managed to find ways to argue and kill each other because atheism was the new faith and Dawkins the new god. 

I perfectly agree on the fact that they impoverish our culture and undermine civilisation, but humans are imperfect and all of us have our own weaknesses... For some it's chocolate, for other it's the horoscope...

School of lateral thinking

From mr. Philpot's blog: "Edward de Bono (1933 -) came up with the notion of lateral thinking as an alternative route to the truth. It's the kind of thinking that happens 'outside the box', using less conventional means of argumentation. Some techniques to make this magic happen included:
challenging the current models of problem solving for the subject of concern,
randomly relate seemingly unrelated things to our problem solving session by looking to objects in the room or pulling labels from a hat, or
being provocative and discussing that which we take for granted, like circular wheels or mugs with handles. These take the form of 'what if' statements.
Applying all of this to education is fun. A school in Texas started offering students financial rewards for graduating and their success rates increased. Needless to say , the results were as contentious as their method, but it got an interesting debate rolling on the nature of motivation at school that went much further than the examples on iductive and deductive reasoning as put forth above. And speaking of financial rewards, what if we lived in a world where teachers received exorbitant salaries, like those of football stars or CEO's? Would the quality of lessons increase or decrease? This kind of thinking is not only provocative though. It sheds light on the nature of education. Here are some more examples of lateral thinking on education.
What if every student who failed an academic year had to do community service to make up for society's lost investment in him/her?
What if there were no attendance requirements and students were free to come and go as they pleased?
What if students assessed themselves?

Can you add to this list?"

What if teacher were paid based on the academic success for their students?

What if students with good grades could go on school trips for free?

By the way, I remember when I was in primary school and some of my classmates were given money based on the grades they had. However, my parents always said that the motivation should not come from material rewards, but from the sake of learning for yourself, because it is going to help you in life. And if you decide not to study, it's your problem and you'll deal with the consequences. So what if there were no grades and no rewards, but only the philosophy of studying for your own sake?

bad argument and syllogism

The assignment for this week is to go out and find a bad argument. Write it out in the form of a syllogism. Discuss whether it's true or false.

Bad argument:  Bishop Williamson denies that six million Jews were killed in the holocaust, and claims that no Jews were killed at all in gas chambers. In fact, he says, there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. The convicted holocaust-denier David Irving makes the same claims, and the bishop draws on some of the same alleged "evidence" presented in Irving's writings. In this interview, Bishop Williamson acknowledges that making this case "is against the law in Germany". 

Syllogism: "(introduction)Some believe that Jews were killed in gas chamber. (I premisis)There are studies that deny the existence of the gas chamber.(II premisis) I believe these studies to be true. (conclusion) Therefore, no Jews were killed in the gas chambers."

Although the syllogism is not technically correct, I believe this to be the reasoning behind Bishop Williamson statement. I think it makes sense from his point of view.  He's trusting historians that say that in order to work, gas chambers have to be made in a particular way and there were no such things in the concentration camps. The premises have a questionable degree of truth but they are valid, and so is the conclusion .

The real question, and the weak point in his reasoning, is: why is he trusting these studies and not all the other people, either witnesses or historians? This leads many people to assume he is anti-semitic... which is probably the case. 

It's hard to see the matter in an objective way because emotions in this case play a huge role, as so many human beings have been killed (by gas chambers or other means, it does not really matter, does it?) by other humans "in cold blood", in an accurate, systematic, premeditated way. 

[However, I don't think Europe should feel guilty towards Jews so much to be "blind" to the crimes that the state of Israel is perpetuating against the Palestinian population. In denouncing those crimes, people shouldn't feel afraid of being called "anti-semitic", because it does not mean to be against a religion or a "race", it means to be against a government. It's time to learn from the past and prevent other people from being killed, tortured and humiliated because of their religion or their race. And it's astonishing that these crimes are committed by the same people who suffered them in the first place] [btw, yes, I know this is not really relevant to the topic I should discuss]

Inductive or deductive

'Contemplation is the greatest good,' was stated by Aristotle. What do you think he was referring to? Was it inductive or deductive reasoning. How does this lead up to Descartes' 'cogito ergo sum'?

For Aristotle contemplation means the theoria, the intellectual knowledge, opposite to action or praxis. When Aristotle talk about philosophy he uses the term metaphysics, the "first philosophy", the main science that could investigate "the knowledge of immaterial being". By saying "contemplation is the greatest good" Aristotle refers to the importance of knowledge.

However, how can I tell if it was inductive or deductive reasoning? it's just a sentence! It's talking about the search of knowledge in general, without specifying which method to follow: it's both inductive and deductive, depending on the situations. 

Still, this lead up to Descartes 'cogito ergo sum': for Descartes "cogito" refers to that part of the spiritual substance that can never be doubted. It represents the foundation of the subjective certainty of being alive and the measuring unit of every other possible certainty. Descartes give to "cogito", the action of thinking, the supremacy of knowledge, which is exactly what Aristotle meant with "contemplation is the greatest good": to them, reason is the most certain way of knowing.

Optical illusions as metaphors

In the TOK book, we see that R.van de Lagemaat introduces optical illusions as metaphors to explain how we often perceive life poorly. For this blog assignment find an optical illusion on the net, post it on your blog, and explain how it acts as a metaphor on how we simply get things wrong.

Which circle is bigger, the one on the left or the one on the right?

At this point in life, I don't think someone can still be teased by questions like this one, because we all know about the existence of optical illusions and the tricks they play with our minds and our senses. Only if you're younger than a ten years old you can answer "the one on the left". Otherwise, you will probably know that the two circles have the same size, the one on the left only looks bigger because it's surrounded by little circles and, on the other hand, the one on the right looks smaller because it's surrounded by big circles.

Most perceptual illusions have to do with the sense of sight because, though it's one of the senses we most rely on, it's also the one who's most likely to be misled.

In the case of the optical illusion above, the image plays tricks on our sight and on our mind because of its context. In fact, the way we see something usually depend on the context in which we perceive it. We do often judge the size of an object by looking at its overall context. If there were no other circles surrounding the middle ones, we could have clearly seen that there are no differences in their size. 

This should teach of how sometimes is not advisable to rely on your senses, but i still think that they are the only way we can feel reality. Though I know I can't always trust one of them, the five of them together, along with the sixth, which is the ability of reasoning - my mind-, can often give me an accurate perception of reality.