The Diving Bell and the Butter Fly #5

1. One place I know by smell is the beach. I can smell the ocean in the air, from the stinging wind that always accompanies open water, bringing the smell of salt, and see-weed, and  especially at low tide, the smell of the bodies of dead mollusks, and other sea animals. This is probably not explaining it very adequately, because it is not a bad smell, but it is mostly a salty smell, that whips around your face and is stinging sharp.

I think Bauby's situation's is more horrific than Jean-Paul K.'s. For Jean-Paul K., he had something that he knew would keep him sane, he knew he had a chance of being rescued, that there were people trying to rescue him, he had full use of all his body parts, and though he will always live with those memories, he can move on with his life. For Bauby, he must hope that his imagination and memories will keep him sane, and tethered to the real world, although they may not. He knows that the doctors are trying to slowly progress him toward normality, but he also knows that he will never be exactly the way he was before "the accident." Bauby doesn't have control of his body, besides his left eye, and he can't move on with his life, he is stuck in the Naval Hospital in Berck-sur-Mer.

2. I think Bauby is "fond of all these torturers" because over the months he has come to know them, and slowly appreciate their care of him, whether or not he was in a good or bad mood, before or after he could communicate. Even if things they do annoy him ("for a few minutes or a few hours I would have cheerfully killed them"), he realizes that they just try to help him through his condition as best as they can, "eas[ing] our burden a little when our crosses bruised our shoulders a little too painfully."

3.  I think Bauby has admiration for Olivier because he is able to tell stories beautifully. Humans always admire those who have the qualities they don't have/don't believe they have. Bauby admires Olivier for being able to tell such extravagant stories, always willing to back them up, whereas if Bauby was to tell such a story in his conditions, it would not be believable.

Our emotions effect the way we remember things. If I am having a bad day, I may remember the way my teacher asked for an assignment as rude and snappy, rather than how it was really asked, simply a teacher asking a student to hand in an assignment.

4. I think Bauby likes the song "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles, because it sort of describes what happened his life after the "accident." Also, it was the last song heard, or rather he really listened to before the "accident."

Humans alway wait for the crescendo because it's usually the most important part of the song, its the biggest part, most meaningful part. 

I think Bauby puts this chapter at the end of his book because it is the book's crescendo's. It's most important part, the day of the "accident." We learn what happened that way, and that's when I truly get the sense of who Bauby is, before and after his "accident." We, as readers have followed Bauby through his journey from when he first learns to communicate, through the end of his life, although Bauby does not know it is the end of his life. This is the crescendo of the book where his old life and his new one come together.

5. Bauby is savoring the last week of August because he doesn't "have that awful sense of a countdown--the feeling triggered at the beginning of a vacation that inevitably spoils a good part of it." He is happy because people will be coming back from vacations, and they will have stories to tell him, and news to tell him. What we can learn from Bauby here because of his reaction to the end of the vacation is to be gratful to hear others' stories and news of things  that happened over vacations, and let your imagination take flight and delight in hearing about others experiences because there is a chance you may never get to relive them or have experiences or your own that are similar to theirs.

The Diving Bell and the Butter Fly #4

1. I think its necessary for humans to put people in categories because it helps us make judgements, even though those judgements may not even be correct. I think that our language is not so limiting that we must organize people into categories, but rather we do it for our own comfort. "Oh, he's a vegetable." Doing that puts us at ease, as if it helps us to know how the person really is, even though it doesn't. It only helps us understand only one characteristic of a person, if any at all.

2. I hoard almost every letter and card that is sent or given to me. I have three boxes full of all the cards and letters that I have ever gotten. I think I hoard these because it tells me that people love me, or care about me enough to send me a card or a letter, even if its just for my birthday, or Christmas. I think I feel like this particularly because both of my parents are sort of estranged from their families, specifically their siblings, so it's nice when I get a card from them wishing me good thoughts, even if I have received the same card from them before.

3. Bauby's statement, "I know who he is, but who is he really?" really relates to what I said earlier about putting people in categories. Bauby knows who this man is, but he doesn't know who he really is, what he likes, dislikes, what his thoughts are about. I don't think Bauby is really any closer to knowing what makes people tick, because I think that everyone has something different that makes them tick. It seems like Bauby is getting closer to knowing what the people who he knows, what makes them tick. Also, Bauby will never tire of the smell of french fries because the smell is so strong that he can probably come close to tasting them, especially if he adds his memories of what french fries taste like to his mental, gustatory, and olfactory  imagery.

4. A "small near miss" that I have had recently was on an English quiz. One question asked for me to name a certain question asked in the memoir "A Long Way Gone." If I had studied more properly I would understand exactly which question the teacher was asking for, and I could have answered correctly. Instead, I didn't study correctly and I paid attention to the less important question, which led to an incorrect answer, although I could have gotten the answer correct.

5.  When Bauby says he has "butterfly hearing" in Duck Hunt, he means in the silence, he thinks he can hear his heartbeat, and because of his heartbeat, he can use his butterfly to escape from his diving bell, so in the silence, he can take off into his imagination, he can hear when he is leaving his diving bell.

6. I think Bauby dreads Sundays because it is the day when he is least taken care of. Very few staff are around, and those who are don't really communicate with Bauby, and/or are hungover. The TV is left on the same station for 3-4 hours, and some of the programs hurt Bauby's delicate hearing. His bath "bears more resemblance to a drawing and quartering than to hydrotherapy. A triple dose of the finest eau de toilette fails to mask the reality: I stink." No one reads to him on Sundays, and even when a large black fly is on Bauby's nose, no one is there to get rid of it for him.

White Man's Burden

In class today, there were four things about the movie clip that we watched that really surprised me, making me think twice. When I first see the maid serving her master and his friends outside, I actually had to look twice at her to realize that she was white, not black. Another thing that really made me think was in the factory, almost all the workers were white. I hadn't thought that I believed that most factory workers were black, but I was still surprised to see that they were all white, except for the foreman, and he was doing a higher level job than the other workers. Another thing that made me think was how when the white character is driving through the rich neighborhood everyone is black. There were no white people anywhere, and none of the blacks would look at him.  The last thing that really surprised, was the racial profiling of the police in the movie. I was shocked at the way they treated John Travolta's character. They thought he was a criminal, but they didn't check before they basically started beating him up, and arresting him. It made me wonder if, in the real world, that really happens, like with white police officers and black suspects, which made me think back to Blink, and I realized that it does happen, which really made me think about the race issues our country still has.

The Diving Bell and the Butter Fly #3

1. In the last line of Guardian Angel, Bauby says "And I have to admit that at times I do not know anymore," in response to Florence question of "Are you there, Jean-Do?" This is significant because Bauby seems to be losing himself a little bit, like the diving bell is taking him over, and he can't connect to the real word anymore, he's just trapped in him mind, in his memories and imagination.

2. The ironic thing about the photo Bauby receives is that it is him as a boy, visiting the same town in which resides the very hospital he now lives in, 33 years previous to the present.

3. Bauby's dreams give us some insight to his condition. We see the heights of his imagination and how his past and his memories effect him in the present. In his dream he is walking with his best friend, Bernard, in snow trying to get back to France which is in the midst of some general strike (which was happening at the time of Bauby's "accident"). In Bauby's dream the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic, performs a tracheotomy on him, because he's having trouble breathing, which is part of Bauby's condition.  Then he ends up in a study in a cellar having an amber liquid, presumably beer, poured into his mouth through a tube, like the way Bauby eats. In the end, he ends up hostage for an unknown cult and wishes to warn his friends so that they do not end up in the same trap, but he is unable to speak which "conforms [his dream] perfectly with reality. I am unable to utter a word." This shows Bauby's frustration his condition, as well.

4. In My Lucky Day, Bauby's butterfly is hidden, inactive. His diving bell consumes him, pulling him down, as nothing is going right for him. The tape on his right eye has come undone due to his sweat,  the alarm on his feeding tube has ben incessantly beeping, and his urinary catheter has become detached, and he is soaked in his own urine.

5. After reading Our Very Own Madonna and Through a Glass, Darkly, I can think of a time in my life that I did not truly appreciate until it was over. In eighth grade,  my best friend at the time suddenly hated me for a month. I hadn't realized how much  I was depending on her, how much support I got from her. I no longer had anyone to talk to or sit with at lunch, I couldn't call her to get the homework, or talk to her about my problems. What was worse still is that when she started hating me, most of our mutual friends hated me too, thereby not becoming mutual anymore. I was shocked at how isolated I was without her. It was then I truly appreciated the support I had gotten from her, but it was also then that I truly appreciated some of my other friends, whom I did not see as much, and also how I used to be independent without her. She and I have since made up, but because of what happened, I don't put myself completely into my friendships anymore, and I try more to appreciate the friendships I have in the moment, rather than after we have to separate for some reason, benevolent or hostile, and I have to learn how to stand on my own again.

We can learn to live by appreciating significant moments by realizing that they're significant and why while they're happening or immediately after the fact. It might not be possible all the time, but it certainly helps, and works for part of the time, which is important.

The Diving Bell and the Butter Fly #2

1. In Bathtime, I think Bauby's statement about how clothes represent life, and proof that he still wants to be himself, and "If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere,"shows that even though he trapped in his own mind, he still has a life, is still himself, and if he must be "locked-in,"  at least he'll look somewhat like himself before his "accident."

2. I think that the fact that Bauby spoke French, instead of Japanese or Chinese, mattered a great deal in the writing of his book. There are so many more characters and letters in Asian languages, that I think Bauby would have had a much harder time communicating his thoughts and ideas. Also, because of the amount of characters I think that what Bauby would have been able to communicate might have been lost in translation. Even Bauby writing in French, and us reading it in English, some things maybe lost, like maybe the tone or language Bauby was using could be convey stronger in his native language.

3. Bauby finds his appearance humorous because "Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but I was also horrible to behold. There comes a time when the heaping of calamities brings on uncontrollable nervous laughter--when, after a final blow from fate, we decide to treat it all as a joke."

4. After reading Cinecitta, if there was one place I could visit for an afternoon, because it was my last opportunity, I would go to New York City. I chose NYC because I have never been. I would love to go there to see the city, the people, all the tourist parts, but also the real part, the not so beautiful part. I'd go see a play on Broadway, go to a museum of Art and look at all the beautiful masterpieces, maybe do some drawings on my own, of the artworks there, or paintings, trying to mimic their style. I would go shopping in stores, both expensive and inexpensive. I would go to NYC for the experience of going to the big city. Plus I've already been to London and Paris. 

5. After reading Tourists, I think we don't make more of an effort to connect with those who might look or act differently from us because they have a different life path then us, they might not understand us, they might fear us, we might fear them, we might not understand them, that it might be impossible to fully connect with those who act or look differently from us. Because we're not connected by the way we look or the way we act, we live in different environments, which lead us down different life paths, to the lives we lead or want to lead, which makes it harder for us to understand each other.

6. After reading Sausage, if there was one meal I would miss the most it is my dad's shepherd's pie. It has my favorite combination of food: corn, mashed potatoes, and beef, with some herbs and spices mixed in. Everything about it is so fulfilling. The creamy mashed potatoes with some paprika on top, the sweet-and- salty corn, and the protein enriched beef seasoned with unknown herbs and spices, it come together to create the perfect, hearty, home-cooked meal.

Pink Noise

I think Pink Noise works because the sounds of nature, like " rustling of tree leaves or rushing water," are calming to us, because they're simple. Thinking about the simplicity of nature relaxes us, sort of like going back to basics. Also Pink Noise had "deep, rich tones" which helps to block out the uneven drill noise that was presented for audio during the podcast. Personally, I don't think that the Pink Noise works. When I listened to it, it reminded me of static, which I find annoying. Also, like it was said in the podcast, you can still hear the drill behind the Pink Noise. I can still hear, so it still bothers me. 

I don't think that Sturgis should pump Pink Noise through school, because I don't think we have that much trouble with noise issues.  Yes, the walls are thin, and we can hear each other through them, but I don't really think that effects student learning. Unless, the classroom is silent, the teacher speaking in the class you're in is usually loud enough to draw your attention. If, the classroom is silent, like during a test, and another teacher or class is being to loud, your teacher should go ask them to quiet down, because that is what's courteous, not drowning them out. 

Also, I know the Pink Noise will distract me, and probably other students, which is hindering, and could hurt more than it would help some students.

If Sturgis pumped Pink Noise through the school, we wouldn't be able to hear any announcements through the intercom, because it "completely filter the human voice." Also, I don't know, but would we be able to hear the fire drill through the Pink Noise? Even if we could, it would most likely be fainter, possibly not heard by a noisy class because they were so loud, because they could be because of the Pink Noise. 

The Diving Bell and the Butter Fly #1

1. What is "locked-in syndrome?" 'Locked-in syndrome' is when the "brain stem [is] out of action" and the patient is "paralyzed form head to toe, [but with the] mind intact, [he] is imprisoned inside his own body, unable to speak or move." One might consider Bauby's condition a prison because he can't leave, he can't communicate, he is trapped. The significance of the butterfly is that it is Bauby's only means of escape. With his butterfly, his imagination and memories, he can go into his past, or anywhere in time or space , in his mind because it is the one part of his body that he is not trapped in.

2. What is Bauby's "frightening truth"? Bauby's "frightening truth" is that he will always be in a wheelchair. "'You can handle the wheelchair," said the occupational therapist, with the smile intended to make the remark seem like good news, whereas to my ears it had the ring of a life sentence. In one flash I saw the frightening truth." 

3. I think Bauby should measure progress in how much he does each week. He should meaure moving from a bed to a wheel chair as progress. At least he'll be able to move around, rather than just lying in bed for the rest of his life. Progress does not come quickly, and it is not easy. It happens little by little, slowly over time, with hard work. I think Bauby ends the chapter "Prayer," with the phrase "I set out for the kingdom of slumber with this wonderful talisman, which shields me from all harm," because his daughter's prayer for him, protects him from his own dark thoughts, but also harmful thoughts of others, and he hopes that her prayer, will protect him from his condition getting any worse, as he sleeps.

Abel Questions

1. According to Abel, perception is an"active inquiry, not passive reception...acts of perceiving as something."

2. When Abel says "seeing as," he means how we see everything, how it has a certain meaning to each person. "...Hamlet got Polonius to agree that a cloud looked like a camel, a weasel and a whale. Two people will stumble over a bit of hard clay, but only one of them will it as a fragment of a Greek vase."

3. To see what is the case requires:

a. Context- The setting; the surrounding information  that helps to understand the meaning of a specific thing.

b. Inference-that which is derived by reasoning; concluding or judging on the premises of evidence.

c. Concepts- General notions or ideas

d. Experience- instances of personally undergoing, or encountering something.

e. Interpretation- one's personal meaning for a piece, an idea, a thought.

4. What Nietzsche meant by "the fallacy of the immaculate conception" is that there is no "innocent eye", or one single, correct view of seeing-as. Psychologist Joseph Jastrow proves this point using "a  well-known drawing--it is a figure that can be seen either as a rabbit or a duck, and it shifts from one to the other as you look at it;it can never be seen as both and neither interpretation is 'correct.'" We did this in class when we looked at the three world maps, which were three different perspectives: one of how the world is normally shown, one of all the continents streched vertically, and one with the continents upside-down and the sizes of the countries skewed.

5. What Abel means by "there is no sharp dividing line between perception and illusion" is that "perception is 'multistable.' The ambiguity or avaiable choices are not always evident in an image and cannot always be isolated," so we can not always differentiate between what we percive and what we illuse.

6. Perception is selective by nature because "the number of sensory stimuli, or possible messages from outside, is greater than we can receive and process. The channels of communication to us are crowded and noisy; we must filter stimuli."

7. What Abel means by "to perceive is to solve a problem," is that we "'find strands of permanence in the tumult of changing  appearances' (Polyani) " so that what we perceive and what we have already perceived, helps us to identify what is always changing.

8. The role of social conditioning in deciding how things "naturally" look is important. "Realism" is used in art to describe how realistic and/or familiar something is to us. "each society relies on its own visual schemata; it takes for granted its own 'disorientations and 'distractions.'"

9. The  significance of the Durher rhinoceros is that although he had never seen one, he did a wood cut that became so popular it became the model for rhinoceroses in textbooks. His interpretation, however, was found to be incorrect by James Bruce, who traveled to Africa. But when Bruce illustrated it, it "was so strongly influenced by his [convention] of what a rhinoceros ought to look like (i.e., like Durher's woodcut) that no zoologist can identify what Bruce actually saw!" The influence of convention is demonstrated when a photograph is given to some African tribes in that they do not understand what is in the picture, even if they have seen it before, because they do not understand how photographs work, or even what a photograph is. What they see when they look at a photograph is varying shades of colors, or blacks, whites and grays, not an actual picture.

10. Convention influences perspective drawing because the artist must find a way to convey three dimensions on a two dimensional media. " The laws of optics and geometry  do not entail our conventional manner of showing distance nor did it occur to other generations, or cultures."

11. When Abel writes "believing is seeing" he means that if you can be convinced to believe something, you can be convinced to see it as well. "'Stooges' in experiments can get subjects in experiments to agree that they see unequal lines as equal, or that a fixed candlelight in a dark room is moving."

12. What Abel means by "hearing-as" is what we hear and what was actually said, maybe different, based on our perceptions. "If you are told, 'Bert was sleepy, so he went to bed,' almost any consonant can be substituted for the b in bed, with no change in what the brain reports."

Blink #2

1. Three Fatal Mistakes

Three Fatal Mistakes is related to our study of Perception, in that it showed the three ways that the four police officers' brains had "misses," which happened to be fatal in Diallo's case. Their brains received signal's telling them that Diallo "looked suspicious," "was brazen," and "was dangerous." However, the signals were incorrect. Diallo was "getting a breathe of fresh air, "was curious," and later, "was terrified." 

2. The Theory of Mind Reading

In this section, we learn about how two scientists manage to "read people's minds" by anaylzing their facial expressions. This relates to our study of Perception because it shows us that through learning about how the brain works, here specifically how our facial expressions relate to what we are feeling, we are able to understand the information we receive, and analyze it better.

3. The Naked Face

In this section, Gladwell goes on to show how Ekman uses FACS, to decipher facial expressions. Using his intensive knowledge of FACS, he uses his Perception of facial expressions to "mind read." This is related to our study, showing us how we know what we know, through our Perception, here: in facial expressions.

4. A Man,  A Woman, and A Lightswitch

In this section, Gladwell explores how, through autism, literal "mind-blindness" or lack of "mind-reading" ability. This shows how an autisitc person's perception is different, so they pull a different meaning out of something that an non-autistic person would. It relates to our study because we see how each person's perception is different, but also we see how each person receives that information to come to that perception.

5. Arguing With a Dog

This section is very much related to our study of Perception. Using information from the past couple of sections, Gladwell shows his readers how our perception changes with our mood, particularly with an adreneline rush. Our Perception changes and we are unable to "mid-read" because our "vision and thinking narrowed."

6. Running Out of White Space

In this section, Gladwell discusses how are you perceptions and how we act on them depend on the time we have to react to our perceptions. The more time we have, the more qualified we are to make a decision, based on our perceptions. We're not stressed for time, for a decision.

7. Something in my mind...

This section was extremely relevant to our study of Perception. Gladwell talked about really using your perception, but also thinking clearly on your perceptions, so that you fully understand your percetions and what they mean.

8. Tragedy on Wheeler Ave.

In this last section, Gladwell combines everything he has mentioned abut perception in the last seven sections. He puts its all together, effectively showing his readers how one  acts on their perception, and how one comes to that perception, particularly in moments of brief time, and stress, where one can become  effectively "mind-blind" and not read signs that show something different from what the instant perception says.

The Biology of Perception

Although I did not finish the test, my impression was that it was to sort of test our perceptions, how our individual brains receive information. I thought that some parts of it moved too quickly, but I'm sure that was the point, so that we, as students could better understand how important those first signals of the brain are.

I think the average person should know the basics of how our brains perceive information. I believe that this will help everyone understand our lives, and how and why we think better. The average person may be able to obtain more information, or more accurate information, if they understand the way their brain receives information.

The Warren Harding Error (Blink #1)

1. In 1899, Harding met Daugherty while having his shoes shined.  Harding was a newspaper editor at the time, who was "a week away from winning the Ohio state senate." He was "elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914." Harding "addressed the 1916 Republican presidential convention", because Daugherty believed that people only had to hear Harding's voice "to be convinced of his worthiness for higher office." In the summer of 1920, Harding entered the Republican convention as the sixth, and least likely possible candidate. The Party was "deadlocked" between two main candidates, and Harding ended up being the Republican Party Candidate for President because he "radiated common sense and dignity and all that was presidential."

2. The author believes that people were in error in promoting Harding to higher office because Harding "was not a particularly intelligent man. He liked to play poker and golf and to drink, and most of all to chase women...As he rose form one political office to another, he never distinguished himself. He was vague and ambivalent on matters of policy...He was absent from debates on women's suffrage and Prohibition--two of the biggest political issues of his time...In 1920, Daugherty convinced Harding, against Harding's better judgement, to run for the White House...[Harding] was, most historians agree,one of the worst presidents in American History." This evidence shows that author believes people were in error in promoting Harding to higher office because he was not very smart, a womanizer, absent from politics in general, had to be convinced to run, and is generally know to be one of the country's worst presidents.

3. The point of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) was to show how the mind "makes connections much more quickly with pairs of ideas that are already related in our minds, than we do between ideas that are unfamiliar to us."

4. The advantages to completing an IAT on a computer are "that the responses are measurable down to a millisecond, and those measurements are used in assigning the test taker's score." The IAT has become "so popular in recent years" is because "the effects it is measuring are not subtle; the IAT is the kind of tool that hits you over the head with its conclusions." Which is another way of saying that the conclusions are very surprising, yet obvious.

5. Gladwell became mortified upon completion of the first part of the IAT on race because he was having more difficulty placing words when "Bad" was paired with "European  American" and "Good" was paired with "African American." On the second part of the IAT test, the categories were reversed, and Gladwell had no trouble placing the words in the categories. 

6. It did not matter how many times Gladwell took the test, it didn't make any difference. The author believes the reason for our answers on the IAT is "our second level of attitude...on an unconscious level."

7. ("If  Gladwell is correct, I would not consider this to be my true self. This is because, although my unconscious "crunches all the data...and forms an opinion," I consciously make the effort to make a fair opinion based on what I believe is right, not just on all the data that passes before my eyes, because it is possible that not all that data is true, or correct.

8. Gladwell feels that it does matter. ("Does it matter?of course it does.") An example of why it does matter, is an interview. If you interview a black applicant, and your unconscious makes you a little distant from the applicant, that will upset his confidence, and will ultimately "throw the interview hopelessly off-course."

9. The Warren Harding error impacts the business world in a small way that makes a big difference.  Statistics show that most CEOs are tall, and in the business world, "an inch is worth $789 [more] a year in salary. That means that a person who is six feet tall, but otherwise identical to someone who is five feet five will make on average $5,525 more a year...we see a tall person and we swoon."

10. Bob Golomb's strategy, "he tries never to judge anyone one the basis of his or her appearance,"defeats the Warren Harding error because he gives everyone an equal chance. Golomb's strategy prevents him from making an error in decision based on appearance, "because sometimes the most unlikely person is in the flush." This means that he will help any customer, no matter his/her appearance because they have just as an equal chance of buying a car as anyone else.

11. The results of Ayres's study were that "women and blacks were lay-downs." (Lay-downs are the people who pay the sticker price for a car.)"[The car dealers] saw someone who wasn't a white male and thought to themselves, 'Aha! This person is so stupid and naive that I can make a lot of money off them.'" In actuality. the dealers' unconscious simply said that women and minorities are "suckers".

12. Gladwell believes that you can change your score on the race IAT by looking over articles that are positive to black people, like articles on MLK Jr., and Nelson Mandela, and this positive force will help improve your times. We can apply this by "changing the experiences that compromise those [first] impressions...Taking rapid cognition seriously--requires that we take active steps to manage and control those impressions." I do agree. I think if we take the steps to associate ourselves with all different types of people, and to become comfortable with all types of people, than our first impressions, our unconscious impressions, will reflect our conscious ones.

The Mouse That Ate The Cheese

Based on class conversations, the point of the story of the story "The Mouse That Ate The Cheese" is to show ToK students how we know what we know, and the different types of knowledge. It also shows how our belief system works. How we know what we is shown two different ways in this story. "Bill knew that the mouse mouse had eaten the cheese. He had seen it with his own eyes, and he wasn't dreaming...or hallucinating." One way of knowing something is seeing it. Another way of knowing is being told knowledge by someone with the original knowledge. "Bill obviously wasn't joking, his story was plausible enough and [Virginia] knew him well enough to accept his evidence as reliable...By now three people, Bill, Virginia and Adrian knew that the mouse had eaten the cheese." In "The Mouse That Ate The Cheese" three different belief systems are shown. Only one results in knowledge. Alice, who saw that the cheese had dropped to the floor, but did not actually see the mouse eat the cheese, rationalized that a mouse must have eaten the cheese, because it was the "only logical explanation." However, because she did not see it, and because Bill, the only one who did see the mouse eat the cheese, did not tell her so, she did not actually know that the mouse had eaten the cheese, she only believed it. Virginia and Adrian, although they did not see the mouse eat the cheese, knew that it had, because they chose to believe, Bill who had seen the cheese being eaten by the mouse. By believing Bill, his knowledge was transferred to them. George, who was told by Bill that a mouse had eaten the cheese, chose not to believe him. Therefore he did not know that the mouse had eaten the cheese, but he also didn't know that the mouse hadn't eaten the cheese, he only believed it, because he hadn't seen it, and he hadn't been told by someone watching the cheese, that it hadn't been eaten by a mouse.

Class Notes

Who Knows More?

-- A male OB/GYN with 25 years experience?

or

--A woman with 5 children?

Is one type of knowledge more valuable than another?

Each knows more than the other, in the different types of knowledge. The male OB/GYN will know the mechanics, the processes, the medical, scientific part of childbirth, while the woman with five kids will know more about the what it feels like, how it will affects a woman emotionally.

MOTHER:

-she knows more about the emotions

-PAIN

-more about 'childbirth' itself, but not the delivery

-experience is key

-introspection, knowing how

-Does she know, scientific knowledge?

-knowing how

-empirical/personal

-knowledge by intstinct

-knowledge by practice-->after 5 children

-direct and immediate

OB/GYN:

-who knows more

-biological aspects

-how to deliver baby

-the childbirth experience may vary depending on woman

-Empirical (it depends on what kind childbirth, but not birth itself)

-Knowing that

-knowing by description

Knowledge by practice--> after 25 years

Abel: The Basis of Knowledge

How does Bertrand Russell differentiate between "knowledge by acqauintance" and "knowledge by description? "Knowledge by acquaintance" is "direct and immediate and consists of 'raw feels.' We are acquainted with a person, or with a place, or with a food." "knowledge by description" is "knowledge of a fact."

How does Abel distinguish between "knowing how" and "knowing that"? "Knowing how" is "[unable] to describe[d in] exactly how one does things." "Knowing that" is "propositional" and can be explained precisely, and "can be computerized."

What does he mean when he asks "can knowing how theoretically always be reduced to knowing that?" What is Abel's answer? What do you think? He means can knowing how to do something be "articulated precisely in propositions, and formulated as a computer program." Abel's answer is "knowing how to do these things perhaps cannot be fully specified in propositional knowing that."  I agree with Abel. I believe that there are some things that can't be put into exact, specific, propositions and computerized.

How does language become a problem of knowledge? Language becomes a problem of knowledge when our language cannot effectively communicate our ideas and what we know, to ourselves and to others.

What do you think William James means when he says: "life defies our phrases?" I think he means that life changes, is mysterious and continuous, and our phrases cannot fully describe it. I understand this from his words, "Life defies our phrases...it is infinitely continuous and subtle and shaded,, whilst our verbal terms are discrete, rude, and few..."

What, according to Abel, is the difference between "experience" and "propositional knowledge"? "Experience is a very wide philosophical term:it includes everything we do and everything that happens to us." "Propositional Knowledge," according to Abel, "is not the function to duplicate knowledge, but to describe it."

What are Abel's Four Conditions for propositional knowledge? Where have we seen this before? Why does he add a Fourth Condition? The Four Conditions are "1. That p [any propositions]be true...2. That I believe that p....That I have good reasons, or sufficient evidence  for my belief that p; my belief must be justified...4. That i have no other evidence that might undermine my belief." We have seen this before in our discussions about the types of knowledge. He adds a Fourth Condition because  it is necessary to make it a justified, true belief.

What are Abel's Nine Good Reasons or Evidence which serves as the Basis of Knowledge?

1. Sense Perception-evidence for our knowledge of the world. I know what Africa is shaped like because I've seen it on different maps, and it looks the same.

2. Logic-the basis of our analytical knowledge. I know that two plus two is four because if i have two apples and my sister has two apples, and she gives me her apples, than I have four apples.

3. Intuition-inner convictions of certainty. I know that it is wrong to steal because my intuition tells me so.

4. Self-awareness-knowing one's own "'self-presenting' states." I know I am tired because I feel like I'm about to fall asleep. 

5. Memory-knowledge of the past. I know that I went to school yesterday, because I remember  it.

6. Authority-a knowledgeable source passing on their knowledge. I know that there is magma in the center of the Earth, because the geologists said so.

7. Consensus Gentium-common knowledge. I know that Kirby is weird because everyone says he is.

8. Revelation-God revealing something. I know that there will be a flood, and I need to build an ark, because God told me.

9. Faith-not knowledge! relying on belief, which is a requisite for knowledge, but not a guarantee of it. I knew that I would go to heaven when I died, because I had faith that I did God's work during my life.

The Trouble with Fries....

How would Gladwell respond to the responsibility question from September 15th?

According to the article "The Trouble Withe fries," I believe that Gladwell would respond to the responsibility question by saying that it is the knower's responsibility to know, but also the producer's responsibility to provide the information even if it's "in the tiniest type on the remotest corner of their Web site." The whole article was about how the fries and burgers could be improved for the consumer's health is to "cook fries in oil that isn't so dangerous." In the article, a few healthier alternatives to the dangerous cooking oil our fast food is being fried in, were provided. It was pointed out that when "McDonald's came out with the McLean Deluxe... [it] was a flop, and four years later it was off the market." The reasoning provided was that it flopped because of "the psychological handicap the burger faced...[was that] it was sold as the healthy choice--and who goes to McDonald's for health food?" There, the producer is responsible for providing the knowledge, which they did, though they're marketing skills were not adequate, to sell the burger because, as the article says, who goes to McDonald's for health food? "[McDonald's] should have called it the Burger Supreme or the Monster Burger," and quietly provided the information that it was healthier for the consumer. That way the producer would have done their job, as responsible for making the information available, but it would also be the knowers', the consumers', responsibility to find out what they were eating, if they even wanted to know.

Corn in McDonald's!

Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap (Grilled):

Four tortilla, grilled chicken breast, shredded chedder/jack cheese, shredded lettuce, chipotle BBQ sauce.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

Did any information in the book come as a surprise to you? If so, why do you think that specific piece of knowledge was kept from you? Does the producer of this knowledge have any responsibility? What is your responsibility as a knower?

The only information in the book that came as a surprise to me was how nearly everything is made up of corn. I don't think that this specific piece of knowledge was kept from me, it was just that I didn't see it. The information is all around me, most obviously in the ingredients of what I eat. It wasn't necessary for me to know all the chemical names of things that come from corn, when other obvious names, like corn syrup, corn starch, corn meal, corn oil, etc., were there in front of me. Therefore the producer doesn't really have any responisbility, because the producer has put the information out there. It is the responsibility of the knower, that is to say, my responsibility, to be aware of the information, and acknowledge these things, theses obvious pieces of knowledge that are everywhere. It is my responsibility as a knower, not to be oblivious to the obvious, but to see pieces of knowledge in the world, and know and understand them,not just because it relates to me. It is my responisbility as a knower to actively acknowledge pieces of knowledge in the world that do not necessarily relate to me and my life.

How do we know?

"How do we Know what we Know? What evidence do you have to support your claim?

We know what we know because of everything around us. There are somethings we know automatically, like eating. We're hungry, so we eat. If we don't it hurts our stomachs. That's something that we knew as babies. Other things we know from our parents, what they taught us growing up. We know how to read, and tie our shoes, and use our manners, because of what they taught us as children. We learn things from our teachers, like math, mulitplication, addition, long division, etc. We learn the tools we will need to go on to school and to get a productive job. Teachers also shape who we are, by being kind to us, or mean to us, giving us extra help, or helping us with personal problems, being there for us, when our friends don;t understand, and our parents are the problem, or can't help. Also we learn form our friends. We learn about things from our friends that our parents and teachers won't tell us. An example of this is how to get the most candy at halloween, or more impotantly, how to be a good friend, mostly in their actions, but also in their words. Finally, we know what we know from strangers. People we might never meet, or know, but we see for a minute or two. I know that bad drivers tend to piss other drivers off, from the way that I see strangers drive, but also in the reactions from my parents, especially my dad. Something else that we learn from strangers is manners, and mannerisms. In a restaurant, when you see someone speaking with their mouth full, or chewing with their mouth open, it helps you to learn, by seeing it firsthand, how disgusting it is. Manenrisms you can learn from strangers, as well as people you know. You can see how to walk with confidence, or show that you're angry.
In short, we know what we know, from our genetics, the people around us like our friends/peers and family, and even strangers we may meet for a second or a minute.

Do Parents Matter?

How would Gladwell respond to the identity question from August 27th? How would Levitt and Dubner respond? Do you agree with their argument? Why or why not?

Gladwell would respond to the identity question from August 27th, by saying that, we are partly our parents, because we recieve their genes, but that we are more our peers, much more than parents. "Whom do they want to please? Are they wearing the kind of clothing that other kids are wearing or the kind that their parents are wearing?" Gladwell would say that our peers affect us much more, in the way we dress, speak, act, make decisions, etc. "Whatever our parents do to us is overshadowed, in the long run, by what our peers do to us...From the very moment that children first meet other children, they take their cues from them."
Levitt and Dubner would respond the August 27th identity question that yes we are our parents, but by our genes, not by the way they parent us. "So it isn't that parents don't matter. Clearly, they matter an awful lot. It's just that by the time most parents pick up a book on parenting technique, it's too late." Who theyare, what kind of education they recieved, when they decided to have children factors in to what kind of person their child will be. "...it's not so much you do as a parent, it's who you are."
In my opinion, both of these argumets are correct. You recieve your genes from your parents, and how they treat/teach you is a part of who you are, but another part of who you are is how you were treated/taught by your peers. For a long time, I was a shy, introverted person because I moved a lot (my dad was in the Air Force), and I was teased by my peers, especially for having red hair, and being bookish, which were both traits I recieved from my parents. However, as I've grown older, I've become more extroverted, particularly after I came to Sturgis, where all the students were new to each other, most everyone, accepted most everyone else. I share some of the same qualities as my peers, whether it's speaking out in class, or reading a book at lunchtime. But they way my parents act around me and the way they teach me still makes up a large part of who I am. I love children, because my mother loves children, although some of my peers and friends don't. I'm more interested in history than most people my age are, because my father has a love of history, that he has shared with me verbally, and genetically. So in the end, I think we are both our parents and are peers, a mix of the two, and other factors, but how evenly these parts are mixed, is based solely on the indivdual in question.

First Class

What were your impressions of the first class? Are we our Name, our Family, our Sex, our Nationality or our Location? If not, then what is responsible for our identity? Do we have an identity apart from our community?

My impressions of the first class were that we will be having very deep, interestring conversations, in which we will discuss ideas that my classmates and myself might disagree upon, with each, and that these discussions will change our points of view, and that we will learn new things, and think about things we've never thought about, or have rarely given a thought to before. I think that usually people are very aptly named, and can become their name, but it isn't always a defining factor of one's personality. I think we are our family, from either our genes or the influences tehy have upon us, or both. For example, my sister and I are very different people, but we do have some similar traits, and I wouldn't be who I am today without her. I don't think that we're our sex because I find that what each gender is "supposed" to like doesn't usually happen. I love baseball, to the degree which is normally considered a "guy thing." I know some guys love to shop, which is considered a "girl thing." People are limited to their gender. Gay men and women often act like the oppposite sex, and transgender people change their gender, but may still like things from both genders. I believe our nationality does define us, on a spectrum that is between very little to the person that we are. It can affect the way we dress, the way we speak, even the way we think. It can affect our religion, which is another thing to help define us. Our location also makes up a part, big or small, of who we are, affecting us in the same way our nationality does: in the way we think, speak, and dress. One's identity is linked to their community, or communities. They don't have to be big communities, they can be a community of one, but those around us, and where we live affects {is it affects or effects?} who we are.We don't have to be the same or share the same identity, but I don't think we have an identity apart form our communities.
I am so excited for ToK this year!