in theory of knowledge the other day we were talking about how our perception of things can deceive us. how everything we think we know about a situation; our observations, our opinions, our conclusion, can be completely wrong.
i couldn't agree more.
in fact, i knew this person, lets called them gary.
gary and i have known each other for about 2 years now, although we have never really gotten to know each other, it was more a 'knowing of each other' type of relationship. however, i got to know gary. we found each other at several occasions and spent a lot of time getting to know each other. of course i told my friends about gary, they knew him better than i did and gave me some really good advice. my friends and i thought we had the way that gary felt pretty worked out. he was a bit shy, quite reserved, wasn't one to throw people's emotions around. gary was a good guy. then one night, i approached gary to talk to him, this was something we had gotten into the habit of doing so it seemed like a normal situation. but gary was different. gary was blunt, uninterested. gary acted like a complete jerk. so much so that i was gobsmacked. my friends felt the same. we didn't think that gary was like that at all, everything he had done up until then in fact, suggested otherwise.
our perception of him had been completely inaccurate.
asides from the fact that you can tell i'm probably a bit peeved about the way that gary acted, we can also draw other ideas from this.
maybe our perceptions of events, people and situations are all based on what we want to perceive. of course i wanted to believe that gary was nice, no one would have wanted him to act the way he did. so maybe that's why i perceived him to be like that.
on the other hand though, my thoughts on him were all based on certain things that gary did and said. they were common inferences to make based on what was presented before me. maybe it doesn't matter whether our perceptions of a person are right or not, if the person you have them about disagrees, then i guess that's the thing that counts.
does this mean that we can't trust our own perception though? i would have to say that although our perception may not always be right, they can be trusted; if not as factual and true, then as a direction of how to feel and act.
as to what it says about us as knowers? well thats a perception in itself.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
to strip or not to strip
i don't understand the ways in which our society works.
it goes the same with being naked. why is it so taboo to be naked, to be natural, to hide nothing.
i don't know what else to say. apart from i am confused.
for instance, why is it acceptable to walk around in a bikini, yet scandalous to walk around in a bra and underpants? do they not hide the same things and reveal the same things? in fact i would say some bikinis actually reveal a little more than underpants do.
it goes the same with being naked. why is it so taboo to be naked, to be natural, to hide nothing.we all know what's down there, we've seen our own, we've learnt about the way they work and i'm sure we will all, in our lifetimes, see other peoples. yet, if i walked down the street in the buff, i can guarantee you i would be yelled at, pointed at and even arrested.
even more confusing, is the fact that our society, although against the naked body, is obsessed with superficiality. if that were so, then wouldn't we want to show off our 'assets' so that we could truly judge and evaluate each other? why does our society spend so much money on plastic surgery; nips here, tucks there, and waxes right there just to cover it up with clothes?
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
private vs public
would you read someones diary if it was wide open? fully accessible, almost public you could say. would you really pick it up and read it? okay. lets say you pick it up and you see the writer has created a code or has left out names. would you really spend that extra effort and time just to find out who they're talking about?
how about if you don't even really talk to the person who's diary you are reading? do you think you have the right to know what they feel and their raw emotions? that you deserve to know it? after all they were foolish enough to leave their diary on the ground.
what i've written above, isn't the exact issue that i want to talk about, but certainly relates to it. in fact, in a way its an analogy for what i'm about to discuss.
as you know there are many different websites on the internet; especially lots of websites, like blogspot, which contain hundreds of thousands of peoples' personal thoughts and opinions. now you may argue that these blogs are public domain because they are on the internet, but are they really?
legally, things that are posted onto the internet are generally available to the public. however does that mean that you can ruthlessly search for someone's blog and then feel as if you have the right to pore over their personal thoughts and feelings and then discuss it with your friends?
where do we draw the line between public and private? is there not an important distinction to be made between talking about public and private legally and talking about it morally? of course you may argue, 'well if you don't want people to read it then don't write it', but if that's your expectation then are you not also suggesting that 'if you don't want anyone to hear it don't say it?' or 'if you don't want anyone to see it don't do it?' does this then not lead to the overall suggestion that we are not free to do anything secretive or private at all and should therefore all become introverted and not express ourselves to anyone?
i know that what i have just said may seem a bit far fetched based on the original suggestion, but it is something to seriously consider if your main argument is reliant upon what is above.
even if this isn't the case. lets say you find the person's blog and read it, should you then be at license to discuss it with others? surely when we discuss things with others we are either subconsciously or consciously altering them to an extent, adding our own bias and making inferences based upon what has been written? therefore are you possibly changing what was originally said or meant, because you may not have understood it, into some other completely untrue statement?
furthermore, if those people and their discussions of your feelings and emotions get to the point where you feel ashamed to feel the way you do, unable to express yourself through your blog and forced to change the url has it gone too far? should there be some penalization for making people feel unable to express themselves in their chosen way? if i am not mistaken that is indeed and infringement of human rights.
why is the internet becoming such an abused medium? where people think that they deserve to judge, criticise and speculate everything that is on there because after all, it is public domain. if i were to want to keep a diary in this day and age and with the technologies available to us, i don't see why the internet would not be the most effective medium to use. it can't get lost and allows you to quickly enter your thoughts and then support them by a vast array of pictures available to you. but i would think twice about it now after seeing what some people do with the information found on blogs.
just because we have access to something, does not mean we should exploit it.
how about if you don't even really talk to the person who's diary you are reading? do you think you have the right to know what they feel and their raw emotions? that you deserve to know it? after all they were foolish enough to leave their diary on the ground.
what i've written above, isn't the exact issue that i want to talk about, but certainly relates to it. in fact, in a way its an analogy for what i'm about to discuss.
as you know there are many different websites on the internet; especially lots of websites, like blogspot, which contain hundreds of thousands of peoples' personal thoughts and opinions. now you may argue that these blogs are public domain because they are on the internet, but are they really?
legally, things that are posted onto the internet are generally available to the public. however does that mean that you can ruthlessly search for someone's blog and then feel as if you have the right to pore over their personal thoughts and feelings and then discuss it with your friends?
where do we draw the line between public and private? is there not an important distinction to be made between talking about public and private legally and talking about it morally? of course you may argue, 'well if you don't want people to read it then don't write it', but if that's your expectation then are you not also suggesting that 'if you don't want anyone to hear it don't say it?' or 'if you don't want anyone to see it don't do it?' does this then not lead to the overall suggestion that we are not free to do anything secretive or private at all and should therefore all become introverted and not express ourselves to anyone?
i know that what i have just said may seem a bit far fetched based on the original suggestion, but it is something to seriously consider if your main argument is reliant upon what is above.
even if this isn't the case. lets say you find the person's blog and read it, should you then be at license to discuss it with others? surely when we discuss things with others we are either subconsciously or consciously altering them to an extent, adding our own bias and making inferences based upon what has been written? therefore are you possibly changing what was originally said or meant, because you may not have understood it, into some other completely untrue statement?
furthermore, if those people and their discussions of your feelings and emotions get to the point where you feel ashamed to feel the way you do, unable to express yourself through your blog and forced to change the url has it gone too far? should there be some penalization for making people feel unable to express themselves in their chosen way? if i am not mistaken that is indeed and infringement of human rights.
why is the internet becoming such an abused medium? where people think that they deserve to judge, criticise and speculate everything that is on there because after all, it is public domain. if i were to want to keep a diary in this day and age and with the technologies available to us, i don't see why the internet would not be the most effective medium to use. it can't get lost and allows you to quickly enter your thoughts and then support them by a vast array of pictures available to you. but i would think twice about it now after seeing what some people do with the information found on blogs.
just because we have access to something, does not mean we should exploit it.
can you repeat that?
'hey, i have to go to the library after lunch' says the boy
'wait what?' responds the girl
'i said i have to go to the library after lunch' the boy repeats
'what? i have something on my face?!' said the girl, nervously and surprised.
basically, what happened is that the girl misheard the boy, and quite badly as well, which is slightly embarrassing, but more importantly, interesting.it made me think, do the sentences we come up with when we mishear someone, tell us anything about what we are feeling, what we think of the person we are talking to, or do they reveal a deeper side of our character.
this is quite similar to the idea of the 'Freudian Slip' named after Sigmund Freud. the theory of the 'Freudian Slip' is as follows (off wikipedia)
'A Freudian slip, or parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of some unconscious ('dynamically repressed') wish, conflict, or train of thought. The concept is thus part of classical psychoanalysis.'
if this is so, then i believe that the girl made a 'Freudian Slip' and i've inferred from this slip that the girl must have been to some extent, self conscious whilst she was talking to the boy.
i remember when i was younger, in fact we were still on the other campus, and my friends and i were having a discussion at lunch. this is how this conversation went
'oh my god, euan totally shaves his legs' said one girl
to which i replied 'oh my god, euan likes seamus's legs?!'
we all laughed, but it makes me think now, what does that say about me or my feelings towards euan? there was no seamus in the year so that presumption of what the girl had said was even more bizarre. it is mean for me to say this, but i do remember that we all though euan was a bit strange, so that could have had something to do with it.
maybe there is more truth to be found in not what we say, but what we think we hear? there was a quote that we talked about in class the other day. i don't quite remember the quote or who it was by but it went along these lines
maybe there is more truth to be found in not what we say, but what we think we hear? there was a quote that we talked about in class the other day. i don't quite remember the quote or who it was by but it went along these lines
'a word is half the person saying it, and the other half, the person hearing it'
maybe if we spent more time mumbling and less time listening then we would hear more truths about ourselves and one another than we would in a deep and meaningful conversation. would life be better if we were all more open about our opinions? if we were self-conscious and we just admitted it?
however, maybe it is a good thing that these 'Freudian Slips' are so infrequent, because in that way, we can of course save ourselves from awkward and uncomfortable moments where our subconscious desire may or may not get the better of us. just imagine if we had much less control of our psyche and things like this happened all the time,
boy approaches girl 'hi, how are you today?'
'wait what? you love me and think i'm beautiful?! oh my gosh i totally like you too!' shrieks girl.
boy walks away.
thank god for our need to shield our true desires from one another.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
curious...
i find it interesting how many words in our language have several meanings, or connotations. these connotations, whether negative or positive, whether intentional or unintentional, sure do say a lot about the world we live in, or at least the world we used to live in. here is a list of definitions from dictionary.com
heathen
–noun
1.an unconverted individual of a people that do not acknowledge the God of the Bible; a person who is neither a Jew, Christian, nor Muslim; pagan.
2.an irreligious, uncultured, or uncivilized person.
black
–adjective
1.lacking hue and brightness; absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.
2.characterized by absence of light; enveloped in darkness: a black night.
3.(sometimes initial capital letter)
a.pertaining or belonging to any of the various populations characterized by dark skin pigmentation, specifically the dark-skinned peoples of Africa, Oceania, and Australia.
b.African-American.
4.soiled or stained with dirt: That shirt was black within an hour.
5.gloomy; pessimistic; dismal: a black outlook.
6.deliberately; harmful; inexcusable: a black lie.
7.boding ill; sullen or hostile; threatening: black words; black looks.
8.(of coffee or tea) without milk or cream.
9.without any moral quality or goodness; evil; wicked: His black heart has concocted yet another black deed.
10.indicating censure, disgrace, or liability to punishment: a black mark on one's record.
11.marked by disaster or misfortune: black areas of drought; Black Friday.
12.wearing black or dark clothing or armor: the black prince.
13.based on the grotesque, morbid, or unpleasant aspects of life: black comedy; black humor.
14.(of a check mark, flag, etc.) done or written in black to indicate, as on a list, that which is undesirable, sub-standard, potentially dangerous, etc.: Pilots put a black flag next to the ten most dangerous airports.
15.illegal or underground: The black economy pays no taxes.
16.showing a profit; not showing any losses: the first black quarter in two years.
17.deliberately false or intentionally misleading: black propaganda.
18.British. boycotted, as certain goods or products by a trade union.
19.(of steel) in the form in which it comes from the rolling mill or forge; unfinished.
white
–adjective
1.of the color of pure snow, of the margins of this page, etc.; reflecting nearly all the rays of sunlight or a similar light.
2.light or comparatively light in color.
3.(of human beings) marked by slight pigmentation of the skin, as of many Caucasoids.
4.for, limited to, or predominantly made up of persons whose racial heritage is Caucasian: a white club; a white neighborhood.
5.pallid or pale, as from fear or other strong emotion: white with rage.
6.silvery, gray, or hoary: white hair.
7.snowy: a white Christmas.
8.lacking color; transparent.
9.(politically) ultraconservative.
10.blank, as an unoccupied space in printed matter: Fill in the white space below.
11.Armor. composed entirely of polished steel plates without fabric or other covering; alwite.
12.wearing white clothing: a white monk.
13.Slang. decent, honorable, or dependable: That's very white of you.
14.auspicious or fortunate.
15.morally pure; innocent.
16.without malice; harmless: white magic.
17.(of wines) light-colored or yellowish, as opposed to red.
18.British. (of coffee) containing milk
heathen
–noun
1.an unconverted individual of a people that do not acknowledge the God of the Bible; a person who is neither a Jew, Christian, nor Muslim; pagan.
2.an irreligious, uncultured, or uncivilized person.
black
–adjective
1.lacking hue and brightness; absorbing light without reflecting any of the rays composing it.
2.characterized by absence of light; enveloped in darkness: a black night.
3.(sometimes initial capital letter)
a.pertaining or belonging to any of the various populations characterized by dark skin pigmentation, specifically the dark-skinned peoples of Africa, Oceania, and Australia.
b.African-American.
4.soiled or stained with dirt: That shirt was black within an hour.
5.gloomy; pessimistic; dismal: a black outlook.
6.deliberately; harmful; inexcusable: a black lie.
7.boding ill; sullen or hostile; threatening: black words; black looks.
8.(of coffee or tea) without milk or cream.
9.without any moral quality or goodness; evil; wicked: His black heart has concocted yet another black deed.
10.indicating censure, disgrace, or liability to punishment: a black mark on one's record.
11.marked by disaster or misfortune: black areas of drought; Black Friday.
12.wearing black or dark clothing or armor: the black prince.
13.based on the grotesque, morbid, or unpleasant aspects of life: black comedy; black humor.
14.(of a check mark, flag, etc.) done or written in black to indicate, as on a list, that which is undesirable, sub-standard, potentially dangerous, etc.: Pilots put a black flag next to the ten most dangerous airports.
15.illegal or underground: The black economy pays no taxes.
16.showing a profit; not showing any losses: the first black quarter in two years.
17.deliberately false or intentionally misleading: black propaganda.
18.British. boycotted, as certain goods or products by a trade union.
19.(of steel) in the form in which it comes from the rolling mill or forge; unfinished.
white
–adjective
1.of the color of pure snow, of the margins of this page, etc.; reflecting nearly all the rays of sunlight or a similar light.
2.light or comparatively light in color.
3.(of human beings) marked by slight pigmentation of the skin, as of many Caucasoids.
4.for, limited to, or predominantly made up of persons whose racial heritage is Caucasian: a white club; a white neighborhood.
5.pallid or pale, as from fear or other strong emotion: white with rage.
6.silvery, gray, or hoary: white hair.
7.snowy: a white Christmas.
8.lacking color; transparent.
9.(politically) ultraconservative.
10.blank, as an unoccupied space in printed matter: Fill in the white space below.
11.Armor. composed entirely of polished steel plates without fabric or other covering; alwite.
12.wearing white clothing: a white monk.
13.Slang. decent, honorable, or dependable: That's very white of you.
14.auspicious or fortunate.
15.morally pure; innocent.
16.without malice; harmless: white magic.
17.(of wines) light-colored or yellowish, as opposed to red.
18.British. (of coffee) containing milk
sally vs russell
why is it human nature to want to pit two things against one another?
dog fights
girls vs boys
football matches
wrestling
wars
team jacob vs team edward
heaven vs hell
why is there a constant need to have a vindicated winner and loser?
one superior to the other; who is now wounded either emotionally or physically from the conflict.
even if we seem to mean it in a joking way, the subconcious desire to eliminate the weaker ones and to triumph with the victor always seems present. what can we take from this subconcious urge to self serve and to belittle others?
does this go back to our caveman days where survival of the fittest was the only way to progress or have we winched ourselves so high up on the hierarchal table that we have lost sight of what put us there in the first place? are we, by our own terms, behaving like animals? hiding our still barbaric and basal needs behind banking systems, 6.8 litres engines and an air of sophistication?
even in global terms we find the need to grade things from best to worst
(1st world countries and 3rd world countries anyone?)
yet we scorned and criticised pretty much everyone from the middle ages to the 1800s when we saw how much they relied on their social system.
maybe our need to derogate others comes from the fact that it is so frowned upon in our day and age. we never got to act like primates, were never given the chance to act without consequence and have never lived in a world without morals and ethics.
somehow, i believe the latter to be an excuse for the truth that we are surrounded by.
perception vs reality. how ironic.
dog fights
girls vs boys
football matches
wrestling
wars
team jacob vs team edward
heaven vs hell
why is there a constant need to have a vindicated winner and loser?
one superior to the other; who is now wounded either emotionally or physically from the conflict.
even if we seem to mean it in a joking way, the subconcious desire to eliminate the weaker ones and to triumph with the victor always seems present. what can we take from this subconcious urge to self serve and to belittle others?
does this go back to our caveman days where survival of the fittest was the only way to progress or have we winched ourselves so high up on the hierarchal table that we have lost sight of what put us there in the first place? are we, by our own terms, behaving like animals? hiding our still barbaric and basal needs behind banking systems, 6.8 litres engines and an air of sophistication?
even in global terms we find the need to grade things from best to worst
(1st world countries and 3rd world countries anyone?)
yet we scorned and criticised pretty much everyone from the middle ages to the 1800s when we saw how much they relied on their social system.
maybe our need to derogate others comes from the fact that it is so frowned upon in our day and age. we never got to act like primates, were never given the chance to act without consequence and have never lived in a world without morals and ethics.
somehow, i believe the latter to be an excuse for the truth that we are surrounded by.
perception vs reality. how ironic.
masquerade paper faces on parade
" Language was given to man to disguise his thoughts "
Talleyrand 1754 - 1888
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