alexisz’s Blog

Yeserday, in class we were discussing the effect of language and how language is mainly developed for other poeple to understand eachother. For example, when I say the word “flower” anyone who hears me knows what I am talking about but the word is basically meaningless all it is is a name. Like Shakespeare’s famous verse from Romeo and Juliet:

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
       By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

It’s interesting to think where would we be without language. Brenna, however, brought that topic up and said that there are in fact, tribes in the Pacific that do not have language. They are completely isolated and would kill any outsiders that would step onto their land. I went to Africa five summers ago, and while I was there I had the priveledge of meeting members of the Masai, a herding tribe in Tanzania. When I arrived at their village, they seemed completely untouched by society. Every part of their village was dependent soley on the Masai’s resources on the African Tundra. I mean, their houses were made out of mud and poo from the cows they herded. It seemed completely isolated. However, once the “tour” of te village was over, and my family and I were about to leave, we see one of the Masai men pull out a cell phone. Picturing it now is still funny. My point is, like Mr. Turtola said, it’s hard to believe that a society of people can be their own without any influeneces.

I found this really helpful explanation and defintion of existentialism:

Existentialism – A Definition
Existentialism in the
broader sense is a 20th century philosophy that is centered upon the analysis of
existence and of the way humans find themselves existing in the world. The
notion is that humans exist first and then each individual spends a lifetime
changing their essence or nature.

In simpler terms, existentialism is a
philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free
will, choice, and personal responsibility. The belief is that people are
searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices
based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook. And personal choices become
unique without the necessity of an objective form of truth. An existentialist
believes that a person should be forced to choose and be responsible without the
help of laws, ethnic rules, or traditions.

Existentialism – What It Is and Isn’t
Existentialism
takes into consideration the underlying concepts:

• Human free will
• Human nature is chosen through life choices
• A person is best when struggling against their individual nature, fighting
  for life
• Decisions are not without stress and consequences
• There are things that are not rational
• Personal responsibility and discipline is crucial
• Society is unnatural and its traditional religious and secular rules are
  arbitrary
• Worldly desire is futile

Existentialism is broadly defined in a
variety of concepts and there can be no one answer as to what it is, yet it
does notsupport any of the following:

• wealth, pleasure, or honor make the good life
• social values and structure control the individual
• accept what is and that is enough in life
• science can and will make everything better
• people are basically good but ruined by society or external forces
• “I want my way, now!” or “It is not my fault!” mentality

There is a
wide variety of philosophical, religious, and political ideologies that make up
existentialism so there is no universal agreement in an arbitrary set of ideals
and beliefs. Politics vary, but each seeks the most individual freedom for
people within a society.

Existentialism – Impact on Society
Existentialistic ideas
came out of a time in society when there was a deep sense of despair following
the Great Depression and World War II. There was a spirit of optimism in society
that was destroyed by World War I and its mid-century calamities. This despair
has been articulated by existentialist philosophers well into the 1970s and
continues on to this day as a popular way of thinking and reasoning (with the
freedom to choose one’s preferred moral belief system and lifestyle).

An
existentialist could either be a religious moralist, agnostic relativist, or an
amoral atheist. Kierkegaard, a religious philosopher, Nietzsche, an
anti-Christian, Sartre, an atheist, and Camus an atheist, are credited for their
works and writings about existentialism. Sartre is noted for bringing the most
international attention to existentialism in the 20th century.

Each
basically agrees that human life is in no way complete and fully satisfying
because of suffering and losses that occur when considering the lack of
perfection, power, and control one has over their life. Even though they do
agree that life is not optimally satisfying, it nonetheless has meaning.
Existentialism is the search and journey for true self and true personal meaning
in life.

Most importantly, it is the arbitrary act that existentialism
finds most objectionable-that is, when someone or society tries to impose or
demand that their beliefs, values, or rules be faithfully accepted and obeyed.
Existentialists believe this destroys individualism and makes a person become
whatever the people in power desire thus they are dehumanized and reduced to
being an object. Existentialism then stresses that a person’s judgment is the
determining factor for what is to be believed rather than by arbitrary religious
or secular world values.

Works Cited: http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/existentialism.htm

Mr. Turtola made is a point yesterday that the student should be responsible for their learning regardless of that fact that the teacher might be a bad one. I do not agree or disagree with this statement. Yes, the student should be able to learn and develop without the help of a teacher but I still think that a teacher should be responsible for, not teaching, but inspiring that student. Teachers should not spoon feed us every lesson or porject but instead, inspire us to WANT to do the work.

You know, it seems sort of ironic that we are all in a philosophy class. At least everyone of us have shared our opinions on life, but in reality, what do we really know about? I mean we are only 17, 18 years old, we haven’t even hit our quarter life crisis and yet, here we are, absorbed in our own arrogant intellectuality. Most of us haven’t even been outside the United States. Everyday, we come to school at Foran High in Milford, Connecticut and return home on that same day. I mean we may play sports, have girlfriends/boyfriends, have family issues, what have you and think we know the world, but is it really a lot compared to what we could know?. My point is we haven’t exactly experienced life but we are still able to state our opinions on it so definently. You may or may not disagree, but as of now, I know nothing.

“You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There’s been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away — all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It’s powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that’s happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn’t have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.”    -Michael Crichton/ Jurassic Park

Unfortunately, I could not find the full on video of the video I was talking about in class today but I did find the trailer. Click here and see if you’re interested. If so, maybe we can get a class trip out of it.

 I always thought it was rather comical that we are taught by the baby boomers. One of the largest portions of our populations… hippies, rationalists, irrationalists, what have you… are influencing the future generation.

This quote is a quote from the movie The Devil Wears Prada and quite frankly, I think it pinpoints the values of our society. The quote is trying to explain that yes, beauty is relevant, that yes, people do care about what is beautiful. After all, we are a capitalistic society and most of what we are as a whole, is based off of consumerism. With this, comes companies trying to sell their products to appeal to people’s perceptions of what is “beautiful”. Things have to look nice in order to be considered. Everyday we are presented with beautiful cars, beautiful people, beautiful accessories, clothes, what have you. Can we really not help but be influenced?

I think there is more to beauty than meets the eye. Literally. We don’t think something is beautiful just because, there is an underlying chemical reason, almost like an instinct in our brain for why we feel something is beautiful. What I’m trying to say here is that we are a social species and saying something is beautiful is just our subconscious way of connecting with another individual. Look at the scene from King Kong, when Nioami Watts and Kong are on top of the Empire State Building, Kong gazes out at the setting sun and taps his hand to his heart. He looks back at Niomi, and she whispers the word “beautiful.” To better understand this scene click this. Also we buy beautiful things because we want to be accepted into our society, be seen as admirable, maybe even be envied. We get some sort of satisfaction when we obtain the approval of others. Accepting the approval of others simply means that we have, in some form, interacted with them. I think to go against these ingrained concepts is to ultimately, go against our nature as humans. However, does that mean it still can’t be done?

In terms of beauty in people, I think it is irrelevant. Atleast outwardly. My opinion is that we are all attractive enough. Ten years from now, those who want to get married are going to be able to find a spouse, a spouse that thinks they’re beautiful, and live a “normal” life. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I am a big Michael Crichton fan. It is agreeable that most of his books have two things in common. One of these similarities is that they all have plot elements that involve science going againt the laws of nature. Currently, I am reading the book called Prey,and it involves microscopic man made machines evovling on their own and altogether, defining nature. Another similarity has to deal with the idea of chaos theory. A theory that, after reading Jurassic Park, I strongly agree with. In fact, I believe in chaos theory above all others.

Chaos theory is desribed in Jurassic Park as literally as it sounds. Chaos happens with anything that is predicted to stay in order. You see, there are abnormalties and imperfections to every aspect in life. Something orderly can always go wrong because of chaos theory. The character in the novel, Ian, describes chaos theory using another character, Ellie’s hand. He drops a small amount of water on Ellie’s hand and tells her to observe which way it rolls off. He repeats the process. It turns out that the second droplet of water went a completely different route as compared to the first droplet. This is the concept of chaos theory and states that there are imperfections in the skin, wrinkles, abnormalties that caused the water droplets to go against the prediction of things staying orderly. To get a better idea of where I am coming from, click this.

I believe that from most things that are ordered, there are always those exceptions that go against the rule. Things will never fail to be chaotic. Even in something organized orderly. You’ll always hear those stories about how a lion had escaped from the zoo. I guess it could be seen as sort of a scary idea to consider, being that anywhere you go, whether it be on a plane, in a car, in school, at a movie, in your house, chaos could errupt.