A Continental Breakfast for Socrates

Linguistics in Time

2006-11-16T14:24:00.000-06:00

What you see above is the title to my final paper, which I turned in today to HUMA 1301. I'll have to talk about HUMA this time around, as I haven't gone to philosophy at all this week. I've been battling a lovely cold since last Saturday, and as such, haven't been able to wake up to go to philosophy. I've only been to HUMA because this is the final week of class, and I had to literally drag myself out of the house, and arrive 10-15 minutes late both times. But the paper is done!
It turned out that I used both linguistics and language as a metaphor for time, as well as explained how language itself impacted time. I kind of started with simply a metaphor, and then slowly started moving into language impacting time, and how time could be seen through language. Also, for good measure, there was some upper level physics in there :) Apparently, Physics in time is a huge concept, with things like Thermal Diffusion and stuff being brought into it. So even though I was talking about languages, I managed to work in Chaos Theory, Equilibrium, etc. Yay for me.
Well, as I'm kind of sick right now and at work, I'll have to make another post later, hopefully with a bit more content. See everyone tonight in class!

Branches in Time

2006-11-09T19:17:00.000-06:00

Well, today's question in HUMA was about people sending messages back through time. I can't remember exactly where this question came from, but in general, we had to answer how we thought it might appear, what implications it would have, etc. if someone from the future were to have the technology to send a message back in time somehow. For my response, I answered that the message might take the form of little things that people consider messages "from God". In any case, the message would have to be as small and subtle as possible; the person from the future sending the message would have to find the smallest catalyst to change in the past, otherwise, the change might butterfly effect and change more than intended. If this were to happen, the future might become worse than intended. Some people argued that it would be best to send a message to the Government, Media, etc, but some, including myself, argued against that for the reason of the butterfly effect again. We said that the message could be anything, either verbal, written, or material, but that material was the least likely. If the message were a material substance actually sent back in time, or a material that was created, that would use up FAR too much energy. Same thing with sending an actual person back in time. Think: sending something or someone possibly thousands of years back in time. We can't be certain, but you might have to rip apart a galaxy or two to create the energy required for that. As for the matter of linguistics in a message, it wouldn't be hard, as chances are we could study the language of the past to communicate with them. If something happened in the course of history that destroyed the record of past languages, pictures would still work just as well. Others argued about the content of the message. Really, it depends on what the future would define as "important". If you're gonna go so far as to alter the course of history about something, it had better be deemed as important. Some argued that it wouldn't be something like "Grandma, don't cross the street today.", as that wasn't important. However, a couple of other people and myself argued that again, you have to define important. If that grandma happened to be able to find the cure for cancer later that day, assuming she didn't cross the street and get run over by a car, then you'd wanna leave that note for her, as I'm sure we could all agree that a cure for cancer is very important.
As for future posts, as we seem to be wrapping up classes here, I'll make some comments about the final essay I'm writing in HUMA. As I said, the prompt is what I think is the best metaphor for time (or at least, the best one that I can stretch to 3,000-5,000 words), and mine is linguistics. Sadly, I've made a TRAGIC, HORRID error in my calendar management, and it's due next tuesday, thursday at the latest, where I thought it was due in two weeks. Oops. So I'll definitely have a post ready by next week, albeit possibly a sleep deprived one.

blah...tired

2006-11-08T14:16:00.000-06:00

I kind of need sleep...and I've needed it for the past week lol. I slept in on Sunday until noon when people forced me to wake up. As such, I haven't been paying a ton of attention to the class this week...I'll try to make a decent post after tomorrow's class ^^. Consider this a placeholder.

Time After Time Continuum

2006-11-02T09:55:00.000-06:00

Well, after struggling for a long while...I've honestly kind of stopped paying attention in Philosophy sadly. He's not doing a great job of explaining, and I think by reading the original authors talking about their theories of philosophy and religion (see Kant, Descartes, etc.), I'm understanding things better than with his unorganized explanations. It's impossible to organize notes from him, because he just drones on and jumps back and forth so much, it's just impossible to sort out what he says.
Thankfully, there is at least a good reason for me to have taken CV Huma 1301: that class is LARGELY based on philosophy, or at least, crazy as hell upper level physics (thermal diffusion throughout time, anyone?). I mentioned a few posts back about the fact that I needed a metaphor for time. After freaking out enough over how I was going to sound any bit smart while writing this paper, which I probably should considering this is an honors class, I caved in and woke up early to go to office hours with the professor. After talking for a while, we decided that my metaphor would best be linguistics. Looking at it, this can work, especially when you go into grammar structures. Things like the subjunctive II tense: "if ___, then ___" structure. As one of the greatest issues with time we've been dealing with is the irreversability or reversibility of time, this kind of thing would fit nicely. Modal auxilieries also go into that same theory. Looking at interrogative tense, you have everything beginning with an action, and of course all things must be started in time by an action. And so on and so forth. My boyfriend was sitting outside through the thing, and when I came out and told him how it went, his only reply was "I'm glad I wasn't in there....and I'm so sorry you have to do this." Thankfully though, this kind of paper can go on my curriculum vitae in the future, or a resume; considering I want to go into translation, a paper discussing lingusitic theory in relation to time might look pretty good.

The Grim Reaper

2006-10-26T19:09:00.000-05:00

Well, to be honest, I kind of skipped Philosophy today, because I had a meeting this morning at 8 AM for work, and afterwards, I was really FAR too sleepy to sit through philosophy AND huma, so I chose to skip philosophy, as I'd never missed it before, and I've missed two huma classes (one because I was sick...and once because I wanted IHOP ^.^).
Either way, HUMA discussions are even more deep than what we get into in philosophy, so it's a pretty interesting class. In today's class, we breifly talked about the impact of knowing that we are mortal, and what that affected. A couple of people were saying that they were more determined to do stuff, saying that they were going to college and whatnot with the ultimate goal of starting their adult lives; saying that if we were immortal, people would procrastinate on starting college and stuff, because they wouldn't be in a hurry. To that, I just had to ask how much fun they thought their adults lives were gonna be, cause they were missing out on some here and now. They were all under the impression that they were just in college, and had to wait and be patient until they could start "adult lives" and be on their own and have fun. I just don't understand that point of view. What's the point of working towards the future if you're ignoring the present? That kind of makes your whole life worthless, because you lose the majority of it if you only focus on one thing. I would also kind of get sick of something if I focused on it completely for so many years, letting it be that much of a focus of my life. Plus, I doubt I have that kind of attention span ^.^ Another guy in class was agreeing with me, and trying to support me, but we just got called hedonists, and the conversation moved on. Sigh.

Sleeping Beauty

2006-10-19T15:36:00.000-05:00

Well, in our HUMA class the other day, the teacher posed as the quiz question "If you had an oracle like the Delphi Oracle that could correctly predict the future, would you consult it? Why or why not?" (My personal answer is that i thought it should be consulted on matters that would affect the greater public..but things like one's personal future would increase the suicide rate of the population through sheer boredom. Although that brought up an interesting debate on population control...)
Well, this question sparked a class long discussion, but it started with one girl saying that one of her friends had very superstitious parents. They had her fortune told when she was born, and it said the girl would die by drowning. Thus, she wasn't allowed to go swimming. Aside from the fact that I think that kind of thing is ridiculous, my next question to her was "So how does she take a shower? Moist towelettes? Can you really keep her away from ALL water?" The class thus decided that maybe it wasn't a good idea to consult the oracle, because even if you had one, it was all human interpretation anyway. Would any of you guys consult it?

Well, no class

2006-10-18T11:46:00.000-05:00

Well, no class today, for reasons I don't yet know. All I know is that I was seriously depressed when I was there on time for once, with my coffee, all ready to go, when a note on the door tells me waking up on time was pointless T.T. So I went and sat on the picnic tables near the ATEC building and ate breakfast for the first time in ages. I'm not sure browsing the Photoshop Phridays on Something Awful can count as philosophical englightenment...so even though they were pretty funny, nothing really to post on for today.

The Bible Belt

2006-10-12T14:59:00.000-05:00

More religious fun in philosophy today. I respect the teacher, mainly because he keeps his cool, and is VERY good at helping people see flaws in their arguments. However, as we're in Texas, no one wants to discuss religion openly aside from "Oh my God!". Especially if you're insinuating that Christianity isn't right. People just kept commenting today "Well, frankly professor, I'm disappointed in that statement..." or "I just can't listen to you anymore". It's freaking philosophy! If you didn't want to learn about that kind of thing, why'd you take the class?!

Why atheists aren't always bad

2006-10-10T17:44:00.000-05:00

I walked in a bit late to Philosophy today, a combination of waking up late, and driving through torrential rain on George Bush. Not very fun. I walked into class, and saw he had written "Theist, Agnostic, Atheist, Noncommitted" on the board. There were a couple of angry looks on people's faces, and it didn't take long to figure out what was going on. He was trying to explain things like "Well, you can be an atheist in scientific terms, like "I don't believe the world was created last week." However, this was kind of pissing off some people, as they couldn't stand the thought of being called atheists. I felt pretty bad for the professor...lecturing to a room full of angry people lol. Is it really that bad to be called an atheist? It doesn't make you evil, or anything. I myself am a disbelieving agnostic, so maybe I don't see it as that bad. What's everyone else think about it?

Sorry for the delay

2006-10-05T15:21:00.000-05:00

It's been quite a while since I last updated...my apologies. My boyfriend broke up with me last monday, and I'm STILL trying to figure out what the heck happened lol. I'm still working on convincing myself that it's his loss and to move on. But enough of that.
Today was the day of the philosophy midterm. In all truth, it wasn't that bad. Some true/false, multiple choice, and a surprise section of short identifying questions. We also had to turn in 3 written responses as well, where we answered questions in more than 350 words. I have to wonder though, is this really the best way to judge a comprehension of philosophy? The written responses are probably the closest you can get to checking for true comprehension, as you allow the student to elaborate on his idea and interpretation. I guess there is a factual side to philosophy that the test portion we took can cover, but is that really understanding? I don't think anyone took the class to just gain factual knowledge.

Tryin' to get some pie...

2006-09-23T10:20:00.000-05:00

Another completely random post. Nothing to do with philosophy, but this is still a funny video. Who all remembers the song "Take me home"? Well, weebls-stuff made a funny spoof of that for one of their episodes. It makes me wanna do an animation for my podcast...but I definitely don't have that kind of time, not even with my baby Wacom tablet (which I love more than anything...my boyfriend would probably be mad that while he's 300 miles away, a tiny tablet has replaced him...at least it shows that me leaving him for another guy is a bit more far fetched). In any case, here's the video:
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/paper/

Time after time

2006-09-21T19:30:00.001-05:00

Though you may not realize it if you just drop into one of our classes, the main assignment in my literature of time class is to write a 4-6 page paper on what we think is the best metaphor for time. There's all kinds of things: trees, lines, caves, the world, etc. I'll probably do the tree analogy for my final paper. This analogy works by saying that the inner rings of the tree represent the past, the bark represents the present, and the world outside the tree is the future. The rings of the tree add up over time and grow bigger every year, marking a definite passage of time.
What do you all think is the best metaphor for time? It's kind of hard to come up with one that works, as pretty much all of them can be dubious and argued over. Just please don't try to bring predestination into it like the one kid in class...I swear I'm ready to throw him out a window lol.
Random Story:
Today, my corner of the room was all laughing about how cynical we were feeling about this class. When the teacher told one of us "We need to make a distinction on words, like "hard", "easy"; "difficult", "simple". The girl made the reply "Exactly. Like, I am having a "hard" time understanding your "simple" statement." My side of the room burst out laughing, whereas the "smart", intellectual side of the room stayed silent with this look of "Oh please, grow up." Personally...they can just rush through time to maturity. Then they can go on to teach classes on time with a British accent and annoy honors students in the future, just like our professor.

We hold that echidna to be self-evident

2006-09-19T10:39:00.000-05:00

This post has absolutely nothing to do with philosophy, but it made me laugh. I guess if I stretched it and tried really hard, I could say that this made me question the sadness of the human condition, and thus it is philosophy...but meh.
On a website me and my brother frequent called Something Awful, they have an "Awful Link of the Day" everyday. Today's awful link was the Wikipedia entry for Knuckles the Echidna. Anyone who's ever played a Sonic game will know him. This kind of site seems perfectly reasonable, as Wikipedia has entries on almost everything. But, it gets sad around here. Here's a list of articles that the Knuckles entry is longer than:
* Echidnas
* The Internet
* The Internal Combustion Engine
* William Shakespeare
* Western Culture

Sega truly is evil.

Calvinism: It failed. Big time.

2006-09-12T15:31:00.000-05:00

Well, just in case people don't know, one of Calvinism's most famous doctrines is that of predestination, or the fact that certain people are born saved, and others are born damned. Calvinism failed because people realized that if they were already predestined, they could do whatever the heck they wanted, because they were "predestined" to do those things.
Today in HUMA 1301, somehow predestination came up in the argument, and for about 5 minutes we joked about "well, if we were predestined to do this...". However, one kid never let up with it. EVERYTIME someone said ANYTHING, the kid chimed in with "but what if you were just predestined to do it?!" Someone finally pointed it out "You know, do you just have to contradict everything with that argument?" I asked "All in favor of shoving him out the window?" Many people agreed. But, in true fashion, he said "Well, what if you were predestined to shove me out a window?" "Well, if I am, let's just get on with it then!" ...Never heard another argument of predestination from him the rest of the class. Although the person next to me laughed saying "I can imagine you explaining that to the police: 'I was predestined to do that! Just as you're predestined now to put me in handcuffs!'"
Does anyone else place any stock in the predestination theory? I know some people are still Calvinists today, or they believe in some form of "fate". Like my mom tried to put too much faith into buying me a car. I thought she was insane. Is fate the same as predestination? If not, how are they any different? It's perfectly ok to say you believe in fate, but not predestination. Why is that?

Picture to accompany "Out of the Closet"

2006-09-07T14:50:00.000-05:00

As promised, here is the picture that goes with the last post. Behold the MS Paint action!

Out of the closet

2006-09-07T14:21:00.000-05:00

Today's class, or at least the part that I could pay attention to, was about Plato's cave story. The whole point of the story is an attempt to show the four levels of mental understanding. The first stage is some people sitting inside a cave their whole life, and all they can see is a wall. Behind them and covered by a wall of some sort, are people casting shadows on the wall. The second stage is when some liberator comes in, and forces one of the people watching the wall shadows to turn around and see the people making the shadows and the campfire. After he comes to terms with that, he's dragged kicking and screaming out of the cave. He's thus forced to confront the sunlight. Once he gets out here, the third stage is being able to see certain things that he recognizes somewhat, like reflections of trees in the lake. The fourth level is actually being able to see the real objects themselves, and see the sun without shielding his eyes. The whole thing is meant to show that the path to finding the "sun", or the Form of the Good, is a painful, frustration, and scary thing, that sometimes you are dragged towards, but that once you find it, you don't want to go back to the cave again.
At that point, I started not feeling too well, so I kind of stopped paying as good of attention...but the discussion was interesting. I'll make a picture in a little bit, but I have various things here at work that I need to keep track of.

Searching for Chairness

2006-09-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

A little too busy yesterday to post, as I had to fix a website that Dreamweaver DESTROYED that was due that day. Lesson learned - update through Putty or Terminal, not Dreamweaver.

Yesterday was more on Plato and his view. The main thing we talked about was "chairness". Well, it was more of Plato's argument that there was some unifying factor to categories. Like, say you have a bunch of things called X. All of these X's would have some unifying factor that made them all X's. They would all have X-ness. For an example, the professor used chairs. All chairs are different, but they all have the form of chair, or, chairness. If you hear the word chairness about 20 times in 10 minutes, you start to ponder the events in your life that led to you sitting in a room hearing about chairness.

I wish I could remember more of the discussion that took place in LIT 1301, as those are always interesting. But mainly, half the class sparknotes the reading of "Confessions" by St. Augustine, as that was a little hard to read coming back from a long weekend. Then we started talking about how trees were a good metaphor for time. The inside was the past, the bark was the present, and everything outside it was future. Then the Biology majors started going on about how the bark shouldn't be the present, it would be whatever organisms are in the bark. I just said I'd go hide in a corner with my non-science major.

Breakable knowledge

2006-08-31T17:11:00.000-05:00

Today's discussion in class was partly about the rationalist view (aka. plato and descartes) vs. the empiricist view (aka. david hume). Basically, the difference is that rationalists say that you can trust rational thought, and not the senses, and that most of our knowledge is "a priori", or prior to experience. The empiricists are the exact opposite. Pretty much, the only thing both groups can agree on are that two knowledges are "a priori": mathematical truths, like 2+2=4, and logical truths, such as the law of noncontradiction (that two opposing statements cannot at the same time be true).
Then in going to my next class, we had a discussion on various truths, and proved that you could break the law of noncontradiction. For example, you could say "It's raining outside." If you look out the window, and it in fact is not raining outside, people would say you're wrong. But then you could always go "Well, somewhere in the world, yes it is. So it remains true that it is raining outside." And the law of noncontradiction is broken!!

nothing so far

2006-08-29T22:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I would have had a post for today, but around 9:30 a lady came into class and said our professor wouldn't be here today, and that we could all leave. Hopefully he'll be there Thursday. Have to wonder where he went today. It could be something simple like babysitting his niece or something. Or he could've been kidnapped by aliens from outer space who look like Jamie Farr. Who knows?

Success!

2006-08-24T21:17:00.000-05:00

Just created a new blog here for class. Took a little bit to get used to using a template again, rather than just creating a web site all on my own. Wordpress had some pretty themes, but blogger.com allows posting in reverse chronological order (newest first), so I figured that was better. Well, I better stop posting in class, and pay attention to the rest of the lecture.