Response to Blog-Knowing

I am responding to Beky's blog in which she asks, How do you truly know someone? and Is this a radical constructivist view on people?

I too have heard people talk about someone I don't know (usually in a negative light) but I usually dismiss it. Though it sounds cliche, you can't really listen to people when they talk about someone else and until you have experienced them for yourself. There are usually two sides to the story and maybe the person who is talking malicious things about a person one doesn't know is fuel to the fire. I have heard so many things about people I don't even know and have believed some things and dismissed other things. I know it is wrong to believe anything you hear but, I'm human. It isn't until my interaction with them that I am able to confirm, or dismiss the things I heard, (usually for me it is the latter).  Though what I just said should be taken into consideration, you must also know that you can NEVER truly know someone. This is because people are always changing. Values, morals and beliefs aren't set in stone and therefore the way a person acts or the way you get along with a person is never set in stone. People change everyday for the better or for the worse. A person changing always happens because life changes people, experiences and circumstances changes people and therefore by the time you think you know someone 100% you are back to 0%.
I am not sure if we can call this a radical constructivist view on people. It is hard for me to really answer the second question because I feel I have to contemplate on it more. One thing I do know for sure is, as stated before, don't believe everything you hear about someone before you yourself experience them as a person. When you finally get to know the person, take them in as the days on. With that said, what is trust to you and if you can't 100% know someone how can you have it?

College Students and Grades

We are all college students and we are all anticipating the day that we can go on stage and get our diploma. Before that great day comes,however, we are to take the required courses, work hard, get good grades on tests and projects, and then pass the class. After reading a part of the book and having the discussion in class about how the letter in the beginning of the book made us feel, I must say that it got me thinking. Though Jules, the person who wrote the letter, sounded really arrogant and pretentious, he provided points that I think most of us as students have felt multiple times. You know the times when we give in an essay and we get a D on it instead of the A we thought it deserved. To be honest, not to long ago my friend was talking about appealing a grade because she didn't deserve the grade that she received. Think about it, most of us work hard and put our all into an essay, hoping that the professor would see how much time an effort we put into it and they just don't.  Sometimes when I get work back from professors, my first thought is did you read everything I wrote or did you just skim it.  This leads students to have this I hope this is good enough attitude towards the assignment. Another friend of mine who also have been getting bad grades on essays and projects has resorted to asking the teacher what she can do in order to bring her grades up on essays.  Another person I know is in a class in which if you disagree with the professor you fail. REALLY?? I think this is wrong. If you really think about it learning is turning into what the professor wants and sees fit, instead of what the student takes away from the assignment. I do think pedagogy (as mentioned in chapter 7) is something that should be thought about in depth.  Seriously,Who are you to say that I can't write? Who are you to say that I didn't put enough effort into my project? How can you put a grade on my learning? None of these are the question that I want answered. The question that I am asking you is, in school if there were no grading system, how would students be able to be graded and would it be a better alternative?

Response to Blog- Needs

In her blog Sarah Dion asks what would providing the basic needs to everyone in the world do to the world? Is there some kind of balance in the world with the way it is?

 To be honest, I really do not want to sound pessimistic, but as stated in Sarah's blog as well as mine, there can be steps taken to illiminate the obstacles keeping people from receiving their basic need but I don't think it i possible to provide basic needs to everyone. In my world I would love it to happen, but then after thinking about it it can't and you know why, we are greedy people. Our basic needs aren't our basic needs anymore. This has been discussed already, but I think it is a sad enough reality for it to be discussed again. People aren't happy with what they have and the things that we knew as basic needs, the THREE things that we knew as basic needs no longer suffice people. If everyone had their basic needs met they will constantly want more or better (than that of someone else).  Nothing would be good enough and people would eventually try to outdo each other like they are now. I believe the world started out with everyone having their basic needs met but as time passed, the line between need and want became a thin one and then it stared to blur. As sad as it is to admit, there is a balance in the world now, I don't know if there can be a greater balance. I would love for evryone to have a house and for everyone to prosper, but the fact of the matter is, that if there was a constant with basic needs, the population would grow and then eventually, we would all die.
WIth that  said , I was in class and the topic of a beautiful world (beautiful reality) came up. To you what does a beautiful world mean and how would you describe your own beatiful world if you had to construct it?

Perception and Reality

Two days ago I was watching a movie and one of the people said something that I feel relates to this class and the recent topic we have been dealing with. In the movie one of the characters said, "Perception is reality, truth has nothing to do with reality, reality is what we make to be true." This immediately sounds like a constructivist view and I was so shocked that this was in a lifetime movie. I learned to agree with this view when I took an AP literature class in high school with led to numerous discussions on existentialism. In the class I was taught that there is no such thing as the "real world." What constitutes as the real world is what we get out of it. We define ourselves through the actions we take and outside of our own definition of our lives there are no reason as to why we are alive. I found this morbid, however I was convinced that this was true. I do believe that perception has a big deal to do with how we view the world, because we have nothing else to go on but perception. However, I don't think that it is only self-perception. I believe that truth consists of how we view the world along with what is really in the world. I can see how perception seems to imply truth, but what about the notion of illusions and the idea of seeing isn't believing? Take this scenario for example, picture yourself in class and some mad man comes and punches the teacher and leaves. The police comes and asks for our own individual account of what happened. Out of everyone in class whose recount of what happened would be correct? Whose would be wrong? Think about it................................................................................................................................No one. No one would be right and no one would be wrong. Everyone is write and everyone is wrong. My teacher gave me this scenario to illustrate how we each construct reality, but as I asked before can we really trust our perception if seeing is not always believing?

Response to Blog- No time

This is a response to Joel Siskin's blog in which he asks what would reality look like without the institution of time? In other words, what would it be like to just live in the now and not be conscious of the past or present.  Honestly, I believe that life would be chaotic. If you look at it time is our life and it is basically one of the mechanisms that make us function and who we are. Without time I believe there would be no hopes, no dreams, or no goals. I have so many plans for my future and even though the future my not turn out the way I have it planned out in my head, it is the motivation force that keeps me going. I think of where I Want to be 5, 10, 15 years from now and that is why I do the things I do now. I do believe that the present affects your future; without time there would be no idea or concept of consequences.  We do the things we do mostly because we think about how it is going to play out in the future and base our actions off of that. I am happy that we have time because without time I wouldn't be able to plan where I am going, where my life is going. Even if my life doesn't turn out the way I want it to in the future, right now I am happy with the bundle of hopes and dreams that time has allowed me to have. With that said, if there was no institution of time would that mean that we wouldn't be conscious of death, we wouldn't know it is coming (in the future) ?

Should Everyone be Fed?

From time to time I like to overlap classes and bring in a topic from another class that seems fit to discuss in this class. Today in my future of food class the teacher broke us up into groups to have a debate in whether or not everyone should be fed. When this question was raised, someone turned to me and said I understand it is the moral thing to want to feed everyone, but it isn't the realistic thing. So it is morally correct, but not realistic. Of course she was on the side of playing devils advocate and man people made points that the harsh reality is that to feed everyone isn't going to happen and that to try so will mean eventually depleting what little resources we have left and  making many people suffer for no reason. For no reason? I remember food being a necessity of life and saying that we should save people at the expense of the poor dying is murder and unjust.  Other people that decided to play devils advocate, said that if we interfere with the natural order of things (what's natural about starvation I don't know) then things will never balance out, that things (food and population) will eventually stable each other out.  But an argument from the other side (which I would deem as the moral side) was that we have already interfered with the "natural order of things" and that is why  things are the way they are. We have to just continually interfere with things until we things start to change, because there is no going back now. I believe that everyone should be fed, because everyone is a human and has needs. I know we may not have the resources for it, but if we stop the things that are depleting our resources, like pollution, like war, like deforestation, like building mini-malls and condominiums on farm land and fertile soil, there WOULD be enough. I have a two part question in this blog post, do you think everyone should be fed and what steps can we take to make this a reality?

Response to Blog-The U.S.

If a person asks me where I am from I usually say I am Jamiacan, then quickly say "Well my parents are from Jamaica, but unfortunatly I was born here."  I am not really fond of the US  when it comes to its political and economic issuses. This is a response to Professor Johnson's post about the nine myths about socialism. I must say that I do agree with everything the article says. Myth one which says The US governemnt is in class warfare attacking the rich to lift up the poor. I think this a load of crock, hence the reason I do believe it is a myth. In the US the rich is definitly getting richer and the the poor poorer. Instead of helping poor people the US is helping people that can help themselves, and letting the rich slip under the radar as far as taxes goes. Instead of helping people who really need assistance, they make it a difficult process that takes a lot of time weeks! months!! YEARS!!! If you want to talk about illusion, the US is setting an illusion that they are helping people, but they really aren't.
Please pardon my french but the second myth about the US having the greatest healthcare system is BS!!! TO be honest out of the OECD group, Canada has the best health care. Canadians basically get paid to have children and have many benefits. To be honest in Canada the gevernment amek it their duty to take care of their citizens and you can have no money or can be on welfare they do not charge you at all for health care because they feel like it is a right for the people. (That is why you will always see baby seats in 9 out of every 10 cars in Canada.
I have something to say about all the myths and I know that I have to limit myself, because then this would be one long post. The last myth I would like to discuss is the 7th one that says the US spends generously on public education. I remember when I was in high school. The textbooks that I had were really old and there weren't new ones until I was graduating. Many of my teachers were only satisfied with their salaries, but knew they were underpaid. My public high school didn't have a gym nor did it have an auditorium; it was just this one big room that was a gymatorium. There were many renovations that needed to happen, but they didn't and I know the stories may be the same for many people in public schools. These are definitely myths, and I think the US just needs to be honest with themselves and know that they aren't the best country out there. With that said, my question is which country is becoming the leading world power and why?

Life and Death

What is life and its meaning? This is the question I will pose at the end. I mean not to sound morbid or depressing but I think it would be interesting to know the different views people have on life. I for one believe life is precious and due to my beliefs I believe that God put us on the earth to play a special role, He designed us with a purpose in mind and once our purpose is fulfilled we die.  This topic seems interesting to me because today there was a death in my family and it is really something that I am wondering about right now. I find it interesting that we are born, and they we grow up trying to define our life and find out what purpose we are to serve. Are we here to be a confidant? Save a life? Change a life in a special way? I still don't know what purpose I serve and am still trying to define my life in a positive way.  It is just interesting how abruptly life ends, how quick people are taken, and you never know how positively they affected your life until they are gone. Sometimes they have been able to impact your life for one small moment and that was all you needed. I am trying to make sense of this blog post, but I don't know if I am doing it justice. Like I know where my definition comes from and that is in following my religion ,that I am positive about. I know people scoff at the fact that "something isn't suppose to define you, you are  suppose to define life" but that is just how in-tuned I am with my beliefs.However, I know many people, especially now-a-days, don't believe in heaven or hell or God. I just don't know what other purpose there is for me to serve here in life. Like I said I am still learning and growing, and I am sure one of these days I will know where I stand, and what I am suppose  to do.  So to you what is life and its meaning?

Response to Blog- Time

This is a response to Ben Hollows blog in which he asks, is the flow of time merely subjective. I think the flow of time is subjective and depends on whether you believe in time first of all. However, then it gets tricky because we are all caught in the flow of time everyday. When we are doing work, doing something we enjoy and going through the motions of life we are all caught in the current of time. It is when we become aware that we are in time and look at the clock that the flow is broken. I think the flow of time is related to the saying, "Time flies when you are having fun." There are days when I am cleaning my room, doing homework, and having fun when the day seems to have come to an end just as quickly as it began. This is most evident when I go on vacation and I am in the airport on my way back from vacation. You spend a lifetime waiting for the day you leave, and you pack, you go through the motions and before you know it your vacation is done. The flow of time can be said to be subjective because there are people who go through their whole day looking at a clock with routine activities that they have to do each hour. What I mean to say, it is like a person who says OK I am going to wake up everyday at 6 am, make my bed at 6:01 brush my teeth at 6:05 go downstairs at 6:10, turn on coffee at 6:11 etc. A person who lives like that can said to be living out of time and therefore do not know the flow that many people feel as it relates to time. I don't know about anyone else, but I think the flow of time is a wave of time when it comes to sleeping at night. There are nights that I feel like I have just put my head on my pillow and the next thing I know my alarm is going off!  The flow of time is subjective as to how we live our life and as to how in-tuned with time we are. With that said,what would a world without time be like in your opinion? What would a timeless world really be?

The recent class discussion brought me back to last semester in which I took the power of words. In this class we talked about Alfred Korzybski idea of the map not being the territory. He created the structural differential which illustrate the different way we process things that are happening around us. I find this very important to our conversation on experience because the structure breaks down the experience as it is and as we see it. The very top of the structure is the world as it is. It is reality, the events in reality and what is constantly happening around us. The next level is the objective level which is how we experience the events of the world as they are happening. This level is pure sensory and is strictly non- verbal.  The next level then becomes the verbal level in which we talk about what we experience at a non-verbal level. As the structure goes on the level after that is talk about the talk of our experience. Each level something is lost. Something is left out at each level because we can't fully experience everything the world has to offer. We can't experience the world as is. Then when we reach a verbal level we can't get across how we feel, we can describe how we feel but another person won't experience that same feeling. For example, if I stub my toe, I can describe to you how it feels, I can compare it to something else so you can know how excruciating the pain is, but still at this verbal level, there is something being left out. Someone mentioned in class that to get across our experiences we are limited to language and I must say that I agree. Language is the most reliable thing to get across an idea or experience unless the person decides to go through something themselves, but then how would you know that my experience and your experience are the same? How do you know if we both stub our toe you would feel the same pain I felt? Maybe you have a higher tolerance for pain than I.  Experience is a topic that is really complex because our experience is never complete. With that said, on the topic of experience, what do you think about the saying that with age comes experience? Is it true? And is there such thing as being experienced in every aspect of life?

Response to Blog- Language

This is a response to Sarah Dion's blog in which she asks the question, Is it possible that language is shaping our view of the world? Or could we just be shaping language?

In all honesty I believe we are just shaping language. Language, as time goes on, is getting worse. As I have stated in many blogs past, humans are creatures of conveninence. To many people it is easier to talk in slang and in ebonics and so language (good grammer) as we know it is declining. It is easier to slur words together and shorten them because saying things properly takes too much effort. You know what else takes a lot of effort? Saying positive things or even finding the positive. It is easy to see and put forth negative things, it is easy to complain  and talk about thing that haven't gone your way and it is even easy to put someone down and talk crap. It does, however, take effort to not gossip, not talk about someone behind their back, etc and due to this things just go south. I know the question didn't give off a negative context, but hey it's just easier to explain it this way.  Many people have a negative world view and I do believe in someway that the negative world view that people have are connected to their negative attitudes and negative language. So in some way our language shapes our view of the world but we are doing it indirectly. We are shaping language which affects how we act in the world, which gives out a particular understanding/perception of the world.

With that said, Why is it that we are so fond of instant gratification and convenience?

Time

Imagine your life without the measures of time. Can you think of a way to exist without using hours, mins, seconds etc? As humans we are dependent on time. We need time to live, to eat, to work etc. Without time we wouldn't be able to tell how long dinner should be in the oven for, how long it will take the police to get to a certain place, or how much we should get paid for every hour we work. I know the concept of time has been debated, but if we really think about it time isn't an illusion, it is the measurement of time that is an illusion; a much needed illusion. Also, I do not understand the argument that the past, present and future does not exist. Yes the past is no more but we know that yesterday did happened and the remnants of that day is em-brazened in our minds. Yes the future hasn't come yet, but we need to know that there is a potential future to actually be productive in the now. I understand the argument that the future isn't a fixed thing and is dependent on actions in the present and therefore the future is said to not exist, HOWEVER, I believe the future exists because for every action there is a reaction. Every action is guaranteed a consequence god or bad which will eventually happened and is therefore only potential in the present, but is sure to bring a future. I think the idea of time and the arguments about it should be cleared up. No matter what time is flowing, wehtehr we are active or keeping still, time is passing and we are getting older to the sure FUTURE of death, which is when time will cease for that particular individual. So my question is, how do you think we would get through everyday life without the existence of the measurements of time?