Aldous Huxley Interview (Post 1)

In Mike Wallace’s interview of Aldous Huxley, he stated few points from his
essays called “Enemies of Freedom”, which he believes there is some of the
threats to our freedom in the United States. He points out that over
population is one of the treat to the freedom. Aldous Huxley believes that in
the underdeveloped countries actually the standard of living is at present
falling because the people will have less food to eat and less goods per capita
due to the over population. Since the lack of the natural resources such as
food and water, the government has to take the responsibility and take
control of the birth control in the country; therefore, people could not have
much children as they want, and it costs diminish their freedoms.

After carefully review Mike Wallace’s interview of Aldous Huxley, I strongly

agree with Aldous Huxley on his point of over population will diminish
people’s freedoms because I feel the same way of his point. For example,
communist China has been bothering with the problem of over population,
and because of the lack of the natural resources, china has the one child
policy for each family to control the population in china. Yes, this policy can
control the population and limit the natural resources for the future good, but
this also limited the freedom of Chinese citizen, and I think this situation
affected a lot people around the world.

Aldous Huxley Interview (Post 2)

In Mike Wallace’s interview of Aldous Huxley, he stated few points from his
essays called “Enemies of Freedom”, which he believes there is some of the
threats to our freedom in the United States. He points out that media is one
of them. I think media is one of the powerful devices to change our mind and
thinking. Alduous Huxley pointed out about how Hitler used propaganda to
change Germen’s minds. For example, Hitler used terror on the one kind,
brute force on the one hand, but he also used a very efficient form of
propaganda to change people thought and the way of people thinking. And
he mentioned that if we don’t know how to use those technologies correctly,
it could harm us. He also mentions that this has happened again and again in
history with technology’s advance and this changes social condition, and
suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didn't
foresee and doing all sorts of things they really didn't want to do.

After carefully review Mike Wallace’s interview of Aldous Huxley, I strongly

agree with Aldous Huxley on his point of media will diminish people’s
freedoms because I feel the same way of his point. For example if the
government propaganda their people about what should we do and what is
the right thing on the media, and we watch it and hear it as we young, I am
sure that everyone will believe that this is right and we should listen to it. And
by doing this, it is diminish people’s freedoms because we can’t pick what we
want do to and what to believe.

Francis Fukuyama with interview (post 3)

After watching the interview with Francis Fukuyama, I found out that he has
some interesting points during this interview. He talks about his book “The End of
History” and explain how he thinks the history will end sooner than we thought
because of the end of technology. If technology stopped, then what is the
evolution going to be? History is depended on parts of technology discoveries, so
if those things stopped, then there will be no history.
In the second half of the interview, Professor Fukuyama talks about religion, and
he believes that people want to be peace with the others. They want to have
something that is in common with the others, that’s why religion existed, as
Fukuyama said “People want to share values”. He also believes that the religion
holds the society together because it gives the followers and understanding of
their society.

The Socratic Universe ch.2 (post 4)

The title of chapter two in the Socratic Universe catches my eye because
most book or question always asked what do you agree the most; however,
this question was what do you disagree the most. After reading this chapter, I
see a lot of interesting responses from each professor and some of them
think this is an interesting question too. I found out that every professor has
different disagree on philosophical tradition because it’s depend on their
thought and personality and because of that everyone should have different
answer and opinion on that.

In each professor, I see a lot of different answer base on what they think and
believe. I strongly agree with Beckner from Pomona because he or she thinks
that “people rely too much on analysis of problems rather than tying them up
with reasons why or evidence for”. I am thinking the same way he or she
does; I think that a lot of people just like what Beckner said, they rely too
much on analysis the problem rather than solving it or finding the solution for
it.

Socratic universe ch5 (post 5)

Are Science and Religion compatible? My answer is no, but some people might think yes, so it
depends. Why? Because Science and Religion has different point of view or they are the same,
it’s really depend on what is the person think and believe. I personally don’t believe in religion so
my point of view in Science and Religion is different than people who believe in religion. For me
Science is fact, and Religion is just a faith in mind, it could be right or it could be wrong too, but
Science is always right to me because science is proven by someone who is highly educated, so
they can’t be compatible.

However, for people who believe in Religion don’t think in this way, they are believed in them very
deeply and they think it’s real and also a fact. Therefore their point of view in Science and
Religion are the same because both religion and science is a fact to them, so it’s compatible to
them and the answer should be depend.

Socratic universe ch6 (post 6)

After reading chapter 6 “Does God Exist?”,I see that it is more people to say NO than
people who say yes, and I am not surprise for it. Some people say no don’t even have a
reason for it, and they just say “just no”, I think it’s normal and reasonable to have no
reason for the answer because what don’t even know or sure what is God, therefore, just
no is a good answer already. Some people say yes because they believe in God, and most
people don’t have a real answer for why say yes.
For me, I personally don’t believe in God, and I don’t think God is exist because we can’t
find any real prove that if God exists, maybe I can say there is no prove at all! God to me
is just a story that I heard when I was in middle school in my country, and the school
made us to learn about God, but still that didn’t change me, and I still don’t believe in
God.
History of philosophy from Wikipedia (post 7)

This assigned reading is very interesting because it is the first time a

professor wanted us to read from Wikipedia. The History of Philosophy from
Wikipedia was very interesting also. The people who wrote this page must
have a great knowledge of Philosophical history, and they really know what
they are writing about. They also provide us with many types of philosophies so that we
can learn more about philosophy.

In the assigned reading I have learned so much about philosophy. The history of philosophy is
the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time but I think philosophy has probably
changed with time goes. I found an interesting thing in this reading is how Socrates was the
teacher of Plato then he was the teacher of Aristotle. The ancient times of philosophy seem
played much bigger role in education than it does now. Some people may think that people like
Plato, Socrates and Aristotle were the founders of philosophy, but they were not; however, they
sure did make philosophy what it is right now.

HOW DID SOCRATES DIE? (post8)

In the book of “how did Socrates die?” , it talks about people didn’t have any freedom of religion,
and they must believe in what the country believes in at that time period. Socrates was a very
smart man and also a great philosopher. However, his smartness didn’t apply at that time, he was
way ahead of open minded at that time and probably this is the reason why he was sentenced to
die instead of released.

I think he had some very good ideas and very good points that he could back up and support his
sentence,but the problem was that at that time, those ideas were too crazy for people who are not
open minded. People think that his ideas was considered radical ideas, they think his ideas were
appointed to go against what the God wanted the people to do and what the God wanted the
people to believe; therefore, he was sentenced to death for these reason because people were
not open minded.

Java Philosophy (post9)

After watching this Java Philosophy, I found this is a very interesting film. It
makes you think about who you are, and things that you would do. This
film introduces some of the concepts of philosophy very nicely, but there is
a quote that catches my eye, “I see it all perfectly; there are two possible
situations—one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my
friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it—you will regret both” from Soren
Kiterkeqaard.
I think that quote is not right to me, and I don’t agree with this statement. I
don’t agree with this because I think life is support to be about choices
making and if we do regret them, then it’s part of life. Life can not be so
perfect and people makes mistake and regret.
Nicholas of Cusa (post 10)

After watching this film, I found that it is a very interesting film, but it is also a
difficult film to understand. I had to watch it few times before I could get anything
from this film. Basically, this film tells us about what runs philosophy and why we
have philosophy, and it’s because we always want to know more and more.
However, not everything has an answer for it, we need to keep looking for the
answer, and searching for the true until we find it.
As we keep looking for the answers, sometimes we are not able to answer for
some reason. It is nearly imposable to find answers to everything in life and this
is the problem. We will never able to understand the world and life fully, and
which makes us the same, but people want to do better, and want to learn more
about lives around us so that they don’t have to be the same.

Owen Gingerich on Astronomy, God, and Jesus (week2 post1)

Professor Owen Gingerich is a scientist, who is believes in God, it is also
be really hard for him to say the things that he wants to say without
contradicting the other because religion and science does not really go
together. However, he pointed out that he has his believes in a higher
power but it doesn’t have any proof to show that, and I will give him credit
for this statement. I hated that people always clam something on what they
believe in and they said they have real proof for it, but which they don’t. I
think if people do that, it is kind of dishonest and disrespect, so it is good
that he made a clear statement that he doesn’t have proof in the
beginning.
Professor Gingerich also sees in the Big Bang theory the design of a creator.
He believes that it is not a coincidence that we just collected with the right
elements that are very important for our existence today. To Professor Gingerich
or someone who believes in God, this is a sigh that there is a very intelligence
thing that is behind the universe but was it the God? Who knows…

Lisa Randall on the Universe; Edward O. Wilson

on the Creation (week2 post2)
Dr. Lisa Randall is a theoretical physicist from Harvard University. In this
interview talked about her current theory and her book. She believes that there
may be more dimensions than we are presently aware of in current physics
because it would make sense of how weak the force of gravity is how we
perceive it. She also explains that gravity should be stronger based on current
physic equations and requires more reasoning for its weakness.
According to Dr. Randall, a Gravitational force is very important because if we
find that strong gravitational force, maybe it could lead us to another dimension. I
agree with her, the dimension that we live right now might be just a microcosm of
the universe that we assume to know. I can say we don’t really know what is out
there, all we can do is assume; therefore, we need to create more chance to find
out more about another dimension.
Stephen Wolfram and a New Kind of Science and Cellular Automata (week2
post3)
After watching this film, I found this is an interesting but very difficult lecture to
understand. I was having trouble to following what Stephen Wolfram was saying
almost all of the time. I think I did not follow him because I did not understand a
lot of the topics that he just went through in the film. Stephen Wolfram is a
distinguished scientist, inventor, business leader, and also the author of A New
Kind of Science according from his own website.
In the film, Stephen Wolfram said that a simple arrangements can develop into
something that massively complex as we can see in the film. He created a
computer program called “Mathematica”, which can go from data processing on
one end of the spectrum to plotting on the other end. By using this program,
people would not have what should it expected, and this is the reason why he
thought that these theories about using simple rules and coming up with
complicated results had not been found before is because we had no reason to
think that the results will ultimately any different than what we expect they will be.
I think that scientists and also people will continue to make any kind of
discoveries until there is no more thing to discover, which is impossible.

Little Things That Jiggle (week2 post4)

After watching this film, I found that this film showed a lot of quotes and some
made sense to me while the others did not make any sense to at all. I also found
there is a quote that I liked the most, “things are made of littler things that jiggle”,
this quote totally make sense to me, everything that exists in our world that no
matter how small or how big is it, it is made up of atoms. It makes sense to me
because atom is the smallest thing is the world, and everything is made up of
atom.
From history to now, human has spent very long time in discovering things. We
have created so many inventions from our gained knowledge. However, this
result can be affect in both positive and negative outcomes. The positive is that
we keep advancing in both technology and knowledge as research continues to
make the world a better place; however, there is a negative way, people use
these inventions to create such atomic bombs, nuclear fission, etc. that make me
think very differently.

Gods Too Decompose (week2 post5)

After watching this film, I found that this film was very interesting film. Although it
was some strange trying to understand who was the crazy man. I think this
message was sent through this video is that those who are strong believe in God
and always search for him for the answer.
Moreover, I think that this film raises a good point on how we, the human race,
have slowly been killing God. Or some people think that we have already killed
the God and god is dead. Many people are losing faith and are no longer to
participating in religion because no one can really proof that god is exist, and
people are starting to not believed in it, so it is slowly killing by human race.
However, I think that religion is very important to people because it helps give
people behavior, beliefs, and etiquette to follow if the religion is the good way.

Edward O. Wilson and Consilience(week3 post1)

After watching this film, I found Edward O. Wilsons lecture on Consilience to be
very interesting. Edward O. Wilson talks about how importance of biological
science is in philosophy. Edward O. Wilsons also points out that social biology is
combined with the behavioral ecology of species. he said that people believed
the mind that the radial formation can evolve are from the teachings of Darwin. I
agree with him, because the formations of specie has to deal with the behavioral
ecology of species such as how do they live, what kind of environment ate they
living in, what other species they interact with, and what kind of ecosystem they
are classified in.
In the video, the idea of consiliencethat brought up by Edward O. Wilson means
the unifying or tying together of knowledge. In Wilson words, different areas of
knowledge like sciences, arts, and humanities have a common purpose and
combining them together, that allows someone to look at the issue in several
different ways. I think he is right, once the person has different knowledge on
different type of thing, the person is going to think very differently and in many
different ways because if you have more knowledge on the issue, then you will
think which knowledge apply in the issue makes the most sense to you.

Richard Dawkins and the Strangeness of

Science (week3 post2)
After watching this expert lecture, I see that Richard Dawkins speech was very
funny but also knowledgeable. He gave us a great lecture on the strangeness of
science. He talks about his thoughts on natural selection and the queerness of
the universe. He also talks about how our brains perceives things and points out
how we think and why our brain perceive things the way that they do, and he
explained that every human and everything in the whole world is composed of
atoms.
I agree with him that we and everything in the whole world is made of atoms,
however, because of our brain has evolved from other forms of differentiation; we
can’t walking through the wall or penetrate into a rock like he mentioned in the
lecture. I think it’s just out of our reach, it can never be explainable and we can
only theorize on this topic.

Evolution 101(week3 post3)

After reading the Evolution 101, evolution is simply more than just a change over
time. However, there are so many more factors that come into evolution when it’s
looking at evolution from a biological standpoint. This site was a very good site
that explains the different aspects of evolution very well.
I felt I have learned a lot from this reading, I have learned that genetic mutation
has caused species to change. I also learned that natural selection and sexual
selection play a role in this topic as well. I believe that evolution is trying explain
things that don’t have explanation for it. It said that evolution helps us to
understand the history of life, and I think it’s great to know our life history more
and better.

Sociobiology (week3 post4)

After reading this entry of Sociobiology, I found it was very confusing. According
to the entry, this term was first introduced by E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology: The
New Synthesis (1975) as the application of evolutionary theory to social behavior.
E.O. Wilson’s Sociobiology helps to explain why people work together as
humans to reach common goals and to help one to another.
After reading this, I realize that we are not much different than working animal
like bees and ants in our social behaviors. Because sometimes we do things to
help others out just like bees and ants working together and help each other out,
I never thought why. The entry writes that we do these actions because we have
evolved to know that by helping others is not a bad thing at all and I agree with
that, I personally think that helping people is one of the ways to pursuit
happiness.

Survival of the Sufficient (week3 post5)

After watching this video of survival of sufficient, I felt the same way of the idea of
survival of sufficient. In the video, basically it was stated that we are created from
natural selection and that humans are constantly being changed and edited due
to the influences from the others. “Natural selection is really natural editing”, and
during our lives, we are always edited by our friends, parents, family, priests,
teachers, and also other important characters in our lives. I totally agree, I think
that it can apply to all of us. Human is type of “animal” that has to be living
together, and we are always influence to each other in so many ways.

People are always trying to change or we are always worrying about what people
might think about you and I think that is more than 60% of people are doing that.
So this is why people are always doing things to look good in front of the others,
and we are almost never being our true selves. Then when our true selves are
revealed, people are surprised because all the time, they were not the people
they thought they were. Therefore, we can’t always influenced by other people,
and we need to be our true selves.
Steven Pinker on Evolutionary Psychology
(week4 post1)
Steven Pinker is one of the main head of evolutionary psychology. He gives his
idea on what evolutionary psychology is and he also fines evolutionary
psychology as bring to bear the study of the mind and evolution. He discusses
the brain developments we have taken for granted that have come about through
evolution. He also mentions that we didn’t what dreaming was for.
I always thought that we know what is dreaming, and we have done study on it,
but I guess it is still in progress. I found that something catch my eye is how he
described it as a screen saver. Our brain is like a computer, when we are
sleeping, our brain will still have certain parts that are still functioning so they
don’t just shut down like a computer. I also wonder why was it created, is it
because if we slept, will some parts of us die? So this was why it was created?

Gerald Edelman on Neural Darwinism (week4

post2)
Gerald Edelman is a biologist, who talks about how the brain functions and he
focus at the heart to see if there is any biological or material. In the video lecture
of Gerald Edelman, I was surprised that the fact that he said there are four main
points into the global brain theory. The first one was that it is very important
because of the high degree of awareness, all of these actions if there is no
fundamental basis, you will have been to have the opportunity to filter it out. The
second one was to show what properties neurons have neuronal populations are
in fact responsible for the features of consciousness. The third one was to find
ways of measuring neural cartilages of consciousness experimentally. The last
one was to show what the difference is in the brain between those aspects of the
brain that can rise to consciousness and those that do not.
These four main points are very important to the global brain theory, with these
four points, these characteristics how the brain functions and how it is through
the steady-state from the consciousness. Moreover, his lecture was difficult to
understand, and I only understand about half of it because he jumps back and
forth between biological concepts and philosophical views in the video. But I still
can see most of the lectures were explaining the neurons and how they function.

The Astonishing Hypothesis (week4 post 3)

The article of Astonishing Hypothesis by Francis Crick requires a distinct
perspective based on a number of life and to explain our existence. In the article,
Frances Crick developed a theory that might just answer what is behind our
behavior. Francis Crick feels that “man has no soul and no spiritual self which
transcends his/ her physical frame”, and he believes a man’s soul to a complex
network or neurons is related. I think there might be some part that’s truth about
this; however, I think there must be more of it.
In Francis Crick’s theory, I feel this is an interesting way of looking at
consciousness. I think this was very informative because I never studied what
exactly the basis for consciousness. Cricks also says that “we will eventually
discover a physical basis for consciousness”, but is this really true? I mean how
can we prove that all of our actions, thought, and emotions are driven by neurons
system in our brains?

AN INTEGRAL THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

(week4 post4)
An integral theory of consciousness by Ken Wilber is basically the combination of
the four quadrants, which are intentional, neurological, cultural, and social
aspects. There are many different type of study to discover what consciousness
is; however, I would mostly agree with the Subtle Energies study because I think
that an individual’s consciousness is like a soul. Everyone should have different
consciousness because this is a unique feature in each one of us. Although there
are unexplainable energies that science will can never get to experiment on, it is
because there is not possible for them to create it, to experiment it. I think
consciousness is just our soul and people should live with it because we can do
nothing about it.
Moreover, I am very disagreeing with the Neuropsychology because the study is
about our consciousness related or compared with computer science. I think or I
can say most people think that humans are not computers and we are not
programmed like computer does. All people have their special unique way to
develop our consciousness and not like computer runs automatically.

The Problem of Consciousness (week4 post 5)

In the problem of Consciousness by John Searle, he attempts to answer four
different questions about consciousness, which are what is consciousness? ,
what is the relation of consciousness to the brain? , what are some of the
features that an empirical theory of consciousness should try to explain? And
lastly, what are some of the common mistakes to avoid? According to Searle,
consciousness is a biological phenomenon, and we should think of it as any
other biological marvel.
John Searle also talked about how does a neurobiological process in the brain
cause consciousness. He thinks those subjective states of sentience or
awareness that begins when one wakes up in the morning from the dreams of
sleep, and continues until the day to sleep all night long, or in a coma, or death. I
think Searle posses a strong suggestion on the problem with consciousness; and
I do side with him that consciousness is a biological marvel and we should
realize it is scientific meanings behind it.

Is Consciousness Physical? (Week4 post 6)

I think it depends on how you think of it. If our thought process is all made up of
dendrites and synapse, then it would be true to say that our consciousness is just
made up of dendrites and synapses. To me, I think consciousness is physical
because I believe that consciousness is a process that we show how neuronal
function and how to behave.
Moreover, I believe that our brain is our central nervous system the physical
aspect to what controls you, and your mind is like your conscience. It also tells
you what is right and what is wrong. Your mind is your personality and your ability
to be self aware.
IS MY I-PHONE CONSCIOUS (Week4 post 7)
After reading the Is My I-phone Conscious, I found a quote what catches my eye,
which is “if there really is a God, He/ She may find atheism to be less of an insult
than religion”. As we can see this quote can be a clear evident for it, also it is
implied that our lives is base on religion, and it is not based on ever so many
facts.
I think it is true that people are believed in God for some more reason but not
because of it written down for so many years. Even the written history for God is
there for so many years, and we still don’t know so much about it because we
just believe what we are told, people just listen to other people said and just
believed in it and never question about it either; however, some people do, but
those people are usually cast out.

The Physics of Awareness (week4 post 8)

After reading this magazine, I found that this subject is very complex but also
interesting that make me keep reading it. In the magazine of The Physics of
Awareness, they gave us a good open comparison to consciousness and
physicality. I think that it would be very interesting to figure out the complexity of
consciousness.
In the article, I agree with your point to answer the question of the physicality of
consciousness, I also agree with the point that Visser mentioned in the notes
section, and that was the point that science will only give up the material results
in the study of consciousness because of the inherent scientific manner. I think
the only way to study the metaphysics of science is to break it comes down to a
physical explanation; therefore, we cannot be expected to explain the sense of
metaphysical science.

Reasonable Logic (week4 post9)

After reading the book of Reasonable Logic, I found it was very interesting that
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thought was very abstract and also abrupt at the same
time. He draws out many comparisons to a picture and what it means to have an
authentic one. He states, “in order to be a picture, a fact must have something in
common with what it pictures”. I think it is a very strong point to make, I believe
Wittgenstein was attempting to convey the message that once something has
been proven, it has the ability to become a picture because it has completed.
In the book, he also states this “we are everything, all of what we are and all of
what surrounds us. Yet since we are in an infinite space, are we all or nothing?”.
This statement had me thought awhile and ends up with refuting myself with how
is it that we are everything but also everything is nothing? I guess it related with
religion of God? Let’s think in religious way, because we were made for God, and
that we were also made with the conscious of God so that we know everything,
but we are still nothing because God created us.

Glorious Piece of Meat (week4 post10)

After watching the film of A Glorious Piece of Meat, I see that there is a theme
which deals with consciousness. The film shows that all things are connected to
consciousness in some form or another. In this film, consciousness is used to
mean self awareness and reflection; however, a religious person would most
likely argue against the idea of not having control of what they thought they have
control. Religion has a lot to do with having a soul in human, but this film treats
consciousness as directly connected to the neurons.
Moreover, in the film of A Glorious Piece of Meat, even though this film was only
a couple of minutes long, but it has intrigued me few times already. For example,
Patricia smith Churchland states, “And then if it turns out that you just are stuff,
that your brain just is meat, then wanting it to be different isn’t going to change it”.
To me this is very interesting that she refers the brain to meat and a person as an
object. I think what she really wants to tell us is that if you don’t know anything
about yourself and the way you function or think, and then your brain is just a
piece of useless meat. And I think it is true, our brain is very important to us in
our everyday lives but if we don’t use our brain wisely, then just like she said, it’s
just a meat, a useless meat.

Sam Harris and the End of Faith (week5 post1)

After listening to the expert lecture on Sam Harris and the End of Faith, I found
that we have the same idea with him and pretty much agree with him everything
he had said. I agree with him what when he says that the time to respect religion
is over. Science proves too much but is still willing to keep an open mind. And out
of religious theory, the establishment of the time, people have no choice but to
answer the answer to the question of life and the mysterious. Religion is just not
open to the points that science will brings. The man introduced the lecture that
pointed out that religious fanatics preach one thing, but to continue to judge,
ignorance and commitment to God.
I am also very surprised a fact that there is still 62% of the population wants
creationism to be taught in schools rather than evolution, which they think this
should not be taught. Well, I think this is the worse belief that people to be
around because creationism and evolution are both compatible in religion and
also in science. It is interested in the fact that faith is sinful should be, but when
you really think of it, ethics is a sham, because it is the impact of what happened.

On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemical Tract (week5 post2)

After reading this On the Genealogy of Morals: A Polemical Tract, I found that
Friedrich Nietzsche is very analytical but also very insightful. Nietzsche starts off
by saying that we don’t know ourselves, and we are very much ignorant in every
way and I thought that it is funny because how can’t we know ourselves?
However, after re-thinking it, I think he is right. There is no way for us to know
everything including our own self although we much have something that we
know, but no everything though. We are always learning new things about
ourselves that we didn’t know, but I think no one is really fully know he/her self
even though after so much learning and understanding, that’s why we are
ignorant about ourselves.
In the reading, he also talked about the “Value” and how it was different to many
people. The word “Value” is what we attribute or is meaningful; we will try our
best to maintain the sacred. So how to determine what is value? According to
Nietzsche, "We must first question the very value of these values, and for that we
need knowledge of the conditions and circumstance out of which these values
grew, under which they have developed and changed". Therefore, we must take
these necessary steps to determine the value of our means.

. Gandhi's Philosophy of Non Violence (week5 post3)

After reading the Gandhi’s philosophy of non violence, I found that non violence
seems to be the right solution to many problems in society today. According to
Gandhi’s philosophy, non violence is a stronger weapon than actual violence; he
felt that using violence actually make the problem become worse rather than
helps it. I think it is true, non violence may take longer to win over violence, but it
will still win in the end because it builds on a base of peace. He also believes that
to follow in non violence, one must not be afraid to give up his or her life and be
fearless in front of violence group, just like what Martin Luther King Jr. did in the
civil rights movement in the United State and it was a success.
I think it would be nice to live in a world that is without violence. However, to live
in a world that is without violence is very difficult and challenging in now days
because we are already involved in wars with these destruction and chaos, it is
just too hard to do it. Gandhi would want to resolve these situations with his
theory in non violence, but it would be very very difficult to achieve in today’s
society.

Truth Lies and Experimenting With Truth (week5 post 4)

After reading the Truth Lies, I found very interesting in the book, which was how
much people value truthfulness in good and right, and none on valuing and
understanding evil and wrong. I believe that in order to understand goodness,
you will need to understand the evil as well, otherwise, how can you to judge if
you only have one side of view?
People need to know what is good and what is not. This is not a natural
understanding, but something learned in our life already. Because people think
that they are as the only form of “goodness, we quickly assigned to the “bad”
people who see our self. Therefore, we have no idea the true meaning of being
bad or even being good.

Flam on (week5 post5)

After watching the film of Flam on, it was about homosexuality, in my opinion, I
don’t think that homosexuality is wrong. I also think that they should not be
treated any different from other human beings. As we can see, Many great men
and women throughout the history were also homosexuals, some of these great
people included: Socrates, Plato, Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo, Peter the Great, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Witman and John
Maynard Keynes. I highly doubt, homosexual behavior had anything to do with
the great achievements of these people.
Being a homosexual does not limit or control your intelligence or your creativity
because once you have it, and you will always have it. They are just like normal
people and human beings. Even though society is now more accepting of
homosexuals, but there is still a lot of group of people against them. I feel sad to
them that homosexuals are misfits in this society right now, and I really hope that
this problem will not be a problem anymore because people are accepted this!

Daniel Dennett and Consciousness and Physicality (week6 post1)

After listening to the interview of Daniel Dennett, I found that he is an atheist, in

the beginning of the interview, he talks about what is a “bright”. He say that a
“bright” rejects supernatural selection, which is also known as an atheist, which a
person who doesn’t believe in God. He said that he is an atheist, and calling
himself a “bright” because he believes there is not a God, and he said that it
negatives him because you can’t prove that god exists. He also said that two
people don’t mean the same thing as Gd. He points out that people worship
nature and he likes nature too, but doesn’t mean that he believes in god. He also
said that natural selection is a sense of inevitability, which is unavoidable.
I think that Dennett’s teachings are very interesting but also abstract on his
beliefs. Not everyone has the same beliefs as he does. This is the concept of
play, he does not take into account the other countries, because it is not others
who hope that he can convince all those who do not believe in God, but in reality
how many people will buy all of his teachings. And this is the unenviable that only
contrary to their beliefs with Darwin's natural selection. This is wrong, I think that
he respond to natural selection in this way, because the fact that he does not
believe that the formation of cell organisms, which involves consciousness of
contradictions as well.

A Free Man's Worship (week6 post2)

After reading A Free Man’s Worship, I really like how Russell made him as the
man and began the story with the power of his thought, knowledge of good and
evil, and the thirst for worship. The Free Man’s Worship to me is about the way
science does not appropriately explain the consciousness that we have as
human beings. He does not think that our consciousness and even out world is a
product of chance. The world was not created for us to thrive. If we are a creation
of the Earth's why we are free to make choices, to know good and evil, and the
ability to understand and imagination. This will be the basis for the evolution of
many religious reasons to oppose. I don’t believe that he is against the evolution
but instead that he feels that it showing a higher purpose In fact, we are able to
go against the natural drive of the universe, which is evil, is the greatest example
of the reality of our free will.
Russell talks more about freedom, he believes that we become free man when
we cast away out selfish concerns like fate, death, and time. He said that we will
be free of worldly desires when we only focus on what is eternal. I think instead
of worrying about these things, we should embrace them and overtake them. And
I think we should be focusing on the knowledge of what we can be instead of
worshiping the god.

Nicholas of cusa on learned ignorance (week6 post3)

The book of On learned Ignorance by Nicholas of cusa is an interesting book with
self-contradictory titles. From the previous film, it actually also going into this very
topic of him in regards to his philosophy that we always know nothing about, in
which he even cites Socrates and Aristotle and other that has supported his
concept and idea. In the reading, cusa believes that individuals who are unaware
of their own ignorance are incapable of learning; this has to do with the fact that
someone is inaccurately considers him or herself intelligent, then they will have
the tendency to reject all dissident ideals.
I think his book is packed with complex philosophical ideas and explanations that
are hard to predict. He also talks about the maximum, the finite and the infinite.
His ideas made me wonder the life in here on earth. However I don’t think that
we have reached to those points yet or I can say that we will never reach to that
point. For each issue will be unlimited life; there is no answer to the end of the
path of life.

The Unknowing Sage (week6 post4)

Faqir Chand was an Indian sage who practiced a meditation technique, which is
the surat shabd yoga. This yoga is attempts to induce a consciously controlled
near-death experience. He believes that all manifestations, visions, and forms
are mental creations. He also pointed out that all saints wouldn’t know their
power to perform miracles. I think I agree with him, because people always don’t
they are gifted on something until they really need it.
This book well explains what steps a Hindu must take to reach to the inner
peace, and I liked it. Because this book didn’t only describe the positive things
that he have accomplished, but it also covered his mistake and weaknesses as
well. Most biographies are always talks about how they are perfect and without
flaws, and it just too unrealistic for me.

The Zahir (week6 post5)

This film intro the Zahir as some that is not really alive, but it holds a lot of power
and minds that people can’t stop being obsessed with that thing. This movie use
coins and money as the example of Zahir and said “nothing has less material
value than money” because money is just very powerful to everybody, just like
the film said “money has the power to be anything and is our future”. I agree
some parts of it. Yes, we need money to buy food, entertainment else… I agree
that money is that powerful, but there is always something that money could not
buy.
This movie also tried to reference god with the Zahir that he may find God behind
the Zahir because God is something that is not really existed in physically, but
the god still has the power to control people. Money will never be forgettable and
probably outlive all of us, so does the God, even though we really don’t know
what the god might be. As a result, the Zahir is not just the material or literal
aspect of it, but it is the meaning and the power that we might want to be a little
closer in understanding something, such as God.

Extra Credit (Shermer's Baloney Detection Kit)

In the video of the Baloney detection kit, it gives you ten points when considering
if a theory is true or false. He said that we shouldn’t believe someone base on
their authority or any position they have. The video helped me realize that
science is more than just protons and neutrons. When Michael Shermer was
discussing the science, I never really know why it was so hard to prove different
experiments. When he said “Science is like solving a crime, you got to put all the
pieces together”, and that is when I realized how hard science actually is.
Also when he discussed how a person can be said that they proved that Newton
was wrong, and even Einstein was wrong, you must be able to the seriousness
of the relevant laws and other theories as well in order to actually say that you
are proved something. Also when we are looking at a claim, we need to ask
ourselves that how reliable the source is, and this step is very important because
if the source is not reliable, it could point you the wrong direction. It was a
interesting video and let us to figure out we can tell if the source is reliable or not,
also when he was giving examples of how we can tell if a source is reliable or
not, it make all sense to me.