As part of being an engineering student at UNC Charlotte, I receive access to these specialty computer labs, called Mosaic Labs, that have computers with engineering software installed on them. It's an excellent service, giving us the tools we require to advance our education. What's more is that it has a whole set of wonderful rules because what lab would not be complete with rules? The number one rule of the Mosaic labs is that no food or drink is allowed. On one hand, I understand this rule. There is a fear of germs being spread, the potential of dirtying the keyboards and mice and the risk of spilling a drink onto the keyboard or computer and thus ruining the machine. Regardless, it's a harsh rule if I cannot even have water in the lab, where I may be stuck working for many hours of the day.
Well, earlier today I had a run-in with rule number one in the Mosaic lab. My Nalgeen water bottle was propped onto the table that I was working at and I was intensely working on a report due at the end of the week when suddenly my screen began to flicker. A moment later a window popped up from the Mosaic service. The message read, "Please remember that no food or drink is allowed within the Mosaic facilities. Please remove the bottle from your desk. Thank you." I had the dreaded sense of being an inmate of a panoptic facility as described by Jeremy Bentham. A supervisor from a remote room has the ability to look through all the camera feeds throughout each Mosaic facility on campus. Not only that, they have the ability to locate the computer that the perpetrator is on and access the computer remotely to give them their warning. If the infractions continue, Mosaic can suspend the perpetrator's account for some amount of time.
Following the incident, I kept my bottle on the floor and behaved. I did have a twinge of anger built up, in which I wanted to pour my water over the keyboard in rebellion, but I knew better. It's interesting that I even had this irrational thought to begin with. Certainly I wouldn't even consider committing such an act if this rule were not in place, controlling where I can and cannot consume food and drink. Due to the existence of these rules, I wanted to feel like a rebellious child just as seen in many rebellious children that have strict parents.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Monday, November 10, 2014
Go Tigers!
Every few weeks, I take a trip down to Clemson, SC to visit my girlfriend over the weekend. As you approach the campus you will find Clemson paw prints on the road, marking that you have entered Clemson territory and Clemson-clad automobiles speeding towards the campus with paw-print stickers and flags flapping from their windows. On days where there is a home game on a Saturday, you feel as if you are a part of some massive pilgrimage to a holy site. I think it's safe to say that football is a defining characteristic of Clemson, given how crazy and dedicated their fans can be.
Most football-crazy schools have traditions and rituals that are performed by the players. At Clemson, the players and staff make an extravagant entrance before the start of the game, which can be seen in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbvtdXHXaLU
You can see from this video of how much excitement is incited by this ritual. The stadium becomes this "ritualized space" for football, filled with orange-garbed fanatics, screaming "GO TIGERS!" Perhaps the most interesting part of the ritual, is that all the players touch the rock halfway down the hill onto the field. It's as if this rock has a power that can turn the tide in their favor before the start of the game. In this week's reading by David Chidester, players often perform ritual actions to control the 'unforseen' (747). This action, performed before the beginning of each home game, has an effect that strengthens the team and if performed correctly can give them the advantage even before the first snap. From an outside perspective, it seems like a silly superstition, however, to those fans and players, touching that rock is an integral part to the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmeLvrDRQ5c
Most football-crazy schools have traditions and rituals that are performed by the players. At Clemson, the players and staff make an extravagant entrance before the start of the game, which can be seen in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbvtdXHXaLU
You can see from this video of how much excitement is incited by this ritual. The stadium becomes this "ritualized space" for football, filled with orange-garbed fanatics, screaming "GO TIGERS!" Perhaps the most interesting part of the ritual, is that all the players touch the rock halfway down the hill onto the field. It's as if this rock has a power that can turn the tide in their favor before the start of the game. In this week's reading by David Chidester, players often perform ritual actions to control the 'unforseen' (747). This action, performed before the beginning of each home game, has an effect that strengthens the team and if performed correctly can give them the advantage even before the first snap. From an outside perspective, it seems like a silly superstition, however, to those fans and players, touching that rock is an integral part to the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmeLvrDRQ5c
Monday, November 3, 2014
What is Art?
During the Spring semester of my freshman year of college, I took a visual arts course. Prior to taking the course, I had very limited exposure to fine art, never once taking an art class - well except for culinary arts in high school. Nevertheless, I had mixed feelings of trepidation that this would be a struggle for me to get through and curiosity at a topic that I had not put much thought into. The course consisted of a mixture of lectures and class meetings at art museums in Uptown Charlotte. Among the museums that we visited were the McColl Center, the Mint Museum, the Gantt Center and, my "favorite," the Bechtler Museum.
As the course progressed, I gradually developed an appreciation for the arts, noticing the artists' motivations behind each piece and taking in the aesthetics of these works of art. Everything was fine and dandy until we reached the Bechtler. Modern art has been and continues to be a mystery to me. I understand that artists are always looking for new ways of visually expressing their emotions - and I admit that some of these new expressions are actually personally aesthetically pleasing and meaningful - but when do these works cross the line between a work of art and something that doesn't belong among the great works of art.
This had me thinking of how we consider something to be a work of art. Is it something binary, as in it contains a set of criteria that must be met in order for that particular piece to be considered art? Or is it more subjective and can be viewed differently from person to person. Perhaps in my case, art is in the eyes of the beholder similar to how Mary Douglas defines dirt. In "Classifications and the Philosophical Understanding of Art," Ruth Lorand explains different philosophies behind the classification methods of art and what can be considered art. A major point to take away from this reading is that the concept of art is not binary. We do not simply look at a statue, painting, poem, or novel and decide whether it is art or not. Instead, we would state, "Oh that was a beautiful work by Picasso," or, "This poem is awful!" Art is described based on a qualitative analysis, which means that although I might dislike the modern paintings that depict random colors on a canvas, I still see it as a work of art, although an awful one at that.
As the course progressed, I gradually developed an appreciation for the arts, noticing the artists' motivations behind each piece and taking in the aesthetics of these works of art. Everything was fine and dandy until we reached the Bechtler. Modern art has been and continues to be a mystery to me. I understand that artists are always looking for new ways of visually expressing their emotions - and I admit that some of these new expressions are actually personally aesthetically pleasing and meaningful - but when do these works cross the line between a work of art and something that doesn't belong among the great works of art.
This had me thinking of how we consider something to be a work of art. Is it something binary, as in it contains a set of criteria that must be met in order for that particular piece to be considered art? Or is it more subjective and can be viewed differently from person to person. Perhaps in my case, art is in the eyes of the beholder similar to how Mary Douglas defines dirt. In "Classifications and the Philosophical Understanding of Art," Ruth Lorand explains different philosophies behind the classification methods of art and what can be considered art. A major point to take away from this reading is that the concept of art is not binary. We do not simply look at a statue, painting, poem, or novel and decide whether it is art or not. Instead, we would state, "Oh that was a beautiful work by Picasso," or, "This poem is awful!" Art is described based on a qualitative analysis, which means that although I might dislike the modern paintings that depict random colors on a canvas, I still see it as a work of art, although an awful one at that.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Picky Eaters
Reminiscing about my childhood, I realized that I've consumed a lot of strange foods - well at least strange to the average American. My family were immigrants from Ukraine. Along with their meager belongings, they brought Russian cuisine with them to the U.S.. I've eaten Russian delicacies such as, cow's tongue, borsht (soup made from beets and other vegetables), kholodets (meat jelly), and red caviar. Growing up with these foods seemed very natural for me, however, when I explain these foods to my non-Russian friends, they wrinkle their noses in disgust. One person's delicacy can be another person's disgust.
In Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas, she explains that dirt is a matter of perspective. She says, "There is no such thing as absolute dirt: it exists in the eye of the beholder (2)." In the case of food, there may be cuisine in China that someone from South America might find revolting and vice versa. Personally, I see bugs as inedible, but this is considered food in certain parts of the world. This has a lot to do with where you were raised, the paradigm that you have lived with for most of your life.
I found an interesting quote from Mary Douglas' work that describes this paradigm, which says, "In chaos of shifting impressions, each of us constructs a stable world in which objects have recognizable shapes (45)." Nowadays, if you visit a major U.S. city, you will be able to find a wide diversity of restaurants. These can be anything from modern gastropubs to Indian restaurants with the hottest food in town. So there is this "chaos" of all these choices that determine where one can eat. There are a variety of people who different food preferences, such as those who are very picky eaters and those who are adventurous and love to explore all the food available in the world. Those who categorize themselves as a picky eater would tend to go to restaurants that are closer to their comfort zone, meaning they will tend to go to the restaurant that supplies the foods that they have eaten for most of their lives. I'm curious if this categorization of people as picky eaters has any correlation to the research that David Pizarro presented in his TED Talk on "The Strange Politics of Disgust." Do picky eaters tend to be more easily disgusted and do they tend more towards the conservative end of the political spectrum? Tangent aside, picky eaters construct a category of food that is safe and familiar for them to eat. Anything that is foreign to them falls outside that category and they rule out eating that food. I think it would be safe to say that picky eaters would place the food that I ate in my childhood outside their edible zone.
I found an interesting quote from Mary Douglas' work that describes this paradigm, which says, "In chaos of shifting impressions, each of us constructs a stable world in which objects have recognizable shapes (45)." Nowadays, if you visit a major U.S. city, you will be able to find a wide diversity of restaurants. These can be anything from modern gastropubs to Indian restaurants with the hottest food in town. So there is this "chaos" of all these choices that determine where one can eat. There are a variety of people who different food preferences, such as those who are very picky eaters and those who are adventurous and love to explore all the food available in the world. Those who categorize themselves as a picky eater would tend to go to restaurants that are closer to their comfort zone, meaning they will tend to go to the restaurant that supplies the foods that they have eaten for most of their lives. I'm curious if this categorization of people as picky eaters has any correlation to the research that David Pizarro presented in his TED Talk on "The Strange Politics of Disgust." Do picky eaters tend to be more easily disgusted and do they tend more towards the conservative end of the political spectrum? Tangent aside, picky eaters construct a category of food that is safe and familiar for them to eat. Anything that is foreign to them falls outside that category and they rule out eating that food. I think it would be safe to say that picky eaters would place the food that I ate in my childhood outside their edible zone.
Monday, October 20, 2014
A Lesson on STD's
I was reading through "Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections," by Anthony Appiah and came across a line that provoked my thoughts to go into a very strange direction. He was simply sharing the dictionary definition of culture, which read, "The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions and all other products of human work and thought." Strangely enough, when my eyes scanned the word "transmitted," my mind went to sexually transmitted diseases (STD's). Then, it took another turn and read "socially transmitted" and I thought, socially transmitted diseases.
Taking this novel idea, I looked it up on Google. One of the first results was from the credible, Urban Dictionary. According to them, a socially transmitted disease is "when someone blogs, tweets, status updates something that brings the viewer/reader out in a rash." This is an interesting definition in that I had initially assumed that socially transmitted diseases would permeate through the realm of twitter and hashtags and other media that begin trends.
The search result below read if obesity is a socially transmitted disease. It summarized research performed on whether food choices were made based on social norms. Their findings were that people did make food choices based on what others chose around them. The article can be found here: http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/is-obesity-a-socially-transmitted-disease-0.
Another result displayed a forum page for I Love Philosophy. The person beginning the forum was interested in socially transmitted diseases. He described STD's as being transmitted through memetic means, which is a terms used to describe evolutionary models for culture information transfer. The term memetic originated from Richard Dawkin's book, "The Selfish Gene." The person in the forum also suggested that STD's could be spread both through a combination of memetic and genetic means. The forum page can be found here: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=180948.
I've decided to make up my own socially transmitted diseases here:
- Hashtagoreia - #Excessive hashtags
- Facebook Fever - Post, Like, Creep and Repeat.
- Selfylis (In case you didn't get this one, it has to do with selfies)
- Hipsteritis B and Hipsteritis C - We refuse to conform to social standards, so we conformed to our own social standards.
So remember, if you are going to go social, use protection!
Taking this novel idea, I looked it up on Google. One of the first results was from the credible, Urban Dictionary. According to them, a socially transmitted disease is "when someone blogs, tweets, status updates something that brings the viewer/reader out in a rash." This is an interesting definition in that I had initially assumed that socially transmitted diseases would permeate through the realm of twitter and hashtags and other media that begin trends.
The search result below read if obesity is a socially transmitted disease. It summarized research performed on whether food choices were made based on social norms. Their findings were that people did make food choices based on what others chose around them. The article can be found here: http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/is-obesity-a-socially-transmitted-disease-0.
Another result displayed a forum page for I Love Philosophy. The person beginning the forum was interested in socially transmitted diseases. He described STD's as being transmitted through memetic means, which is a terms used to describe evolutionary models for culture information transfer. The term memetic originated from Richard Dawkin's book, "The Selfish Gene." The person in the forum also suggested that STD's could be spread both through a combination of memetic and genetic means. The forum page can be found here: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=180948.
I've decided to make up my own socially transmitted diseases here:
- Hashtagoreia - #Excessive hashtags
- Facebook Fever - Post, Like, Creep and Repeat.
- Selfylis (In case you didn't get this one, it has to do with selfies)
- Hipsteritis B and Hipsteritis C - We refuse to conform to social standards, so we conformed to our own social standards.
So remember, if you are going to go social, use protection!
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
The Collyer Clutter
There's nothing quite like a clean and orderly household. No clutter on the floor. Pictures of the family and paintings are hung up on the walls with absolute balance. An intricate center-piece of a giraffe sticking its head into a wooden bowl is placed neatly at the center of the dinner table. Everything seems to have its unique place in the house, where only necessary items are kept for their visual "use." This is in stark contrast with the description of the Collyers' mansion home, which included all sorts of junk ranging from mantel clocks to newspaper bundles (Herring 173-174).
Talk about clutter...
The Collyers' mansion is the nightmare for people with OCD. Absolutely no organization, things piled up to the ceiling, complete chaos. Where is the "use" in these items if they are not placed in their appropriate location, such as a mantel clock placed on, oh I don't know...a mantel! It's this seeming irrationality towards the "use" in the everyday objects that the Collyer brothers collected that may give support for the claim that hoarding is a mental disorder, which is appropriately named Collyer Brothers Syndrome (Herring).
However, it is difficult to have absolute evidence to whether the behavior of hoarding is a mental disability. It just could be an effect of environmental factors or the person's state of mind in the moment. I've personally experienced periods of hoarding in times of stress. When I feel my mind all cluttered, my room ends up being an extension of my mind. It becomes hard for me to organize my things or to throw away items that have no use because I suddenly believe that it may have some future use. In the case of the Collyer brothers, their clutter may have been a result of the environment around them - Harlem. The "social disorder" around them imbued itself into their minds and their house became an extension of the social disorder that they saw on the streets of Harlem.
However, it is difficult to have absolute evidence to whether the behavior of hoarding is a mental disability. It just could be an effect of environmental factors or the person's state of mind in the moment. I've personally experienced periods of hoarding in times of stress. When I feel my mind all cluttered, my room ends up being an extension of my mind. It becomes hard for me to organize my things or to throw away items that have no use because I suddenly believe that it may have some future use. In the case of the Collyer brothers, their clutter may have been a result of the environment around them - Harlem. The "social disorder" around them imbued itself into their minds and their house became an extension of the social disorder that they saw on the streets of Harlem.
Got Friends?
Everyone's friends situation is different. Some people may be very popular, having a plethora of friends in all different aspects of their lives. Others may only have a few dependable friends. Depending on how many friends and the types of friends that they may have will determine if they have friend groups. Take an average college student. They may have a close-knit friends circle that they spend most of their time with and feel the closest to. Then, there are the classmate friends; those who are in the same classes as our average college student. It's a very casual relationship, without much of the deep connection that goes along with the close-knit friends group and mostly exists due to the common cause of class. You could say that this type of friendship is built on utility according to Aristotle on Friendship.
Moving further along, the average college student may be involved in campus clubs, which involve another set of friends. This group may have a differing level of connection to the classmates group due to the nature of the commonality between people in this case. For example, if our average college student is part of UNCC Puppet Club, their common interest of puppets with the other members may be more of a personal connection than to their classmates in their anatomy class.
Of course every college student had to pass through high school, which means that there may be a high school friends group. This type of friends group might be group that is slowly dying off for our college student as he/she makes new friends in college. The physical distance between these friends if they all go to different colleges or are on different paths in life lead to this disconnection. The commonality of interests and personality goes away due to the personal growth that each person experiences at their respective colleges.
There is a common theme to what categorizes a friends group and that is commonality. Commonality is the thing that everyone within this group has an interest in or is something that they all participate in together. Without the glue of commonality, a friends group can easily dissolve and lose its identity.
Moving further along, the average college student may be involved in campus clubs, which involve another set of friends. This group may have a differing level of connection to the classmates group due to the nature of the commonality between people in this case. For example, if our average college student is part of UNCC Puppet Club, their common interest of puppets with the other members may be more of a personal connection than to their classmates in their anatomy class.
Of course every college student had to pass through high school, which means that there may be a high school friends group. This type of friends group might be group that is slowly dying off for our college student as he/she makes new friends in college. The physical distance between these friends if they all go to different colleges or are on different paths in life lead to this disconnection. The commonality of interests and personality goes away due to the personal growth that each person experiences at their respective colleges.
There is a common theme to what categorizes a friends group and that is commonality. Commonality is the thing that everyone within this group has an interest in or is something that they all participate in together. Without the glue of commonality, a friends group can easily dissolve and lose its identity.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
The Big Bad Wolf Suffers from COPD
While I was in the gym one morning, a commercial for Symbicort came onto one of the television screens. Symbicort is a medication that was created to treat Chronic Obstructive Pulminary Disease (COPD). What was striking about this particular commercial was that it utilized a cartoon of the Big Bad Wolf from the Little Red Riding Hood story. Here's the video of the commercial below:
http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7CM2/symbicort-wolf
This isn't the only instance of a medication commercial using animation. The drug, Abilify, also includes animation in its ads:
http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7oAZ/abilify-add-abilify
It is an interesting approach away from the traditional medication commercial that would include a typical user and their story. The Symbicort commerical is clever in using the Big Bad Wolf as a victim of COPD and advertising their medicine through that story. However, what is the deal with the use of animation in the Abilify commercial? Usually when I see a cartoon, I expect it to be visually happy or funny. A woman suffering from depression is not something that you would usually see in a cartoon. So what is the benefit or advertising power that comes from using animation such as what is seen in these two examples?
http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7CM2/symbicort-wolf
This isn't the only instance of a medication commercial using animation. The drug, Abilify, also includes animation in its ads:
http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7oAZ/abilify-add-abilify
It is an interesting approach away from the traditional medication commercial that would include a typical user and their story. The Symbicort commerical is clever in using the Big Bad Wolf as a victim of COPD and advertising their medicine through that story. However, what is the deal with the use of animation in the Abilify commercial? Usually when I see a cartoon, I expect it to be visually happy or funny. A woman suffering from depression is not something that you would usually see in a cartoon. So what is the benefit or advertising power that comes from using animation such as what is seen in these two examples?
Monday, September 22, 2014
Categorizing the Disordered
The art of classifying does not seem to be wholly objective as I am quickly learning through this week's reading. Social influences, geographical locations, and technology all play a role in how we classify everything from animals to mental disorders. Social influences and pressures play a particularly significant role when it comes to classify people. Many times, these classifications come at the cost of offending groups that are classified unfavorably due to how the persons completing the classification perceive those who are being classified. For example, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the DSM-II in the early 1970's (Pomeroy & Parrish, 196). It's fairly apparent that those who identified as homosexual were upset with the APA on this classification, as evidenced by their "protests toward APA for its perceived stigmatization of homosexuals (Pomeroy & Parrish, 196)."
The key may lie in how we distinguish between what is different and normal in society. In my last blog post, titled "1.2 Million and Counting," I delved into the classification of monsters, including humans with strange physical attributes. Our discussion in class on this also got me thinking of how we do not take the feelings of those who are being classified into account. These categories have the potential of identifying someone in a very negative light and they would be stuck in that category throughout human history. How does a woman, who has the fate of growing a full beard feel about being categorized among history's bearded women? Furthermore, how does she feel when her defined role as a bearded woman belongs with a circus freakshow? It is translatable to this case with homosexuality. The APA, whether intentionally or unintentionally, grouped them with those who are "different" from the rest.
According to Bowker and Star in "Sorting Things Out," there are traces "of bureaucratic struggles, different in world-view and systematic erasures do remain in the written classification system...(55)." Take this homosexuality issue in a geographic context. Different areas of the United States will have different ways of displaying their city or town. Some place like Fargo, North Dakota would probably be a very unlikely place for a gay parade, whereas Los Angeles would be a more likely location. Furthermore, the perception of the classification of homosexuality may be vastly different between the local populaces of these two cities. So is there any benefit or use to these types of classifications? It seems to do more harm than good to those who are being categorized as such. How do the social institutions that govern these classifications modify them as to avoid any potential subjectivity? Is it even possible that a list can be categorized in a universally accepted method?
The key may lie in how we distinguish between what is different and normal in society. In my last blog post, titled "1.2 Million and Counting," I delved into the classification of monsters, including humans with strange physical attributes. Our discussion in class on this also got me thinking of how we do not take the feelings of those who are being classified into account. These categories have the potential of identifying someone in a very negative light and they would be stuck in that category throughout human history. How does a woman, who has the fate of growing a full beard feel about being categorized among history's bearded women? Furthermore, how does she feel when her defined role as a bearded woman belongs with a circus freakshow? It is translatable to this case with homosexuality. The APA, whether intentionally or unintentionally, grouped them with those who are "different" from the rest.
According to Bowker and Star in "Sorting Things Out," there are traces "of bureaucratic struggles, different in world-view and systematic erasures do remain in the written classification system...(55)." Take this homosexuality issue in a geographic context. Different areas of the United States will have different ways of displaying their city or town. Some place like Fargo, North Dakota would probably be a very unlikely place for a gay parade, whereas Los Angeles would be a more likely location. Furthermore, the perception of the classification of homosexuality may be vastly different between the local populaces of these two cities. So is there any benefit or use to these types of classifications? It seems to do more harm than good to those who are being categorized as such. How do the social institutions that govern these classifications modify them as to avoid any potential subjectivity? Is it even possible that a list can be categorized in a universally accepted method?
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
1.2 Million and Counting
I remember when the visually stunning Planet Earth documentary came out, that I was absolutely mesmerized by the plethora of different animal species on our planet. Everything from land creatures to deep sea fish, the visual diversity was endless. There are also many ways of categorizing all of these species, such as whether they walk on legs or swim, stay in packs or travel alone, have fur or leathery skin, and so on. There are many of these descriptive categories that can be used to classify all of the known animals of the animal kingdom. Currently, there are 1.2 million known species of animals on planet Earth, but there are an estimated 8.7 million species in all that currently or may exist (nature.com). Attached to all these species are various forms of categorizing based on criteria such as what was stated above.
There is a unique nature to taxonomies, which is best described by Aristotle's Categories. In it, he says that after the "primary substance" follows the "secondary substances." We can think of the primary substance as being the kingdom and secondary substances as the genus or species. Secondary substances are more descriptive and specific than primary substances. Continuing, Aristotle states that, " For only they [secondary substances], of things predicated, reveal the primary substance." This means that if I were to pick out a species, let's say lions, then I can trace the species of lions up through the other 6 levels of the taxonomy tree until I reach the animal kingdom. This is the general case for other forms of categorizing.
Another example would be monsters and other disfigured or abnormal beings. The Platypus and the Mermaid by Harriet Ritvo delves into the more imaginative forms of classifications. Monsters seem like an odd entity to classify. In the cases of animals, foods, plants, and clothes, they seem to make sense and allow society to become more organized and functional. However, what is the point of classifying monsters? Why are we so engrossed in disfigured human beings and animals to the point of categorizing them as single monsters, dicephalous monsters, pyopagus monsters (Ritvo, p. 40)? Although the monster categorizing is referenced to the 18th and 19th century in Ritvo's work, this form of categorizing and fascination continues today. We categorize dwarf-sized people into cultural genre of its own, which resonates throughout reality TV shows and comedy. Another question that I would like to pose is if this form of categorizing abnormalities extends to the mentally abnormal people? If it exists, then how are these people categorized and how does it affect these people in terms of their health care or social treatment?
Additional reference: 1. Lee Sweetlove, “Number of species on Earth tagged at 8.7 million,” Nature, August 23rd, 2011, http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110823/full/news.2011.498.html.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Your Timeline is Your Storyline
Look back to all the exciting and unexciting times in your life. Did it not seem that those times that were exciting and fun flew by as a fleeting moment. On the other hand, those of the more unexciting times such as waiting in line at the DMV or sitting through a tedious lecture seem to drag on forever. Also, think about when you become cognizant of the time, looking at the clock often in an attempt to accelerate the passing time, but always to no avail. Then, as you look back to all those times, you realize all the years that have passed in your life and wonder where all the time went, all those memories feel like vague dreams.
Time seems to be a cruel force in our lives. It knocks us around and does not give us anytime for relief. Bad times always seem to last much longer than good times. One hour to a person having the time of their life would seem a lot shorter to them in comparison to another person looking at paint dry for an hour, yet they both experience an hour of time. As Bryan Mendez asks in his article, "Time Travel: There's no Time Like Yesterday": "We have a belief that time exists independent of us, but is it perhaps only something that is measured by our minds' and bodies' perceptions?" Time is a topic of human obsession. It permeates our mathematics - as seen in Einstein's theories of special and general relativity (Mendez) - our society, and our personal lives. We love to reminisce about the past and anticipate the future, but the past and future do not exist as is discussed in the podcast, "Hugh Mellor On Time."
The tenses that we use in our language - past, present and future - are not actually part of time (Mellor). We use these tenses as a means of categorizing what has happened, is happening and will be happening to us. Time is actually comprised of events that have occurred earlier than what is happening in this instance as well as those events that happen after this moment (Mellor). We feel that we need to organize the sequence of time in order to understand the sequence of our lives. If I simply stated that I ate a salad earlier than the moment I am currently in, then that leaves a lot of context out. Instead, I would say I ate a salad for lunch around noon today. There is more detail in the latter description. Then, let's say I had pasta for dinner in the evening. Now I have an order to how my day is going. It is becoming a sequence of events, a timeline on which my life is following. This timeline is particular to me and no one else, so when I feel time going faster or slower in certain situations, I am perceiving the pace of my timeline. It is individual to everyone and it is the basis for everyone's storyline, of how they sequence their life from birth until the current moment that they are describing their life to you when you first meet.
Time seems to be a cruel force in our lives. It knocks us around and does not give us anytime for relief. Bad times always seem to last much longer than good times. One hour to a person having the time of their life would seem a lot shorter to them in comparison to another person looking at paint dry for an hour, yet they both experience an hour of time. As Bryan Mendez asks in his article, "Time Travel: There's no Time Like Yesterday": "We have a belief that time exists independent of us, but is it perhaps only something that is measured by our minds' and bodies' perceptions?" Time is a topic of human obsession. It permeates our mathematics - as seen in Einstein's theories of special and general relativity (Mendez) - our society, and our personal lives. We love to reminisce about the past and anticipate the future, but the past and future do not exist as is discussed in the podcast, "Hugh Mellor On Time."
The tenses that we use in our language - past, present and future - are not actually part of time (Mellor). We use these tenses as a means of categorizing what has happened, is happening and will be happening to us. Time is actually comprised of events that have occurred earlier than what is happening in this instance as well as those events that happen after this moment (Mellor). We feel that we need to organize the sequence of time in order to understand the sequence of our lives. If I simply stated that I ate a salad earlier than the moment I am currently in, then that leaves a lot of context out. Instead, I would say I ate a salad for lunch around noon today. There is more detail in the latter description. Then, let's say I had pasta for dinner in the evening. Now I have an order to how my day is going. It is becoming a sequence of events, a timeline on which my life is following. This timeline is particular to me and no one else, so when I feel time going faster or slower in certain situations, I am perceiving the pace of my timeline. It is individual to everyone and it is the basis for everyone's storyline, of how they sequence their life from birth until the current moment that they are describing their life to you when you first meet.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Creation and the Number Two
Order and Chaos
Creation and the Number Two
August 26th, 2014
Sean Zilberdrut
As I was reading through the creation stories told by various cultures, I began to notice that certain quantities were assigned to the creation of the world. For example, in the creation story of Odin and Ymir, it says, "Instead, long before the earth was made, Niflheim was made, and in it a spring gave rise to twelve rivers." The number twelve is a very specific number, where did they get it from? Or how about the Genesis story, of how it took G-d seven days to complete the creation of the world - hence our seven day week. One number struck out among them all and that was the number two. This is a very powerful number as it describes the most basic symmetries in our lives, such as man and woman. It also suggests opposites; of light and dark, water and fire, land and sea, and so on.
What's funny about the number two, is that it seems so much larger than the number one even though the distance between them is one. Its exactly doubled the amount. Think about the difference from one to two and then think about the distance from ninety-nine and one hundred. Both would result in a difference of one, but which distance seems larger? From the Radiolab podcast, "Numbers," it mentioned the ability of babies to recognized differences in quantities. It's remarkable in that quantities seem to be inherent in humans from birth. For example, the scientists behind this study of babies observed increased brain activity when the number of ducks on a screen turned from eight to sixteen. Furthermore, babies have a unique sense in the distance between numbers, such as the distance from one to two seems so much greater than the distance from eight to nine (Radiolab "Numbers"). It is actually described as a logarithmic sequence in how babies observe these differences. Translate this to the creation stories and the power of the number two is revealed.
Take the Genesis story. In the beginning of the creation of the world, "G-d created the heavens and the earth." Here is the first instance of the number two. These also have deep and opposite meanings. Physically, the heavens could mean the sky and the earth is the ground. Add another level to this meaning and the earth could signify our physical world that we dwell in with our bodies and the heavens are the world that G-d inhabits. There are actually two worlds at play here and a very large distance between them. Many people struggle with the existence of a creator, which is illustrated by the distance between the spiritual world and the physical world.
Continuing with the story, G-d said, "Let there be light." Light came forth and now we have light and darkness. Another couple of opposites. Not only is there light and dark, but there is morning and evening associated with these entities. There is a separation between the two; a great distance after which much of our art, literature, culture and religions are based off of.
How does this play into our narrative of order and chaos? Before creation occurred, there was nothing, just a void in which nothing existed; it is something that we as humans cannot conceive. Many of these stories attempt to describe this nothingness, such as the story from the Kono peoples of Guinea saying, "In the beginning there was nothing: neither matter nor light existed." A number we could associate with this is zero, it is void of any value. One might think that a universe devoid of anything may be a very orderly place, since there really isn't anything to order. However, think of what happens when you divide zero by zero. This is an interesting phenomena in mathematics where two distinct extremes collide. If you divide zero by any number other than zero, the result would be zero. On the other hand, if you divide a number by zero, then the result is infinite. Here, both cases could be true, resulting in an indeterminate answer. Huh?! This means that the lack of anything could be a very chaotic place. The fact that we can seek out the mathematics in the universe that we see today means that the place that these gods created is a very orderly place. Not only that, the order that we see from the math of the universe allows us to create devices of our own imagination!
What's funny about the number two, is that it seems so much larger than the number one even though the distance between them is one. Its exactly doubled the amount. Think about the difference from one to two and then think about the distance from ninety-nine and one hundred. Both would result in a difference of one, but which distance seems larger? From the Radiolab podcast, "Numbers," it mentioned the ability of babies to recognized differences in quantities. It's remarkable in that quantities seem to be inherent in humans from birth. For example, the scientists behind this study of babies observed increased brain activity when the number of ducks on a screen turned from eight to sixteen. Furthermore, babies have a unique sense in the distance between numbers, such as the distance from one to two seems so much greater than the distance from eight to nine (Radiolab "Numbers"). It is actually described as a logarithmic sequence in how babies observe these differences. Translate this to the creation stories and the power of the number two is revealed.
Take the Genesis story. In the beginning of the creation of the world, "G-d created the heavens and the earth." Here is the first instance of the number two. These also have deep and opposite meanings. Physically, the heavens could mean the sky and the earth is the ground. Add another level to this meaning and the earth could signify our physical world that we dwell in with our bodies and the heavens are the world that G-d inhabits. There are actually two worlds at play here and a very large distance between them. Many people struggle with the existence of a creator, which is illustrated by the distance between the spiritual world and the physical world.
Continuing with the story, G-d said, "Let there be light." Light came forth and now we have light and darkness. Another couple of opposites. Not only is there light and dark, but there is morning and evening associated with these entities. There is a separation between the two; a great distance after which much of our art, literature, culture and religions are based off of.
How does this play into our narrative of order and chaos? Before creation occurred, there was nothing, just a void in which nothing existed; it is something that we as humans cannot conceive. Many of these stories attempt to describe this nothingness, such as the story from the Kono peoples of Guinea saying, "In the beginning there was nothing: neither matter nor light existed." A number we could associate with this is zero, it is void of any value. One might think that a universe devoid of anything may be a very orderly place, since there really isn't anything to order. However, think of what happens when you divide zero by zero. This is an interesting phenomena in mathematics where two distinct extremes collide. If you divide zero by any number other than zero, the result would be zero. On the other hand, if you divide a number by zero, then the result is infinite. Here, both cases could be true, resulting in an indeterminate answer. Huh?! This means that the lack of anything could be a very chaotic place. The fact that we can seek out the mathematics in the universe that we see today means that the place that these gods created is a very orderly place. Not only that, the order that we see from the math of the universe allows us to create devices of our own imagination!
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