viernes, 14 de septiembre de 2012

Emotions



From the image above, we can see that we can classify emotions according to the basic emotions that we had from the beginning and this emotions are: Rage, Loathing, Grief, Amusement, Terror, Ecstasy  Admiration and Vigilance. From this basic emotions, other more complex have derived. I believe that this theory about emotions is correct, yet it is a scientific way of putting emotions but not understanding them truly.  Humans have always tried to find a reason for everything that surrounds us and always found that there is more to understand, more logic behind and therefore we may not be able to understand emotions entirely at least not yet.

viernes, 7 de septiembre de 2012

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was an American railroad construction foreman that was working on September 14th 1848 by gang blasting rock whilst preparing the roadbed for Rutland & Burlington Railroad.

In order to set a blast, it involved boring a hole deep into a body of rock; adding blasting powder, a fuse, and sand; then compacting this charge into the hole using a tamping iron—a large iron rod. Apparently, Phineas forgot to set sand, which was used as means of protection against the explosion, and this set a forehand the explosion causing the iron rod to go straight into his head and damaged the left frontal lobe.

Amazingly, Phineas survived the accident without much damage physically, but emotionally, he was a completely different person as he now lied, gambled, bullied and generally became more aggressive  something that he never was before the accident.


   (Picture of Phineas Gage after the accident.)

From this case, we can see that our senses can be changed and therefore our perspectives of the world changes with it as well, but also that our emotions are crucial for our humanity and without them we become into something completely different, as in the case of Phineas Gage.

lunes, 3 de septiembre de 2012

Cultures

Many of our different perspectives are determined by factors that are external to us, such as the way we were raised or the different countries we live in and one of the main factors that contribute for our different perspectives are the cultures of our families or the cultures we grew up in. For example in Papua New Guinea, there's a tribe called Lars Krutak and for every young male initiate, they undergo a ritual which is held in a "spirit house". The ritual is basically cutting the skin of the young male in patterns which symbolizes power within their culture. This ritual to us it might seem as unnecessary and especially very painful, but to that tribe, they find pride in their young male bearing this skin patterns as it represents not only power, as mentioned above, but also it is of vital importance in their economics and their politics. 

From this example, we can determine that each one of us has different perspectives thanks to the different cultures that we were raised in.