T.O.K Presentation: Ethics and Emotion

In a society where each individual is determined to think and act in a certain way, new ideologies and principles may be molded in order to satisfy the needs of the society. Although this may feel as a rather indiscreet and direct statement, in our presentation group we felt that each ideology (including those that may sound quite harsh) had to be accepted in order to understand more about this concept of ethics and emotions.

This assignment was conformed by three groups of (give or take) 7-10 people and each group had to choose an area of knowledge and a way of knowing in regards to their respective areas of knowledge. I was in group 2 and for our area of knowledge we chose ethics and for our way of knowing in regards to ethics we chose emotion. I believe that the way we presented our ideas linked directly with what each one had to say in regards with the subject, although we did this in an outstanding way, I also believe that the way of knowing (emotion) wasn't expressed sufficiently as our group focused on ethics; leaving unexpressed all of our ideas based on emotion. For example, I talked about Nietzsche's beliefs on morality whether good and evil referred as a whole or rather relied on individuality and in order to further demonstrate this, I also planned an exercise based on our current society. All of the ideas in regards to this area where clear, although I could've expressed my ideas on emotion and link them to ethics in order to show a distinct relationship between them.    

Personally, my work within the group was sufficient since I could've worked further upon my presentation in order to correct any errors, this includes both time issues and ideas expressed. The work that I did based on Nietzsche was an excellent idea and if I had spent more time focusing on the presentation it would've been better.

In general, all of my teammates were excellent and we all worked as a whole within our group since we knew when each one had to talk and we respected their time management and ideas about the topic.

If I were to do this again I would spend more time working on the presentation and apply a clearer view on our group's way of knowing, but apart from that, I wouldn't have changed anything else in our group. (Although a little organisation on our last exercise would've helped a lot on our overall presentation.)

This experience taught me a lot of things that I didn't consider in regards to each groups subject  but as a whole I learned that many ideas have to be taken in consideration in order to apply knowledge in our life. It also taught me or rather demonstrated me that working on a team helps in order to achieve an objective with sufficient time and effort applied within each member of the group.

It was indeed a grateful and well welcomed experience.

 

Areas Of Knowledge- History

"History is a science, no more and no less."
J. B. Bury

The past is a concept that is well known in history and perhaps it is a philosophical concept that history itself is trying to understand. In our studies, we are given the general idea that we must study the past in order to understand the present and what is currently going on in the world; as the past contains generalized information on our actions and therefore we can understand the reasons for our current actions by studying the past. 

Although the past may determine why we act in a certain way in our present society, sometimes the past contains many shameful actions carried out by the countries such as the world wars, the civil wars and other errors that were simply made due to misinformation or grudges that were maintained over several years. This reason may lead countries to rewrite their own history in order to hide their moral errors or shameful defeats, one clear example that is still present today is North Korea.    

Here I will post a link to North Korea's creative story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3096265.stm    

According to the information presented on this link, North Korea (in 1950-1953) tried to forcibly unify itself with South Korea resulting in the Korean war which ended in a stalemate, but according to North Korea, the war ended in a "glorious victory" by the North Korean forces. This misinformation is what every child that lives in North Korea is being taught and their also being taught that the United States started the war by influencing the South to attack first. This brainwashing method was also utilized by Nazi Germany as Hitler usually influenced young people as they were the most volatile and also the most influential. 

I believe that rewriting history in order to achieve personal goals is like brainwashing people into believing what is most beneficial for the country, not the individuals and therefore I believe that rewriting history is wrong in any perspective as it is forcibly implementing an idea which is not correct and that will only be an "obstacle" in the path of knowledge for the individuals in a country.                  

Can Science Answer Moral Questions?

Science as a way of knowing is inclined to believe in reason rather than faith, this implies that science is a way in which logic states every reason for our existence and (in general) how everything works in our plane of existence.

Both reason and logic are what defines the scientific method but science also needs other ways of knowing in order to learn certain truths about our world such as our senses, as scientists conclude truths from experiments and they certainly need to see, touch, feel, hear and (sometimes) taste in order to get raw data and consequently implement reasons and thesis of how everything around us works. Therefore, science doesn't preach morality but it rather defies it, as science will always need some sort of justification in order to validate its acts and these justifications have to be based purely on logic or else it won't be even considered in the scientific world.

The advantages that this way of knowing has towards our world is that it actually benefits us directly as science leads the way to more comfortabilities and apparent truths that in the past may have seemed as impossible, although one major problem with science is the fact that it is cold inside and unable to understand some ideas implemented by both faith and morality.

So now we may ask ourselves, can science answer moral questions? Well, since science and morality have always been distant from each other, we might tend to believe that science is just purely based on logic and therefore it cannot motivate us to act in any way or even reach into our morality, but based on a TED talk video me (and my class) saw, science may reach into morality under certain areas. These areas are based on facts and values such as health issues in which science and (good) morality do agree that saving a human life is required either for our continuous species existence or because we feel morally obliged to save lives.

I also believe that science may answer moral questions under certain areas but it will always have its limit under morality as it is unable to answer questions that are required for the inquirer to learn and specifically analyze.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/280/5367/1200.full 

Persuasion And Propaganda

 Everyday and everywhere, we seem to find ourselves surrounded by advertisements that only promote or showcase a product or a way of living. It is quite interesting when we start to believe that we may not think at all like we want to but that we may be influenced by these kinds of propaganda that constantly persuades us to act in a way that follows the advertisement and not what we may believe or reason.

One example of persuasion and propaganda is seen with the recent creation of the new I phone 5 which seems to attract everyone's attention thanks to the incorporation of new features and the constant display of media that "orders" us to buy it. As opposed to this urgent need to buying it, I have found an article which uses examples of persuasion in order to reason with all of these advertisements.

Here's the link: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-57512927-233/why-you-should-wait-a-few-months-to-buy-the-iphone-5/

The main title of this article is "Why you should wait a few months to buy the iphone 5" and I believe that this article is quite persuasive from the beginning as it states a common phrase which we seem to use and that is "living under a rock" or in other words, without the necessary knowledge of technology and then it effectively cuts this humor when we read "don't do it." It also states good reasons in bold and then it explains them in great detail which is quite persuasive as people (as myself) need good reasons in order to be persuaded.

The constant use of propaganda and persuasion I believe it has corroded our minds and our way of thinking which has actually blinded the truth from those that let themselves be influenced, as most of the propaganda is biased and for one benefit; money.