In continuing my response to the podcast about vegetarianism there is more I'd like to discuss. As I stated in the previous post about this we eat things that we feel aren't like pets such as we wouldn't eat a dog because he's a part of our family and we sure wouldn't eat other humans simply because we don't see each other in that way. For example, you wouldn't go over your cousins house and say man uncle tony looks mighty tasty to eat right now. You wouldn't find it very appetizing to do that because as humans we know pain so we don't want to inflict each other with it. We eat animals that we feel don't feel pain and we love the taste of it. What most people don't realize is cows, chickens, ducks,etc, can be a pet to a child that grew up on a farm and they become vegetarians because they have pets like cows and other types of animals everyone else eats.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Consciousness (2)
John Searle theory on consciousness is very interesting. His way of explaining consciousness is very different he believes that consciousness is a biological phenomenon. He says we think of consciousness as an ordinary biological history and should not be confused with self-consciousness. These are two different things according to searle, consciousness is biological while self-consciousness is about our minds and connecting to different things in life. Self-consciousness has to do with what we know as right and wrong, while consciousness is being aware of things around you. I don't agree so much with Searle and his theories about it but at some points in his lecture it makes sense to believe his theory as well. I do believe that self-consciousness is different then just regular consciousness because one of them helps us deal with life and all of the challenges thrown at us and the other makes us aware of our surroundings that involve life.
Go the Vegetarian
When listening to the podcast on vegetarianism it makes sense to become a vegetarian and why people are. It was very interesting to hear the reasons why we shouldn't eat animals but instead eat plant like organisms. The way you described it made a lot of sense and the explanation was I felt good. The way we classify animals and what we eat are interesting. We wouldn't eat a dog or cat because one it's out of the social norm and two because we think it has feelings and a consciousness but then what about cows and fish? We eat those like junk food but we don't think of them like we do a dog or cat because dogs and cats are pets and a part of your family. When we eat a cow we don't of them like we do our pets. We see a huge steak in front of us and we eat it not thinking about it was once a cow and to some had feelings and a conscious but we don't think of them that way.
I can see how people are vegetarians when you look at it in this aspect because it even made me think of becoming one. I am a meat eater to the max I love steak and red meat and chicken and all of those but when you put it the way you did in the podcast I could see how people are against eating animals and if I wasn't such a huge meat eater I probably would be a vegetarian myself but to me it's like a an addicting taste that I can never get enough of.
IS CONSCIOUSNESS PHYSICAL?
Reading this booklet it was a very interesting topic because it would state different things like whether or not it is physical. To me I believe consciousness is somewhat physical and not. I believe it is physical because sometimes it lets do things that are physical and we can control. On the other hand I can see how it is not physical because it is more mental then anything. Consciousness is a part of the brain I feel that is very vital because it leads to do what we feel is the correct thing to do.
Our conscious is something we need in our life I believe because it's kind of like having a gut feeling that something isn't right or we shouldn't be doing that certain thing. Without it I think we would be lost. It's like in the movie disney movie pinocchio when geppetto tell him," let your conscious be your guide." Even though it's kind of silly coming from a fairy tale movie like that it is true. If we let our conscious be our guide we would amount to numerous things here on earth.
Steven Pinker's Interview
Evolutionary psychology is the study of the mind. In evolutionary psychology everything is adaptive and is the universal study of human nature. When listening to the interview with Steven Pinker is what all very interesting what he was saying about the behavior of humans. as he was giving examples of the different ways I find this more interesting then all of the other psychology's being study. Evolutionary psychology seems to be more of a examining type of psychology on how we behave for different situations and our body language towards things make us uncomfortable. When he started talking about fantasizing, it made more sense to me on how we humans work. We do things a lot of the time because it's pleasurable even when we know it's wrong but we keep doing it because we fantasize about it.
I agree with everything he said. We are fascinated by a lot of things in the world but a lot of them are the wrong and sinful things to do. With evolutionary psychology many things adapt quite well and human nature is the most talked about subject when it comes down it. Humans are very interesting especially when it comes down to how we came to be through evolution and how we obtained the behaviors we have today.
A Glorious Piece of Meat
Watching this movie it was interesting because it explains that we feel like we run the show but in all reality we don't. We don't digest our food on our own or we don't beat our heart on our own either. So really how do we know if we really run the show. When it comes down to it we really don't. Our brain for the most part run everything, it sends a message to our muscle let's say our hand to help type this post or if we have an itch it sends a message to our hand to scratch whatever it is. Everything is we do is done with our brain. You can say our brain is what helps us do things and understand things as well as it helps us with our five senses.
I do believe our brain is what allows us to move and think. Our brain is the most powerful tool I think because it lets us think and learn many different things. It allows us to think for ourselves and have our own opinions for everything we learn or teach others. A quote that Francis Crick said makes a lot of sense when it comes to thinking. It was, " What we take to be the soul is nothing more than a complex network of neurons." Even though I don't agree with him that we don't have souls, this quote can be towards thinking and I agree with it.
IS MY I-PHONE CONSCIOUS?
While reading this booklet it was very interesting because I would have never thought of such a question being asked whether or a i-phone is aware or not. When reading all of it, it came down to reading the part about the sound grenade. Which apparently is a really annoying sound that some cannot hear. Which brings up the question if someone with no conscious can understand one who is conscious? This question is very tricky because there are some people who can hear things that others can't and some who can't understand what is going on other's can.
To me this is something that has always caught my interest because I have heard of this happening but could never understand why. When reading this booklet it made a little sense because it's just how we look at things or understand things. I just always wondered why people go through this and if I were a part of it too because I always felt like it would be really cool to be a part of something like that. To not be able to hear things like the grenade on an i-phone is very interesting because a lot of people can hear that annoying noise.
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