Week 3

Charles Darwin:

Darwin's theory of Natural Selection basically states that only the strong and fittest survive. The source of strength may be physical or mental, but the dominant survive. If a certain thing is not suited for the task at hand, it will fail and be overpowered by that which has been designed for the specific task. Therefore the one who is dominant will receive the glory that accompanies power and the one who fails will miss out. This causes the weak to dye off and the dominate one to strive for ultimate power and dominance. The resulting population will be entirely made of the species with the dominate trait. This will continue until a mutation occurs that benefits the species, which is called evolution.

This theory can be related to many things but I am choosing to relate it to the evolution of the car. When the car was first built, it was basically an engine, 4 tires, a steering wheel and a bench seat. Due to the evolution of technology, a car is now considered luxury at it's finest in some cases. Due to the process of evolution, it went from being completely basic to having all the bells and whistles along with satellite T.V.

Stephen Gould
In his theory of nonmoral nature, he is stating that the behaviors of animals in nature, has presented theologians with an exacting dilemma: " If god is good and if creation reveals his goodness, why do natures victims suffer?" In his argument he states that animals are ruthless and efficient predators that infect pain on essentially helpless prey. his theory is about predators, dealing with good vs. bad and morality vs. ethics. He explains that animals do not have a sense of good and bad (morals/ethics) because they are just that, animals. They base their way of thinking on instinct. The one thing they know. It is just a way of survival. It is either kill or be killed. An example he uses is the wasp. this certain wasp implants it's larvae in certain insects so they can grow. However, while using these insects as hosts for their growing process, they eat the insects from the inside out, but save their vital organs for last so the insect can survive as long as possible. Gould explains that evolution and the animal kingdom has nothing to do with the moral and ethical code that is set in place by humans. He does not take away the fact that animals have the ability to learn, they just do not have a conscious like humans do. Humans and animals have different values and they are not interconnected. Animals cannot be placed on the same level as humans with cognitive skill and abilities.

When relating this theory to real life, I can relate it to an encounter i had recently in a cashier's line at Target. I was shopping with my mother and we were waiting in the line to check out when a small boy approximately 6-7 years old turned are and was covered in bandages on his face. He also had a patch on his eye. Being curious, my mother started a conversation with this little Boy trying to find out what had happened. We ended up finding out that it was due to a sever dog bit from their family pet. This "domestic" dog was a part of their family for many years. During those years, the family developed a false reality, deeming the dog safe, domesticated and harmless. Obviously this false reality became a true reality after the child was bitten. The child exclaimed that the dog was "bad and didn't listen". If the parents would have remembered that a dog is an animal and survives on instinct, then maybe they could have prevented this from happening. I believe this is what Gould is trying to say, no matter how much effort you put into an animal to teach it trick and to be "well behaved", it is essentially still and animal and strives on instinct.

Brave New World:
The Brave New World excerpts gave a brief introduction to the novel. The basic concept of this novel is that they are using technology to have control over their society. They create these mechanisms to control the overall stability of the world. They also control reproduction with technology. They do this by removing the ovaries and mass-producing humans in incubating bottles as needed. When the humans are being created, they have a Hierarchy in which they must follow. The Hierarchy starts with the Alpha, beta and deceases. The higher on the chain one is, the more creativity and individuality one can express. The lowest species on the chain is basically a machine in a human's body. They perform a process of elector shock, which conditions the babies to act in a certain way and do certain things. They call this conditioning. As adults, they are conditioned to act according to the benefit of the larger community and the higher powers.

Week 2

Bacon

When it comes to Bacon's four Idols, the first thing that popped into my mind was the movie 'Mean Girls'. I know this movie is about teenage popularity, however, I will make it relate to the 4 four Idols of Bacon.

Tribe:

When it come to the tribe aspect, Bacon describes the tribe as; people trying to make things fit into patterns, people looking for evidence to support their conclusions, people who don't like to think deeply, that people are affected by what they want to believe, that people have senses that can fool them--they see what they expect to see not whats actually in front of them.

Relating this to the movie, a school can also be seen as a tribe. People are all in one location ultimately doing the same thing, learning. They don't do this by choice, they are pressured to go to school by their elders. It is a learned concept, once you finish middle school, you move on to a greater place of education. This would be a part of making things fit into a pattern. Now when it comes to the students, there was a particular group in the movie called the "plastics". These girls would be seen as a higher power in a group or tribe. They didn't earn this so called 'power'; they got this power through other people thinking that they are the cool ones. Once they received the title of plastics, the student body placed them on a pedestal and convinced themselves that they were the ultimate description of what a girl is supposed to look and act. Their senses played tricks on them making them believe false thoughts, which no one ever challenges. It then creates a false reality the is generally accepted through out the tribe or school.

Cave:

The cave deals with individuality. Bacon said that; individuals favor ideas that support previous conclusions, and some individuals favor differences; others favor similarities, some individuals favor antiquity; others favor novelty.

In the movie, anything that the plastics do just solidifies their position in the tree of power. The student body supports basically anything and everything the girls do, not because it right or it's the ethical/moral thing to do, but because of their position in their tribe or school. However, as you see in the movie, there are several groups within their school. They have the preps, Asian nerds, band geeks, junior varsity jocks, and the "cool" kids among others. However, each group ultimately tries to imitate the plastics in some way or another. This is why all the groups are interrelated in many ways without knowing it, creating one unit.

Marketplace: Words that have a range of meanings.

A perfect example of the marketplace would be the scene when Cady (played by Lindsey Lohan) is new to the school and is asked but the plastics to sit at their designated lunch table, which is reserved for only them, unless they invite someone to sit with them. When she is having a conversation with the main character, Regina George (played by Rachel McAdams), Regina blurts out "Shut Up!" meaning in her terms Now Way! or Oh My Gosh!. However, in Cady's definition of "Shut Up!" mean be quite or stop talking. One of these meanings is positive and one is negative. However, if not exposed to a certain meaning, one might take is offensively, just as Cady did. This is a perfect example of Bacon's marketplace.

Theater: Understanding based on a system of philosophy, theology, or tradition.

Through out the movie people never question the popularity pf the plastics. This is so because a certain level of hierarchy must always be attained to have a working system. There always has to be someone better, until ultimate perfection is acquired. This can also be viewed as a tradition. In every school there is always one group that has greater popularity then others. In this movie, it happened to be the plastics.

Montaigne:

His essay was on the education of Children. His philosophy, as I understood it, stated it is better to teach a child the essentials that they need for survival then send them on a journey to find them and acquire knowledge through experiences and challenges. He was very opposed to just forcing information into a child's head expecting them to learn and understand everything. He is also an advocate of a physical journey along with the intellectual journey.

Montaigne's concept can be related to the "College experience". When one goes to college, they escape all of the rules set forth by their parents and become free. When they move away, they are independent to do whatever they choose. Through experiences, good and bad, they learn valuable lessons of life. The choices the students make will determine the direction of their future. Students also have a physical journey once they have reached College. Many students are potentially meeting their future mates and need or want to portray a certain image. By having a certain image of themselves in mind, they may choose to go to a fitness center, run or take aerobic classes to reach their goal image. This will also help them in determining their future.

Plato

He wrote the Allegory of the Cave. In this essay 2 main concepts were the analogy of the divided line and the metaphor of the sun. I would relate this theory to something in my life, however, I don't completely understand the concept that Plato is trying to explain.