reasoning

Reasoning is the way we put together fact and events in our brain and make them work together as a logical whole. Logical is a very important part of this definition. Why? We will get to this.

First of all, there are this important terms that we must know and remember. Induction and 

Deduction. They sound almost the same to me but as I now know, they aren't. Induction is assuming some fact basing on the greater group to which these fact apply. For example: 98% of children likes sweets therefore the kid I just met will probably enjoy chocolate he is about to buy. Deduction is in my opinion a little bit like a mathematic equation. If A equals B and B equals C then A equals C as well.  Obviously, the results of our inductive and deductive reasoning will not be right because exceptions are almost always existing. The statement - every dog I know has a tail so your dog also have a tail- can be incorrect. This particular dog could be a victim of an accident and in result he has no tail. Deduction and induction may lead to prejudice as we approach new problems with experience from the past. "Every blue eyed person I met was a murderer so she must be as well!"

It all starts to be confusing as we dive into it. But here is why I said LOGIC is important. We can't just blindly connect the dots and believe that the picture is correct. We must follow the numbers next to these dots and that way we will end up with a nicely drawn picture. Also it is important not to connect dots with squares because it will create nonsense and false ideas. "Potato has skin, I have skin, therefore I am a potato.". It makes no sense because we connected squares with dots. Speaking more clearly; we connected facts that have nothing to do with each other and we got an answer which is complete absurd. 

emotions emotions emotions

08/02/2016

How to use emotions? 

Fear and disgust are both are responsible for keeping us away from my potential danger. For example; while you walking through the woods after sunset and you hear some suspicious noise, your heart starts to beat faster, you might feel cold, your muscles get tense and you became more alert. That is called fear. Your adrenal glands produce adrenaline which is responsible for fight-or-flight response. In moment of fear you can either run away or fight and both of these solutions are more likely to keep you safe than just walking through these woods without any concern about possible danger. The same goes for disgust. When you pick up your favorite dish and you see some white or green fur you won't eat it. Your brain knows that this "fur" is mould and there is possibility that after consuming that used-to-be delicious slice of pizza you can end up dead. Or at least at the hospital bed. 

Disgust prevents human from taking harmful actions but the problem is that disgust and fear are the easiest emotions to manipulate. You learn them through the association and that feature has been used repeatedly in history. During WWII German Nazi decided that the best way for spreading hatred towards Jews is to start from the youngest age. It resulted in crating anti-Semitic children book when they described how and why Jews are disgusting. Of course, the word "disgusting" was never used. It was the smart move because people were not aware of the fact that the emotions they felt were created by other people and not because of biological factors.

What is interesting, disgust is not only manipulated through vivid descriptions or  nasty images where you are shown and presented clearly what is your threat. Some researches were carried out and the proven that liberal people are harder to disgust than conservative. That explains why sometimes the political views are extreme. If used in correct way during voting, our senses would manipulate the voters o choose certain political party. Thankfully it is illegal, because I can't imagine the world where my own immune system and natural instincts that are meant to keep me safe, would be used to manipulate my thoughts. Or maybe they already are and I just can't see it? 

Lesson no9

11/01/2016

We can name 6 basic emotion:

·         Joy (or happiness)

·         Sadness

·         Anger

·         Disgust

·         Fear

·         Surprise

It’s kind of weird to me that only one emotion is on a positive side. But I could understand people disagreeing with me. I mean, some of us like to fear something so they watch horror movies or maybe another person would like to be angry. I don’t judge but basically it is commonly stated that only feeling joy make us feel positive. Anyway, that wasn’t the point of the lesson. We watched short Disney move about emotions and how Hitler used fear, sadness and anger to manipulate others. And about how we should use reason and emotion at the same time. I think that even though some people say it is impossible to say “emotions over reason” or “reason over emotions” If I had to stick with only one to the rest of my life I would probably chose reason. I never came across any mention in a pop culture of a case where protagonist lived without reason so I think I’m not the only one who is on “team reason”.

Lesson no8

Another post without a date.

We talked about how the language we are using affects our thoughts. For example Japanese women answered differently on similar questions if they were asked in English than when asked in their mother tongue. Also when reading article I got to know that apparently women speak differently than men. Were told to express our thoughts in more childish and unprofessional way but I don't really agree with it. I also had a hard time thinking about the example when while making a presentation or speaking in class my female friends were more childish than male ones. Anyway. maybe it depend on the continent but I also can't really believe in that. 

Lennson no7

So since it has been a long time without even visiting this blog ( I have no idea why I did not post anything) I can't really remember what day was it but on Lesson no.7 we talked about well...talking? Speaking? Expressing your thoughts verbally? What exactly is talking? And what are the words. After reading the text about Traxoline I had a lot of questions. I was able to read the whole text and answer basic questions as for example "What is Traxoline?" but the whole text was made by mainly non existing words. I could answer those questions because my brain followed pattern and somehow knew which words were nouns, verbs etc. Interesting. Then we discussed the idea of freedom in "1984" by George Orwell where in the world presented certain expressions were banned or had different meaning than in our world (free meant not freedom but being free from insects).

Lesson no6

9/11/2015

Last time was the continuation of previous movie assignments. I had my presentation about the movie "Truman Show". The comedy was amazing I loved how it had a deeper meaning rather than just being another pointless comedy. I also was glad that I wasn't the only one who choose that movie. Even though we seen the same movie we understood some parts differently. It was fascinating how the same thing as simple as a movie could be experienced in different way. We seen the same exact thing yet our brain processed it in its own unique way. 

"Truman Show" made me over think and question a lot of things. Sometimes I feel like everything is going exactly as I wanted and after seeing the movie I had a moment when if someone came up to me and said "your life is a TV show" I would easily believed in it. Thankfully as time flew by my emotions caused by the movie cooled down.

Lesson no5

26/10/15

On these two hours of ToK classes we had presentations from our movie assignments. Only three movies were presented due to the lack of time but they were interesting. I enjoyed the most presentation about the movie "Memento" directed by Christopher Nolan. It is about man who lost short term memory, do not remember things that happened recently and he is trying to find the killer of his wife. The trailer looks good so I probably will watch that movie if I find some free time.