heart disection

So, I know we discussed a lot of this in class, but i just feel like reiterating my view. Well, first off... I either go into a gory situation, like a movie or dissection, without any thought and feel fine or I walk in feeling wearing and queasy. It is always a crap shoot, and of course this time, in the case of the heart dissection, i was queasy... Because I was so, I just sat there for a period of time before I began butchering it. In that time, I really got to think... where did these hearts come from? How many did the school get and how many have we gone through? It just bothered me to be holding the heart of another animal. I literally had it in my grasp, dangling there... bloody and cold. I guess this was a realization for me... I know humanity is evolving, but this was the straw on my back. I was holding a once living organism's heart. Its heart... what you love with, what is easily broken but then again at the same time saved by love... What beats 80 times a minute for the entirety of your life... Granted it was a pig, but I still related it to a human. I gave the pig humanistic qualities, the ability to love, and of course to feel pain! Yes, the human race needs to feed, and evolve... but it really upsets me when large industries and business make a dollar over raising a living thing from birth. And that is not the bruit of it... these animals are kept in cells, not knowing what is it to see the sky, or run "wild" in a field (as lame as that sounds, but it is true). And here I am promoting this by sitting there in a room full of kids butchering the hell out of these heart for their own entertainment and inquiries. The kids across from my group were cutting their heart up into tiny pieces and making crude comments and jokes about it. The teacher running the lecture came over, took the heart away just to return with a new one... It was if she were handing the hearts out like gum. Anyone want a piece? Then my partner told me "you just have to not think about what you're doing, and do it." True, and as I put my moral values aside, I just began cutting what was once a living organism, now just an inanimate object. I can butcher things when I don't think about it or care... but that initially meant I had to lock up my feelings. It was ridiculous I thought. Then it got me thinking... what if everyone was shut up, and mechanically put to work? I don't know. Overall, I am just so used to "dissecting" things in lab, but this dissection was different for me. Now, I am not turning into some activist that is going on strike or something, I am not even a vegetarian... but I did have a vegetarian wrap today! Just the experience changed my view, but in all honesty... nothing will change, but the guilt that I felt. Overall, I guess one does what you have to in life.

Class discussion

This is what we were saying in class...

• How do you know that what your senses are telling you are reality? Senses give an accurate picture of reality. It is not true for everyone- ex. Skitso. You can not assume that everyone is relying on their senses to give them a clear reality.
• We can be self aware of what our senses tell us, but you can defy your senses. ex- mirage.
• How we interpret masses of sense data? Example, the masses that believed the world was flat.
• Proof of existence, can't judge the world is real, but look back on own thoughts and judge whether they are real
• If you cant escape it, it is a reality...?
• Sense are an individual thing. Only you can sense and feel it, and believe it to be true.
• your rational mind is telling you what you see with your senses could not possibly be real. Your senses tell you things in which your mind says no, that can't be real.

Discussion Questions in depth

How does Descartes argue for his own existence?
Descartes realizes that he is a being that thinks, doubts, desires and questions countless things. However, the notion that Descartes has of a Supreme Being, or God, is the clearest and most distinct when compared to his other philosophies. Descartes realizes that since he is a being that thinks, there must be a supreme being more perfect than him to help him realize his imperfections. For instance, how could he know what his shortcomings are supposed to be, without a perfect more supreme being to compare himself to…? Also, how can he exist without a more supreme being to create him…? These ideas led to the conclusion that a God does in fact exist. Yes, at times Descartes ponders his very own existence, however, he realizes that he is a being that thinks, stating, “I think, therefore I am, I am, therefore I exist”. He concludes that because he doubts, realizes his imperfections, and is an objective thinker, that he is a finite being. This leads to his confrontation on the existence of a God. Descartes states and believes that something cannot develop and evolve from nothing. He associates this with ideas.
What is his theory of knowledge, and what makes it different from a belief?
Descartes was a rationalist. He said that he believed, and that he had to doubt everything known to him to really understand knowledge… When Descartes started his thoughts, during the rise of science, he decided to set up a new system of knowledge to replace the knowledge of the church. (Kind of like Galileo, with the religion vs. science) This is where Descartes introduced his 'Method of Doubt'. In his method, he couldn't question every single object, so he concentrated on three main things:
1. The Senses (can be deceiving, you think you see something when it's not there, ex. Optical Illusions)
2. Physical Bodies
3. Math’s and The Sciences

What are two most important questions philosophies have to demonstrate? What are the two kinds of beliefs in which Descartes distinguishes? What does Descartes say about his proofs?

Mathematics of Descartes

Woops, disregard the post below... okay so in part 3 there is a list of things in which Descartes gives his reader. The first time I came across it was in the first paragraph. It states "I formed a provisional moral code for myself consisting in only three or four maxims..."

• Number 1.... to obey the laws and customs of my country, and to adhear to the religion in which God by His grace had me instructed from my childhood.
• Number 2.... to be as firm and resolute in my actions as I could, and to follow no less constantly the most doubtful opinions, once I had adopted for them, than i would have if they had been the most certain ones.
• Number 3.... to endeavour always to master myself rather than fortune, to try and change my desires rather than to change the order of the world, and in general to settle for the belief that there is nothing entirely in our power except our thoughts and after we have tried, in respect of things external to us, to do our best, everything in which we we do not succeed is absolutely impossible as far as we are concerned.
• Number 4.... I decided to review the carious occupations that men have in his life, in order to try to select the best one.

Descartes being inspirational...

Page 11....

• I could discover much more truth from the reasoning that we all make about things that affect us and that will soon cause us harm if we misjudge them, than from the speculations in which a scholar engages in the privacy of his study, that have no consequence for him except insofar as the further they are from common sense, the more he will be proud of them, because he has had to use so much more ingenuity and subtlety in the struggle to make them plausible.
• ... to look into myself and to use all of my mental powers to choose the paths I should follow.

This blog is short, yes, but I was just sharing the quotes I really have come to love in the text.... which in this blog seem to be just on page 11.

Good quote, may discussion worthy in class

The quote that really stopped me in my tracks and made me read over it a few times, because it is so true, and somewhat powerful... is on page 9, first full paragraph. It says...

• Those who reason most powerfully and are the most successful at ordering their thoughts so as to make them clear and intelligible will always be best able to persuade others of what they say, even if they speak in the thickest of dialects and have never learned any rhetoric. and those whose linguistic expression is the most pleasing and who frame their thoughts in the most eloquent and agreeable way would always end up being the best poets, even if they did not know a single rule of poetic composition.

So yea, I thought this quote was very powerful... it discussion persuasion, and understanding your thoughts... kind of going along with a blog i posted early about... if you believe you are right there is no one else to disprove you're wrong. okayy!

Descartes' Views on the topic of the Philosophy of Mind

It is as though Descartes has indeed made some notable contributions towards the philosophy of the mind throughout his "time". Descartes came off as being an avid dualist- This is the view that the mind and body are understood to be separate and distinct from each other, but in some way "causally" connected. I found Descartes was no exception, and he believed that the mind and body are two completely different substances. I think (hopefully i got this right, i tend to get their views wrong) he defines the body as an extended, non-thinking substance and the mind as a non-extended, thinking substance... It is not just these definitions that allow Descartes to adopt a dualistic point of view- Descartes came to the conclusion of his discourse of method that any data received from the senses could be doubted and therefore unreliable. Yea, my thoughts... aha okayy!

Discussion Questions

1. How does Descartes argue for his own existence?
2. What is his theory of knowledge, and what makes it different from a belief?
3. What are two most important questions philosophies have to demonstrate? What are the two kinds of beliefs in which Descartes distinguishes? What does Descartes say about his proofs?

These are a few notes that I have gathered from the reading...

• Descartes lived and worked in a period that had one way of thinking, and one worldview.
• Descartes deduces that truth can only be attained by the mind, as it is the only reasoning organ man possesses. He therefore proceeds to abandon any and all sensory knowledge on the grounds that our senses often deceive us.
• Descartes realizes though that, whatever else this powerful being might deceive him about, it could not deceive him into thinking he existed if he didn't. This is his first certainty - which he is thinking, therefore he exists.
• Branching off of the bullet above... I've come to realize that there can be several problems in Descartes reasoning's. First off, it is not possible to doubt everything... For instance, take Descartes claim that the senses have sometimes deceived him. How does he know they have? It seems as though, Descartes judges on the basis of other sensory experience which he takes to be accurate.... (okay, just storming)
• Descartes seems to employ the method of doubt in his search for certainty. He rejects any belief that can possibly be doubted... until he finds a belief that cannot possibly be doubted.
• My thoughts on the blog above.... To examine every single belief would be an impossible task, so it seems that Descartes instead of doing so, tries to doubt the basis for whole groups of beliefs. First he doubts the senses. (Which Galileo called, God given). Since the senses have at times deceived him in the past, the question is, how can he be so sure that they will not deceive him now? Finally, he considers the possible existence of a powerful being whose sole aim is to deceive him about everything, even the basic 'truths' of mathematics... (which will be an upcoming blog).

Branching off of more descartes....

From the certainty of Descartes expanding knowledge, it seems as though he admits to the existence of God and the reality of the physical world- which he held to be "mechanistic" and entirely "divorced" from the mind. The only connection I can see between the two is the intervention of God. Descartes, it seems, evaluates and discerns what is actually true when he divides the foundations of knowledge into three sources: the senses, reality, and context.

More Descartes

Rene Descartes, believed that the origin of knowledge comes from within the mind, a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. His Discourse on Method contains some of his most important philosophical theories. Especially mathematical, in which he found his passion lied. He intended to extend the mathematical method to all areas of human knowledge. He seemed to discarded the authoritarian and aristotelian systems of the scholastic philosophers, which was, according to the Aristotelian tradition, the mind proper—what is exclusively "inside the head." This is limited to reason and understanding. Senses, imagination, will, etc. make reference to things outside the mind. (not purely mental). Rather, they link the believer and thinker to the "outside" world. Thus, sensory experience gives us direct and immediate knowledge of objects in the world. Okay, carying on... Descaertes discarded that and began with universal doubt. Only one thing cannot be doubted: doubt itself. Therefore, the doubter must exist. Man is thus a thinking thing which you know evolved from the Descartes slogan "Cogito Ergo Sum" ---> I am, therefore I exist" You can doubt everything you want, but you cannot doubt doubting because you are thinking. Thus thinking exists! You exist!

In the method, the text is broken up into 6 parts. In the first, will be found various considerations touching the Sciences; in the second, the principal rules of the Method which the Author has discovered, in the third, certain of the rules of Morals which he has deduced from this Method; in the fourth, the reasonings by which he establishes the existence of God and of the Human Soul, which are the foundations of his Metaphysic; in the fifth, the order of the Physical questions which he has investigated, and, in particular, the explication of the motion of the heart and of some other difficulties pertaining to Medicine, as also the difference between the soul of man and that of the brutes; and, in the last, what the Author believes to be required in order to greater advancement in the investigation of Nature than has yet been made, with the reasons that have induced him to write. AKA- the heart... which we are disecting on tuesday!! so pumped.. aha no pun intended.

thoughts on descartes

Rene Descartes' overall objective in the "Discourse of Method" is to develop a new system of knowledge that is free of prejudices for establishing the truth of things. Most of Descartes "things" worth discussing are in Part 4 of the book. In part 4, he explains the philosophical basing (the meditations) for establishing the new system. These "meditations" are based on rationalism: that if someone truly knows something then they could not possibly be mistaken. (Which, I agree with, because those are your thoughts) He then goes on to provide a solid argument for his ideas. He comes to term with three certainties in meditation- the existence of the mind is/as the thing that thinks, the body is/as an extension, and God is/as the supreme being. (Which reminds me at this point of Galileo, because he mentioned God and the supreme being). He came to these conclusions by doubling all he learned in his formal education, and all he received through the senses..... Again with the senses thing, much like Galileo.