midterm

Midterm
4. Monique Paramo
5. user name – moniqueparamo
6. email – moniqueparamo@gmail.com
7. http://moniqueparamo.blogspot.com/
8. Yes
9. Yes, with the exception of expert lecture 1 for week 2. The video wasn’t available.
10.
11. Lisa Randall believes that there may be many more dimensions than we presently know in current physics because we have to take into account the way gravity factors into everything. Gravity can change the dimensions. She uses an example of a bathroom and a shower with a shower curtain. She adds that the room is 3 dimensional and asks us to take into account the water drops that may be on the shower curtain. Those drops are there because of gravity and asks us how gravity affects these. She also addresses the laws of physics in space and whether things can change in space time.
12. Pythagoras believed in reincarnation and that one would continue to reincarnate until the person became immortal. He believed philosophy and religion were connected.
13. I tend to agree that religion and philosophy are compatible with one another. Adams from UCLA states that “Science is a human activity which proceeds on certain principles, has certain institutions, and serves certain functions of human life. It has produced a large body of beliefs which are widely held among our society.” And in a nutshell, religion attempts at doing these same things. These principles can be the Ten Commandments in Christianity or the way to live in “the Tao.” Religion is founded on certain principles which are supposed to serve as functions to human life.
Paul Churchland from UCSD states that religion started as a way to “give a cosmological theory of the origins of the universe and the human race's place in it and the significance we have.” He continues by adding that religion does “engage in moral questions; to find basic principles on which answers can be given to new moral problems.” Religion is philosophical and can doe some of the same things that philosophy does.
14. Socrates was put on trial because he was accused of corrupting the youth. He defended his position by disrespecting the officials during his trial and in doing so, came off arrogant by suggesting that he shouldn’t receive a punishment. This led to his death by drinking the hemlock even though he had several opportunities to escape his death.
15. In order to fully understand philosophy and its history, one must first understand what philosophy is. According to www.dictionary.com, philosophy is the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct. It is also divided in “three branches, namely natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy that are accepted as composing this study. Wikipedia also categorizes philosophy into 4 major parts—western philosophy, eastern philosophy, Abrahamic philosophy, and African philosophy, with each having a number of different components.
Western philosophy is divided into 4 different parts and runs from the fall of the Roman Empire and runs to present day. Some of the prominent philosophers in this group include: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Medieval philosophy was mainly concerned with Christianity and the application of Aristotle’s logic into everyday life. One focal point in Medieval philosophy wasn’t to convert people to Christianity, but to make philosophy acceptable in a Christian context by proving the existence of God through logic.
Eastern philosophy refers to various philosophies of the “east” and asian countries like China, India, Japan, and Persia. Eastern philosophy is then broken up into subcategories like Confucian philosophy, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
Abrahamic philosophy consists of a more religious philosophy that dates back to Abraham from biblical scriptures. And because there are various religions that deal with the Old and New Testaments, the Hebrew Bible, and the Qu’ran, there are subcategories of Abrahamic philosophy like Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosophy.
Lastly, African philosophy addresses and focuses on such themes as African perceptions of time and personhood.
16. The Big Bang and the inflationary universe is a belief of the creation of the universe. The inflationary universe began taking shape immediately after the big bang and caused the universe to expand. These two theories go hand in hand because they help explain why the universe or why the world appears “flat.” It is important to know astronomy when dealing with philosophy because it requires us to ask “why?”
17. Heisenberg’s views on philosophy differ from Einstein’s because Einstein believed that reality existed even if its physicality could not be seen. He believes reality was independent of what can actually be seen. They are similar in that their approach comes from the same idea and are centered around reality.
18. Meme theory is the idea that ideas are like genes in that they battle for natural selection and survival. It is similar to Darwin’s theory of evolution in that certain genes (but in meme theory, these genes are ideas) are passed down. I think meme theory is definitely plausible. I agree with the existence of meme theory because in looking back at all of the technological advancements we have witnessed, meme theory certainly can be applied to all of them. I mean, just look at the different modes of media. We went from beta, to vhs, to dvd, to hd dvd, to blu-ray, and now 3-d. These new advancements and inventions are based on fundamental ideas and have adapted to survive in a technological age.
19. Understanding biological evolution is important in understanding human thought and behavior because according to the theory of evolution, we are where we are because we have adapted. Dawkin’s would state that we have taken ideas and adapted some of those ideas to create new ones. Darwin would say that the animals that are still alive today have accomplished the same thing—genetically.
20. A video classified fundamentalism as a mental disease because there is so much evidence—irrefutable evidence that supports the theory of evolution. The narrator adds that it can be a mental disease because a lot of times people are not even open to the idea to where one won’t even discuss the opposing view.
21. Wilson and Gingerich both deal with the debate of science and religion. They “part ways” however in that Wilson focuses more on religion and creation and how people are at the root of the decay in our environment like climate change, endangered species, etc. Gingerich focuses on the value of religion and how religion can be a helpful tool in the maintenance of the environment. Although both made strong points about religion, I liked that Wilson addressed some of the dangers to our environment and how he hopes that thinking “green” isn’t just a fad.
22. Fukuyama’s idea of the “end of history” deals with the advancement in science and how it has affected history. His idea of the end of history is when we will live in an age where science will have given us all of the answers and information about the universe and its history. I don’t think there will ever be an “end to history” because the universe is so vast and there are still so many things unknown even just here on earth that the end of history just seems infinitely far away.
23. Cusa states that the more he knows “he is unknowing, the more learned he will be.” What Cusa means by this is that once someone is able to acknowledge that he or she doesn’t know something, this acknowledgment will open them up to ask questions and be open and willing to learn.
24. Nietzsche believes that we have “killed” God. What he means by that is that God is absent in a lot of what we have done, whether it be some inhumane acts, atrocities, discoveries, etc. He is stating that God’s “presence” has less of a role in our society and God and religion has taken a back seat to things like materialism and science.
25. The movie “Little Things That Jiggle” helps to explain why physics is an important study in philosophy by showing that philosophy can expand on the study of physics by asking “why?” Without science, or physics, we may never have found things out about different dimensions, sociobiological factors, etc. and all of these things help us get more insightful and want to learn more about the unknown.
26. I would explain the line “To have freedom of religion, one must also have freedom from religion” by referring back to Nicholas of Cusa’s philosophy of unknowingness and fundamentalism being “a mental disease.” According to Cusa, in order to learn more about religion, you would have to be open to what you don’t know. Taking the unknown from other religions will and can provide someone with the freedom to examine other religions and choose their religion instead of being raised into a specific religion. This cannot be possible unless one is open to talk about things other than their own beliefs and being open to those opinions without being ignorant to them.
27. Dawkins believes that believing in God is delusional because there is so much evidence in evolution and no scientific evidence that supports God’s existence.
28. Yes, I believe that science can offer and does offer a sense of mystery comparable to what certain religions offer because there are still questions about God and there are still so many unknown things in all facets of science and depending on how passionate someone is about science, this sense of mystery can be the same to that of religion.
29. According to Stephen Wolfram, an understanding of cellular automata suggests a “new kind of science” it gives us a new way of looking at how to explain nature’s behavior than the scientific approach. He explains that computers and the study of certain algorithms can help explain certain patterns in nature.
30. Darwin’s rejection of Christianity was a major turning point in his life. Without rejecting Christianity, I don’t think he would have been able to theorize about evolution.
31. Spooky physics is made up of debate of reality and quantum physics between Einstein and Bohr. I think Einstein got the better of Bohr in the debates. I liked Einstein’s stance because he believed that through observations and past experiences, certain events in nature can be determined. And after all, isn’t that what science is all about?
32. Evolutionary philosophy is the study of the mind with evolution and that the mind was created by natural selection.