Evidence vs Certainty

" A scientist knows that evidence will change

her mind, but a fundamentalist (religion)

or pseudo-scientist (conspiracist)

knows that nothing will

change his mind"

I agree with this quotation because a scientist who is all about facts and supporting ideas will believe the evidence he/she is presented if it is scientifically correct. However, a religious fundamentalist believes in his/her religion without doubt. No matter what kind of evidence is presented to a fundamentalist, which is directed against their religion, they will dismiss because there is nothing that can make them look the other way or think that there might be more than what they re reading. It is much easier for a scientist to accept a human error from scientific inaccuracy than a fundamentalist to accept that God made a mistake. Science is based on fact and evidence and we can see this through the processes of scientific research. Every scientist will try different methods to reach his/her goal and provide evidence for others to see that it is right or wrong. However for a fundamentalist, there is no reason for them to try and show that their religion has flaws because they believe that it is a 100% right and no matter what others say they will stick with their belief. Logic and evidence together are enough to convince a scientist but not enough to convince a fundamentalist that his/her religion is wrong.

The importance of the emotions

Can we live without emotions, without feeling? The article talks about emotion and reason. It starts out with stating that reason is cool, active, and deliberative while emotions overwhelm us and are impulsive and hot. There is an example about how we are overwhelmed by our emotions: when we have an anger fit and we realize afterwards and say things like, " I don't know what came over me", and relating to the previous article I read this is also when our rational mind awakens. Point being that we do things under the influence of or emotions but we come to realize that we were wrong when our rational mind starts to reason.

Two elements in the traditional view that are mentioned are Emotion contra Knowledge and Emotion and the Good Life. In Emotion and the Good Life it mentions the violent and destructive nature of our emotions but for many thinkers the key element of living a good life is the achievement of rational control over the emotions. An example for this is the movie Equilibrium. In the movie, everyone has to take a shot of their "medicine" which prevents them from feeling, so that no one has to feel any of their emotions and anyone who does not take their shots are killed on sight. The resistance however do not want to lose their emotions and will do anything to defend themselves. The leader of the people, called "Father", thinks that if we remove emotion there will not be any wars between people, everyone would be the same. Now this relates to how the Emotion and the Good Life reminds us of the violent nature of our emotions. However, the leader of the resistance can blend in with any of the other people because he has learned to suppress and control his emotions which in Emotion and the Good Life is the key element for living a good life.

I completely agree with what Emotions and the Good Life states. Even if our emotions are the cause of fights and wars they also let us feel happiness, peace, and all of the other things. If we could control our emotions, use our emotions instead of letting our emotions control us, things might be better in the world.

Hallmarks of the emotional mind

I read about the differences between the rational and emotional mind, and I think that these two are the basis of how we think. In the article it explains how the emotional mind reacts to the things that happen to us a lot faster than the rational mind. The emotional mind triggers emotions immediately that makes us do different things depending on what is happening. In the article it talks about how the emotional mind evolved as we, humans, did. However, the rational mind unlike the emotional takes time to think the problem through and come up with a rational path for us to take instead of just relying on our emotions.

The emotional mind reacts very quickly but the problem is that it might lead us to do things that the rational mind wouldn't. When I was younger, any kind of punishment my parents gave me I used to get really angry, yell, and throw stuff but it wasn't until I got to my room and sat down that I thought about what I had done and how that was not the best way to handle it. Point being that sometimes we can be totally unaware of what we do under the influence of the emotional mind until the rational mind awakens. A great advantage of the emotional mind is that it allows us to recognize other peoples emotional state. For example, we know when someone is sad or depressed allowing us to act according to their emotions, meaning that we wouldn't make fun of them or do something that might make them feel a lot worse than they already are, but surely this depends entirely on the person.

Relating to earlier topics from class, there are certain things such as drugs that could affect how our emotional mind acts in other words our perception. Under the influence of a drug we might not be able to recognize other people emotional state which make us act in a negative way, meaning that our emotional mind cannot recognize others emotions. We might say things we didn't mean or say things that we normally wouldn't say if we were normal. A good is example is Kanye West at last years grammy awards when he took the microphone from singer Taylor Swift and pretty much told the whole world she didn't deserve the award. Before the Awards started he was drinking on the red carpet and during the awards which could've have cause him to do that but what caused him to do that could also be his emotional mind because as I said before the article says that the emotional mind acts a lot faster than the rational causing people to think irrationally.

I think that the emotional mind and the rational mind could share an equal amount of importance in a sense that we can live only on one of these two. We need the emotional mind to act to some things faster but we need the rational mind as well to make decisions that have been thought about and not based solely on emotions. The emotional mind might play a greater role than the rational but that depends entirely on the persons idiosyncrasy.

Emotion

Love and hate are the only emotions i can add to the six listed in the question, but in a way love and hate can be combinations of the six. i think that trust could also be an emotion because when you truly trust someone you feel something so that could mean it is an emotion. all the other emotions can be the combinations of these six but not all the time. Some emotions can be the opposite of these emotions such as happiness and unhappiness. not all people would agree with the fact that every other emotion is the combination of these " primary emotions" because different people feel emotions differently. For example, some people can say how they feel when they're in love and others cant. i agree that these are the primary emotions but up to a certain extent. sure other emotions could be combinations of these primary emotions but they also might not be. they could be close to a combination of the primary emotions but not an exact combination, point being that everyone feels according to how they've been raised or the type of people they grew up with, so they might have different combinations of these primary emotions or none at all.

Language has rules but we break them all the time

Every language has its own rules that form the basis for that language, but we break them all the time. I find it interesting that the rules for a language arent broken a lot of the time when we are writing formal essays or letters at school. Rules are broken when freedom is allowed and we have the most freedom when we're speaking. language has been constantly changing as generations go on. Shakespeare broke the rules of the english language and many years later the rules of language were broken through slang. Now, we break rules almost every time we talk to each other and this can be linked to our previous blog about how language creates ideas. when language creates ideas, some of the ideas created might need to break the rules of the language. i think that everyone who is able to speak, breaks the rule of the language they are speaking almost every time and even though there are rules for that language, we break them as we create new ideas that evolve the language.

Language does not just say ideas, it creates ideas

Language isn't merely a mean of communication, its a method of communication that evolves as it creates ideas for its users. as we grow to understand language clearly we increase our creativity therefore enabling us to create new ideas. we use language to express and explain our ideas to others that do not understand them but i think as you learn a language you understand more enabling your mind to be creative. creativity according to wikipedia is defined as a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. so, language doesn't only give us the ability to say ideas but by understanding it we are able to create new ideas as well.

Gestalts and The Rorshach test

throughout our lives our brains have been taught and trained to recognize certain things and every year our understanding of these things grows. however, there are many things in this world we are unfamiliar with, things we dont know or understand, and thats where the brain comes in. or brain, most of the time, will try to make sense of things we dont understand or percieve wrong. A gestalt, which is a german word for form or shape, is a pattern which enables us to make sense out of some complexity. a gestalt could be a bunch of randome patterns that dont make any sense but our brain looks for specific patterns and enables us to find a shape that we can recognize.

the rorschach test is an ink blot test, which is usually used to test a persons mental state. ink is spilled on paper and then folded in half, which makes a symetrical shape on both sides of the paper. the person taking the test will then try to make sense of the ink on the paper, and depending on thier result psycologists were able to see thier mental state. this is an example of how our brain uses prior knowledge to make sense of random patterns. if throughout your life you have been exposed to violence and sadness, it is likely that your brain will try to find some of that violence or aggressiveness in the ink spread on the paper, but if you were brought up under different circumstances your brain will make out a different pattern that you can recognize.