Sensory Perception

I personally use “sight” the most. It is probably the most commonly used perceptive sense there is. I think that seeing something provides so much more proof then the other senses. Seeing seems to be a much more constant and structured sense, and is often viewed as the truth. Like the old saying “Seeing is believing”. One of the best examples of what I believe is the typical childhood hallucination. A small child wakes up in the middle of the night, feeling cold and sensing a presence in the room, (s)he lifts the covers of (her)his head and listens carefully to a rhythmic scrapping on his window. Sitting in fear for hours not moving, hoping that the beast outside (her)his window will not notice him, finally musters up enough courage to cautiously peek out of the protection of (her)his blanket, only to see that the beast was nothing more than a branch moving in the wind.

If I had to choose a sense to loose, I would go with anosmia over all other. I would choose loosing my sense of smell over others because to me it is the one that I could live without. All of my other senses I find great joy in having active. I can see things in life that inspire me, and make me strive to do great things. I hear music (one thing I could not live without). Music is one of my biggest inspirations, I love listening to lyrics and connecting them with my one life. I love to both cook and eat. I have been cooking since I was about 10, and have mastered a plethora of dishes, both complicated and simple, so for me taste was out. Then it comes down to touch or smell, and deciding between the two took quite a while. I used smell a lot, but it didn’t offer as much as touch. I think the big thing with touch is that it brings forward so many emotions. For instance say your sitting in class and someone comes up and jabs you with a pen, your immediate reaction is to get angry, whether you do something about it or not is up to you, but you do get pissed. Or maybe you are having one of the worst days of your life, you are just pooling in self-sorrow, when all of a sudden a good friend of your sits next to you and places (her)his hand on your shoulder. I know form experience that there is no emotion that takes you over more than this one. It is one of the best experiences someone can have to know there is somebody there with you. Just looking back and thinking about stuff that has happened to me, I came upon the conclusion that smell was the least significant to me at the moment.

Phantom Limbs

The “re,tok,Phantonality” that I am going to evaluate is Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome or PTSS. This condition often occurs in soldiers, but also can occur in car accident victims, someone who has seen or committed a murder or any person that has seen something that replays in their memory. What happens with PTSS is the person experiencing it is brought back to that thing in their life that scarred them. They are often completely unaware of the actual reality that is r around them and see that PTSS moment as reality. Usually in order for this to happen a person has to hear, see, smell, taste or touch something that reminds them of their scarring moment. By having this reminder it creates a link between that moment and the present. Sometimes this link or connection is so strong the person perceives it as truth and re-lives that moment.

If something lies outside our realm of perception, then how can we know it? Holocaust.

Although I never experienced the Holocaust and never saw anything in person, I do know for a fact that it happened. I think once an event has enough credible resources it is seen as truth. For the Holocaust these resources are things like videos, pictures, eye witnesses, actual victims and countless other recorded documents and government files. All of these thing theoretically could have been duplicated or hoaxed with some of the worlds most advanced technologies. However there are problems with this. The Holocaust happened before they had advanced image enhancing software. Also the Holocaust was on such a large scale and involved so many people that if it was fake there we be no way to stop someone from telling the truth. Due to these thing I know the holocaust was real, even though it is outside of my immediate realm of perception.

Propaganda-Why does nearly all propaganda take the form of art?

I think that mostly all propaganda takes the form of art because our visual senses stimulate the most empathetic feeling, or triggers something we can relate to. For example would you feel more compelled to send food to Africa if you heard some kid saying “I am so hungry”, or would be more likely to send food if you saw a child who was malnourished, and had a bloated belly and a fly on his eye ball?. I think we all know the answer to this question. Also art is a way for us to express our feelings visually. Art is a better medium for conveying a message.

Knowledge issue associated with North Korea

Are the things happening in North Korea really as they seem?

The views that most Americans see of North Korea are very limited. The North Korean government does not want to let the world know how their country is ran. When tours are taken by tourists from around they world, they are only shown the best of the best of North Korea. If the Americans or anyone never see the reality that occurs in North Korea, how do they know what it real, and what is government puppetry? The country has strict boarder control for a reason. They cannot have the truth leak out, or their veil of lies will be torn to pieces, and the face of their country will be diminished. More recently videos of “the real” North Korea have been smuggled out of the country and released to the world, but who is to say that this is “the truth”, maybe this man found the worst of the worst and recorded it on camera. He could b doing the same thing as the government only the exact opposite. So what are we supposed to view as “truth”, if we as Americans are not allowed to see it?

History

I would say that we are always being taught false history because the history we learn always has a point of view, and an opinion. Every event in history can be interpreted differently, and who is to say whether one is more right than the other? Is there really any way we can know the real truth?, the only way I can think of is if we had some kind of outside being watching Earth and observing without partiality.

Language

I would have to say that first of all in any form of language it would be near to impossible to convince someone who doesn’t know that the world is round, that in fact it is. Knowing this I would have to say that written language would be best because you could not only explain scientifically that it is spherical, but also you could draw diagrams, and pictures showing them further evidence adding to your support.

Art

One example of this is when people look at photos or or paintings and decide that they are not originals. This greatly diminishes the value of that painting or photograph. Another way that this could occur is if, from a distance someone sees a work of art and decides that they like it, but as they move in and examine each individual flaw they decide that they do not appreciate it as much. By constantly staring at a work of art it can also become boring, even if it really is a great work of art. I think this is how critics do there jobs. They cannot just glance at something and decide whether they like it or not. They take their time evaluating the work, and finding was aspects stand out to them, and which of them they do not enjoy.

Mathematics

I personally think that things like the golden ratio are man made. It probably came about with people in royal families. They probably wanted to find out what was so different about these people. royalty was typically though of as the golden standard. Everyone wanted to be like them, and they need a physical method to deciding who was worth while, and who was not. However there are also things in nature that are not man made. Things like pi, many things in nature are round or close to round. By dividing the circumference of a tree by its diameter you always get 3.1415926…

Ethics

My opinion is that ethical decisions can not be quantified, or if they can, they should not be. Some people say that the law is the quantification of ethical reasoning, but it’s not. To an extent “The Law” is based on ethics, depending on the region there are different consequences for certain actions. Usually though law is based on the universal ethical reasoning like “It’s wrong to kill people, steal belongings, rape others, destroy property without permission”. The subtle varieties in law among different areas is due to the varying cultural aspects. personal I believe ethics have a lot to do with your families traditions, and religion. One example of this is lying, it is not illegal to lie but some people choose not to do it because it contradicts their ethical beliefs.

Human Siences

I do not believe religion is a human science. I believe theology is a human science, but religion itself is not. When something can not really be defined, it can not really belong to any one category. Everyone has their own definition of what religion means to them. Theology has a definition, it is the study of the gods or religion. Also religion is not really a science at all. With science things have to be proven, there are always facts and reasoning, religion is based on faith. You have to believe it even though it cannot be proven.