Sunday, March 23, 2014


Perhaps the biggest lie in the world is the lie of living in the present. The human brain is understood the receive the "present", process it and then instruct and output based on the input. The time it takes for the brain to process such information always makes the human mind process information in the past because what is seen is always in the past. Such is the case with what we see, the light from the sunlight takes about eight seconds to reach earth and this light then get reflected of surfaces which then get perceived by out eyes which then has to travel to the brain and then get processed and then the give the best sense of perception in terms of context. Since this isn't a biology less about how we see and how our brain process information, lets think about the connection to Theory Of Knowledge.

The thought of living in the past in present is defiantly evident in our thought process. Much of our decisions if not most of them are based on past experiences, pre-made conceptions, steadfast beliefs and past understandings. Therefore most of our present decision are based on our past and who we are essentially as a person. And if so then much of the future and who you will become as a person will also depend on your past and the the principles and morals that you held on to as a child. The idea is an interesting one and something worth pondering.


The decisions we make in the present our based on the past; with that idea in mind perhaps it is easier to understand why the people casually let it be and walked away. They didn't have a connection or a feeling of necessity to intervene or they didn't feel comfortable arguing about it but on the other hand some people hold on to unweary morals that when they see someone in trouble they oblige themselves to help. As seen in the video many of then just walked passed, understanding this was filmed in the united states, people don't generally have that connection or link to the islamic ideals but others regardless defend victims due to self obligation. Much of the present lies in the roots of the past and therefore the past is a foundation for what makes the present. There cannot for that reason be a present without a past and a future without past. Thats why just forgetting the past makes us incapable of living in the present. But sometimes remembering to much can also have a negative impact interns of feelings and emotions that can cause negative effects on that body.

A lot of the problems faced to man especially moral dilemmas are approached from past experiences or external influences. An interesting example is when there is a fight, the social trend is to pull out you phones gather around and film it and therefore when there is another fight you just choose to follow the social trend and choose to do nothing about it like everyone else. However some people can leave things as it is and take action and what kind of person you are depends on the what external influences that you been through. Essentially what man tends to do is move forward in live with the backward trend which leaves no room for irrational trust. Every person you trust has build a foundation of experience in your life. Even banks when lending loans have a look at if you can pay that loan back. 

In conclusion there is no present without past and no present by itself cause your present is past.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Beauty as described by google is a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially that of the sight. So then the question arises "To what extent is the beauty in the eye of the beholder?" or "Does beauty simply reside in the object itself?". Perhaps the best way to address this is to watch what dove has to say on beauty, cause we aren't talking about beauty if dove isn't included.


The quote in its most modern form is written by Margeret Wolfe Hungerford, in the book Molly Bawn in 1878, talking in literal sense that perception of beauty is subjective. We think of ourselves as less beautiful, less good looking and generally less attractive which might not always be that true. It is because we are talking about ourselves that we become more subjective of our beauty and tend to be more hard on ourselves which conceals the batty of the person. Another person defenatly has another more subjective perception for your beauty which brings about the idea that beauty doesn't reside in the object but perhaps in the viewer. Every single persons opinion on what is beautiful is varying factor. Different people obviously think that different things are beautiful therefore making beauty an indefinite subjective matter. Beauty is an interaction between an object and a person and it is the subjective part that truly gives beauty colour and brings about light. Dove sheds light on the subjectivity of beauty and how our own beauty varies from us to someone else's decryption of your beauty and it is really significant in order to show that beauty is truly a subjective matter. Therefore what beauty essentially is, is subjective perception.

The most common example of subjective beauty is witnessed in art where the beauty of the art piece is not necessarily admired and adored by everyone and perhaps sometimes even criticised and perhaps hated given extremes. The the idea of subjective beauty truly comes alight with artworks. To give examples below are two pictures that are famous art pieces by famous people.




This is one of the most famous abstract painting that really brings about the idea of beauty. The picture displays the idea of beauty through abstract and the mixture of the different colours truly brings out the different emotions to play. However this is aspect of beauty is only truly appreciated when the person is fully visually able to see the different aspects of the picture. A colour blind person for instance or a visually impaired, or another person on the whole might not necessarily get that same implication of the art work. The beauty of the art to some people is lost and the beauty of the art price is not passed on and not always appreciated by the viewer who is the beholder. Therefore in such a case the beauty of an object generally resided in the eye of the beholder.



This beautiful art piece made by Damien Hirst  that was recently displayed in Qatar, has stirred up a lot of controversy and a lot of people having subjective thoughts against the beauty of the art work. The art work that has jewels on a skull which really marvels the beauty of the skull and amplifies the beauty of the human face at the core.A lot of religious people and some others found this offensive and has indeed caused much controversy for the same art object. So if some people really appreciate the art object and some people find it offensive and hate against it, the beauty of the art cannont be in the art piece it self but will definitely reside in the observer.

However beauty is not always subjective, sometimes have a general objective aesthetic value. For instance there was a research conducted from different cultures and what the researchers found that people with a faces of certain proportion where more liked generally by people. This research concludes that people with certain face proportions are more generally liked and therefore in this case the beauty tends to be more objective, in the person itself. Another case of objective beauty is seen in the Fibonacci sequence which is the patter for a lot of the flowers, trees and many more works of nature. The beauty of the sequence works out to have such great implications on real life that it is truly a beautiful sequence. Again there is a certain objective beauty but not necessarily recognise by everyone.

So does beauty lie in the eye of the beholder? Perhaps in most cases beauty does lie the eye of the beholder and is more subjective in the viewer. But what beauty truly is the appreciation of subjective perception that is to me glorified. It is magnificent that out senses are gifted with the ability to pick up all the sense and all the senses together forming a big picture to identify something and to see something is really by itself true beauty. Perhaps much like what Victor Hugo says, "To love beauty is to see light". We humans take our gift of vision for granted and the gift of seeing the world around us is a beauty by itself. Hugo says that by just seeing light rays you would have come to love beauty. Perhaps we should all just take a moment and appreciate the beauty of the vision of our eyes.






Saturday, March 8, 2014


The challenge was simple, it was to find the rule that the sequence follows. But it proved hard for many to get to that specific rule because of another pre-made rule that they had put together in their minds. The fact that they have made this rule and based it as foundation to make their guesses was the sole reason that they were blinded to the many other possibilities. When there is a foundation build based on a basic reason the guesses made always ensure that the foundation stays true because if the foundation is weary then to build further reason seems difficult. Figuring out and using the clues to put together basic essentials of the puzzle to build a foundation of assumption to then work upon it to solve the puzzle is a key element. The loophole is when the foundation that is build on assumptions is wrong, the theories made based on such assumptions also are wrong and play dead in the sight of the answer.


There are perhaps two ways of acquiring information inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning both clearly and explicitly described in the video. Both inductive and deductive reasoning are key essential parts of reasoning to figure out puzzles. In the puzzle such as sudoku or the paper puzzle a great deal of inductive reasoning was used in order to figure out the nitty gritties of the puzzle and using the key information in our favour way a way of solving the puzzle. However in the "crazy captain" puzzle a great deal of deductive reasoning was used in order to identify the items and to figure out a rule and to propose items that fit the rule. A great deal if deductive reasoning was used to find out the similarities between the items and the chronological order the items followed. Therefore both inductive and deductive reasoning play a vital key role in solving puzzles that are relatively hard.

When solving a puzzle the brain is assessing more than the question itself and perhaps going to the deeper bits of the question and this is generally played upon by the classic brain teasers that use the general presets and assumptions to tease the brain. It works well as given a riddle the mind is looking deep within and not assessing the answer on the surface. When solving the "crazy captain" puzzle much of the intuition went it understanding and drawing patterns for the items that we were allowed to take aboard on the ship but then again the trick was in the question and not in the items. However this is not necessary for all puzzles, our puzzle happened to be this way but then the general prefix of puzzles cause people to complicate things more that it is needed causing them to befall traps never made but set out by themselves. Simple logical use of reason can defiantly bring about a sense of constant understanding and logical thinking that can intern solve the problem, without all that hassles and the complications on the road, but it is when such simple logical reasoning is backed up with prefixes and assumptions that cause loops in the theory.


Perhaps a bit too many videos for a blog, but this TED talk talks about reason being a way of understanding a being more civilised and humane people. In the past man as seen to have some cruel tortures methods, that have brought about a great deal of human pain and suffering such as slavery but it is human reasoning that brought about a way of us realising that these practises are indeed immoral, unfair and moreover inhumane. We have come to be more civilised people and have come about to make a better world not only for us but for the coming generation and the one that follows. We have abolished the inhumanity in our system but still have long way to walk to bring about a better world. The TED talk compared human emotions with human reasoning and sought to seek out which one had a more prominent effect on the past. Clearly reason has seem to win the battle but a great deal of pathos was involved in bringing about the right ideals in out government system. 

Overall puzzles such as sudoku are really a great test of human reasoning and are essential aspects required to bring about a sense of rational reasoning. All though hard or easy they set out to test a great part of human rationality and reason which is perhaps the best part of the puzzles.


Slightly on a tangent the brain use two structures of information to understand the world around is. In the video above which seemed really interesting the idea behind the bi-logical thought processes are identified in the brain. The use of different brain structures causes slight draw backs in the way the brain perceives the surroundings and it causes slight draw back in our sense of recognition and understanding. The brain however puts the information it receives in context of the surroundings and always looks to produces a more efficient representation of the surroundings in comparison to a accurate representation which explains why the human brain is prone to the many different illusions. The brains is nonetheless a magnificent organ that brings about a sense of understanding and reason and brings about a efficient comprehension of the world around us.
 

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