The Universe

In chapter 5 the origin of the universe is widely discussed by Savater. And while I think that everything discussed throughout the chapter is worthy of discussion, what caught my attention the most was the origin of the uvinerse as seen from the religious point of view (with God being the creator) and from the scientific point of view (with the Big Bang theory).

First of all, he gives the metaphor of the clock on the street. This metaphor is based on the fact that if you see a clock in the middle of the street, you know that someone made it, you don't think that it just appeared in the street, you are certain that somebody must have made it. The same happens with the universe, it's foolish to believe that it is just there, somebody or something must be responsible for it, be it God, a big explosion or whatever other theorys there may be.

In my particular point of view, I think that once you see the immensity of the world, the perfection of the universe and the greatness of its components, it sounds almost arrogant to believe that it all resulted from an explotion, specially because nobody has been able to say what caused it.

I say arrogant because to me, the universe is amazing, this planet is amazing, the human body and its anatomy is amazing, and to deny that only a superior being could be responsible for all these things sounds arrogant to me.

I mean, if you think about it, our body functions in an amazing way. The way it defends itself against viruses, the way it recovers from illnesses, its just amazing. The nature and its diversity is amazing too, all the ecosistems, the animals and their cycle of life, it's all jus awesome. And the universe, the enormous universe and the way every part of it is arranged, it's almost incredible.

So, in conclusion, for me, from my point of view, it sounds way more reasonable to believe that a supreme and superior being is responsible for the universe and its greatness, rather than to belive that an explotion came out of nowhere and created every single thing that the universe is made of.

Chapter 5 the universe.

This chapter is divided in three mayor levels for a human that are, first my world, that is refers to my family, my friends, my culture and its keep going. They are almost the thing that belong to you, that the first. The second one is ower planet, that refers to the people that is around us and thing that we don’t put attention in normal life but they are there. For last there is the universe. The universe is something that has not really a meaning, the universe it is deferent for every body even for the philosopher, there are a lot of meanings for it.

Some people said that the universe have some kind of order. That depends on how you interpret the meaning of the word, because for normal people the universe is a mess the planets are all over, things flying across every were… but for the scientist the planets are alien, all the comics have a specific routine that they are always following.

Other thing that scientists say is that the universe doesn’t have a limit. I think that the universe it need to stop or finish in a certain place, yes its to big but it need to have a ending point. Every beginning have a end.

Happy Animals

The book The Questions of Life by Fernando Savater, cites a play written hundreds of years ago. This play Antigone, which we have read before in literature class, has many controversial points of view. Sophocles brings up certainly an interesting theme, stating that the fate of humans is to wonder. I want to zoom in some of the aspects this observation means.

At least I, wonder numerous times. I believe I exist among wonders, creating them and also being part of them. Day by day I live thinking with curiosity, and I'm constantly admired by how the world is. I become aware of all that surrounds me and see the way all those things affect me. I believe humanity has evolved not only in a biological way, but in another level, like spiritually, destroying barriers which block the entrance to other realities.

I was amazed when I read in the book that we are like free animals, because many times before I thought like that. No other animal limit our mental capacities from the inside, and we almost all the times create our context for livehood. It is us who dare to control other beings, and that I presume is a result of our own freedom. I consent that some people look like they do not wonder at all, but deeply and in their own way, they are wondering about things we don't even imagine.
I consider that Sophocles was right to say we wonder, and that yes we are happy animals, because wondering allow us to be marveled, even for one single moment, to feel admiration for something, to feel amazed and to be happy. I consider the world to be as complex as it is wonderful.

what are we?? Animals or humans??

First of all, whan I heard the tittle of this chaper, I only thought on the difference between animals and humans, in the aspect of what do we do and what do we think on, but after reading this chapter I realized that we have some kind of differences between us that I didn't even think about.
One of the major differences that I thought it was special, was that Fernando Savater states that Animal conduct is different from human behaviour. And what i understand on this statement, is that animals are born with an instinct that makes the knowledge for them and they have prepared or done what they're going to do. And humans are born in the way that we have to learn everything from the knowledge and experience of our parents from the beggining of our lives, untill the end of them, and if you think on this, as a human, you never stop learning new things and that is completely reasonable because everyday a human is supposed to learn at least one thing each day.

Well as a conclusion I think we are similar to animals, absolutely in NOTHING but reproduction, which goes to the same end, that is to create and educate a new life, and better yet complete a kind of children however you want them to be

Symbolic Animals?

Why are we sometimes considered as animal? Why are we always compared to them? If we are dirty we are called pigs, if we aren't intelligent we called donkeys, etc. After reading Chapter 4 of Fernando Savater´s book, "The Questions of Life", we analyze some of Savater´s ideas and of other philosophers that he mentions.

Fernando Savater has a lot of ideas about the relation between animals and humans. He brings up differences and similarities between both of them. One of his ideas in his book "The Questions of Life" is that animals use their intelligence to get and achieve what they need and want, the have something in mind, a goal. On the other side, humans use their intelligence to get what they need and want, but they are not always satisfied, they continue searching for more.

Another difference that Fernando Savater states in his book is that animal "conduct" is different to human "behaviour". Animals are born knowing almost everything and they have a predetermined conduct, for example all wolves have the same conduct; they are aggressive, they attack, etc. Humans learn everything through life, starting from our parents raising us and continue learning in school, and they have a behaviour; every single person have a different behaviour, even though some of us are raised together, we behave in a different way.

According to Ernst Cassirer, we are symbolic animals. He states this because he says that we express ourselves with symbols, signs that represent ideas, emotions, etc. I agree with Ernst Cassirer because it is true that we express everything through signs, and everything means something to us, for example a dove or an olive represents peace. He is absolutely correct in his idea.

Humans vs. Animals

When i heard we were going to read a chapter about the difference between men and animals, I immediatly thought that all the arguments that Savater or any of the philosophers quoted in his book were going to be negative, denying the existance of God or simply saying that we are mere animals. That's why it was such a nice surprise for me to see Giovanni Pico della Mirandola quoted.

It's not only that I was very glad to see someone sharing my point of view on man's superiority over animals, but it is also that his point of view is exactly the same as mine.

Everything he says about man being more than animals because of our free will and God granting us the opporunity to create things, at least with regard of ourselves, is exactly the argument I use whenever someone asks me why we're more than just animals. That, and of course the fact that we were made similar to God.

So, in conclusion, this chapter totally changed my judgement of this book by surprising me with the diversity of its opinions and different points of view which is why from now on I'm going to try and be more open-minded whenever it comes to discussing this book's topics.

symbolic animals

What I think and what I have been growing with is that god creates us. I don’t think that we came from the animals, yes we have a lot in common but that doesn’t means that we come from them. Darwin evolution says that we where animals and we became humans, but why if we evolve why they don’t evolved the same time that us.

Another reason that I think that we don’t come from animals and the book say something about it is the language. The way we communicate with other is different from animal we have a language to speak and we think before doing something. To learn something we need to pass through something and that depends on the place and culture you where born.

Other thing that we where talking at class was what was easier to domesticate a person who always live in the jungle than a person so always live in the city move it to the jungle. I think it will be easier for a man to change their habits from a domestic to a wild, because the man al ready have some knowledge of how to survive in that kind of environment and the wild person doesn’t know noting about it.

I have been the same?

Savater brings up a psychiatrist called Oliver Sacks, who wrote the book The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. Savater clarifies that in this book a man named Thomson creates pasts for himself, as he suffered a desease, errasing all his memories. This could sound weird, because we never think about these types of situations, seeing them really far from us, but what if a common day you wake up the same.

I know I am Gaby, I know who I am, and I can tell you some experiences from what I have lived, I have a memory. All what I have lived, look like, feel, think, act, and so on are pieces of the whole I. But do I stop being me when these are gone? well possibly yes, in the way that if all those memories and experiences were took from me I would feel insecure of who I am, I may think for one second that everything is a lie, and that somebody is playing with me.

I don't rely so much on things I don't achieve by myself. Similarly, if a guy comes to your house and begins to tell you what should be your life and other experiences you supposedly had, then you would not coincide with him, and firmly answer I KNOW FOR SURE THAT'S NOT ME!
I am me because of what I am aware of, because of all those tiny little details whichever assembly to my individual, to my person.

I inside, I outside

This chapter is a really interesting chapter because it made me think on what happens in me and around me in the different aspects of my life.
In this chapter i found a quote writen by Rene Descartes that tells pretty much what we are, "I think, therefore I am" and about that quote my opinion says that we think that we exist but we don't think how we exist!
This quote shows us that we think critically so we can exist in this world and tells us that we are part of a real life and not a dream or an illusion. But anyway, I think that even if this quote is true or not, we will still live our lives and we can prove that we are alive by the statements and arguments that each of us can say or conclude.
another thing that 3rd chapter also made me think about, is that why do we ask about our lifes?, I mean why aren't we sure that we are alive if we can move, live, talk, and do whatever we want, so I think this is a little too much and we shouldn't be questioning about our lifes that is unique and we should enjoy it as much as we can.

Life: Reality or Illusion?

Reading chapter 3 of the book "The Questions of Life" was shocking for me because its ideas and thoughts were ones that I've never stumbled across before. In the previous chapters, as well as in the introduction, I concidered Savater's ideas a little out there but always worth thinking about. However, I must say that to me, his ideas in chapter 3 were way over the line. I think he "over-philosophized" and therefore must disagree with him.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for philosophy, I think is great that people question their lives in order to have a better understanding of it, but to me, discussing ideas like life being just a dream, or life being controlled by evil spirits, or us being just floating brains imagining everything is too much. Why? Because it has no purpose. Nothing good can come from discussing whether our lives are really the way we see them or not.

It is true that there's a possibilty that life as we see it is just an illusion, that maybe some evil god is making me imagine that I live in Torreon, that I go to school at Tec de Monterrey and that I play guitar while what's really happening is that I'm just a brain floating in a jar being controlled by this god who is making me imagine all this stuff.

Ok, so let's say this IS true, for the sake of arguing. So what? How does that change my life, or my "illusion of life"? Even if life as I see it is not what's really happening I'm going to keep living it am I not? Or imagining it if that's the case. Nothing's going to change right? Unless this "god" wants to change it, in which case there's nothing I can do because apparently he controls me.

Plus, I think life is just too big. There are way too many details in it for it to be just an illusion or a dream. I mean, I just can't imagine someone telling me that there's no Paris. That I simply imagined going to this beautiful place with this awesomely big tower, these great gardens and all that nice food. Or that music doesn't exist, that I imagined all these hundreds of artists coming up with these thousand songs which I love.

So why waste our time thinking about whether life as we know it is real or not? And whether or not we can control it? I say, live your life to the fullest, and if at the end it turns out that it was just a dream or an illusion, well, there was nothing you could have done right? Plus, you still have the memories don't you?

The truths of reason

A lot of people thinks that they know everything in the world but they don't prove it, they just say that is right or wrong but they don't show any procedure of how they found the final result.
As Fernando Savater said "I must seek arguments that enable me to accept my knowledge".
He is telling us that he always tries to prove his result with arguments o knowledge but he never says something not proven.
You can get knowledge from experience, and that's one of the best knowledge you can get, but still not enough to say that you know evereything like in this days lots of people says, and the truth is that we know nothing compared to what we should really know about life or other similar subjects.
Another way that someone wants to prove reason, is when two people or more are arguing and 1 person says that he is right and never goes down from there, they think they always have the reason and gives bad infomation just because their "life experience".
That's why since i read this chapter i know that i won't have the reason until i have enough arguments to prove it, or reasons to show.

Truth & Reason

"I must seek arguments that enable me to accept or refute my knowledge" - Fernando Savater 

Some people argue that they think that they know everything, they think that they are always right and that everything they say is true. You have to search for arguments and convince me that they are true, and then I can know if what I know is true.

One way by which people know what they know is by experience. When you live something or practice something, you understand it better, and now you know about it, like doing a chemistry experiment; you have to do it to know how or why a reaction happens. 

Another way by which people know what they know is by education. We go to school since we were little and since then, we start to gain information and start to understand things, procedures and stuff. As we grow up, we continue learning more stuff from our school or from our parents. 

The other way by which people know what they know is by believing in what other tell you. Its your choice if you trust them or not, you have to decide. You can't know if what they say is true; if you trust in them, you can believe in what they tell you. 

Like what Savater said in his book "The Questions of Life", "we have multiple sources of knowledge but they must all be screened by reason, which verifies, organizes and looks for coherence within what we know".

Truth

This week we read a chapter of truth and the author say that to have truth you need 3 things. Experiense, education and what people say to you. I say that you dont need the 3, you can have truth with just one, it doesnt matter which. You can be like a nerd in school and study books that are true and you can get truth. You can talk also to people who are very smart and they will tell you things that are truth. If you experiense a lot of things you can know without help the truths in life because we're all equal and we can all learn thruth, the only thing you have to do is think critically and use reason, like savater say, to know what things are true and what things are not true.

I think that you don't need the 3 things to learn the truth but i think it is easier to convine the three things to get truth because life is about a lot of things and its easier to learn from a lot of things than from one only thing, that way you can live life normal and learn from many things instead of just learning from one thing and miss all the other things that life has.

Truth and Reason

Truth and reason, two fundamental branches in the tree of wisdom. You have to have both in order to concider yourself smart and capable.

The tricky thing about truth is, like Savater mentions, that sometimes we take stuff for granted and classify it as truth, and the problem is that some of the times we may be wrong. I agree with Savater in that there are 3 ways to get truth, by experience, by education, and by telling.

Throughout the week we've discussed which one of these is the most important and the most popular choise has been experience, and although that does sound convincing I think that actually it is a matter of balance between all three.

You can stduy at school all the theory you want, you can read book after book for years but in the end if you don't apply that knowledge into real life it really won't be enough.

In the same way, you can talk to tons of people or travel around the world looking for experience and if you don't combine that with theory you still won't be able to claim you know all the truths life has to offer. People may be wrong, they may want to fool you or perhaps they're simply making stuff up to look smart, and also, the world is so big and rich in knowledge that, a) You couldn't experience everything in a life time, and b) there would still be stuff that even after experiencing you wouldn't understand.

So, in my opinion, in order to really obtain truth you have to do two things. First, obtain as much as you can from experience, education and socializing in a balanced way, and then filter it using your reason, that is to say, your intellect, so that you can decide what stuff to keep and what to throw away. This is a fundamental process in the learning path because if you believe everyhing you're going to get confused and probably contradict yourself on some point so, everytime you experience, read, or hear something, analize it, and, using your reason see if it makes sence. If you do so, I guarantee you, you'll be one step ahead in the path of wisdom and knowledge.