The phrase, “Rational Gaze”, is extremely misinterpreted. As Ayn Rand defines, rationality is the virtue to recognize and accept that one’s only source of knowledge is their ability to reason. Thus, rationality is very unique and individualistic. It has no boundaries. However, rationality is misinterpreted as the disposition to act in unanimity with other human beings, in order to obtain knowledge from nature. This skewed definition of rationality leads to confusion and unattainable anxiety. The only way to satisfy this anxiety is by having rational gaze, which is, to understand that reason is ineffable. However, the rationality or rational gaze that we possess seems to be very different from what Ayn Rand defines. Hence, the persistence of having a rational gaze seems to be more disillusioning than convincing.
In his book, “The Cosmic Serpent”, Jeremy Narby has written about his experience with the Ashanincas in the Peruvian Amazon, which made him realize the limitations of having a “rational gaze”. He noticed that he had come across some strange methods to obtain worldly knowledge, that is, through hallucinatory origins by the consumption of ayahuasca (1). He did not believe them. Hence, he decided to try it out himself and noticed the truth in what they were saying. The consumption of ayahuasca was followed by some extremely fascinating illusions that inspired him to research on the meanings behind those illusions, which to his disbelief was the origin of life. Thus, the hallucinations from the plant indeed became his source of knowledge and inspiration.
However, Narby was afraid to publicize his experience and his inspiration. He feared rejection (38). The reason he felt compelled to keep his findings to himself were the ...
... middle of paper ...
...cle, Bohm discusses how humans tend to fragment the whole world in search for wholeness. I used this article to detail every misconception of rationality we tend to have.
De Montaigne, Michel. “Of Cannibals” Some Readings on Science,
Technology and Related Arts and Concerns. New York: English 110
Honors, Fall 2011. Print.
Montaigne presents the view of his countrymen, who are as barbaric as a cannibalistic society. I used this article to show the similarity between what he is criticizing and what Narby is.
Berry, Wendell. “Solving for Pattern” Some Readings on Science,
Technology and Related Arts and Concerns. New York: English 110
Honors, Fall 2011. Print.
In this article Berry stresses on what good solutions are especially when dealing with a particular community. I used this in order to differentiate between “good” and “bad” rationality.
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was born in 1533. After a thoroughly humanist education and a relatively unhappy marriage, he shut himself up in a tower of his chateau to read and to meditate. As he explains it himself in the first of them, he began writing the essays, a form of literature he himself invented, as a way of keeping track of what he read. Upon his return from a tour of Italy in 1580, Montaigne was persuaded by King Henry III to accept the position of mayor of the city of Bordeaux; but after one term, the hardships and the trouble of the religious wars then raging in the area led him to return to his retreat; and he died there in 1592. "Of Cannibals" constitutes Montaigne's reflections, some fifteen years later, upon his meeting, in Rouen in 1562, with a cannibal who had been brought to France by the French explorer Villegagnon. The essay is talking about people that report things in a very subjective way to make others believe them and to make it more dramatically than it actually was. The writer says that reason should in this case be worth ...
There are two categories that he puts them in irrational and rational. In irrational he has two parts vegetative which is no share in reason. This means that no matter what the body digest or blood pumps and it cannot be stopped because it is part of the bodies job to do. The second part of the irrational is the appetitive which has a potency to share in reason. The desires conform to reason and it does not control the person. The second category is rational and it has reasoning or also known as intellective and this means that the person thinks with reason. For example, in math class two plus two will always be four. Appetitive and reasoning are to work together. If not a person cannot be considered virtues and therefore cannot be happy. A person has to feel the correct feeling for a specific situation to be able to be considered good or correct. For a person to be considered good they need to have appetitive and be rational of these things to make them virtues. Also the person needs to not neglect feelings because they are supposed to feel a certain feeling for a specific situation that is supposed to be that way. If the person does not feel it or refuses it, then they are not doing what a correct good and virtues person does. Only the good man has the objective feeling and action only when the person feels the correct emotions in the right way. A person that sees something sad should react sad because it is the correct feeling. They should not feel happy or glad of that sad situation or they are not a considered a good
Saunders and Dashwood, A Peruvian Shamanistic Ayahuasca Ritual, Council of Spiritual Practices, 1996, < http://csp.org/nicholas/Shamanistic.html>
The Rational expectations model was developed by Robert Lucas,rational economic agents are assumed to make the best of all possible use of all publicly available information. Before reaching a conclusion, people are assumed to consider all available information before them, then make informed, rational judgments on what the future holds. This does not mean that every individual’s expectations or predictions about the future will be correct. Those errors that do occur will be randomly distributed, such that the expectations of large numbers of people will average out to be correct.
The epistemic threat of human rationality emphasizes the existence of the shoddy software hypothesis, yet the optimistic look on humanity about situational rationality exists to counter it. However, I will argue that despite the optimistic view humans are not rational due to the conditions that are deemed necessary for human rationality.]
DMT’s psychedelic-effect induces near demise, spiritual and other-worldly experiences so, it has been outlawed all over the world with an exception as an primeval ayahuasca tea that when brewed forms DMT, envisioned to be used for religious practices. In his book, Dr. Strassman speculates that along with its presence in plants, Dimethyltryptamine is produced within the Pineal-Gland of the human-brain, often called as the third eye.
In his book Breaking Open the Mind, author Daniel Pinchbeck takes readers on his journey of experience with the chemical Dimethytriptamine, also known as DMT. He says, “DMT land was an interweave of tantric mandalas, virtual reality fantasias, stained glass aureolae; a ten-dimensional Walt Disney World projected into some far-fetched and far flung future”. This psychedelic is popularly known for its powerful hallucinogenic properties and vivid, lifelike experiences. While possession and consumption of DMT is illegal in the US, other communities and societies, such as the Shamans, use DMT for cultural uses. The study and potency of its properties leave us wondering whether or not DMT allows our minds access to planes and existences beyond our own.
.... Here Montaigne is somewhat hypocritical as he is not truly an expert on the cannibals yet he has written an essay about them and his essay will in turn alter the opinions of other people. Although it seems that Montaigne is doing exactly what he thinks is wrong, he cares more about changing his readers ideas about what they accept as a favorable style of living.
In order to understand and base an opinion on a religion that is centralized around a drug, you must first understand the drug itself. Peyote is a small, round cactus that grows in the southern US and Mexico. Rather than spines or spikes, peyote has fuzzy tufts that stuck out from it’s edges. Only about an inch of the cactus is viewable above ground, with the majority of it being the deeply buried, carrot-like root structure. The small portion that is above ground is harvested, and is referred to as the peyote “button”. It is consumed either freshly cut, or dried, and has some extreme effects on the body.
Food gives the film its context and meaning. This film has strong links between food in relation to love, war and religion. Firstly food addresses the struggles of the French as it’s used as a way to speak about war, famine and how difficult it is for people to survive when their government makes it so difficult for them to live. In the film, the characters live in a world where grain is used as currency and where they are forced to ration food. When they are running out of food they must resort to cannibalism, essentially turning the world into a ‘dog eat dog world’. The butcher and his tenants replace their morals and proper social conduct with behaviour that wouldn’t exist if the world was in
... and that this split is destructive. This separation forces us to act with only one aspect of ourselves at a time. The rational portion is what we act upon if we want to be taken seriously since using emotions or being emotional is equivalent to being out of control and is therefore bad (in today’s heterosexual and patriarchal society). This separation can be seen in our current interpretations of desire as nonrational, as erotic and therefore out of control. True desire however involves reason and emotion, both to determine what we want, reason to help decipher how to attain it and emotion to give us the drive to work towards it. Reason and emotion are inseparable and when we try to separate them is when we end up fragmenting ourselves.
Montaigne mentions that the cannibals are “men fresh from the hands of the gods”, Montaigne viewed the Cannibals as a simple civilization who were right from the hands of the gods bc they walked around so innocently still naked then the same way their mother bore them. Montaigne states “How far from such perfection would he find the republic that he imagined”(Montaigne 110). Montaigne notices a beauty in the ignorance towards modern civilization that the Cannibals possess. Montaigne goes on to judge the society he lives in based off of the “barbarous” nature of the Cannibals he observes.... ... middle of paper ...
The section from chapter four which caught my attention the most this week was the section on Rational Maximizers Versus Bounded Rational Satisficer. This topic really hit home for me, because I felt it focused on one of my weakness. One of the main issues that I have most difficulties on is decision-making. I tend to overthink vital issues or matters at times. As our book states, “A reflective decision maker likes to take plenty of time to make decisions, gathering considerable information and analyzing several alternatives. On the positive side, the reflective type does not make hasty decisions. On the negative side, the reflective type may procrastinate, lose opportunities, and waste valuable time and other resources. The reflective
The main idea of this perspective is that people make goal-directed decisions based on their rational thinking. (Hutchison, 2015) In this case study, rational choice perspective is used by Laura, Danny, and Kid. Each member provides a strong example of rational choice based on their own self-interest.
Pre-Columbian Mexicans used many substances, from tobacco to mind-expanding (hallucinogenic) plants, in their medicinal collections. The most fascinating of these substances are sacred mushrooms, used in religious ceremonies to induce altered states of mind, not just drunkenness.