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Effect of technology on people's lives
Effect of technology on people's lives
The effect of technology on human personality
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It has become aparent to me in the past few months that most people are not really thinkers. Most who read this essay will be lost, and will not comprehend many of the theories I adress. I cannot begin to understand why, but most people are not even the least bit curious about what in our lives is real.
From where I stand right now, I know or believe to know certain things. I believe that this pencil is real. I believe this note book is real. I believe the people in this park are real. But, how can I know this? The first question to answer might be, what does it mean to know? This is a valid question, but I don't intend to answer it. For now I will assume that whatever it is that I can recall from my mind's memory, I know. For instance, I know this pecil is composed of matter. I know this paper is composed of matter. So, now the question again arises. . .
Is this pencil and paper real? The immediate answer which I do not wish to contest with is, yes. But why? Well, first its made of matter. As I look arround the park I see people, statues, architecture, earth, sky, and manny other things. Is it matter that makes something real. I think not necesarrily, but all things composed of matter are real. This is because I can react with them. Things that I can't react, or act upon cannot be real right?
So now I've established a small chunk of what is real in my life. Now what about the people? What is it about people or any living composition of matter that makes them move? I understand, that muscles move bodies, nervous systems move muscles, minds moves nervous systems, but what moves minds?
I was stumped for a very long time, where I had become very unproductive, sitting looking at the park, wondering what moves the mind. Shortly after I thought the park would provide no answer for me, a couple came walking in throught the south archway. I thought to my self, "its kinda cool to see two strangers (to me, not eachother) in love, talking, sharing moments, comunicating. Then I some lyrics popped into my head, "reestablish comunication.
Without perception, in our illusions and hallucinations, we lose “our sense of beings,” (Capra). Lost in “isolation,” (Capra) perhaps lost within our own illusion, our abstractions, we lose the ability to judge, to dichotomize, reality from illusions, right from wrong.
It is common for human beings, as a race, to fall into the comforts of routine – living each day similar to days before and days to come. Unfortunately, it is often too late before one even realizes that they have fallen into this mundane way of living in which each day is completed rather than lived, as explained by David Foster Wallace in “This Is Water”. This commencement speech warned graduating students of the dangers of submitting to our “default settings” of unconscious decisions and beliefs (Wallace 234). However, this dangerous way of living is no new disability of today’s human race. Socrates warned the people of his time: “A life unaware is a life not worth living” and who is to say he wasn’t completely right? A topic of long debate also includes the kind of influence that consciously-controlled thoughts can have on the physical body. A year after Wallace’s speech, neurobiologist Helen Pilcher, published “The New Witch Doctor: How Belief Can Kill”, which explains the influence of the mind and individual beliefs on the quality of one’s life. Together, both authors illustrate how detrimental a life lived unaware of one’s own thoughts and beliefs can be on the body and spirit. And though it is easy to live by
a person believes is real. Often people can put an illusion in some ones head
By deeming that nothing is certain and recognizing that our senses are false, this is a step to prove that “I” exist. Following the logic of sense deception and the idea that nothing is certain, there has to be a material thing that doubts and is deceived. According to Descartes in the Second Meditation, that material thing is “I,” thus “I am, I exist.” Since the material thing (body) is known, what is the material conceptually made of? I believe that the doubting thing, “I,” has knowledge that depends on things that are certain, but it can also sense (simulate images of things). Supporting my argument that humans need reason to prove their existence, I quote Descartes when he says “I would seem to be speaking no less foolishly were I to say: I will use my imagination in order to recognize more distinctly who I am.” In this quotation, Descartes reiterates my previous point that sensing is unreliable and that reason is the only way to knowing our existence. Since we need reason to determine our existence, it means that human is a “thinking thing” because it “doubts, understands, affirm, denies, wills, refuses and imagines.” The “Wax argument” is a good example of why reason is essential. The Wax argument is a theory that discusses the different conditions of wax. Wax has a distinct form when it is solid but melt when close to fire. Without reason how will I know
‘the act of knowing using mental processes such as imagining, remembering, understanding, generalising, finding reasons and causes, making inferences, decision making, forming preferences, desires and intentions, planning and learning’ (Doherty & Hughes, 2009:257)
What we see is not the truth, but rather our interpretation and distortion of the things we struggle to perceive. Our imagination, ideologies and perceptions fuse with our conception of reality, as we transform the world around us, give meanings to abstractions, and find order in a world programmed by madness. We are prone to madness, to nature, to the metaphorical forces that influence and envelop reality. In order to understand the metaphysical realm, we conceptualize these divine, omnipotent forces through our uses of symbols, thus creating an understandable world defined by rationality and philosophy thinking. Philosophical thinking and rationality enable us to both understand our world metaphorical and define what humanity is. These ideas
Paul, R. 1990, ‘Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World’, Centre for Critical Thinking and Moral Critique. Retrieved 18 May 2010 from
When one really thinks about it, the only thing we can be sure of is the existence of our minds. Whatever one believes is all perceived through senses, emotions, and thoughts such as sight or past experiences/knowledge. In actuality, anything we perceive cannot be believed as fact. On one end of the spectrum, extremists known as solipsists would argue that nothing exists but their minds, they make up the entirety of their reality and nobody else even exists. The floor beneath our feet does not exist and neither do our peers. If you try to argue that this life you lead is real because you can see the world, or through science, or that it is a dream that even if so, would still be perceived as a reality. Your senses have to be filtered through your mind, but to do that your mind has to tell you about the external world- which is what is being called into question- so trying to prove that your senses are reliable will leave to arguing in circles. Science again has this same issue- if one cannot establish the reliability of the senses in relation to an external w...
With Enlightenment came the idea that Man is capable to understand and shape the world that surrounds him. Human beings no longer rely on an all-powerful God that decides everything; in...
For the philosopher, the acknowledgment of the existence and the importance of the human imagination is a necessary trait. Without an active and informed imagination, one cannot make judgment calls or investigate the world with the skill and ease of the great philosophers. If one does not have an imagination, one cannot fathom Plato’s analogy of the cave, one cannot imagine the gray shadows flickering against the cold and jagged wall. Without an imagination, one cannot picture the ideal city, or Santa Clause, or divide the imagination into two parts. In the same way, the imagination is an intricate and useful part of human nature. The mind, a multi-faceted folder of sense, dreams, and imagination opens the door for philosophy to lead the way in pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
What is ideal and what is real? We seem to have this idealized concept of what love is supposed to be like according to the way society has molded us. Perhaps these ideals are more about the self than they are about a relationship between two people. We want to feel loved, and when we get that love from another person we become determined to secure that feeling. By securing these feelings we lean towards controlling that relationship. However, control is merely a way of fabricating and disguising reality. And by manipulating reality in this way we create an ideal relationship stemming mainly from our own selfish vain imaginings.
Life is coming toward us at such a rate that every second displays a new scene of potentially new challenges. Therefore, we must expand our thinking abilities in order to survive. Technology is also growing rapidly, thus we are continually influenced and pushed to find new alternative options. Thinking is a process of response, and if it is productive, it results in changing our world views and knowledge. It is an independent action that happens continually whether we choose it or not. Buddha argued that, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” As a result, we affect the world with the way we think about it. Our brains are regularly dealing with thoughts which are reflected in our facial expression, speech, and attitude. There are two ways in which we think, convergent and divergent, which were introduced first by Joy Paul Guilford in 1967. When multiple options are offered, the best one is chosen and that is convergent thinking. However, divergent thinking offers just one option with a variety of outcomes. While convergent thinking is essential in academic achievement, divergent thinking is essential to succeed in today’s world.
As human beings we have the capabilities of thought and reasoning, which is why we have evolved the way we have. However one can never be to sure that what we think and what we reason is really truth. And that idea can lead a person asking certain questions; What is the nature of existence? What is the nature of reality and it’s principles? but then more questions follow within These; What are we touching? What are we looking at? What are these things interfering and altering our lives? Are they the same in reality as they are in our mind? What are these substances? Are they even substances? If they are real then why are they, and what are they? Many great philosophers tackled these questions. Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Berkeley. All of them came up with an idea of what substance is.
The grass was soft and green, reserved for those who wanted to lie down or sit. A sweet aroma of flowers overflowed near by like s shinning light, but was hidden by the untrimmed bushes and wildly growing trees. Up above me was the beautiful, high noon blue sky spotted with fluffy, white clouds and airplanes flying by. I emerged into the parking lot and stopped happily as a squirrel under a tree. Hesitating to proceed anywhere further I took a few minutes to treasure the moment of silence and peace. As my girlfriend and I got out of the car to get ready for the picnic, she happened to be distracted by the water; a rhythmic ongoing resemblance of rhythm in her heart. The water was clam and beautiful in every aspect. To me she was like a wave, never stooping to catch attention or go unnoticed. Before doing anything else, we began setting up the picnic. By the time we ware done, her temptation was unbearable and was finally unable to overcome it, consequently she eagerly ran towards the water pulling me right behind her. Each step was like an imprint in my heart, a fossil that would always remain the same and special inside me forever.
...be asked of this grand production: why are we acting? It might seem as though we are being foolishly ignorant and throwing away the opportunity to fully and passionately seek out truth and once and for all be rid of our superficial mindsets, but that will never be. In the first place, man will never be capable to see the world with open and unbiased eyes, and secondly it is probably best that he doesn’t. The world needs childlike trust and hopefulness, it needs the ability to believe in something greater than itself, it needs the opportunity to foolishly and whole-heartedly believe in something that brings joy into its heart. There are certain personal and world truths that individuals should strive to understand simply to have a greater knowledge of life, but realism can cast a cruel hand on imagination and freedom that no human being should be held captive to.