In Lewis Thomas' book The Medusa and the Snail we can observe a passage with great insight into the human condition. With it we can determine the value of being wrong and mistakes. He makes a stellar case on the power of making mistakes and deriving new axioms of thought or progress. By virtue of us being man we can draw whole new conclusions and even better ourselves. Lewis Thomas in this passage defines our greatest strength as beings and defines it in very clear understanding. Lewis Thomas is absolutely right in his ideas of the power of being wrong. The first way by which we can see wrongness benefiting us is by giving us new realms of thought, and actually turning bottoms of failure into peaks of innovation. For example, guitar amplifiers
Mowat's own change of thinking, we see that it is possible for humans to correct
What more is the point of learning and understanding human history than obtaining the knowledge and structure between what is right and what is wrong? We continuously believe that we as humans have the ability and intellect to learn from the lessons taught in our past in order to enrich our future. In comparison to the time frame that is human history the one hundred year period of time we discussed in the second halve of this semester is nothing but a slight blimp on the map that we have traversed. Yet, throughout our recent readings we can easily assimilate into the idea that although time may pass, and that we may attempt to learn from our history it is simply in human nature to repeat the mistakes that we have
In the world today there is a drive to evolve and improve life through science and its findings. When looking at the good of a society, the people have to decide when the line between right and wrong is drawn. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, she proves that the possession of knowledge can lead to destructive forces through Victor Frankenstein’s monster’s journey. The events that lead to Victor’s monster’s destructive path is when he comes into contact with the cottagers, he murders Victor’s brother, and runs away after destroying Victor’s life.
One of the many brilliant things Ben Franklin once said was, “Well done is better than well said.” Being a pioneer of electricity, the inventor of bifocals, and one of the founding fathers of the United State’s constitution, Franklin knew more than a little about changing society and history for the better. The ideals of this successful man are parallel to the ideas of John Ruskin, who describes that as a society, “What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.” This is outlook is accurate because, quite simply, there is a higher impact when something is done compared to when something is simply just thought.
First, the meditator begins by noting that as a youth he held numerous false opinions, and that all the beliefs that he had held subsequently developed into other opinions whose validity are doubtful. In order to develop firm and lasting beliefs that could have a momentous impact, he realizes that he must start anew. In order to accomplish this endeavor, he utilizes Descartes’ philosophical methodology, known hyperbolic do...
that we as a culture already understand: humans are imperfect. Our errancy precludes us from being
Descartes was a philosopher who seemed to discard anything which was not absolutely certain and focused on what was known. In Meditation two of Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes is doubtful of everything, as he believes that if there is any doubt for something then it must not exist. With this in mind he begins to doubt his own existence but realizes that he is unable to doubt it. Descartes believes that there is a deceiver that is powerful which deceives him. Thus if something is deceiving him, Descartes believes that he must exist in order to be deceived. As result, in determining what he really is, Descartes comes to the conclusion that he is a thinking thing, and makes the point that being able to have thoughts or to be deceived, requires one to be thinking and if one is thinking then by default you must exist. In this paper I will talk about what Descartes knows he is, the powers he possesses, and the ways he can know.
In Kathryn Schulz’s essay, “Evidence”, the argument of the essay follows various situations brought up by Schulz, showing that people should take a positive approach to being wrong, and accept our error-prone nature, rather than obsessing with a perfect inadvertently-free ideal. Schulz ties together a lot of strong evidence, but fades back from a clear conclusion, steering the readers toward a relationship between error and the self. She further studies moral transformation on conversations, our attachment to a view wrongly identified due to our pre conceived opinion off prior experience. Schulz
Descartes explored the different relationships that exist between the senses, the imagination, and the understanding and while he cleared them, one thing still needs to be brought to light. It is only through calling into question and doubting our judgments ( brought to us by sense perception) that we avoid error, “ but since everyday pressures don’t always allow us to pause and check so carefully, it must be admitted that human life is vulnerable to error about particular things, and we must acknowledge that weakness of our nature” ( 35).
wrongs don't make a right' is a very appropriate sayingto use in the issue of
we fail to see the harm that we are doing, and will continue to do if we do not
Our knowledge is a key to our success and happiness in our life to give us personal satisfaction. Knowledge is power but not always. Sometimes our self-awareness and growth as an individual gives us negative thoughts that make us want to go back to undo it. Everyone wants to unlearn a part in our life that brought us pain and problems. Good or bad experiences brought by true wisdom can be used for our self-acceptance, self-fulfillment and these experiences would make us stronger as we walk to the road of our so called “life”, but Douglas’s and my experience about knowledge confirmed his belief that “Knowledge is a curse”. Both of us felt frustrated and sad from learning knowledge.
I now realize that there a variety of ways of thinking, and it is up to me to decide whether or not I want to follow and believe the theories and ways of thinking. If I were to summarize this class into one sentence or statement, I would say that my eyes have been opened to the vast world of profound intellects. The key topics that have been discussed in this paper include an explanation of my epistemological stance and where my roots originated, an exploration of my views and the textbooks views on reality and freedom, a discussion on where God is placed in my world and life, an description on how I make appropriate ethical decisions, an analysis on my greatest influencers in my life, an elucidation on how I observe life and purpose in life, and an overview on how this class has assisted me in life. In reflection, I now realize where I fit inside this world, and I often reflect and ponder the knowledge that I have attained throughout my time in this class and in many other classes previous to this one. Philosophy has broken the mental barriers that I have placed in front of my ways of thinking, and I can see that there is so much more to learn in this
Fukuyama shows through his excerpt that transhumanism can have many negative effects like worsened inequality but Baileys essay shows what good Transhumanism can do for our world. Transhumanism is a large debate because of the views Bailey and Fukuyama portray. The idea of “perfect” sounds tempting to any individual with an insecurity or two, but transhumanism is still up for a very large
In Fukuyama’s essay over Transhumanism, he describes this idea as the “most dangerous idea.” Transhumanism is the growth of humans through science and technology in every possible aspect of life. While this idea sounds beneficial, Fukuyama argues, “Our good characteristics are intimately connected to our bad ones.” The author emphasizes the how important our bad characteristics and complex minds to suggest these make humans complete. Without our faults, we would lose basic feelings of love, pain, exclusiveness, and even loyalty. The authors appeal to the readers looks as if, without the “bad” nothing would oppose, and compare to the “good.” In emphasizing the contrasts of human nature, the author creates a clear understanding of how these contrasts work with each other. For example, pain hurts but it is not bad to feel pain because it lets us know something is wrong with us. Fukuyama’s line of reasoning explains the importance of mortality in a way of putting life and humans into perspective on a much smaller scale.