Philosophy 101E

I made the point today that we are embodied on the internet. I hadn’t planned to discuss this, so my response was a bit scattered (stream of consciousness, heh). Let me try to make it a bit clearer:

We are embodied on the internet. Technology doesn’t simply extend our capacities, but it also changes the kinds of environments in which we act. This in turn changes the kinds of actions that are required for engaging in those environments. Sometimes this results in actions that are very different from the kinds of behaviors we make while engaging nature, but that doesn’t make them any less engaged actions.

It is harder for Dreyfus to make his arguments about technology stick now days, because the technology we use today is literally engaging our bodies in ways it never could before. Take a look at any video on YouTube that shows people using the Wii. These people are clearly engaged with their whole bodies.

But there is a sense in which the Wii example is too easy and superficial. I think it is better to think of the skill required to navigate any complicated website or program. Think about people who use Photoshop, or Final Cut, or any other big, complicated program. It is impossible to doubt that there is a learned skill involved in using this kind of software. It is something that requires practice and training; its the kind of thing that some people are better at than others. But Dreyfus’ argument is that skills are acquired through the use of the body. If he’s right, then we must be embodied when we are using these programs.

Or think about all the social rules and norms involved in interacting with any online community- your favorite message boards; Facebook; MySpace; Wikipedia; this blog. These are all very complicated social environments. We all have some sense of what is appropriate for these environments, and what is inappropriate, and how to behave. Some people do it better than others. MySpace is full of social cues- music, backgrounds, images, links, friends, etc. MySpace is just like a fashion accessory to your online identity.

If these places on the Internet are really environments that take skill to navigate, then you must conclude that we are embodied on the internet. If that’s the case, then the Internet doesn’t pose a threat to our humanity. At most it poses a threat to our current understanding of ourselves and our environment, because in a real sense it changes what we are, and what we interact with. But that doesn’t undermine our humanity; it reaffirms it.

Facebook and MySpace users aren’t examples of people who despise the body, or who think that the body is obsolete. They are people who desperately want to integrate these new possibilities and forms of expression into their lives. They are people who want to make their online identity real and meaningful and relevant. They are people who are trying to find a stable social environment, not just as an abstract mind or identity, but as a real person.

According to Rene Descartes everything can be doubted except the fact that we could think thus, all of the world things or corporal things may be doubted because even though we may think of them it is uncertain if they are there. I agree with Descartes to a certain extent. As well as Descartes, I also believe there is a separation of mind and body, yet I disagree with his idea that the mind is absolutely everything. I believe that even though mind and body are separated, both have power over who we are and both influence our lives, our actions, and our will. It was brought up one day in class that if Descartes’ theory is one hundred percent accurate then there is no other room for theories such as Freud’s, it is because of this that I cannot fully agree with Descartes, even though many people may argue that Freud‘s ideas are fully based on instinct, sex and hunger drives, and things that merely our bodies control, to a certain point I agree with that too. I believe that there is a certain amount of balance which as people, we need to achieve; a balance between the power which our minds controls and the power which our bodies control.
Free will was another topic brought up in class, at this point I strongly agree with John Locke in his argument that freedom is limited for we have to ability to choose what we want but we lack the ability to control why we want such things. The example which our instructor, Daniel Estrada, brought up pretty much explained it, he states that, for example, when we go to buy ice cream we have the freedom to choose what flavor to eat yet we do not control the factor which makes us buy that specific type of ice cream (in other words we don not control the reason why we like that flavor ice cream).
Finally, the last topic I would like to comment on is God and the influence he has over mind and body. As a believer of God I believe that, as mentioned in class, God influences both mind and body. He is there to ensure that “what is certain…the mind” according to Descartes, is backed up by what possibly might be real, the corporeal. God is there to make sure that what is real in our mind is real in our world so that we are not constantly deceived. A person who does not believe in God probably argues that this theory is untrue and that we cannot rely on our beliefs for answers to the world, but personally in my opinion it’s accurate. At least it is a thousand times more credible than Professor Estrada’s example of the evil genius attempting to deceive us and manipulate our minds.

Decartes is known as one of the great thinkers of his time. But Decartes’ time is long over, and we live in a digital age. His way of thinking progressed Philosophy, and that’s great, but his argument is full of holes. This text belongs in a library and should not be taken seriously. His thinking is all over the place and he tends to contradict himself. In one mediation he talks about how he wants to disconnect himself and his thoughts from all preconceptions, yet he talks about how God is all good and perfect. This perception of God is a preconception that he got from the church. How does he know that God is not an evil genius?

Descartes uses many false pretenses. He makes many assumptions which lead to bad arguments. His whole notion of “clear and distinct” is a really blurry line, yet it is one of the central arguments. He has no idea about what is clear and distinct. Back then it was clear that the earth revolves around the sun and the world was flat. Descartes does not have the advantage of science, and his attempts to create a framework for science are very shady.

He believes that humans are incapable of creating a notion of God, and that God must exist because he’s the only one that is able to create a notion of himself. This is clearly circular reasoning, and I believe that he underestimates the power of imagination.

The only good argument that I got out of Decartes is “I think therefore I am.” When those words were said, it was a mildstone in the history of man. For the first time, humans began to think in a more progressive way. Descartes was one of the first great thinkers, that does not mean he was exactly right though.

Through the verbose of Descartes and The First Meditations it becomes clear to the reader that he is trying to institute a philosophical foundation for undoubted certain truths. These truths he explains must be without a doubt absolute. In doing so Descartes is proving himself one of the first modernistic thinkers. The basic principles of modernistic thinkers were to reject the �norms� of their time in order to produce original and drastically new ways of doing things such as art and literature. However another fundamental principle of these thinkers were to embrace absolutes such as the ones Descartes is aiming for. However, it is also been brought to the fore that he represents parts of postmodernism as well as modernism. Postmodernism historically speaking came on post World War Two and was heavily introduced into the culture of the United States in the 1980s. Descartes in his Meditations says that we are incapable of being original or maintaining individuality. In definition, he is saying that because what we learn is either innate (a priori) or learned (a posteriori), all the knowledge we gained has somehow been here before thus making it already known and discovered. Thus, he taps into the postmodern belief that every human being is just a duplication or replication of another human being. Postmodernism came about as an assessment of modernism, often challenging the ideas brought forth by modernism. But Descartes transcends both types of thought. On one had he says we are incapable of being original which assess postmodern intellect and on the other hand he is supporting the ideas of universal truths and absolutes. Within the realm of postmodernism the individual and certainty are among modernistic ideals that are questioned and re-critiqued. And through his modernistic writings Descartes is trying to prove certainty, which contradicts what he says about the individual or lack thereof. There is a fundamental dichromatic controversy here and because Descartes was not around for postmodernism it is apparent how he has tapped into both schools of thought. It just shows us how truly ahead of his time he certainly was, and that is for certain.

I’m having a hard time grasping this concept that the mind is not part of the body. How can the mind and the body not be the same working unit? Descartes seems to believe that the mind is separate from the body. If the mind were separate from the body, then causing some harm to the body, would not affect the mind at all.

The mind, as it seems to me, consists of two parts. The first part of the mind would be the part that controlls your bodily motions, such as picking up a book or writing on a piece of paper. These things are controlled by your mind. You have to think about picking up an object before you really pick it up. Thinking is a process of the mind. Once you think about doing something, your brain tells your body to whatever it is you want it too. This case falls into the eliminative materialism point of view, where the mind and the body are working together.

The second part of the mind is when you think and try to infer about things. Any thinking process falls into this category. Whether you think about math, about athletics, or about anything else, the mind is working. This case goes with Descartes’ idea of interactionism, where the mind is working separately from the body.

Both of these instances involve the mind. The first instance involves the body as well. This means that the mind is part of the body, unlike what Descartes claims and is trying to prove in his meditations.

I might be completely wrong about this mind and body idea, but that is how it seems to me. I am a math and science kind of guy so it is hard for me to think that the mind is not part of the body. Here is how I look at this situation: Since you use your mind to tell your body what to do, then it is part of your body. It is the control center of the body. This is the eliminative materialism point of view. Please let me know if you have any other thoughts or comments on this subject.

So I was reading the mediations and I got a little bothered by something in the first one. I’m assuming we all have the same book, it’s on page 15, the top half of the page. He seems to take a pretty hard shot at originality. I may be jumping the gun by getting on Descartes for this, but I sure hope he comes to an epiphany later and realizes that originality is a possibility. He also may be inadvertently saying what he says at this point, because it’s a short diversion from another line of his self-questioning. Nevertheless, he uses a painting, a piece of art, as his example. He says that when painters wish to portray a mythical creature they simply “fuse” together different parts of animals that the painter has seen and knows of. Well that’s fine with me, but it seems Descartes has beef with this and calls in unoriginal. I think it’s totally fine. I mean unless he ripped off his “fusion” from some other painting or drawing he’d seen then he’s still produced something original by creating a “fusion” which no one has seen before. The problem I’m having I’m pretty sure is one of definition, though. I’m thinking that it is possible to create something totally original, but Descartes I think is saying that you cannot assign something its nature. But if by that, he means that you can’t invent something and decide its use, I’d have to continue to disagree. Because that flies in the face of every product sold through infomercials. I also think that you can take something that was built for one purpose and assign it a new nature. My example is I bought a sheet for my bed last year. It was dark blue in color. I got new sheets this year. I hung the old sheet over my window because the sun in the morning shines right in and bothers me. The guy who made that sheet did not think when he made it that I was going to use it for this purpose. So is my use for the sheet not original?

Hello Class! I know this will seem a bit gung-ho, but I have begun reading Descartes, because I felt he would be difficult to get through and wanted to get a jump-start on things. As I finish the second meditation, I have found that I was correct in that course.

Descartes has listed his first two arguments so far, and I am both thoroughly confused and intrigued. His second meditation concerns the “nature of the human mind: that it is better known than the body.” Essentially beginning with the thought, “Is there not some God, or by whatever name I might call him, who instills these very thoughts in me? But why would I think that, since I myself could perhaps be the author of these thoughts?” (page 17-18). As this idea crosses a page-turn, I had two varying thoughts on the subject. First, I read only the first sentence, and immediately thought to myself that that was a ludicrous statement, because simply by being able to think that God makes your thoughts seems to me a clear indication that they are in fact your own. As I read on however, I found that I was justified in my thought, as Descartes states just that. He actually spends the next few pages discussing how this fact is really, the only thing we can know for certain is that we are “a thinking thing” (page 19).

While the convoluted ideas about everything else being, quite possible, not real, or imagined or dreamed seem a little more far fetched, it is conceivable that nothing we perceive as truth is so. But the fact that we can think that everything is untrue or nonexistent proves that thinking itself exists within us. When Descartes carries this thought into his example of the ball of wax, I was able to better wrap my mind around what he was saying. We can understand the concept of what and how wax is, even when all aspects of the senses we use to describe it break down. When the wax melts, it is still wax, and we still see it as such. Its physical characteristics change, but that is seemingly irrelevant because those characteristics are connected to the human body, not the mind. Because the mind and thoughts are a greater truth and more certain existence than the physical and the body, they mind is what takes over, and recognizes the wax regardless of its current physical state.

The conclusions Descartes comes to are, so far, definitely not any that I have come to before, but are interesting none the less.

Thanks for listening/pondering my thoughts…

Deni Stritch