I found logic and fallacies very interesting. I made it a point reallt trying to learn them and understand them, because often when arguing eith someone, the debate stops at one point, though it didn't have to because I can't pouint out what is wrong with the argument. The logic fallacies are the tools which I can use to do that.
But it also makes me wonder about something Dr Long said in the very beginning of TOK. To what extent can logic help us? Is logic all there is to the world or is there something unreasonable that goes beyond everything that can be justified? Does logic really encompass the enitre world?
I would say that logic is a tool, just as the logic fallacies are to me. Humans can't live in a state of continuous uncertainty and we must have ways to explain all we percieve. It is almost like the allegory of the cave - what if there is world beyond not only what we perceive but also beyong all other limits of the mind?
One of the examples for the logic fallacies was the exsintence of God. If you can't prove that he doesn't exist it must mean that he does. I know that I have used this argument from time to time, but I won't be doing that again.
In our world of logic, couldn't the question be turned around? If you can't prove that he does exist it must mean he doesn't. This is the agrument most atheist people use, but wouldn't this be as much of a fallacy as the one I used to make?
I went for the Faculty lecture held by Michael, the 3rd year. He was talking about volunteering after MUWCI or in general after UWC. How he did it and how there is a pressure on the students that you ought to do it. If you take a gap year, you ought to do it for someone other than yourself.
It's wasn't that he didn't want to go, he was really excited, but it didn't give him that satisfaction he wanted. So argument basically was: do what you are passionate about! Coming to MUWCI I didn't think I was going to change the world, but I thought I could be a good-hearted, self-less volunteer who helped others. Truly altruistic, just for the sake of it, but I've realised that doesn't work.
Why? I was really disappointed with myself at first, but now I try not to blame myself for being... human (if you want to call it that). Now my goal is, instead of being good, to find out what I like to do and do it. If I do, I believe I will get energy to share, to help and be an agent of change where I do it best, instead of helping street children, beacuse they sufferm because they are so many, because I OUGHT to.
It actually goes along with what I've also always believed if I think about it in a religious way. I believe God created me with something I do well and something and enjoy, because it needs to be done. It would be just stupid to do something you don't want to then, wouldn't it?
Dad asked me "Who are you?"
-Jag är din dotter och Guds dotter, ett mysterium för mig själv som Guds skapelse. Jag har många intressen och egenskaper, men jag vet inte om de och vilka utgör mig.
Grandfather asked me "Who are you?"
Jag är ditt barnbarn och jag bor i Indien. Här är det varmt och väldigt annorlunda från hemma. Jag lär mig så mycket! Jag saknar hemma ibland.
Good friend asked me "Who are you?"
I don't know what my identity is or should be, but rather than dwelling on it until it makes me go insane, I enjoy what I have and sometimes I think I build up an illusion of happiness and then I ge scared that I'm hiding something dark beneath.
A person on MUWCI I don't really know asked me "Who are you?"
Ummm... I'm from Sweden, I'm a vegetarian, My HL:s are Philosophy, Art and English A1. I'm on MUWCI to have an experience and to learn things about myself, not to do the IB.
Someone sexy on MUWCI that I'm attracted to asked me "Who are you?"
I'm a girl who fall in love with girls. I love martial arts and going hiking, but also stuff like reading a good n´book or immerse myself in a philosophical argument.
Dr Long asked me "Who are you?"
I am a student here to learn as much as possible about myself. I want to learn compassion. I want to be strong and after MUWCI I want to travel (as environmentally friendly as possible) and volunteer. I want to work with people, face to face, not as some official.
Mark asked me "Who are you?"
I don't know. I feel agnostic about everthing that we say we know. There some things I believe in, that I do exist for example. I guess I think I'm an animal in an extraordinary, beautiful and aweinspiring world. I am fascinated with the human and her mind. I think there is a God and it's part of my identity, but I don't know if he is, just is, or if he is a made up by humans which maybe doesn't make him less loving or fantastic.
A friend at home asked me "Who are you?"
I am Stina. I love English, reflecting, baking and doing art. I live in India at the moment.
A stranger working at a grocery store at home asked me "Who are you?"
Lillemor och Tomas dotter, du vet, präst i Bjärke församling?
Housekeeping asked me "Who are you?"
Student, house aath hai. Main Sweden se hoon. Mera naam Stina hai. Aap (who) hai?
Attractive person at a party asked me "Who are you?"
I'm Stina. Who are you?
Well, I just came from India, I study there. Yeah. I guess I'll go to uni in US later.
Russian who reads my blog regularly asked me "Who are you?"
I'm a philosophy student at MUWCI, an international school in India. A UWC school that works for understanding between cultures.
An alien asked me "Who are you?"
A human. I am almost eighteen Tellus/earth years old.
Is this who I am or is there someone behind all those strings getting pulled? Am I just this cumulation of social selves or something more profound?
I looked at the clock and it showed 00:00.
Oh shit, my Philo blog is already due.
Time being an illusion is a very alien concept to me. It was brought up in "Waking Life" and the idea just seems so completely... stupid. Excuse my lack of eloquent ways to express it. Time seems to be one those very fundamental things and compared to the soul for exmample we do have numerous ways of measuring it. So time exists, but our perception of it is very interesting. This last week I feel like I've had three weekends though it is three weeks each with the normal amount of weekends attached to them. Time passes quickly when you have fun, right? And studies had been done with stop watches. I read somewhere that a stop watch with digits changing to rapidly to see was put on the wrist of a man who made a bungy jump. Mid air he looked at it and could clearly see the digits ticking away. I've experinced this myself when I went for a run in Double Block and thought my clock had stopped. It didn't move it's arms as I was running and looking at it. I turned around and ran back, afraid to get late only to realise that my clock was perfectly suyncronized with every other clock.
I was in Pune when the bomb went off. I met Aviv and Kunga, coming from the site. I was thinking - what if it had been set off in the morning? People from MUWCI would be dead now.
If there was no time and we in some way could tap into this non-time, could you ever die? Would changig the course of something create paralell unviverses? If so, there must somewhere be a universe that has survived all mishappenings. A world where no one has ever died from natural catastrophes, where there are no wars, no crime, because that world took the right turn at every choice. A perfect world?
I went for the Modernism lecture on Existentialism adn I really enjoyed it. It put words to things I've been thinking about, as philosophical ideas often seems to do.
While I was sitting there listening I recognized in myself a tendency of always thinking of how every idea would apply to 'real' life. I became so clear when the lecture was over and we went home, the moment people got up from their chairs they were talking about homework and caf food again.
There is a big gap between the abstract teachings in English (at least in A1 HL) and Philosophy and the world we live in day to day.
I think these "Philo blogs" Give us a lot of oppourtunity to reflect and unite those two elements. I am fascinated with the trips my mind can make in the abstract but I always come back to the real. And I've realised it is the real that's important to me. Of course it is.
So Existentialism talks about taking responsebility for who you are and who you can be, that you have an obligation to live authentic (did I get that right?). I made the choice to apply and accept a place at a UWC. I take the consequences.But when the homework kills all inspiration and takes my focus of why I came here, I rebel. I feel like quitting MUWCI, because I'm not living what existentialism apparently calls "authentic" (I had no idea there was an idea and a word for it).
I feel like quitting MUWCI, run away to an NGO and live there with them. Silly me. And still I stay. Why? It's like the question of the tribes in Orissa all over again. I stay because my parents put money into this. Because I put time into it, because it was what i wanted so bad and because I like it here. What+ I like it here? What was that again?
Yes, I enjoy being here. I realised yesterday actually, when I had another wave of doubt, that even though MUWCI is not what I thought, that I am not what I thought, that it is worth the time. I learn other things than I thought I would. Like the difference between abstract and every day life (I think I will enjoy ethics when we get there), balancing time, realising what I value the most, learning to cooperate, learning that development work is not all sunshine, that I am lazy...
Existentialism made a big impression on me and while it's nice to have a word for what I'm thinking right now I realise that I am very much in the beginning of my philosophical journey, that I will change my views numerous times. And if there is something I don't like, it's stagnation. Mill did his work well.
I'd say it's only natural that my blogs this term will miroor what we do in class. While liberty was interesting I couldn't connect it to my life as intimately as I obviously can do with issues on personal identity. Still, I found Locke incredibly uninteresting.
What thoughts it did raise though was if I really did find the philosophical search for identity interesting? Right now I feel quite safe with myself, I've settled into some kind of pattern, even though I don't feel like I've taken on any particular role, which I'm really happy for. I would like to stay on that topic.
There is the clown, the committed, the studious, the bad, the drunk, the sad, the detached, the shy... there are so many roles played out in any enviroment of youngsters collected, usually school. What it is like in the world of the mysterious grown-ups I don't know. Still, I feel like the roles here at MUWCI are more fleeting, more complex than the ones I'm used to. Is it the reflective environment (Pfft) or that we are growing up? There is no longer the studious vs. the drunken clown, but they can actually be seen together. You can play a part role, but very few seem to beliving a character entirly.
Let me explain. I used to be the studious. I wasn't expected to go for parties, to drink, to be independent. So naturally I fell into that pattern. You are what others and you expect (I have to write more on that sometime). When you move to a new place everything is up in the air, you could become anyone. People usually don't choose something very different from what they used to do, but they still change.
I changed and was thinking that I would fall into one of these roles that you eventually become chained to. But here it was harder. To use a literary expression: the characters were more round. They had more sides than one I kept getting surprised in many cases. Another interesting thing about the environment here is that we all disappear, dispers at the breaks and you have the chance to make yourself a different place when you come back.
Everyone is also expected to change in one or more ways being here at MUWCI. It is part of our process. And there are only to years here, making the place prone to changes. Traditions can change much faster here than at a collage that has three grades (and has some old impressive history) where first year is surviving and second being taught how it works arounf there and third is ruling the place. My prejudices.
So do I beilive that this kind of changes are for the good? Absolutly! If I just may connect back to Mill and the dead dogma... no change would mean a less dynamic, experimenting, progressive culture than that we form here at MUWCI. Or do we?
I went home for winterbreak and I felt as a much more independent person on arrival than on departing a few months earlier. I had plans to go visit friends and family, go on hikes and do it on my own initiative. For the first couple of days I held to my plan, but then I very quickly slipped back into a role of daughter at home. I ate the meals they cooked for me, played with my brother, walked the dog, read a book... and it was very nice.
The problem was leaving again. Having built on my dependence, leaving my parents behind me at the security check at the airport was very hard. I couldn'tr hold back my tears and even when I made my transfer in Amsterdam I felt like finding the earliest plane right back. Teh first few days of MUWCI was very hard and I am in general much more homesick this term than the last one.
Why?
I think it is because I had a wonderful time at home, the best of the best. We all savoured the time and really enjoyed each others company for that short time. I didn't have to get nagged about doing homework, doing the dishes or fight with my brothers. I wasn't going for an adventure as when I was forst going here, but back to MUWCI, to what I knew and schoolwork instead of Christmas food and leisure.
Over the first term, I slowly got more confused with 'home'. I said home about MUWCI when I was on Project Week, I said home about my house when the schoolday was over and I said home about my country, my family and my house in Sweden. Perfectly confusing.
Nearing the end of winterbreak though, I was begrudgingly calling MUWCI home just to make myself go there. I had no wish to go back, and if I had it was very small. I'm talking about the last day here, when homesickness was already starting to get a grip of me.
There really are these huge differences in my personality (dependence) and I hope I will reach some kind of conclusion about it, because being split into two persons can be quite darining at times.