Speaking from a nihilistic perspective, if we live in an inherently meaningless world, where do we derive motivation? The answer is that we create the meaning which gives us purpose through sheer force of will. In her essay “Great to Watch,” Maggie Nelson discussing the pervasiveness of violence in media in our society. Additionally, Oliver Sack’s essay “The Minds Eye,” is a famous essay concerning how blind people perceive their world.…
Mythbusting: ESP is a Well-Established Scientific Phenomenon Let’s say you’re at home, just relaxing on the couch. The day’s been great, but something feels off, you just can’t put your finger on it. Before you got home someone came into your house and moved all of your furniture over exactly one inch. It’s such a subtle difference you would never think you could notice it, but nonetheless, something feels wrong. This is a basis of the notion of ESP, Extra Sensory Perception or in short, sight beyond our senses.…
Professor Jim Davis developed theories on learning, which is shaped by memories. Society tends to use different learning techniques such as “practicing”, which leads to comparatively long-lasting, regulating behaviour. Experience, he states, effects knowledge and curiosity. This essay will attempt to validate religiosity by exploring the ways Theory of Mind contribute to peoples’ established beliefs of religion. It will also examine those with learning disabilities are able to hold religious beliefs despite having difficulty with Theory of Mind.…
There is a revolution occurring in America. This revolution is not fought with guns or swords but rather with information. The enemy is misinformation and how rapidly it spreads is only the start of the problem. The American society has steadily shaped its citizens into uncritical thinkers that accept any form of propaganda as truth, simply because it is on the internet or spoken by a well-known figure. As citizens of the United States of America we have a civil responsibility to seek education and acquire knowledge, then use that knowledge to educate others.…
The essay “Blindness,” by Jorge Luis Borges uses ethos throughout the composition to establish his credibility as an author. Through making this personal connection, Borges draws the audience in due to the factual elements found in his writing. Borges is a blind man who still has partial blindness in one eye, but none in the other. Despite his condition he still wrote numerous books and even earned his directorship at the library. In 1955, he lost his reader’s and writer’s sight.…
Helen Thomson of the BBC reported on aphantasia, which is a condition where a person is unable to form mental imagery, or imagine things. Aphantasia fits into cognitive neuroscience, because it related to people’s mental perceptions. Cognition plays a role, but more in a lack of there of sense because people with aphantasia have the inability to creat images with their mind. In the article, Thomson reports about a person named Philip, who had no idea that people had the ability to create mental images. He believed that everyone did not have an imagination, and if he was told to imagine something he thought that they were just using a figure of speech.…
Can danger be real if it is in a virtual realm? Yes it can when it can control you real life. The Eye of Minds is based on a teenager named Michael who is a very talented gamer. He gets picked by the VNS to help take down a virtual terrorist. The three most important conflicts in the book are the VNS vs. Kaine, the VNS vs. Michael, and Michael vs. his friends.…
Blindsight is a science fiction novel that takes place in the year 2082. This novel is about a group of astronauts' part of a ship called Theseus, that set out to explore the solar system due to radio signal the received from outer space. During the exploration Theseus makes contact with a vessel called Rorschach that contains an alien life, after the crew of Theseus communicates with this peculiar life they come to realize how evil yet intelligent they are and what they are capable of. This novel questions conciseness, identity, free will, artificial intelligence, and makes the reader wonder who we are as human beings. This book explores and questions whether or not consciousness is necessary, or is externally observed behavior the only determining characteristic of conscious experience?…
Hrong-Ray Lin Expository Writing BD 164003765 Paper One Draft One The brain and the mind work in unusual ways that people would not assume living through ordinary, repetitive day to day life. In Daniel Gilbert ’s essay “Immune to Reality,” he proposes theories as to how the mind and brain work unconsciously, and why our emotions and feelings function the way they do. He disputes that every human being contains a psychological immune system which works to shield us from horrible experiences that threaten our happiness.…
The National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR) Autism Genome Project have discovered irregularities in the corpus callosum (which affects communication between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain), the cerebellum (which affects coordination, balance, and motor activity), and an enlarged amygdala. The amygdala plays an important role in emotion and social behavior by linking perceptual representations to cognition and behavior on the basis of the emotional or social value of the stimuli (Baron-Cohen, et, al, 2000). Recent evidence suggests that people with autism have abnormalities in the amygdala. This accounts for their inability to recognize fearful situations.…
For this writing assignment I was instructed to watch the video “The Magic of the Unconscious: Automatic Brain.” The video, “The Magic of the Unconscious: Automatic Brain,” was about a series of illusions that fool people on an everyday basis. The video discusses our everyday routines that we have become unaware of because we do not realize our brain is doing most of the work. It goes in-depth, providing information about the different types of mind tricks that humans do not realize and are essentially blind to. Specifically, the video informs the viewers on the concepts of humans being unconsciously aware of concepts such as selective attention, or our ability to only focus on certain things at once, and how our body has billions of electrochemical…
Cognitive Observation 2 During the first twelve months of life newborns are initiating cause and effect. While, there is no such thing as two infants developing in exactly the same way, there are milestones that young children should reach by certain ages in order to determine growth. As they begin to relate to their immediate surroundings, infants initiate behaviors that establish cognitive development by way of their developing senses (hearing, taste, smell etc.). This is known as, the Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development.…
There are many personality theories that exist and most of the major ones fall into the four major personality perspective theories. Each of these perspectives attempt to describe different patterns in personality. The four major theories are the Psychoanalytic Perspective, Trait Perspective, Humanistic Perspective, and Social Cognitive Perspective.…
A Beautiful Mind is a compelling and powerful movie that explores the Nobel Laureate winner and professor John Nash in his rise, fall, and recovery dealing with schizophrenia. As the film opens, Nash is a genius level student in 1950s America working on applying to graduate school. He is introduced to his roommate, a tall pale guy names Charles. They have a rough start, but eventually warm up to each other as time goes on. The very first time that I realized something was a bit off about Nash, was the scene directly following this where Nash is challenged by one of his fellow grad students to a game of Hex.…
After watching the movie "A Beautiful Mind" i learned a wide range on how critical thinking can take form in many quiet and sneaky ways and just how important it really is. This movie would be very helpful to a student of Critical Thinking because of those reasons. It shows the hit/effect critical reading has with a practical example and shows how it can affect us in or day to day lives and how much we can benefit from thinking critically and how much we can loss by having a "dull" mind. In the movie i (saw/heard/became aware of) a few facts that were worth (seeing/hearing/becoming aware of).…