Vernon God Little on Paradigm Shifts

Last year I read a very interesting book called Vernon God Little. The novel by DBC (Dirty But Clean) Pierre is about a young Texan, Vernon, who's best friend brings his (Vernon's) gun to school and kills most of his classmates and himself. Somehow, it still manages to be a commedy. Vernon struggles against the media who cast him as a young urban psychopath who infected an otherwise lovely town with hate and tragedy. In the following excerpt, a corrupt reporter tries to convince Vernon that he must "shift his paradigm" before it is too late. (umm.. warning explicit language? :P sorry)

"'Don't underestimate your general public, Vern–they want to see justice done, I say give them what they want.'

'But like– I didn't do anything.'

'Tch, and who knows it? People decide with or without the facts– if you don't get out there and paint your paradigm, somone'll paint it for you.'

'My what?'

'Pa-ra-dime, you never heard of the paradigm shift? Example: you see a man with your hand up your Granny's ass. What do you think?'

'Bastard.'

'Right. Then you learn a deadly bug crawled up there, and the man has in fact put aside his disgust to save Granny. What do you think now?'

'Hero.' You can tell he ain't met my Nana.

'There you go, a paradigm shift. The action doesn't change, the information you use to judge it does.'"

I think this excerpt draws a very helpfull if somewhat gross picture of a paradigm shift haha. Sadly, Vernon does not heed this advice and pays very dearly for it. I'm tempted to ruin the ending but I won't, so if you somehow have any time for liesure reading ( cough cough yeah right IB going insane lol ) this is an awesome book and I highly recommend it :)

He loves me? He loves me not.

I was just thinking about rationalism and empiricism, and until now I've thought that knowledge is based more on perception than on reason. And that just made me sad. If empiricism is true, would that mean that love does not exsist? No, no, it would only mean that one could never know whether they were in love, because love can not be percieved. I suppose that one could use their reason to deduce that they were in love. For me this kind of reinforces my belief that perception is the true basis of knowledge, because I'm not convinced that anyone can know that they are in love, or that love even exsists. Empiricists must be quite pesemistic. I suppose it depends on the deffinition of love and I also suppose that I'm using my reason presently... but since i'm not gaining any knowledge as I'm only being foolish and confused it shouldn't support rationalism. I very sincerely hope that no one has wasted their time reading this. sorry Mr. Wall :P

get a life and get a girlfried

I'll hopefully write a more substantial blog later this week, but for now I hope I can entertain a few people. My mom is reading a book called "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse" by Robert Rankin. Here is an excerpt she thought I could include in my blog that I thought was pretty funny:

"It is a fact well known to those who know it well that we can only truly know what we personally experience. Above and beyond that, it's all just guesswork and conjecture.

Of course, there are those who will take issue with this evident profundity. They will say, 'Ah, but what do we really understand by truly know and personally experience?' But to these issue takers we must say, 'Get a life and get a girlfriend.'"

H1N1

I don't really have much to say on this topic that I didn't already say in my comment on Mathew's blog. I do agree that "swine flu" is probably very much hyped up by the media and is not as dangerous as some people may think. I hear so many people saying, " It's only as bad as any other flu." Maybe so, but other strains of influenza are lethal too! Haha, it's very unlikely that any of us will die from any flu this year, but there IS a chance, so why not take the precautions? On the other hand I'm not sure of the side effects of this particular vaccine. But the only reason not to get the vaccine should be to avoid any possible side effects, not to prove the point that H1N1 has been sensationalized by the media.

Silent Dance

These dancers are deaf! Yet they somehow stay perfectly syncronized with the music and eachother. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPB87oq7RzQ&feature=related

The Chicken or The Egg

I just wanted to say that i think it's kind of ridiculous to suggest that concepts can not be understood without words. Was that not the argument in the audio-clip? Because it seems very illogical to me. Words are invented to communicate new concepts.. so obviously someone understood each concept before the word existed. Of course people who have never been introduced to or had the need for a concept will not understand it. If a word was invented to distinguish black mice from other mice, the concept of black mice would have been understood prior to the invention of the word only there had perhaps been no need to put black mice in their own catagory. If the need did arise then somone would have to first come up with the concept before it could be given a name. I do think that words shape the way we catagorize and give importance to concepts, but I believe that people can understand any concept they are introduced to without knowing a word with which to describe it.

Youtube Video- Facial Expression

I'm not sure if this is how we're supposed to post links. I'm not even sure this has much relevance to our discussions. I do think that this is a pretty interesting video that somewhat explains our involuntary ( and possibly voluntary as well ) facial expressions. Here's the link :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDnzwBmsNJs

la la la language?

Can a language that no human understands or has ever understood still be considered a language? Are the methods of communication of animals considered to be languages? And what about chemical messages sent internally throughout living organisms for the function of their life processes? These messages may be very simple but they still convey ideas don't they? Singing is a form of communication which uses language, but what about other forms of music? Is instrumental music a language? It conveys ideas intentionnally from person to person using sounds as symbolism, so it must be. But what about humming? I could hum the tunes to many well known songs such as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", or " O-Canada", and the ideas of stars and Canada would surely be conveyed as listeners thought of the corresponding lyrics. Obviously without first having a language the hummed tunes would not have these meanings, so humming cannot be it's own language... so what is it?

goor xix la flid.... geddit? me neither :P

Today in class we discussed what constitutes a language. I couldn't think of any examples of languages that might be exceptions to the first few criteria Mr. Wall proposed to us. I do believe that it must be possible to convey ideas through language. I can't think of any reason to dispute the rule that it must be possible for multiple beings to learn, understand, and communicate using a language if it is to be one. I'm not as convinced that communication must be intentional for it to be considered a language. Is imagery a form of language? It is certainly a way for people to convey ideas to one another using symbols to represent other things. The communication of ideas through imagery such as paintings and drawings must be intentional, I think, because each element of one of these images was created consiously by their artist. On the other hand, the elements of a photograph can all convey ideas, but they may not have all been intentionally included by the photographer. Does this mean imagery can not be a form of language?