Mentality

This post brought to you by The Spark of Inspiration, now in Enlightenment, Revelation, Epiphany, and Raspberry.

No summary due to being shorter than average.

Recently, another student spoke about how Reason and Passion are balanced, and mentioned that Passion is like a measuring stick, while Reason provided a baseline. This immediately interested me, because I know from psychology of cases where people have been rendered emotionally inert, and lost all ability to assign value - they could still logically conclude results, and what would happen, but found themselves incapable of determining whether those results were good or bad.

I started to think about how these pairs matched up, and wrote them down in notes as...

Reason + Passion

Logic + Emotion

However, seeing them stacked up like that, and having just spoken about the measuring stick/baseline comparisons, I began to think about whether it would be possible to use different pairs, as long as you had A baseline and A way to measure outcomes. So, of course, that would look like...

Reason + Logic

Passion + Emotion

Oddly enough, they make perfect sense - both as pairs, and as to why they are rarely considered. Using your passion and emotion together is somewhat like the feeling of being 'part of the crowd' and acting along with a mob even in ways you wouldn't normally - because your check is now Passion instead of Logic, and in a large crowd, passions can run high, in unexpected directions. The other pair, Reason as a baseline with Logic as a measuring stick, is the ideal scientific method; use Reason to determine what makes sense, and Logic (along with experiments) to confirm that your baseline is accurate.

Quite interesting, in the end.

Comments: Please, comment! I'd love to know if you can think of any other combinations of thought in this vein, too...
Relevant Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EmotionsVsStoicism Of course!
WARNING! TvTropes can be an addictive experience!
WARNING! The trope listed was not used in the creation of this post - if you read it expecting a continuation, you may be deservedly disappointed.

Expectations

Summary is, as always, near the bottom.

To begin this post, here is an interesting idea: In older time periods, being a scribe - or knowing how to read and write at all - was considered an adult occupation, one that might well require a lengthy apprenticeship and which was a rare, extremely difficult task. Now, however, we expect each and every ten year old to read and write at least competently. Even with available training, learning to be a scribe was a long process fit only for the most skilled.
What is the difference between literacy as the rare province of extremely skilled adults, and literacy as a requirement for young children? The only two are the amount of time they can spend learning and expectations - and scribes got more time to learn, since it was an apprenticeship!

Expectations shape our lives, including mine; growing up as part of the family that has had historically good education and a love of reading has given me an inclination towards the same. On a more embarrassing note, I enjoy puns because I couldn't get away from them - and some of them were actually pretty good. And as an even less orthodox example, it was implicitly assumed that I would avoid Swarthmore because members of my family have gone there - but as I looked at it more, I've decided to apply vigorously.

Expectations fit in well with the Nature vs. Nurture debates - consider that we've discovered many genes that appear to influence traits in other animals, and to some extent in humans. Those can't be said to be expectations in the normal sense, since they're determined more or less randomly; people may choose to marry for good traits, but the chaotic mess of genes in even one person is extremely unlikely to be a perfect indicator for any single trait.
In contrast to that, we have the above example - is it likely that in that short amount of time, our entire gene pool has somehow changed to make us much smarter (and, note, very little else) - which should preclude geniuses spread throughout history, but instead indicate a steadily increasing number. Despite that, we have such people as Leonardo Da Vinci, who falls before that jump.

For the summary; Expectations shape our lives. They are not the sole determinants of our fate, but they light a path for us - it is possible, but much less likely, that we charge off into the darkness, especially if the lit path is one we like.

Comments: Please do! I feel this post to be a bit lacking.
No tropes today.

On the Nature of Beauty in Nature

Note: Sorry about the pretentious title, but i'm a sucker for puns.

Note: As always, summary at the bottom.

Beauty.
It seems difficult to define, except perhaps by example, and even then, one person may be moved by the Mona Lisa - and another may see nothing special about it. I personally think it is technically good, but not as 'inspired' as I hear so often, a good example of a middle ground.

So, the nature of beauty is subjective; can we determine where it might come from? Well, there are four main options that I see -
The religious one, that we admire the work of Creation due to an inherent touch of deific majesty. The counter to this might be that this would render atheists incapable of appreciating beauty - something clearly false.
The derivative one, that we consider beauty beautiful because it *is*, and if we were to think of it otherwise, we would run into the same problem of trying to define something logically that did not happen except by chance. Essentially, the idea that beauty is chance - but if that is so, then why should beauty be so universal in many cases? Rather than having another culture's beauty 'dulled' to us by different standards, it should be incomprehensible, a mess. (Note that if you apply the 'we see it because we observe it' idea to the universe, you get the anthropic principle: We can wonder at how unlikely it was to get intelligent life in the universe because we are intelligent life, and without us such an improbability would simply be unnoticed.)
The communicative one - this one is starting to get good - that beauty, like language, is a way in which we convey meaning between people. If we enjoy a tree, and someone else does, we can consider ourselves to have a slight insight into another person's mind. Society merely turns these connections into a semi-codified method of transmission across civilization. The problem is that beauty has such appeal, again, across cultures, even if it is dulled slightly in translation.
The one to which I give the most credence is the evolutionary idea. We, as mammals, like things that indicate a good place to live. A love of green forests and fertile plains; of light rains but also sun; of other mammals that already confirm an area as habitable. In short, we consider beauty to be life, and life to be beautiful.

Even this last, the evolutionary idea, has a fundamental weakness, however. Look out upon the deserts of the American Southwest, for instance, and you will see many beautiful sights made up simply of great spires of multicolored rock - perhaps with not a single green plant of roving animal in sight. Shouldn't the sight of such a technically barren place repel us? By the same token, how could we admire the grace of a tiger - we should abhor it as competition, as a predator. Perhaps you could explain the second as proving that high predators can live best in places rich in life, but why can we admire a barren place for its beauty? Why should a sunset, heralding a night in which danger lurks, be such an evocative picture of emotions other than fear? Indeed, why should we feel any emotion more complex than Good/Bad? Perhaps it simply comes with the larger brains; even so, look at art made up of purely geometric shapes. There can still be intense beauty in those.

The most powerful aspect of beauty seems not to be any of these four schools of thought, but merely thought itself: We see beauty in things which are more. More full of life, more colorful, more sublimely proportioned, more regular. Anything which rises above the ordinary, even if horrible, has a certain beauty - terrible beauty, perhaps, but beauty nonetheless. Such pictures are the experiences that rise above a simple daily slog, and prove that life is worth living to see things beyond the ordinary.

For the obligatory little summary;

There are four common views of beauty.
Religious.
Derivative/Anthropic.
Communicative.
Evolutionary.

The truth of beauty is that we love things which are not 'more of the same' - Whether barren or vibrant with life, nothing seems to cause such sorrow for us as unchanging boredom.

Comments: Please, comment! I don't think I need any restrictions on this one. It's pretty nonoffensive, I hope.

Relevant Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.FertileFeet I find it rather interesting that natural beauty is seen as downright saintly.
WARNING! TvTropes can be an addictive experience!
WARNING! The trope listed was not used in the creation of this post - if you read it expecting a continuation, you may be deservedly disappointed.

Outdoor Education

For everyone who was at Outdoor Ed. with me!

For any Cabin kids:
Welcome to my blog; please do check with your parents to insure that it's okay for you to read here. If it's okay... leave a comment or two!

For any Cabin Leaders:
Welcome to my blog; if you're of a philosophical turn of mind, add some comments.

For any Naturalists:
Welcome to my blog; feel free to add some comments in when you have time.

For anyone:
Feel free to suggest a topic or two!

New Feature

In addition to my growing list of quotes and musings, I have another text gadget - I'll change it occasionally to a new biography for one of my characters from Champions Online. I hope to make each of them a short story of sorts in its own right, and ideally it will provide pleasure to the reader and improve my writing skill.

Video Games

WARNING: This piece is less philosophical, though more so than I expected.

Games I've enjoyed seems to range far and wide. From Super Mario World to Champions Online, I've always been the jack of all trades. I'm pretty good at just about any game I pick up, but I'm rarely The Best. I don't particularly like violent games, but neither do they repel me; I become rather snarky about the violence, mocking the world that's built to maximize brutality. And yet, at the same time, I once WILLINGLY played a Barbie game. (Do note once however. I wouldn't really want to repeat it, as it was rather boring, vapid even.) I love the story of a good RPG, but I've also enjoyed God of War without paying much attention to the cutscenes. Really, the only game I don't like is Halo, which combines the three traits I least like: It's an FPS, it's plot-light (from my point of view; I don't get to play the single player much, but I've seen the cutscenes, and they didn't really inspire me.) and finally, the death knell:
It's 100% competitive, less-than-well-made team games notwithstanding.
It really does speak volumes that I prefer Gears of War by far, despite having clunkier controls and less plot (I HAVE played the single-player...) But fundamentally, co-op is too much fun. Moving with your partner, assigning tasks, backing each other up, and the rush of helping, not an NPC who won't care but a *friend* who will be laughing along with you at how close to the edge of loss you both came. My skills, such as they are, escalate rapidly in any team -
In City of Heroes
I was a so-so tank (Taking the hits for the team),
a bad scrapper (Getting up close and dicing foes),
a joke of a blaster (Staying far away and bombarding foes),
but a good defender (Empowering allies and weakening foes),
and a truly incredible controller (Taking the foes, locking them down, and in my case giggling madly as I used wormholes to send them wherever I wanted.)

In Champions Online, a similar thing is occuring; I sadly can't be a real controller yet (working on it) but I'm at my best co-ordinating my team, the foes, and the environment.

In Rock Band, I can play alone, but I actually play slightly better alongside another person; the feeling of mattering to them means that I have one more incentive to bring out my best.

In Prototype, my favorite missions were the normally-reviled escort ones, because the NPCs were well-developed enough that I felt an echo of that - even though the game was made to cultivate a feeling of uncaring, godlike power in the player. This is a game that is even more violent than God of War, and I enjoyed helping people. I guess my name doesn't mean 'Paladin' for nothing... (Actually it means Christ-Bearer, Spear-Carrier/Young Warrior - but I wouldn't call Paladin much of a stretch from that.)

I suppose the root is that, for all that at my worst I have a horrible ego and an unfriendly nature, I prefer assisting to competing or even being assisted. It's just more fun that way! Of course, the weakness of this is that I hate being the direct center of attention unexpectedly - on my own terms, I can do it, but being randomly dragged out for something that I'm not totally confient in? Pass, I'd rather figure out what's going on and THEN talk about it.

Okay, maybe that became a little more philosophical than I meant. Or rather, a little too much 'self-commentary' and not enough 'Hey guys, I like video games.'

Speaking of which, please PLEASE please let me know if you want to play Champions Online, Left 4 Dead, Warcraft III, of Neverwinter Nights 2. Or, well, anything else. If I have it, I probably want to play.

Comments: Please comment as you wish. No insulting consoles, though individual games can be recommended or commented on. Do note I won't stop playing things I like because of you.
Relevant Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CrowningMoment/VideoGames may not be directly related, but you won't regret reading it. Also, check out http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/HeartwarmingMoment/VideoGames for the less 'WOW!' and more 'Aww!' version.
WARNING! TvTropes can be an addictive experience!
WARNING! The trope listed was not used in the creation of this post - if you read it expecting a continuation, you may be deservedly disappointed.

Humanity

Note: Summary at the bottom.

The supposed traditional view is that humanity is superior to animals only in our intelligence. This can be seen as far back as Greek times, with the myth of the creation of all animals and humans. Created by two brothers, one made animals - quickly and with little thought, lavishing all of the limited 'gifts' available on them. The other made human, spending much time making us in the image of gods - but when he finished found no gifts left. Instead, Prometheus gave us fire (Fire often representing knowledge) to let our minds raise skywards with the smoke. However...

Humanity is far from weak compared to animals. There are traits where we excel, and even some where we excel uniquely - before even getting into our brains. In fact, we are the Terminators of the animal kingdom!

Trait One: Endurance. Humans may not be able to sprint like a gazelle, but we can nonetheless run one down in a tactic called 'persistence hunting' because while the gazelle can sprint, it does so for a shrot period of time. Humans can walk, and walk, and walk, and walk... We also sweat all over, while most animals need to find shade for any hope of shedding heat. In hot climates, we go from being the top of endurance walking or running to being closer forces of nature.
A youtube video of such hunting can be found here, though it focuses on tracking as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wI-9RJi0Qo
As for why dogs were domesticated from wolves so early in our history? Wolves are essentially the only other terrestrial animal that can keep up with humans, and even they are not superior in that category. Horses and oxen are capable of walking alongside humans, but only given very good food and excellent places to rest each night.

Trait Two: Vision. Humans stand on two legs, making us about six feet tall. What would be perfect cover against a lion, only a few feet above the ground, is nothing for us. In addition to this, highly-developed binocular vision with unusual acuity and color vision translates to us being able to see prey from far, far away, as well as letting us see tiny details to allow tracking animals that passed hours, if not days ago. An important note for tracking is that humans pay attention to still details more than most species: We don't have the incredible eye for movement or pattern that an eagle has, but we pay attention to details in the environment that an eagle sees as mere background.

Trait Three: Accuracy. Humans are the ONLY species known to be capable of throwing accurately at a distance. Despite the idea that other primates will fling nuts, pebbles, and other objects with painful precision, they rarely do so out to more than twenty feet. By contrast, a human without training or practice will often have this accuracy, and we developed projectile weapons to take advantage of this - shooting ranges will often have distances of three hundred feet. A human hunter could use a sling to fling a stone with deadly accuracy from ranges that many animals cannot even see to. (Yes, slings are a deadly weapon - used by ancient armies, against other armies, to great effect.)

Trait Four: Dexterity. Imagine, if you will, another animal with the manual dexterity to operate a computer. There are very few indeed. Most such animals would also need extensive training and practice, while simultaneously not approaching a human typist's speed. This co-ordination (and thumbs) allows us to make not just simple tools - seen in use by several species, especially primates - but complex tools, or simply far more refined tools.

Trait Five: Voice. This might not seem to be obvious at first, or useful. Almost everyone, however, seems to know someone capable of mimicking an animal's cry, sometimes with great accuracy - Not to mention the sheer power of complex language to organize. Human vocal cords, tongue, and mouth design combine to create a flexibility more or less unmatched - while some animals can operate outside a human vocal range, few can operate in a larger range.

Trait Six: Adaptibility. For all that this point, at least, is fairly common, it needs a more simple explanation. There are animals which climb, those that sprint, those that swim, those that create packs, even other animals (mostly mammals) which communicate in surprisingly complex ways. But humans are the only animals willing to do all this - and to learn these things. Where humanity first developed, water for swimming was in short, if not nonexistant supply. And yet almost every culture with access to such bodies of water will swim. People in jungles will climb. People who can will sprint from predators, or sprint to corner prey. We create packs - in comparison to most animals, enormous packs. Imagine wolf packs: How many have you heard of that numbered even forty, let alone one-hundred? And yet we theorize that early human tribes, clans, and other groups could be up to one-hundred-and-fifty in number! Our language, while less unique than once thought, is varied and complex.

To summarize:
Endurance.
Vision.
Accuracy.
Dexterity.
Voice.
Adaptability.

All these combine to create (before intelligence or even creating tools) an animal that, in human terms, will never stop, will see you from miles away, can harm you before you even see it, let alone get close, can fool your ears or call in even more, can follow you anywhere, and can do just about anything you can do - maybe better. We may not have the short-range speed, deadly claws and fangs, scent, or unique abilities of most animals, but we are still an incredible species.

The Terminator never needed to be a robot; humans have done everything he did for thousands of years. Did I mention that compared to most animals living long enough for their hearts to beat just under a billion times, humans can apparently live for up to two billion? Even over one billion is rare.
As for being prey: We are squishy, like any other prey. Unlike any other prey, the other humans will notice, and they will get ANGRY. This means that there is in fact a...

Trait Seven: Vengeance. Things which actually tick off humans generally face the many, many problems of doing so. Just look at coyote hunts, and that's usually for attacking a pet - non-fatally.

Comments: Please, comment! The only rule I'm putting down is trying to pull this into evolution vs. creationism/intelligent design. My feelings on this are obvious, but the impact of this article are the same whether we are the pinnacles of evolution or closest to the divine.
Relevant Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumansAreCthulhu (See especially the 'Real Life' section.)
WARNING! TvTropes can be an addictive experience!
WARNING! The trope listed was not used in the creation of this post - if you read it expecting a continuation, you may be deservedly disappointed.