Class 9/9/14

Hi again

Tuesday's class began with an experiment in the courtyard. We were all told to go lie down somewhere and close our eyes. Little by little, we were supposed to let go of all of our senses. This was really hard to do with all of the crickets chirping, but I actually experienced a few seconds here and there when I was somewhere else. I don't know where that "somewhere else" was but I got there. I got there when I wasn't focusing or trying to get to that place. When I did think about it, I couldn't get there. It reminded me of when you can't sleep and you know you're trying to fall asleep. You can never actually fall asleep! That was how I felt during this activity.

When we returned to the classroom, it was back to debating. The main topic was innate ideas. The Descartes side argued that everyone is born with innate ideas such as God, logic, and time. We, the Humean side, debated that you can't possibly be born with those ideas in your head. One of our arguments was that not everyone believes in God. If your family is religious, they might put you in a class to study your family's faith, whatever that may be, but you're not born knowing what the idea of a "higher being" is. Another innate idea that the Descartes side touched upon was time. Time is definitely something people aren't aware of from birth. When you tell a child you are babysitting that they have 10 minutes until bed and two minutes later you say it's time to go to bed, they don't know any better. Innate ideas are not a valid argument because without being taught about these things and without having experienced them first hand, people won't know about their existence.

Next post: part two to meditation activity.

Song Experiment (First Post!)

Hello, hello!

This is my first blog post for IB Philosophy! Exciting!

The latest homework assignment was to listen to a song, any song, five times in a row. To follow it up, we had to write a reflection on how our mind and body changed from the beginning of the first time to the last note of the fifth time. Here it goes:

I chose a song that I liked but hadn't ever sat down and really listened to carefully. In the trailer for Zero Dark Thirty, there is a version of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" sang by a choir called 

Scala & Kolacny Brothers. When I saw the trailer is was so eerie and took me a minute to realize

what song it was. So for some reason I chose this song to listen to five times straight in my room for this assignment.

To be completely honest, the first time through I almost fell asleep about four times (picking a really slow song when I almost fell asleep in Spanish class a few hours earlier probably wasn't the greatest idea), so I decided to sit up for the last four times. At first, I tried to get all philosophical and attempted to find a deep meaning in the song's lyrics. However, I couldn't stop my mind from wandering to topics like "I have IB Anthro to do" to "I hope it doesn't pour during soccer practice later" to "what should I eat after this?" to "Wow, I didn't realize how long this song was." For the first ten minutes, I was really into the assignment. I really tried to take in and appreciate the music and it was a song that I admired which was good. But after that ten minutes or so I was getting a little impatient. Actually, a lot impatient. Not listening to it a fifth time definitely crossed my mind a few times (I didn't cut it short though so no worries Mr. Summers). I am someone who needs music when I do things- run, homework, go online- but doing nothing except listen to the same long, slow song over and over and over and over and wait for it.... over again almost drove me insane.

The main lesson learned from this assignment, your mind will wander if the only thing you're doing is sitting in your bed listening to the same song five times in a row.