After reading the first section, first paragraph i thought this passage would be extremely non-sense, saying something totally different from what i read. This statement:
"When you think of it, each of us is alone in the world. Only we feel our pains, our pleasures, our hopes, and our fears immediately, subjectively, from the inside,"
Made me change my interpretation of his lecture. At first my reaction was, whoa I don't think we're alone at all. We have our friends, family, significant others and everyday people we say hi and bye to. We have people we go to when things get tough because if we didn't, many people will be depressed and might explode with anger. So how can I be alone? I thought about that statement again instead of me being so defensive. We really are alone in this world because he is right; we are the ones who feel a feeling. No one will be able to feel the EXACT same way as you. All you can do is try to explain it well and hope they are on the same level as you.
But Then again I disagree with Banach because there was a time where I had lost my mother's trust and my best friend had the same situation. I knew how she felt because i experienced the same thing so therefore i think people are able to know the feeling of how one's feel. Maybe not exactly but they are very familiar with it. So the thought of being alone in the world is something i disagree and agree with. It's something i will consider through out my life though. Something that did run across my mind more then usual is the idea of what people see.
When Banach stated the following:
"When you look at the person next to you (contemplating how their rear-end feels), do you really see them as they are on the inside or feel what they feel? You see only the image of them that is presented to your mind through your senses,"
I was glad he spoke up on it because now i know there are people who have the same thoughts as me. (This relates to "being alone". This just proved everyone is not alone because i had the same thoughts as him meaning we are both together mentally). The only way to know for a fact that what we see is the same presented in another mind is by taking a picture with our eyes, which is impossible to do unless we are robots. There is no way to know for sure. When Marco said we are able to describe what we see verbally but not our imagery, i automatically thought about physics. When describing motion you need to compare the object in relative to another. So according to the law of physics, when one does an experiment, they will get the same results. So with the images being portrayed with our senses, if we compare it to another, it will always be a fact, therefore we know that person is seeing what we see. It may not be exactly but i think it's a better way to identify what we see and know someone see's it too, instead of just saying "oh that's green." Like Mr. Manley said, that green might be blue to someone else but with it described with facts, it will ALWAYS be presented the same to others.
QUESTIONS:
Is he being biased? How do we know he is correct and not just stating
his opinions like we are?
Jenise -
ReplyDeleteYour opening with an anecdote before going into your analysis of the essay worked great.
And you really are able to spotlight both sides of the situation - we are alone in the sense that no one else feels our feeling - but you are of course also right (and its very important) that we can feel other peoples' feelings, especially when we've experienced similar situations or know them well, or are right there with them. These circumstances heighten empathy.
Fun that you made the link to physics.
For me the next step (which you will undoubtedly be pursuing in future writing and thinking) is considering where the 2 sides of this situation (aloneness and also empathy) point your own life.
And another thought for me is that we can't re-feel physical pain, even pain we had a week ago. So if we can't feel that - that would indicate we're a different person than the person who felt that pain. In other words the idea of the Lonely Self Versus the World is complicated by the reality that the Lonely Self is fragmented, dynamic, not securely wrapped and eternal.
Good luck!
Jenise, I liked how you quoted from the article and were able to back up your arguments without your post sounding like an essay. Your writing style was very casual yet intelligent which made it easier to pick up on your ideas. I think your point about us being able to share feelings is very interesting, we can't dispute emotions because we can see the body language of people and their tone. This connects to what I said in class, in this case we can share the visual aspect of emotion, such as body language and the verbal in our tone. This idea makes me genuinely curious about a loophole in this idea that we're "alone" in the world, maybe we can share emotions if we can't share senses? this idea is definitely worth exploring. Great work, you've got some great ideas that are very thought provoking that are begging to be expanded and explored in depth.
ReplyDeleteJenise nice first response! I definitly like how you start off your response with providing the reader with an example of you and your friends having a argument about something ang how you were the only person who understood what you was saying. It was an excellent way to connects to Banach lecture and to start your reasoning. When you mentioned the quote where Banach said "When you think of it, each of us is alone in the world. Only we feel our pains, our pleasures, our hopes, and our fears immediately, subjectively, from the inside," I totally agreed on what you were trying to say. Since we are the only people that can feel our pain or emotions and have our own experiences even if they are similar to others, it is sometimes to hard and complicated to understand and tryto explain to others. So that was a great point that you brung up because that was one of the keys of the lecture.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you portray your ideas and reasoning in this response because you have a tone where you are trying to ask a question about what he is trying to say and at the same time giving the reader a better way of thinking on the way Banach is trying to "sell" his point. I can tell you understand what he is saying, it seems to me like you are taking his side on us being alone in this world and then again you are disagreeing with him. So in a way your in the middle of it. You agree and disagree.
Overall, this response on the first part of his lecture, was thorough, detailed, and well explained and I clearly thought you got your point across on each side, agreeing with him and disagreeing with him.
Well done Jenise! Ihope to read more on what you have to say on this topic!