"Original Position"

I understand the concept of Rawl's "Original Position" and how it is supposed to help quide in developing a just society, but the fact of the matter is that humans are far too developed and intelligent to ever actually implement any rules based on the "Original Position." In today's society the majority of people are only looking out for themselves and pay little attention to those who are struggling in life. At the same time, I am guilty of helping myself over others in plenty of situations. Now not all of these things are significant for example taking the last slice of pizza is not that big of a deal in the scheme of life. My main point is that in order for the "Original Position" to actually work in respect to making a just society, the rules would have to be made at the very start of the society in which everyone is literally behind a "veil of ignorance." The problem I find with is, don't you think if there were humans intelligent enough to set up a society with rules, that they are intelligent enough to know what is good and what is bad for them. Thus this leads us back to people making rules that will benefit them more than others.

Steven Lippman

Argument from Design

I want to say that this seems like a very understandable argument for someone to believe in the existence of God, so lets put this into perspective. What are some of the most creative things man has been able to develop? Computer and planes are some acceptable answers. Has man ever created anything so complex as the world, and everything in it that revolves around one another. So if a human is not capable of creating the world, then what or who is? I would agree that this is a rationally sound argument for the existence in God. Now some problems with this are, who designed God, and how come God did not make the world perfect? These again do not prove that God doesn't exist, but do give weight to the objection. The first objection seems to be a question that is answered based on someone's faith. The second though, there have been plenty of responses to such as, we would not know good, if we did not know what evil was. I think only the first objection of who created God, is the only one that has enough rational behind it to be considered a good argument.

Steven Lippman

Rational Grounding for belief in God

I do not think it is necessary to have rational grounding to believe in God. Despite the fact that it would make things a whole lot easier, I do not think that they should play an important role in deciding whether or not someone believes in God. The biggest issue with God is that those who all believe in him are basing their beliefs mainly on faith. Faith though, many say is not a logical reason for believing in God. What if we were to think of faith as some force that humans have not learned how to study yet, for example it could be force that has effect on the mental processing that tells us that there is some supreme being and that he is God. Because the existence of God is one of the main controversies that neither side can seem to formulate any rational grounding, that it is not important for someone to have rational grounding in order for them to believe in God.

Steven Lippman

Existence of God

Based on the readings I find more rationale in the justifications that God does exist. I think the most important justification that one can consider derives from facts about the governance of the world. How can something be created that works so efficiently, yet is so complex on multiple levels. I do not see any regular human being coming up with an idea that is more creative than the earth we live on. Not only that, but I do not believe that man has the knowledge to create something so complex. There are also several other good arguments that seem to be more reasonable than their counterparts.

Steven Lippman

Old vs. New

I would not say that my understanding of philosophy has changed as much as the way I view philosophy in order to understand it. Subjects like history and math may be taught in different methods depending on the teacher, but the ultimate goal is get an understanding of facts. All math teachers tell their students one plus one equals two. I think philosophy is a subject that the teacher has more of an effect on how the students understand the specific material that they teach. With the old professor I was able to understand philosophy mainly based on mind-body experience and how to think about certain situations given certain circumstances. With the new professor I am able to understand philosophy based on going through a process which is supposed to help me move towards a conclusion. Both professors, through their styles of teaching were and are able to allow me to understand the material they were trying to teach. But the main difference that I have found between the two is that the new professor has provided us with certain procedures on how to come to philosophical conclusions.

Steven Lippman

Theoretical vs. Practical

I would rather have theoretical wisdom rather than practical wisdom. I believe having theoretical wisdom will enable me to make more correct decisions on a daily occurrence. Also, I will be able to win most debates since I will have facts to back up all of my arguments. I also think that if someone's theoretical wisdom is substantial enough that they would be able to take decent positions on practical wisdom questions. Of course anyone would like to have both types of wisdom, but if I had to choose between the two, I would surely pick theoretical wisdom. My main reasoning behind this is that I will be able to make the most informed decisions because I will be able to rely on facts, which will hopefully allow for the most success.

Steven Lippman

Heavenly Body

If you believe in an afterlife consisting of a spiritual nature, how will we know that we are still ourselves and that other people are actually who they say they are. Like from the readings from the book, if a friend dies, and you have only recognized that person by the physical appearance, how do you know what their spiritual appearance will look like? What if these two different appearances are the same people but look different from how we remembered them, how will we know if they are telling the truth or not. On earth we have an understanding of who we are, but after we die there is no possible way for those still on earth to conclude that a person still lives on after death, but then again we may not know what spirits look like. For all we know the trees we walk past on campus could be the spirit of great grandparent, just with a different physical appearance.

Steven Lippman

Emotions of the Mind

What controls emotions? My answer the brain, but then what controls the brain? I believe the soul/ mind to be the conductor of the human. When we have emotions it usually deals with a perception of how someone views a situation, therefore we know our brains control our views and how we think, and since the brain is controlled by the mind, our minds are what control the emotions.

Steven Lippman

Who would win in a fight? Mind or Matter

When we think of humans, we think of a body that has brain that tells it what to do. Essentially our body is a car and the brain is the driver. So now what if we think of the body as a separate piece, and the brain as a separate piece. Which one is more valuable or which one has more power. When someone decides to start running, the brain sends signals to the legs to start moving faster and in rhythm. But say you touch your finger to a hot stove, there are signals that are sent from your fingers to your brain that THEN tell your body to remove your finger from the stove. So is it really possible to consider the body and the mind two different objects working on the same project, a project called life? Or are the body and mind the same thing just two components that are combined together to complete the picture.

Steven Lippman

Can people really be lucky?

Section VI Of Probability talks about chance. It goes into the discussion if things really happen by chance or the fact that us as humans do not understand the actual causes of certain particular events. Think of the example, one might think they are lucky if they win the lottery. But why are they lucky, because some machine picked the same numbers as you, therefore that makes you lucky. The question now is, what caused the machine to pick those numbers? If we think that luck or chance picked those numbers that is an ignorant belief in which humans seen to confide in when events happen that have no reasonable explanation. The problem with us understanding the causes of why the numbers are picked though, is because we do not fully comprehend the idea of power. For every cause there is some power that produces the effect. Some of these powers are more reasonable to understand than others. So therefore the understanding of power should ultimately enable us to understand every cause and effect, which should be able to answer a lot of questions that as of now, humans cannot seem to efficiently answer. The biggest problem though is how can humans understand power if we cannot fully measure it in every situation where we know it is present but not easily understood.

Steven Lippman

Do you see what I see?

After reading the Fixation of Belief, several thoughts ran through my mind.
First, one argument that is made is that if someone beleives something, and someone else does not, who gets to say who is right and who is wrong. Now this seems like an easy answer, just look at both point of views and see which one has facts backing it up. This is where the problem comes in. Now who is to say, that the facts supporting one's argument are correct, because the other person might not believe in those facts but believe in ideas which he believes to be facts that support his argument.
Second, if one person believes that he is always rights, should he not think that any other person could be always right based on their beliefs. I think point trying to be made is that there is no such thing as fact, there is always a variable that could change an outcome. Facts are what the individual believe them to be, but there are also facts which are believed by the majority which makes others assume they are true.
This leads to the next point, so if every person had their own beliefs, people would probably be in a constant state of war with each other to decide who ultimately has the right befiefs, but this war can never be won. So even though there are multiple people that believe in the same logic of ideas(even millions of people) there are still those who will oppose those ideas with their own.

These ideas seem to make everything way more complicated than they need to be but if people did not challenge these ideas then we would never learn anything new, or different approaches to different problems or situations.

Steven Lippman

Some insight on several of the readings dealing with Americans not knowing information about American History and science deals with "American Exceptionalism" which is a term that describes how Americans see themselves as superior to other cultures. I think because we have so much technology which expands our range of objects and activities, it does not allow us to concentrate and study the fundamental subjects in which our country and lives are based on. I also think that another reason for the low scores on basic tests deals with the fact that we learn some of this information once maybe twice throughout our school career. I cannot remember the last time I had enough free time to sit down and just look over the constitution. Plus there are many other activities that I would rather be doing, or things that provide more satisfaction. One more reason that people do not score well on these subjects, is because these two areas (Science and Civil Knowledge) and specialized subjects. There are people that are payed to be experts in these fields, so if I am not getting paid to study science ( and I believe science to be one of the worst subjects on the entire planet) then why would I want to waste my time learning about something I really do not care about. I would much rather spend my time learning about a subject I am interested in.

Steven Lippman