Francis Bacon and his Four Idols

Francis Bacon was a Christian with revolutionary ideas about science and the Catholic church. He was an English philosopher and essayist, and wrote about his ideas regarding the Church, which he accused of corruption and idolatry.

Bacon created four ideas that describe how many people are misled into false understanding of the world. These are called the Four Idols.

• Idols of the Tribe: This idea states that many people are unable to understand the world simply because of the faulty human nature. Bacon states that a person's perceptions of the world are not based on how the universe actually is, but rather filtered through the individual's own mind and self. He says that humans mingle their own nature with the real nature of things, which distorts understanding.
• Idols of the Cave: This type of misunderstanding is based on the distortion that occurs within each individual person, which is different from the distortion that all humans as a whole experience. Each individual has different ideas about everything, because of his/her own nature, education, discussions, and other impressions and experiences. Because each person has different experiences in life, each person thinks differently. Therefore, the information that they take in is filtered through what they know, since they are unable to look outside of their own understanding.
• Idols of the Market Place: The use of language and conversation between people also changes the true meanings of ideas. Words mystify the real ideas that people have in their minds.
• Idols of the Theatre: This idol describes how various institutions and organizations distort true knowledge and understanding by promoting only ideas that support their own agendas. For example, the Catholic church revered only a few ancient Greek philosophers, but didn't discuss any of the other Greek philosophers' works. This kind of idol limits the scope of knowledge that people understand. A limited knowledge leads to biases.
  

Galileo's Daughter

Galileo's daughter, Maria Celeste, helped him through his struggles though she lived in a convent. She was the convent's apothecary, and prepared medicines to treat Galileo's various ailments. Later, Maria also made medicine to help defend her father from the rampant bubonic plague. She also kept in constant communication with her father through written letters, and they were very close friends. Maria, though she never received a formal education, also helped edit and assemble her father's manuscript for his book, The Dialogue. When Galileo got into trouble with the Inquisition for his controversial book, Maria Celeste gave him wise advice to save his life. She advised him to keep quiet about his true opinion of scientific matters and to humble himself before the Inquisition.

St. Thomas Aquinas & His Cinco Ways

I think that the worst of Aquinas' Five Ways is the fourth one. The Fourth Way states that we are able to judge the good qualities of the things around us because there is a model of every good, which is God. It says that we can see something is ugly because we compare it to our inner knowledge of the perfection of God. This is very like Plato's idea of the world of Forms, which encompass the perfect qualities that everything that we observe on Earth can't match up to.

I think that it may be possible that this is true, but even if it was true that we base our observations on our internal knowledge of God's perfection, there is still a problem with this. The problem is that many people have varying ideas of beauty. For example, Kate Winslet's dress that she wore to the Oscars is given a B+ on the attractiveness. However, I think that this dress, worn by Evan Rachel Wood, though also given a B+, is much prettier. I think that Kate Winslet's dress is kind of....ugly. However, the people who made that piece on the Oscars fashion obviously had a different idea of attractiveness than I did. Therefore, how is it possible that there is one definite beauty? I do think, however, that just the fact that everyone has a sense of observing beauty is proof that there is something more than what just exists here. Though everyone has a different idea of what is beautiful, we all know what beauty is. Everyone has a certain liking for things that appeal to them aesthetically, so we must have learned this somewhere. Perhaps God is not the standard by which we base all other observations, but rather, a common idea of good that we all agree on, and with which no one disagrees. Therefore, maybe we are able to understand what it means to find something beautiful because we once knew God. We can base our ideas of beauty, etc., on this feeling that we all gain from God. I think that it is very confusing because there is a difference between recognizing something as beautiful and defining the word "beauty" itself.

I find Thomas Aquinas' Fourth Way faulty because it implies that there is a common, true standard of beauty that we all agree on. This is clearly not the case. Besides, this would mean that some people truly are uglier than others. This would lead one to wonder, why would God create ugly people? I mean, did God just go like, "Hmm, what to do today? Oh! I'll make an ugly person! Just because." Wouldn't God make perfect creations? Or does he make some people inferior to others? This would be extremely unfair because we are, supposedly, going to be judged according to the same standards when we die, and if some people are born with advantages, then it isn't fair for those who aren't.

St. Augustine, the Crusades, and Gothic Architecture

So I wasn't sure if we were supposed to compare St. Augustine's philosophy with Gothic architecture, or just with what we learned so far in Mr. Demail's art history class, since we haven't gone into art much yet.

St. Augustine & Gothic Cathedrals

St. Augustine's philosophy and Gothic Architecture are both based on the Neo-Platonic idea that the human soul is enlightened by God's grace. St. Augustine believed that a person must shake off their impure human senses so that he or she can attain the divine senses and be one with God. He believed that humans could do this by seeking God's aid and grace. Likewise, the Gothic Cathedrals, originally designed by Suger, were built to inspire these ideas in people. The outside of the church appeared plain and crude, but on the inside, the view was spectacular. There were immense, colorful stained glass windows that depicted Bible stories so that the illiterate could learn. When the light streamed through the windows from the outside, viewers on the inside would be struck with a stunning view. Thus they would be motivated to learn about the Bible stories as well as come to church often. The buildings were plain on the outside to represent that a person might be humble and plain on the outside, but on the inside, they found true beauty and wisdom through God. The light coming through the windows was representative of God's grace coming into someone's life and enlightening them.

St. Augustine & the Crusades

St. Augustine created the rules of a Just War, which listed all the requirements that made going to war a just action. He knew that war was wrong, but he believed that it was inevitable. St. Augustine made requirements that the war must be justified.

1. War must be a last resort - all non-violence options must have been already exhausted
2. War must be initiated by an authority figure - government or power
3. Must have a chance of winning the war
4. Deaths are morally justified during a reasonable war
5. War must be waged for the right intentions - motives such as "redress a wrong suffered," meaning repayment for a wrongdoing, or self defense against armed opposition
6. The after-effects of the war must restore a peace to the land that is greater than it was before the war
7. Force must be used as little as necessary - violence must be proportional to the violence initially suffered
8. All measures must be taken to avoid hurting civilians
9. Civilian deaths are justified if they are unavoidable targets

These rules, however, were violated extremely during the Crusades, the violent campaigns by the Catholics against Muslims, Jews, and non-Catholic Christians during their attempts to regain the Holy Land, Jerusalem. For instance, the Crusaders killed countless civilians on their way to the Holy Land, such as the above-listed people who didn't do anything wrong. The Crusaders were unnecessarily cruel and violent.

MEIN KAMPF by Adolf Hitler

So apparently "Mein Kampf" translates to "My Struggle," or "My Conflict". How sad...because Hitler's life was so hard, wasn't it? *cough*

Anyways, today we read an excerpt from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, "On Nation and Race". The erroneous reasoning in his arguments are good examples of fallacies. For example, his opening line states that there are many truths that should be very obvious to everyone, but few people are able to see them. This is his general attitude, that his beliefs are superior to everyone else's, because everyone else is just a "normal" person, implying that he is extraordinary in comparison. He is, essentially, putting down everyone else as stupid and ignorant. This is the fallacy of Ad Hominem, which literally means "against the man". Ad Hominem fallacies are arguments that attack the other person instead of the other person's argument.

Satan Hitler makes further fallacies when he compares the inter-special mixing of animals to interracial mixing of humans. His argument here is that Nature does not allow the healthy reproduction of bi-special (is that a word? like biracial, but for species...) animals, which proves that inter-special and interracial mixing is unnatural and an abomination. He says that animals only mate with other members of the same species, and if they do mate outside their species, the offspring are either genetically hindered or sterile. Hitler uses this idea to support the idea that like animals, humans should only mix with people of the same race. This is a False Analogy because the two do not compare. While the animal kingdom is separated into many different species, humans are all the same species - Homo Sapien. Therefore, Hitler's comparison here is faulty.

Another of Hitler's fallacies is that of Begging the Question, which he makes when he claims that people of Aryan roots are the superior race. To beg the question is to assume that the argument is already proven when it hasnHe says that Aryans are more genetically advantaged, and are basically better than all other races in every way possible. However, Hitler has no proof or supporting information for this claim, which marks it as a Hasty Generalization as well.

Hitler also says that if a person of a higher race reproduces with a person of a lower race, then the child will be in between those levels of genetic greatness. This is a Hasty Generalization because he has absolutely no valid basis for such a statement.

Practically an IUE on intelligent design vs. evolution

The question that people have debated for decades: Intelligent design, or evolution? I think that it was both. Though evolution is undeniably real, I think that it would be impossible for life, at its current level, to come about purely through evolution without a driving force.

First of all, there is a difference between Creationism and the theory of intelligent design. I actually looked this up on http://www.dictionary.com, muahaha. Creationism is the belief that the universe was created according to the story in Genesis, in the Bible. It says that living things were created the way they are now, rather than developing over time.
Intelligent design, however, is merely the "theory that nature and complex biological structures were designed by intelligent beings and were not created by chance" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intelligent%20design).

The reason why I don't believe that all life on Earth evolved spontaneously is that there are many problems with this theory. First of all, the main idea is that living organisms resulted from a series of random, spontaneous events of natural selection and mutations. However, I don't think that that is possible. For example, this theory would mean that long, long ago, some clump of organelles had mutations that allowed them to function together as a cell, survive, and reproduce. I think that this would be impossible because organisms with mutations that are progressing towards a positive evolutionary change would die out before the evolving mechanism is perfected. They would be unable to reproduce at the rate that is required for such drastic evolution to take place.

Spontaneous evolution is also unable to answer several natural phenomenons. Some examples are emotions, instincts, and human intellect. Emotions are things that cannot be explained by scientific means. How can you explain why you love someone? Compassion is more than just a chemical reaction in the brain. There is no gene that specifies every emotion that you will ever experience.

Animal instincts are also unexplainable. Sea turtles lay their eggs on the shore and then abandon them. When the newborns hatch, their instincts tell them to return to the sea though they have no prior experiences in life that tell them to do so. How can this be explained? I think that this is proof that there is a higher power that designed the organisms living on Earth.

The human intellect is also, to me, proof of intelligent design. As opposed to animals, we as humans make conscious choices according to our morals and what we think is just. We are able to question our choices and weigh right and wrong. Why are we able to do this while animals, insects, and plants cannot? The fact that I included plants in that question is weird, but when you think about it...If all life evolved from a common source, then how come plants didn't get brains too? If evolution is, as my hated AP bio textbook says, a perpetual, gradual process, then why aren't we seeing plants that are gradually developing conscious minds? Why didn't all monkeys evolve into humans? Why aren't we seeing monkeys that are gradually attaining more human characteristics?

However, I don't deny the fact that natural selection and evolution are really happening in our world today. There is more than enough evidence of that. It is pure logic that all species evolve as a result of natural selection. The individuals that are less genetically advantaged are obviously going to produce less offspring or die before reproducing. Thus the unfit genes eventually disappear from the gene pool and the surviving genes are those that promote a more fit individual that is able to reproduce and survive. That makes pure sense. I just don't think that evolution was the lone creator of life.

According to the Big Bang Theory, the universe originally consisted of a single point of matter, called the singularity. All the matter was compacted in this singularity. Then, it exploded, producing matter and planets blah blah blah. This seems incredibly unlikely to me; it seems as preposterous as the idea that an intelligent being created the universe. However, even if the Big Bang Theory is true, it still comes down to the question of where the singularity originated from. Just as the question of where God came from. And no one has the answer; we can only say it just WAS.

Personally, I think that an intelligent God created our world, our galaxy, maybe even our universe. No one knows where our universe begins or ends, and there are most likely other universes in addition to ours. I think that this God used science to create our world. After all, he had to create atoms, molecules, elements, cells, gravity, the laws of physics, etc. I think that science and theology can coexist to explain the origin of our world. Therefore, I think that God used evolution as a mechanism to propel the growth of life. As the world changes, the species on it have to change as well. However, the Earth won't last forever, which could explain why species are devolving and life is becoming more chaotic.

Though I believe in intelligent design, I don't believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old like many Christians do. There may be six thousand years of history, but I think that the Earth is likely much older than that. Taking it from a Christian point of view, it is very likely that Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden for a long time while the outside world was evolving and changing. Because they were supposedly immortal while they were living in the garden, we can see that it is possible that they lived there for maybe even thousands of years. The Bible makes it seem like Adam was created, a couple days later Eve was created, and a couple days later Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit that has damned us all. I don't think that Eve would really have been so quick to transgress, I think that she ate the fruit after a long time of having nothing else to do. I mean, if you were locked in an empty room with a button on the wall that said DON'T PUSH, eventually you would push the button, right? So I think that the evidence suggests that while Adam and Eve were in the garden, the surrounding world was evolving and changing (dinosaurs and stufffffff). We simply don't know how long they remained in the garden, which allows for the evolution of our Earth, as well as religious beliefs and scientific beliefs to coexist harmonically.

Many people reject the idea of intelligent design because there is simply no solid evidence or proof. To me, the fact that I am thinking and writing this blog are evidence enough that something divine created life. I don't believe that I am merely a large mass of functioning cells. Besides, there is also no definite proof that evolution alone created life, because there are still missing links on the fossil record that are supposed to connect certain species together. There is still much proof that needs to be acquired. If a person can believe the Big Bang Theory, then I think that they also possess the capacity to believe in something as preposterous as Creationism. There simply cannot be a single origin of time, because there must always be something before it. Therefore, the idea of negative infinity is equally as valid as the idea of positive infinity. I think that existence has always been, because life is, after all, a circle. Life has existed for eternity, though not necessarily on this Earth. When you realize that life could only have come from eternity, you also realize that eternity could not exist without something divine. Therefore, everything comes down to God, and the God who created God, and the God who created that God...for eternity.

However, the issue comes up whether or not evolution and intelligent design should be taught in schools. Currently, we are taught that evolution is the means by which life came to be. Teachers are not allowed to teach Creationism because religion cannot be taught in schools. I agree that Creationism should not be taught in schools because it follows a few specific religions' ideas, while there are many other religions that teach different ideas about how the world came to be. However, the theory of evolution is part of science, so it should be taught. Since I believe that evolution does not necessarily contradict religion, I think that it should be taught in schools. The students should just be made aware that certain ideas are theories. Then they can make their own conclusions about how the universe developed.

Affirmative Action

The prompt states that because Barack Obama is now president, Affirmative Action is no longer necessary.

I disagree with this statement because I don't believe that Barack Obama's presidency has anything to do with the relevance of Affirmative Action.

However, I do agree that Affirmative Action should not be implemented.

This is because it is essentially racism. Affirmative Action determines the privileges that people can or cannot have, based purely on their race. More specifically, Affirmative Action makes it much easier for a Black or Latino person to be accepted into a university than a White person.

The basic argument for those who support Affirmative Action is that minorities such as Blacks and Latinos are socioeconomically underprivileged, and whites are more well-off. Therefore, blacks and Latinos, despite lower test scores and grade point averages, should be accepted into a college over a White person with higher educational performance.

I think that this is wrong for several reasons. First of all, I believe that a person should be given educational opportunities based on their abilities and performance, rather than race. If a white person is more qualified for the spot, then he or she deserves that spot. If a White person does not qualify for the spot, then he or she does not deserve it. If our society is to overcome racial prejudices, then race should not matter in any case. This is because college classes are known to be difficult and extremely challenging, and only students who have previously shown that they can handle the level of work load and material should be allowed the spot. If a student does poorly, then why should they be given a spot in a much-desired college? People say that they want to overcome racism, but isn't apportioning privileges according to race, basically just another form of racism?

I do agree that minorities such as blacks and Latinos are generally poorer and underprivileged. However, public schools are free!! It doesn't cost money to do well in high school. Sure, money helps, if a student wants a tutor, but how many successful students are really hiring tutors? If a person wants to do well in school, they only have to want to try hard and work hard. If they keep working and studying, then they'll get good grades. I never had a tutor and I still do well in school. Besides, there are plenty of poor people of other races besides just blacks and Latinos.

Oftentimes an underprivileged student has to take away from their time devoted to schoolwork in order to take care of a younger sibling or work a job to support the family. As a result, grades suffer. However, I don't think that this is sufficient reason to say that underprivileged minorities with poorer grades should be accepted into colleges over a white person with good grades. As I said above, how are they going to keep up with the college work if they didn't even do well in high school? I agree that it's extremely unfair that they didn't have the opportunity to do well in high school, but the fact remains that they did not do well and therefore it would be against all odds for them to do well in a prestigious college. Accepting an underprivileged student into a prestigious college is not going to fix the injustices done to them earlier on in high school.

I guess there is no easy solution to the imbalance in our society. Affirmative Action is not fair for those who have worked hard in school and who do not fit into the "Underprivileged Minority" category. Affirmative Action only solidifies the boundaries between races and confirms the prejudices that people have. I mean, look at the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The Banks family were black, and they were LOADED! They live in BEL AIR! I'm Asian and living in Ghettoland, I mean, Reseda. GEEZ! MY HOUSE IS THE SIZE OF ANGELINA JOLIE'S CLOSET! And because I'm going to be grouped into the "Asian" category, it's going to be harder to get into UCLA.

I totally agree that it is really really unfair to the poorer minorities that they don't have the same opportunities to excel in school. It's really not fair. However, placing them in advanced universities is not going to give them the education they deserve. The real problem here is that they were not given the opportunity to excel in high school. Whether it be because of single parents, or preoccupation with other important matters that draw away from schoolwork, these are reasons that cannot be fixed by giving more advantages in college. I think that something should be done earlier on, to help them so that they can be qualified to be accepted into high-status colleges.

Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens

I was sick yesterday, so here is yesterday's homework.

Syllogisms

A syllogism is a method of reasoning that includes a minor premise, a major premise, and a conclusion. The major premise is a general statement about something, and a minor premise is another statement about a specific thing that relates to the major premise. The conclusion is the resulting idea that is formed when the minor premise is put together with the major premise to form an implication about the subject of the minor premise.

The logic of a syllogism is as follows: A=B, B=C, therefore A=C

Example:
Major premise: Emily plans to throw rotting bananas at all people who make stupid polls.
Minor premise: Both Aaronito and Amanda made stupid polls.
Conclusion: Emily plans to throw rotting bananas at Aaronito and Amanda.

Modus Ponens is a syllogism that states:
If P, then Q.
P.
Therefore, Q.

P is a condition, that if fulfilled, will lead to Q.

Example:

If a unicorn trots in front of me and eats this acorn in my hand (P), then I will grow a cornfield (Q).
A unicorn just trotted in front of me and ate the acorn in my hand. (P is fulfilled)
Therefore, I will grow a cornfield. (Q takes place as a result of P).

Modus Tollens is another form of syllogism, similar to Modus Ponens, but it states that if something does not take place, then something else will also not take place. If the condition P is not fulfilled, then Q will not take place.


Example:


If Elmo does not give me a free pair of pajamas (P), then I will not eat another cookie for the rest of my life (Q).
Elmo did not give me a free pair of pajamas (P).
Therefore, I will not eat another cookie for the rest of my life (Q).