Dylan+Hunter

__Dylan Hunter__ **[|Pinball Playing Man]**: "There's only one instant, and it's right now. And it's eternity." I like this quote a lot. It is both poetic and mathematically feasible, as their is only one present moment, but, as in all things numerical, this one moment can be broken down into an infant number of decimal places. These numbers may seem small to us, irrelevant even, but size IS relative, and so every fractional moment of existence has value. I wish I had a copy of The Gunslinger with me, the end talks about this very idea of the moments that stretch to infinity, the possibilities that stretch to infinity, the infinity of infinities within infinities, as they all revolve around a single nexus point. The quote may also take into account the fact that each moment is kept in the memories of the living, and imprisoned on the surroundings, forever leaving it's effects. For example, I have grown a few minutes older as I am writing this, and will never be able to take back those minutes. But, as you point out in your previous sentence, what you did in those minutes will never leave you. When you talk about the infinite divisibility of time you are reframing the famous paradoxes of Zeno who 2,500 years ago asked something along the lines of how can a body in motion ever arrive when the distance travelled can be infinitely divided? Philosophers, mathematicians and physicists have proposed various answers, but the one I find most interesting is the one which points out that a body in motion is never at a precise location at any particular time, as it is by definition always // passing //  through, and that since you don't have anything that can be defined by length or duration, you can't meaningfully talk about dividing this. This is one of those ideas that I feel has truth and wisdom to it, but i can't understand it well enough to explain it properly, but I hope I have given you a glimpse into it. This is a link to the academic paper that set out this solution. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001197/02/Zeno_s_Paradoxes_-_A_Timely_Solution.pdf

That's very true. An interesting example is how, in spanish, family is always a singular noun. This may be related to the fact that many spanish speaking countries keep close family ties. Most likely because humor makes use of underlying cultural references and word structure and context. So in one language, there may be a word that means, say, both a chicken, and a businessman. And say, in the culture the language is spoken, Chickens are seen as very protective creatures, instead of cowardly like in our culture. A joke in this culture, in-which a wealthy man ends up sitting on his briefcase and squawking at anyone who approaches, may be humorous. However it would be completely lost on us.
 * Language may or may not affect our view of reality. Of course cultural aspects would change one's perception of the world, but language as itself, in my opinion, has very little effect on ones reality. Their may be subtle differences caused by language structure, and reality would seem very confusing if one could not speak the language of the place they are in. However, the most annoying part, is that we will never know if we perceive things differently than one another. I tend to agree with you that the way we construct reality from our interaction the world is more dependent on who we are as individuals than on the particular language we speak, but, of course, the language we speak is part of who we are and must have some impact. I suspect, for example, that if your language embeds different levels of respect according to gender, race, or physical appearance, it also embeds those attitudes in you: attitudes that hopefully can be countermanded by reasoning, but not until they move from the subconscious to the conscious.
 * The use of silences omissions, pace, tone of voice and bodily movement effects the context of the words being said. It gives us an idea of the emotion behind the words being said, and differentiates the essence of what we say. I have often wondered if those languages that use inflection and tone to change the meaning of words make it more difficult for those speaking such languages to convey emotion with tone and inflection the way we do in English, and if so, what do they substitute for tone and inflection when wishing to convey emotion? And also, one would think that, for example, a rising tone would be an instinctive product of indignation, but if your language does not permit you to use a rsing tone (becasue it would alter your meanign) do you have to control this impulse or do you simply cease to have it? I have tried asking one or two Vietnamese friends, but have not been able to make my questions clear to them, either that, or I have unwittingly offended them.
 * I know from personal experience, that the humor of a statement in one language may be completely lost if translated into another. I am good friends with a girl from Puerto Rico, who naturally has excellent English and Spanish speaking skills. Many times, she would tell a joke in Spanish, and those who speak the language would crack up, I, because of my poor Spanish ability, would be lost and ask for the English equivalent. She would tell me, and it would make absolutely no sense. Good observation. They say the last part to come in the acquisition of a language is the ability to understand and convey humor. I'm not sure why.
 * Language may indeed shape cultural aspects, as well as the way its speakers think. For example, languages that give objects 'masculine' and 'feminine' labels may cause the people rased among that language to have defined gender roles. This may cause conflict with modern views of equality.
 * I believe that the comment is trying to get across the same message as Aldous Huxley in our earlier assignment, that the soul can never truly share what it feels, not even through the most appropriate choice of words.
 * It is possible on some degree to think without a language, however, this is limited to basic feelings and emotions. These emotions that do not need to take the form of words within our heads often times root themselves deeply below the flowing river of our surface thoughts, and may in fact change the flow of these thoughts, depending on their nature. This is why it is so hard to deal with emotional issues by one's self. It often takes a culmination of the many problems in one's mind to be put to words and 'drain the stream' until the true problem becomes visible. This answer made me start thinking about something: after all it isn't just emotions that run under our conscious thoughts and subliminally influence us, there are all kinds of ideas and thoughts, associations and assumptions flowing along down there (to borrow your metaphor). They do not seem to be in words, in fact often we struggle to put them into words when we are trying to bring them out of the unconscious to conscious - so how are we thinking them? Are they in language, we just don't realize it, are they dependent on words i.e. we couldn't form them in the first place if we did not have access to words? I don't know the answer to these questions.
 * Interesting and thoughtful answers, thank you. 6/7

Huxley's interpretation of emotion is, in fact, just as accurate as it is poetic, which is very appropriate, as one of the only effective ways to describe emotion is through poetry. There is no scientific measurement of emotions, and any medical descriptions that involve emotions only range as far as 'irritable', 'emotionally unstable', and similar vague descriptions of what a patient may feel within “their soul” as Huxley portrays it. The only way humans have been successful in communicating emotion is through simply or metaphors, paralleling what we feel with examples of the world around us. The conveyance of our emotions through the real world is done almost offhandedly, and is easy to overlook, we are accustomed to hearing people who are sad say they feel 'down', those who are happy clamming to be 'bright', and those who are ill tempered all referred to as 'hot-heads'. As Huxley suggests, the fact that we must use real world examples to convey emotion means that are souls are very much alone without a means to directly convey what they are feeling. This is perhaps the reason why works of music, art, and poetry are so valued by society, as they provide sensory objects which help us better understand the emotions of others as well as our own. Yes we do find it difficult at times to describe our thoughts and feelings sufficiently well so that we feel fully understood by others, and, we can never be entirely sure that we are experiencing the same thing even when there is a physical object to point at and say, "I'm talking about that, are you talking about that too?", let alone when we are trying to talk about abstract, metaphysical concepts where there is nothing to point at. However, I am more optimistic than you that we do in fact connect with each other very profoundly at times and that simple words like "sad" or "happy" are truly understood by almost all of us. Recent research on the brain shows that we fire up the exact same patterns in our brains when we watch someone feeling sad as the person who is doing the feeling. I find this research quite wonderful as it suggests that our sense of being in touch with other creatures is not illusory. It is insightful of you to notice our dependency on metaphor and analogy to describe emotion. I like your comments on art, music, poetry; these media often enable us not just to understand an experience but to feel it for ourselves, and it is quite amazing how that happens. Have you listened to Schubert's C major quintet? For me that captures the essence of grief, and Shostakovich's 5th symphony, the essence of anger and heartbroken despair.

To ask the extent that our senses allow us to see the world as it really is, is to me, a circle of unanswerable questions. The “real world” can be seen as the world which the sane people of the human race observe, and in that case, our senses allow us to see all. However, there is no reason that the 'world' is as we see it, or that the world, or reason for that mater, is at all. As The Man in Black (also known as Marten, Walter, Randal, Flagg, John Farson, The Ageless Stranger, and many other names) explains in the conclusion of Stephen King's novel '//The Gunslinger'//, “To a fish, the small pond it resides in is its universe. That is until it is brought to the surface by a fisherman's line, and thus trusted into a new reality...”. The Man in Black also points out that if the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? As well as explaining that reality can have no bounds, no ends of the universe where one can travel no further. The only apparent rule to our universe, our reality, perhaps all realities, is the rule of infinity. All units stretch to, and are divisible by, an infinity of more units. Getting back to the point, human beings are incapable of comprehension of what may or may not be the 'reality'. We are only what we are, and can only see what we see, and that's all we can ever be.

"Go then. Their are other worlds than these" - final words of Jake Chambers, //The Gunslinger by Stephen King.

After reading this, I want to sum it up by saying, "An infinity of things are possible, but not for us." Our reality is defined not so much by each of us as individuals, but by the whole physical and rational system of which we are part. Fortunately, even within our limited system, the number of things not yet know is so vast, that we can have fun exploring and discovering for an inconceivably long time. //


 * 1) I am 16 years old. Being this age gives me a positive outlook on gaining knowledge, as I know it is important to my future, as well as my success as a student. Also, being a high school student at this age means that I am constantly learning a wide variety of things from my various courses. The only drawback is that I am young, and therefor sometimes arrogant, defensive, or shy about my ideas, the very fact that it hurts to admit this flaw only confirms its existence. I was once told that the real meaning of humility is self-awareness - an honest and accurate evaluation of who you are - which, interestingly, means that claiming expertise, for example, where it truly exists is quite compatible with humility, and also that one can find both arrogance and humility in the same person, although I guess at the precise moment someone is being arrogant, humility is taking a back seat. My feeling is that you have more of this genuine humility than is commonly found in people of any age group. It is insightful of you to realize that arrogance, defensiveness and shyness are major obstacles to learning. From my experience I would say that defensiveness is the worst; in the past, I have tied logic, sense and evidence in knots trying to defend opinions that I really should have abandoned in the face of new information and better arguments!
 * 2) My native language is English, and I only know a small amount of Spanish. My limited linguistic skills means that I cannot make my opinions clearly known to foreigners, or understand their opinions and culture.

Where are the other questions? Did you have trouble copying them over?

I am male, but never grew up around any sexiest opinions or stereotypes. I feel that gender really should not play a role in our opinion on the world, and especially not on our education. I don't feel that being male has influenced much of my knowledge, besides an early childhood fascination with the events of world war II.

I am now living in a suburban environment, but have grown up on the remote island of Virgin Gorda. Living their has taught me a great deal, from a love and respect for the ocean, the joys of sailing, the importance of close bonds of friendship, to the importance of environmental protection, and the impact of developed countries on even the smallest places of the earth. Growing up outside of the USA in a multicultural environment, I have developed a respect for all walks of life, and can form my own objective opinions about my birth country (USA) that are free of overwhelming patriotism or blind criticism.

I too have realized that living both inside and outside of a country (in my case Britain and USA - I have dual citizenship) gives you a much more balanced perspective. i get particularly perplexed by the ridiculous generalizations I hear about America and Americans when I travel back to Britain, and i also realize that my view of Britain is 20 years out of date. It is strange to feel that you no longer really know the dominant concerns and politics of the place you called home for 30 years.

My spiritual view is very open. I consider myself a Christian, but chose not to attend any church or congregation. In my opinion, one must decide for his/her self what they believe, and should not have to be told otherwise by any man or book or priest. I have friends that follow many diverse religions, and I accept them and their beliefs willingly. I harbor no bitter thoughts toward and religion, only toward those who view religion as a dividing point, or a way to categories others. I get anxious when religion is used to coerce and limit the freedoms of even those who don't believe its particular dogma. I also feel anxious when those within a religious group do not have the freedom even to question its teachings.

All of my answers above can most likely trace their background to my life in the British Virgin Islands. I spent 14 years of my life their, and made many friends from many different ethnicities and beliefs. The son of two dreamers, who made their ambition of living in the Caribbean a reality when I was only two years of age, has given me a positive attitude, and a will to seek all that I deem remotely possible, and beyond. I harbor a strong belief that people should be who they are, not who others want them to be. However, this views made me extremely unpopular at my old school, as people saw me as different and therefor “un-cool”. I was also often ridiculed for both my opinions and my intelligence by my piers. But even worse was the fact that others, my friends, where being made fun of for being themselves, having their own opinions, and in one horrible case, their ethnicity. Three years of this has made me feel like a bit of a loner, and I often shy away from voicing an argument if I feel I wont be supported by others. I am trying to overcome these tendencies, and am already feeling accepted at Riverstone, yet am finding myself to still be quite shy and quiet. Hopefully I will get over this as I get to know people a little better. I have noticed that just feeling you have approached a question from a different angle from the other students is enough to shut you down in class. It makes sense that you would not want to keep contributing if you thought your words were being received with even the smallest degree of ridicule, apathy or incomprehension. Clearly you have already had more than your fair share of that kind of nightmare. Riverstone students, in my experience, tend to be not just accepting, but welcoming of fresh perspectives. And, as you may have noticed, they can be pretty individual, sometimes even downright eccentric, in their opinions (which is great). They also tend to be very confident and comfortable with each other (also great, but sometimes a bit difficult to break into), I hope it will not be long before they have made you feel like this too. I am sorry that sometimes I have not picked up on the value of what you have said until after class is over and I have had time to reflect on it. I wish I had a greater ability to take risks on behalf of my dreams as your parents have.