Nic+Anderson

=__Assignment # 4__= If people speak more than one language, is what they know different in each language? Does each language provide a different framework for reality?  I believe that they don’t have separate realities pertaining to each language they know, for that would require them to switch from one to the other when speaking each language. I do however believe that by learning another language, the way you see the world changes as well, and the aspects of each language congeal into one worldly view, but with more perspective from each country. It is like viewing a car crash from one angle at first, and by learning another language, you then can see it from a different angle. From each angle, you compare it to the other, just like with language. Great answer!

What is lost in translation from one language to another? Why? Many things can be lost in translation when converting languages. For example, in the Eskimo language, they have many words for snow, where we only have one. They have different words for different types of snow, and if you were to convert snow from language to language, many of their interpretations would be lost in translation. I think that by using many words we can end up being able to translate the different words for snow, but what is really lost is that, until we learn the eskimo words, we don't even see the details of the snow types - without the words we don't think to look. In some languages nouns are either masculine or feminine. Some say that this might not change how they view the object, but when asked many have either very masculine descriptions of the object with a masculine label, and the same for feminine objects. So when these nouns are translated into English for example, whose language has no masculine or femnine nouns, many of the objects descriptions don’t translate. The descriptions translate, I think, but the associations triggered by the gender ascriptions do not.

Is it possible to think without language? How does language facilitate, extend, direct or limit thinking? True, without language, one would think it was impossible to think. But then how do deaf people, whose language is expressed through hand movements think? Very good point, I never thought of that, do they think in pictures of sign language? And then here's another question, does their way of thinking change once they learn to read and thereby gain verbal language? We should find someone to ask. With or without language, we have the ability to think, I don’t know how, for I can not imagine what it would be like. I always think in English, and occasionally in Spanish. I have heard spoken word, therefore that is how thoughts process in my head, along with images, so I cannot wrap my brain around the idea of having no spoken word cross through my inner imagination.   Nic, you have raised the bar for yourself these are good answers. 6/7 Nic Anderson. Assignment # __3__ To what extent do our senses give us knowledge of the world as it really is? I believe that our senses make the world as we know it, what it is. For example, without the ability to hear, so much of life and the world is foreign to you. You will never hear those songs that make you feel a certain way, you will never hear the night time and all the creatures around you, or even the hustle and bustle of the city. Without that one single sense, the world you live in is completely different in terms of how you experience it.  This is an thought-provoking suggestion - so you think that since the world comes to us through our senses, our ideas are exclusively defined by what our personal sense-capacity and experience provides - have I understood you correctly? Would you limit this to first-hand experience, or can we learn through the second-hand descriptions of phenomena we have not or cannot experience? What about the suggestion that certain ideas are innate in us and present before experience? I cannot help but see the force of your claim, of course the precise way in which each of us knows the world is dependent on our personal sensory experience of it, but what I am curious about is this: is this dependency partial or total? What is the role of culture and language in the perceptual process? Given the partially subjective nature of sense perception, how can different knower’s ever agree on what is perceived? Do people with different cultural or linguistic backgrounds live, in some sense, in different worlds? Culture plays a huge role in your perceptual process. Depending on where you live, alters your perception on life and the world. If you are from rural china, your world is the village you live in, for with out a tv or a computer, how are you to know about anything but your centralized existence. However, if you are from a metropolitan area, the world is at your fingertips, for there is nothing holding you back from knowing all of the current politics or occurrences all around the world. This part of your answer connects with what you were thinking about in question one: you seem to be suggesting here that information about other people's cultures / geographical contexts / languages etc. would give you the opportunity at least to view, understand, maybe even to visit their "different worlds". It is interesting to consider what, if anything, in the human experience is not influenced by culture and context, but only by the personality of the individual. Sense perception is of course different for say a person who has just returned from war, to a person living in everyday life. If they both hear an exhaust of an old car backfiring, the person who lives everyday life might jump, but for the soldier, it could bring back scenes from their war experience, and put them back into the state of mind during battle. If they were to say what they hear, I'm sure they would have different responses. // Wha // t they both hear would be the same in the sense that it would affect their physical hearing apparatus the same, but // how // they interpret and respond emotionally to it would be different. Can we ever separate the primary physical affect of a sense experience from the secondary cognitive and emotional effects? I don't know. It is often claimed that information and communication technologies are blurring the traditional distinctions between simulation and reality. If this is so, what might be the consequences? There are arguments that say violent video games are de sensitizing the youth. I feel that these arguments aren’t fully true, or completely processed, but if they were to be true, the effects could be very bad. The games put kids into situations where killing is the object, and the more they kill, the more points they get. Some say that this quality soon becomes engrained in the kids head, leaving them perceptually un aware of the difference between the game, and real life. However, I still believe that the difference between the real world and the video world is quite vast. 455 words Yes, research is ongoing with this, but there seems to be quite a lot of evidence that violent games affect the way the brain reacts in real life, because we learn to enjoy or override the chemical responses to violence/ danger/ the suffering of others that the human brain has evolved to keep us or get us out of these situations.

Good, thoughtful work. 6/7 =1. I am 16 years old. My age creates limits and benefits in the amount of knowledge i know. I am limited because i still live at home, and am under the influence of my parents. But my age group is very tech savvy, and the internet creates a vast gateway to easy accessible knowledge. My age might affect my willingness to learn, but i think in my case, i love to learn and broaden my knowing.= Your comment about "a vast gateway to easily accessible knowledge" opened up a whole chain of thoughts for me. I started out by thinking that, since you were gaining all this information without expert guidance, it was more important than ever that you develop the skills needed to evaluate information for its sources, coherence, reliability, rationality etc. But then I started thinking about how if you were in a situation where you could only find out what a select set of people wanted you to know, skepticism and analytical skills would be just as important in order for you not to be brain-washed... I suppose it comes to this, if you have to rely on others for information then you should challenge them to justify their claims (at least until you have good reason to trust them as knowledgeable, insightful and fair-minded), and if you are able to research independently then you should be disciplined about evaluating information before accepting it as your own belief.  = =

=2. English is my mother tongue, but i also speak spanish to an extent. By learning the spanish dialect, i also learn about the countries that speak spanish, and the culture in those countries. But having english as my primary language, causes a handicap in my need to learn other languages, for almost every you go to, speaks english.=

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=3. I am male.I think that being male can cause a lot of people to feel superior and look at the world more as a mans world, but in my personal oppinion, women deserve the same opportunities as men, education, and job wise. I strive to learn as much as i can, and i think gender plays no role.= I think it is helpful if you are genuinely gender-neutral in your approach to learning - I think all too often we tune out information that we don't see as being relevant to us and thereby we miss out on the opportunity to understand things from a different perspective. = =

=4.I am urban. This affects what i learn in comparison to living on a farm very much. For one i am exposed to a lot more, and am put in more real world situations. But i also dont really achieve the knowledge that comes with hard work and manual labor.= This is an interesting comment - I bet understanding what hard manual labor really feels like, and being in a situation where it was not a choice but a necessity would have a significant impact on many of our attitudes. = =

=5. I am somewhat of an agnostic. This affects how i see the world, in the sense that im not sure if there is a greater being or not. I try to learn about all religions, and what their beleifs systems are, and for some, knowledge beyond the religion is somewhat shunned, so i feel that by looking at them all equally, and by looking at the world in an un biased scope, more knowledge is achieved.=

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=6. By being brought up in an upper middle class family, i enjoy benefits that some dont have, and this affects the opportunities i gain, and there for the amount i learn, i am lucky to be able to afford a school where i learn a great amount, and by going to this school, i am setting myself up for a great future.= I interesting answers, thank you. 6/7