Whew. This afternoon was crazy. Morning was normal, but afternoon? Bonkers. Mad. Dotty. Gaga. Bananas, even.
The first Philosophy midterm. 75 minutes for two full essays and 10 short answer questions on everything from why God does(n't) exist to why we can('t) know anything for sure to whether (or not) anything exists outside of our perceptions. Erasers burned. Lead flew. Contact lenses dried out. Small fires started on several tests from pencil-friction.
Heh.
Melodramatic, much?!
For reals, I think it went well. I had done a pretty decent job studying last night and before. The only thing I'm worried about were the two essays. One of the prompts was pretty funny though:
"If Neo had read Descartes' Meditations while in the Matrix, to what extent could he prove that an external world (REAL world) exists? Imagine he finds them before meeting Trinity."
The other question was easier, about Locke's ideas of Primary and Secondary qualities of objects. This reading was pretty interesting. Locke argues that even though we can't be 100% certain of what we perceive, objects in the world still exist through their 'Primary qualities.' These are qualities that, even if we did not have the senses we do (sight, tough, etc) we would still be able to discover through some means. Like location, mass, dimensions, etc. He says what we perceive are 'secondary qualities' or qualities that the object creates in us, which some being without our senses would not be able to even conceive of, much less experience. Like, if a being who had never smelled anything saw a rose for the first time, he/she wouldn't try to find out how it smelled. Likewise, there are things humans can't see which others can ( like THE 6TH DIMENSION!!! oooOOOooo!), and which we can't even imagine would be like.
I still don't really buy the Primary quality things since it seems like everything about an object is something we perceive in it, and if there was a being that couldn't see and could pass through matter (like, I dunno, a ghost or something), how could it tell something's mass? Or dimensions?
And now for something completely different! Tonight in celebration of Oktoberfest, the dining halls served German food! I had a delicious (reeaaaally filling) dinner of knockwurst, bratwurst, speatzel, potatoes, and cabbage. It was prretty good, but nowhere near those dinners we had back over that side o' the world.
Oof...just realized, my breath must smell fantastic now. Time to go brush.
Talk to you all later!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
First day off of Fall Break...
...actually turned out pretty good. Some weird, awesome things in class today.
In Archaeology, we were just assigned a short group project where each group examines an ancient African or Mesopotamian state. First of all, it was a surprise to me that ancient Africa even had states, but the professor said that Africa was once one of the most well organized continents in this respect, with states like Great Zimbabwe. What caught my eye though was a Mesopotamian culture called the Uruk, known for their clay tablets and (awesome) ziggurats. I can't help but think of the big ugly Uruk-hai Orcs from Lord of the Rings, and personally I think it's a conspiracy perpetrated by Tolkein to discredit ancient Sumerian cultures. Or something. I'm working on that one.
Next was a prettty average Economics lecture on aggregate demand, until the end of the class when we started talking about the history of money. We started with bartering, and moved to coins, fait dollars (like we have now), and checks. Then the professor asked what the moeny of the future was going to be, and someone said, "Electronic" which the professor agreed with but pointed out one important problem with. "Electronic money is, in reality, imaginary. Since you need not carry anything with you but a debit card, money as we know it wont exist. We could change the name of our money to...say...Unicorns, and you could pull out your Unicorn card to make transactions from the nearest Unicorn Bank!" We all cracked up at that, but he does have a point. I never actually saw any of the money I made this summer except on a bank statement and out of an ATM. It seems kind of dangerous to rely on nothing but electronic records to prove your entire monetary assets...
Anyways, after delicious tacos it was time for Philosophy where we kept talking about Descartes. The big thing there though was getting the paper I had written two weeks back and was so worried about. First of all, I have to say that my worry wasn't impractical; before the professor gave us the prompt, he told us a story of his professor's philosophy class getting their papers back. He said to them, "If philosophical writing was like math, you all literally would not know how to count." Needlesss to say I was a bit anxious, never having writen 'philosophically' before. That's why I was so happy when I got mine back with a B+! The prof. left a lot of good comments on what I had done well and what I should try to improve, but I still think he graded somewhat leniantly. Nice to have that not to stress over any more... I need that leftover stress to prepare for his midterm next week!
In Archaeology, we were just assigned a short group project where each group examines an ancient African or Mesopotamian state. First of all, it was a surprise to me that ancient Africa even had states, but the professor said that Africa was once one of the most well organized continents in this respect, with states like Great Zimbabwe. What caught my eye though was a Mesopotamian culture called the Uruk, known for their clay tablets and (awesome) ziggurats. I can't help but think of the big ugly Uruk-hai Orcs from Lord of the Rings, and personally I think it's a conspiracy perpetrated by Tolkein to discredit ancient Sumerian cultures. Or something. I'm working on that one.
Next was a prettty average Economics lecture on aggregate demand, until the end of the class when we started talking about the history of money. We started with bartering, and moved to coins, fait dollars (like we have now), and checks. Then the professor asked what the moeny of the future was going to be, and someone said, "Electronic" which the professor agreed with but pointed out one important problem with. "Electronic money is, in reality, imaginary. Since you need not carry anything with you but a debit card, money as we know it wont exist. We could change the name of our money to...say...Unicorns, and you could pull out your Unicorn card to make transactions from the nearest Unicorn Bank!" We all cracked up at that, but he does have a point. I never actually saw any of the money I made this summer except on a bank statement and out of an ATM. It seems kind of dangerous to rely on nothing but electronic records to prove your entire monetary assets...
Anyways, after delicious tacos it was time for Philosophy where we kept talking about Descartes. The big thing there though was getting the paper I had written two weeks back and was so worried about. First of all, I have to say that my worry wasn't impractical; before the professor gave us the prompt, he told us a story of his professor's philosophy class getting their papers back. He said to them, "If philosophical writing was like math, you all literally would not know how to count." Needlesss to say I was a bit anxious, never having writen 'philosophically' before. That's why I was so happy when I got mine back with a B+! The prof. left a lot of good comments on what I had done well and what I should try to improve, but I still think he graded somewhat leniantly. Nice to have that not to stress over any more... I need that leftover stress to prepare for his midterm next week!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Let's try this again...
Hey everyone who still checks the blog after over a year of nothing!
I'm going to give this another go, and try to write a bit more about what's going on down here in lil' ole Pomona College. Instead of the great big posts I was doing before, these will probably just be little bits of whatever's going on recently in my life at the moment.
For example, talking to everyone on the phone tonight made me realize what a scumbag I am for not keeping up on this blog!
So, as soon as I'm not so exhausted from staying up too late, this will start to fill with all kinds of interesting stuff. All over the place too, like on philosophy, econ, archaeology, geology, and the importance of Guitar Hero in maintaining a healthy exercise regimen.
Goodnight, all.
I'm going to give this another go, and try to write a bit more about what's going on down here in lil' ole Pomona College. Instead of the great big posts I was doing before, these will probably just be little bits of whatever's going on recently in my life at the moment.
For example, talking to everyone on the phone tonight made me realize what a scumbag I am for not keeping up on this blog!
So, as soon as I'm not so exhausted from staying up too late, this will start to fill with all kinds of interesting stuff. All over the place too, like on philosophy, econ, archaeology, geology, and the importance of Guitar Hero in maintaining a healthy exercise regimen.
Goodnight, all.
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