Saturday, March 24, 2012

Week Three: Natural Philosophy

Film: Electric Surfing


 This video was quite fascinating in a sense that it contained many visuals explaining the fundamentals of electricity and some basis of physics. These visuals helped me understand a lot better about certain types of concepts that was not clear to me a while ago. As a man that is quite interested in chemistry, it was actually pretty interesting to review some of the information that I have learned in the past. I could not keep my eyes away from the video, even for a split second because of its uniqueness in explaining the concepts.
 Although I have not learned anything new from this video, it was interesting to see myself recall some of the concepts that were taught to me when I was younger. Because they were not taught the same way the video tried to portray the images of electrons and protons, etc., I find this video very useful in some degree to teach students about the basics and the fundamentals of electricity.



Film: Quantum Thinking: Illuminated Ideas


 When I first stared at the title of this video, I questioned myself what the word "Quantum Thinking" meant. According to Innovations International, Inc., "Quantum Thinking is the ability of the mind to function at a higher level of creativity and innovation." To put it into simpler terms, it is an ability for someone to be able to create something beyond imagination.
 Now the actual video speaks only about the fact that it is quite impossible to predict the  behavior of atoms, containing electrons and protons. It is trying to tell us that is is nearly impossible to think on the subatomic level, and for us humans, it is only a theory which cannot be proven with our eyes. Also, the mere fact that we are using instruments to examine these natural states of matter, we cannot say that they are what they are because of the fact that nature has been altered somehow through the process of using an instrument.
 How do these two concepts of Quantum Thinking and electrons combine? Well the video was trying to indirectly tell us challenge ourselves in our daily thinking. For example, we know exactly what an electron is, what it is made of, and many other various details about it because we have been studying it for centuries. But the fact that we cannot even predict its behavior shows us that just because we know everything about something does not mean we can predict how it will behave. With this in mind, I am going to constantly challenge myself to think further and deeper into this vague concept of Quantum Thinking.



Film: Eliminative Materialism


 Before even starting to watch the video, I searched the definition of the term "Eliminative Materialism". According the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist. It was quite amusing to see this definition because I personally love to question many "common-sense" ideas that we have in our world today.
 The three films related to this idea were very fascinating. The fact that we turn to "God" for everything that is inexplicable was something that I have never actually thought of in the past because I never cared to ask "why?" Also, it was interesting to see that through scientific advances, many of the previous myths and beliefs have disappeared since they were "proven" wrong through sciences. Lastly, the idea that we are neglecting to question ourselves as well because of Eliminative Materialism was truly a phenomenal which made me constantly think about the terms "motivation, love, anger, etc" that are used to keep us from questioning ourselves.



Film: Elegant Universe


 This video's introduction on Einstein's devotion to bring together a Theory to put everything into one was very fascinating. He tried his best to come up with a theory that explained every phenomenon, events, and the way things work all over the world. This theory is called the string theory. It says that everything in this world is somehow intertwined together in some way. According to nucleares.unam.mx, it is the theory to answer any type of scientific question, and that if the string theory was actually true, our universe would actually be made out of strings. These small energies of strings would form the world that we live in today.
 This really made me think about how could this actually be? that we if this theory was actually true, that we live in a world of small strings? I found it quite unbelievable and outrageous. As I kept on researching more and more about this topic, I came to a conclusion that it may actually be true in a sense that there has been many different scientists supporting this idea because it is pretty accurate in many ways. Although quite blasphemous, we may, in the future, conclude that our world is made of strings that are intertwined in certain ways.



Film: The Fabric of the Cosmos


After watching this film, I kept on questioning many things that I have believed to be true in my life. From small things such as why does water freeze when it gets cold, to how does gravity work, and etc, this video really challenged me to think a lot more about the universe rather than just sit around and believe everything is true as other people say it is. Brian Greene's questioning about the universe seemed to be outrageous at first, but as I paid close attention to them, they seemed very idealistic and logical. His questions about time and space were amazing.
One really interesting part about this video was the argument of a dual-universe. It states that there is another universe exactly the same as ours that we live in today, and that there is a copy of myself in that other universe. Thinking about having copies of myself really pushed me to wander about how it would differ. If this was actually true, would they be the exact copies of myself? or would they have some noticeable differences? How different would life be if we switched places? These questions kept on popping into my head throughout as I watched the film.



Reaction: The Fabric of the Cosmos


 Eric, I totally agree with you in the sense that it is quite true that we do not know whether everything people tried to explain or prove are true. Although there are theories and what not, they may also be false in the end and that none of the things that we know today may be true. This idea that things may not be true really challenged me to constantly question things in my life. I'm not saying I became very doubtful about everything to the point where I do not believe anything, but it was a very good reminder to keep myself in check with everything rather than go with the flow and believe everything.
 I also thought the string theory was very interesting because I mean who would believe this world would be made out of strings? The fact that there are duplicates of ourselves really shocked me because if this in fact was very true, than I would have another Seyoon in some other universe that I do not know actually exists. This really scared me, but at the same time, made me excited about certain things. For example, I wandered if that duplicate is more successful than I am, etc.

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