General Information

1. Your Name: Seyoon Rhee
2. Your Username: MadJam
3. Website Address: http://serheephilfinal.blogspot.com/
4. What did you get on your midterm? C- (did not know there were revisions)
5. Please list all of the postings that you have done for this term (posted by weeks as individual posts)

What was the most unusual thing you learned this term?

14. What was the most unusual thing you learned this term?


The most unusual thing I’ve learned in this term would have to be “The Myth of Eternal Recurrence.” I was just amazed and shocked at the very idea that life is recurring over and over again without any changes in it. The very fact that I would be living the same life exactly the way it was, all the pain, all the joy, I mean exactly the very same challenged me to think about how I lived my life so far. Some questions popped into my head, “Would I live my life a little differently if I knew? Would there be any differences in how I did things?” I continued to challenge myself with this abstract concept of life reoccurring over and over again. It was just so unusual because the world mostly believes in just one life, where there may be an afterlife beyond our death, etc. I just loved thinking about this and it was a very interesting and unusual concept for someone that never thought about life this way.

What was the most interesting reading for you this term?

13. What was the most interesting reading for you this term?


The most interesting reading from this term would have to be “Littlewood’s Law of Miracles.” It was just so interesting to read the fact that someone came up with a way to define and calculate how many times we encounter miracles. According to his theory, we would encounter, on average, one miracle per month from various calculations done. Just the very fact that Littlewood thought of this idea was incredible. I didn’t really care about his autobiography towards the end of the section, but the explanation of the law was very interesting and soaked my mind with various thoughts.

What was the most interesting film you watched this term?

12. What was the most interesting film you watched this term?

The most interesting film that I’ve watched during this term would definitely be “The Time Machine.” It portrayed the idea of a time machine actually becoming a reality, which I never thought would even be possible. The very thought that we will be able to communicate with the future through short brief messages was just outrageous and incredible. Interestingly, the time machine that was theorized in the film cannot allow anyone to travel through time, or even talk to anyone in the past, but only with the future. The theory was that we would only be able to communicate with however long the machine was turned on. So if the time machine was turned on today, then we would only be able to receive messages from the future. This film overall gave me the chills just thinking about communicating with our future selves and being able to actually “time travel.”

Science & Philosophy

11. Why is science so important when doing philosophy?

Many believe that science and philosophy do not correlate. It is quite easy to be tricked by the way they portray themselves throughout history and the arguments that these two concepts had against each other. Although it is seemingly impossible for these two to be related, there are actually many contributions and reasons to why science is important to philosophy.

                One would have to be that by knowing how our brain functions, we will get a step closer to how our consciousness works. This idea of researching the brain for knowledge of the consciousness comes from neurophilosophy, mainly contributed by Patricia Churchland. This form of philosophy incorporates both science and philosophy to work together to come up with even greater theologies and ideas. As we study and dive deeper into how our brain functions and works, it’ll be easier to have a peak at the understanding of consciousness and what influences our thinking. Study of psychology also will help us determine the main factors of influence on our behavior as well as our philosophy. Because science strengthens our understanding of the mind, it is most definite that science is extremely important to philosophy.

                Another reason would have to be the fact that philosophy relies on science for approval.  Philosophers often tend to ask questions that are very scientific and logical. For example, when a phenomena such as what happened in the film “Voodoo Voodoo” where miracles happen after a chant, they would rely on scientific ways of thinking to figure out how and why this phenomena happened. Philosophers would not say just say, “It happened, so it happened. I completely believe it without any further explanation or proof.” They would instead try to find ways to disprove or prove it SCIENTIFICALLY. Another example would have to be when someone claims to have seen the future. One would not just believe that person and become a worshipper, but start to question how and be a little more skeptic about such things. These questions would most likely be science related questions such as “How is that even possible? Is there any evidence that this would happen?” Accordingly, Philosophy tends to rely on scientific proof for answers and their ideals seem to reflect upon it.

                It is not only philosophy that requires science, but science also most definitely needs philosophy. Science tends to turn to philosophical ideas when it comes to phenomena that cannot be explained through scientific research. These phenomena tend to be very religious or philosophical which grabs the attention of the people who have a more scientific viewpoint. When a person cannot fully comprehend an event or miracle that occurred through science, it is most likely that that person will turn to philosophy for answers and ideas.

                This relationship that science and philosophy have on one another is very true in many cases. The very fact that we tend to seek one or the other show how much dependency they have on each other, and we tend not to recognize that. People generally believe they are opposites, and have absolutely no relationship, but that is the very reason why they have such a strong bond, being opposites. Without science, there won’t be philosophy, and vice versa.

Himalayan connection

10. How does the Himalayan connection explain UFOs? How does such a theoretic model also help explain religious visions?

In the text “The Himalayan Connection,” Prof. Lane writes the U.F.O experience he witnessed in Delhi in July of 1978. It was not until he met a man by the name of Faqir Chand that he was able to fully understand why he experienced such a radical event. Chand clearly explained to him the philosophy of people like layman and gurus experiencing the supernatural. According to Chand, miracles and other forms of phenomena are basically nothing more than deviances away from our conscious state of reality. This is known as the Chandian Effect, the certainty that we feel in our waking state creates the reality in which we consciously live in. (The Himalayan Connection) When our mind enters dream mode during our sleeping hours, around the time REM step (Rapid Eye Movement) kicks in, our reality becomes the things that we dream. To relate the Chandian Effect to U.F.O experiences, Prof. Lane later on in the text also introduces these three terms: Translation, Transformation, and Transfusion.

A toast with the face of Jesus
People may believe this is true

The translation of the U.F.O. experience to the reality of our consciousness requires scientific evidence and proof to explain these supernatural events. U.F.O. researchers have yet to completely accomplish this feature. The transformation of the U.F.O. experience connects this sight to the reality of the person witnessing or experiencing it. Although the experience may simply be a deception one’s consciousness, for that person, sighting is very real. Lastly, transfusion is a method of mixing both translation and transformation. Although we may not be able to correctly explain these kinds of phenomena and may ignore it, the person who experienced it will argue otherwise. The experience of the person, while not plausible and believable to regular minds, can be explained as a hallucination of his or her mind. 

This leads us to other phenomena such as religious visions and miracles. People may have visions that they perceive as real, but have no scientific proof to back their claims. This leads to arguments and discussions regarding the matter of whether they are true or not, or even how crazy a person is. People may clearly be influenced by outside influences such as psychoactive drugs that force them to have unimaginable visions or experiences. This also relates to people having visions while dreaming, where the dreams contain some type of prophecies or information for the future and become a reality to them because of the very fact that it is a dream.

Although I do not think Prof. Lane’s explanation to U.F.O experiences is completely false, it is still extremely difficult for me fully believe that it actually happened. Nevertheless, Lane’s translation, transformation, and transfusion design does offer a legitimate bridge to relate those types of ambiguous encounters with our conscious reality. 

Apophenia

9. What is apophenia? Give 3 examples of it.

A clear-cut definition of Apophenia is very simple. “Apophenia is the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness of unrelated phenomena. The term was coined by K. Conrad in 1958 (Brugger).”(skepdic.com) It is a simple, yet complex concept that really makes individuals think about the things that they see. People may often times recognize some bizarre and random idea as concrete and relatable. Our humanly nature forces us to see things as uniform and meaningful when they actually are not. The reason for apophenia may be explained through this reasoning:

“Humans are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals. We look for and find patterns in our world and in our lives, then weave narratives around those patterns to bring them to life and give them meaning. Such is the stuff of which myth, religion, history, and science are made. Sometimes the patterns we find represent reality — DNA as the basis of heredity or the fossil record as the history of life. But sometimes the patters are imposed by our minds rather than discovered by them — the face on Mars (actually an eroded mountain) or the Virgin Mary's image on the side of a glass building in Clearwater, Florida (really an oil stain from a palm tree, since removed to enable the faithful to better view their icon). The rub lies in distinguishing which patterns are true and which are false, and the essential tension (as Thomas Kuhn called it) pits skepticism against credulity as we try to decide which patterns should be rejected and which should be embraced.” (Michael Shermer)

There can be many examples of apophenia. One very real example would be this:

“Soon after his son committed suicide, Episcopalian Bishop James A. Pike (1913-1969) began seeing meaningful messages in such things as a stopped clock, the angle of an open safety pin, and the angle formed by two postcards lying on the floor. He thought they were conveying the time his son had shot himself (Christopher 1975: 139).” (skepdic.com)

Another example would be this:

“There on the ground I found two dry twigs, broken off by the wind. They were shaped like the Greek letter for “P” and “y”… [I]t struck me that [they] must be an abbreviation of the name Popoffsky. Now I was sure it was he who was persecuting me, and that the Powers wanted to open my eyes to my danger.” (dbskeptic.com)

The last example would be this:

“A few days ago, while I was agonizing over having recently lost one of my mental health jobs, I found myself driving behind a license plate that said ACT. For me this was an immediate recognition of the meaningful workshop I had done a few years ago in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Hayes, Strousahl, & Wilson, 2004), which is abbreviated as ACT. In ACT you are taught to accept your disappointments and difficulties in life in a mindful way, and then make a commitment to actualizing your deepest values in life in spite of these disappointments and difficulties (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2004). Seeing the ACT license plate was a meaningful reinforcement for me that I needed to accept the loss of my mental health job gracefully, and was connected to my deepest intention of offering my services to continue to work with mental health clients, independently and without expecting to earn any real money from doing so.” (integralworld.net)

The crazy thing about apophenia is that it completely blocks out logical thinking while it is in effect. Because most of the times, it is when someone is in great pain or despair, their minds are not psychologically sane, forcing them to perceive anything to be real. The effects of apophenia can be helpful in most cases, but we have to realize some dangers that lie ahead when seeing these abnormal phenomena.