Group 1 Discussion Post

We started off the class listening to "What a Wonderful World" that was posted to the blog. Professor Oliver made us aware of a video debate between Peter Singer and John Lennox that happened today. If anyone can find a link and posts it to the blog, you can earn extra credit. Furthermore, if you wanted to write up a little something after watching it, you can earn some extra credit for that as well. Professor Oliver also plugged my (Leigh Koger) show that is hanging in the student gallery in the Photo Building. We will be having a reception Thursday (9/26) between 6:30 - 8:00 pm in the Photo Building for anyone who wants to come over and take a look. There will be refreshments served. (free food but unfortunately no booze on campus) There was a brief discussion about the study guides and the first exam. Each group needs one member to put together 10 factual questions from the ones we've listed as possibles for the exam. There will a total of 30 study guide questions with 20 pulled from there for the exam. There is also a discussion question listed on the blog page that can be done early and brought to class for extra credit. (up to 10 points) Thursday along side happy hour at The Boulevard B&B the Philosophy Club will be meeting (4:30 pm) We watched a clip of Louie CK from the Conan O'Brien show. The best part that i got out of that clip is where he is talking about how we need to feel the bad, sad or lonely so that we can truly appreciate our happiness. We talked about the difference between illusion and delusion. illusion was defined as a fanciful vision or a false impression or idea, a mental state in which one attributes reality to something unreal. delusion is a mistaken impression or wrong idea, but the word also implies action - the action of fooling with a wrong impression or idea or the condition of being fooled or deceived. An illusion is normally a bad thing, they don't harm others and the person knows that it's an illusion. a delusion is a falsehood that can be harmful to others that does more harm than good. the individual will most times not know that it's a delusion. Richard Dawkins definition of delusion - "false belief or impression... held in the face of strong contradictory evidence." We then proceeded to talk about the next to the last chapter of Sissela Bok's book about Illusion. We tend to associate the word delusion with mental illness and something that needs to be fixed whereas illusion can just be a matter of temporary make believe that we know is not real and we can come back to reality. An example would be reading a book. We know that it's not real but for some when we read we pretend that we are a character in a book and yet we know when we lay the book down that we have to get back to reality. Illusions are healthy to an extent just like everything else...........in moderation. We talked some more about Professor Oliver's blog post and then broke up a little early so that groups could get together and talk about their group projects. Professor Oliver's definition of happiness: A sense of feeling at home in the world.