Group 1 Summary 9/12
Hey everyone, sorry it took so long to get this up. I had a little technical difficulty. Today we discussed equality and how it generally results in happiness. Jon read an excerpt from his book about change being inevitable and leading to equality. However, equality is not just people being all the same. It is seeing and appreciating the spectrum of opinions and experiences of everyone, while shedding the view of everything being black and white.We also discussed our group project and decided to research and report on balance. Three sub-categories were chosen: equality, peace/co-existence, and cycles/change.
If I have left out anything important that we discussed, please feel free to contribute in the comments. :)
I really like your elaboration on the definition of equality. "seeing and appreciating the spectrum of opinions and experiences of everyone" -- I think this ties in with the discussion of zest on page 117(Bok): "We need to cultivate ourselves, bringing more order and unity into our ideas, feelings, and behavior, become capable of uniting with others and of love in all its forms, and attach our lives to something larger than ourselves."
ReplyDeleteFactual Question: What philosopher/psychologist suggested that temperament is "organically weighted," which implies (at least in some sense) a physiological explanation for happiness. William James
ReplyDeleteDiscussion question: Do you think equality has an affect on personal happiness?
Our group generally believes it does. Like Rebecca noted in Maia's definition: it's the ability to express and exercise one's experiences while respecting other's as well (if I may paraphrase). Of course, one must be aware of balance and how one's expression might affect others. As we work through our project, we'll discover and try to work through the problems that might arise, which already comes up in Utilitarian views.
I don't know if we can solve all the problems with a single presentation or a blog post, but at least we may come to understand the questions at hand.
Here are some common criticisms and problems of Utilitarianism.
http://people.umass.edu/klement/160/critutil_large.pdf
I definitely think equality has an affect on personal happiness! I may just have little sister syndrome, but even as a child if my brother was given more attention or ice cream I was unhappy because like I would tell my mom,"It's not fair!" This may be a silly example, but I think many people would be at least temporarily unhappy by any loss of opportunity.
ReplyDeleteWho projected his dark perspective to "encompass all of humankind in a near cosmic gloom? - Answer is Arthur Schopenhauer
ReplyDeleteHow do you feel about poet Alice Maynell's view towards happiness, exclaiming "Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind." This is in regards to the ebb and flow of dopamine and the serotonin systems in the brain, cortisol and other stress hormones, all on the immune system and mood with hundreds of brain chemicals and countless neurotransmitters and their action potential across synapses and such.
As the original post here says, we planned out our midterm project with balance being an overarching theme, and that broken down into three sub categories. I myself, along with Brenna, will be focusing on change. I will be coming at it from an eastern spirituality-esque perspective, plus a neuroscience and other philosophical perspectives to tie it all in and make an attempt to ground my claims through empirical data- Though as Dr. Oliver said in class, sometimes social sciences and the studies on happiness should best be taken with a grain of salt sometimes.
I would like to take this opportunity to "link" or invite all of those with netflix to check out the series Brave Neuro World. It's more on the neuroscience side of things, but VS Ramachandran and colleagues who partook in this series of lectures on the brain do touch on topics such as happiness.
Leigh Koger
ReplyDeletefactual question:
Who wrote "Everything in life proclaims that earthly happiness is designed to be frustrated, or recognized as an illusion."
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer
Discussion question: do you agree or disagree with Schopenhauer that happiness should be frustrating?
Our group started planning our mid term project and have come up with the idea of balance and we assigned research sections to our members.
i wanted to post a clip from a family guy episode but youtube doesn't have it due to copyright laws. since the chapter was talking about melancholy i wanted to post the clip where:
stewie: well i guess we know what kind of dog brian is...
a melancholy....(rim shot)
Leigh Koger
ReplyDeletefactual question:
Who wrote "Everything in life proclaims that earthly happiness is designed to be frustrated, or recognized as an illusion."
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer
Discussion question: do you agree or disagree with Schopenhauer that happiness should be frustrating?
Our group started planning our mid term project and have come up with the idea of balance and we assigned research sections to our members.
i wanted to post a clip from a family guy episode but youtube doesn't have it due to copyright laws. since the chapter was talking about melancholy i wanted to post the clip where:
stewie: well i guess we know what kind of dog brian is...
a melancholy....(rim shot)
Factual Question(2nd base):
ReplyDeleteIn Burton's research of how the four temperaments mixed and interacted with human experience what did the results conclude?
Answer:
The various degrees of emotion have a vast ranges.
Discussion Question(3rd Base):
Do you know of someone who is melancholic like they are describing in this chapter?
I know I do and they usually are quite intelligent but lack something in their genetic make-up to allow them to function "normally" and they suffer from being told they are different and are diagnosed with clinical depression. Are they suffering? What if we were more accepting of the different ranges of personalities. DO you think that if these people were not so estranged to the "norm" that they would feel less suffering and more normality? By broadening the horizon of what is normal then equality is brought into the picture and as our group has been discussing happiness could truly be a critical part of happiness.
Link (home): On this topic of clinical depression I HIGHLY suggest this documentary on Netflix called I Am. It is a journey by Tom Shadyac, the filmmaker who brought us Bruce Almighty and other hilarious films, who, after being in a biking accident, suffered from a concussion that placed into a deep depression. This is very informative as well as entertaining. WATCH IT!
Here is the link to the website for the documentary: http://www.iamthedoc.com/thefilm/
I really like what you guys decided to do for your group midterm! It sounds very zen and peaceful! Can't wait to hear what you guys come up with!
ReplyDelete