Thank You for Smoking (:

From the movie Thank You For Smoking, Nick Naylor is called the “sultan spin.” I honestly think that it is very wrong to do that, but it is also something innate within us to spin things so that it seems like it’s not so bad of a choice. This is a very clever way of handling things, and this is how all lobbyists do their job. They try their best to convince their people to do what they want them to do. People such as salesmen “spin” things so that people would buy their products, too. I think that this way of spinning things is what keeps the world from going completely bankrupt.

Nick Nayer has an interesting view on tobacco, and he thinks that it’s the right thing to do. I do agree with Nick Naylor that he is doing something right in a sense. He is “just trying to pay the mortgage” by selling his products. I honestly think that he isn’t doing anything wrong. I think that the people who are actually buying it from him are doing the wrong thing, because they are the ones who are foolish. They are the ones who are not taking things into consideration by actually being influenced by the salesman, who, in this case, is Nick Naylor. One example of this that I see these days is “Snuggies.” Do we really need Snuggies, which is basically the same thing as putting on a blanket? It is really unnecessary, but people still buy it because the media spins it, making it look very necessary. They say that because they have sleeves, people will be able to do things such as reading in a very warm manner. However, these things can be done with a regular blanket and long sleeves, too. But this does not mean that I think that smoking is something that is good. I still think of it as something that is bad that harms people’s bodies a lot.

One of the good things that can come from spins is that you could get what you want. In the movie, Nick was able to bribe the Marlborough man into not saying anything that would harm the tobacco company. Also, Nick Naylor was able to make people change their opinion on a topic. However, there are bad things that come with spins too. One bad thing is that it is a really shady business, and once you get caught, your reputation will not ever be the same again. Also, one must be very good at spinning, or else, they will lose, and they will be the ones to be wrong in the first place. One must have a lot of knowledge to spin, and they must know how to manipulate it.

In my opinion, I find spinning to be a necessity in life and as something that keeps the world the way it is. Without spinning, no products would sell and the economy would pretty much stop functioning correctly, and everything will be thrown into chaos.

TOK HW Due 12.02.09

Pg 52.
1. a. Triangle: Three straight lines that are enclosed completely so that it becomes a shape.
b. Table: Furniture that has a flat top that's held up by legs and such. People usually write or eat on top of these, since it has a flat surface.
c. Love: A feeling where one person looks at another in a special light, and where that other person is liked very much by that one person.

2. I think that there would be no way to explain the colour red to a blind person, because the blind person does not have any idea on what colour is, and what shaps are. Although some things can be felt, giving the blind person an idea, red cannot be felt, and it cannoy really be visualized without already having to seen the colour red. this suggests that definitions cannot mean a thing if one does not understand the concepts behind it. If the person who is listening to the definition cannot connect at all with the definition being given, there is no real way that the definition could be fully grasped.

Pg. 56
1. a: "Planes that are in flight are dangerous." to "It is dangerous to fly a plane."
b: "They saw Mrs. Jones and also a dog sitting under the table." to "They say both Mrs. Jones and the dog sitting under the table."
c: "Bob tickled the man who was with the feather duster." to "Using the feather duster, Bob tickled the man."
d: "Refuse, the food that is to be dicarded, is to be put into the basket." to "To refuse, to resist, to be put into the basket."
e: "Mia wanted to see the pop star actually sing really badly (a lot)." to "Mia wanted to see the pop star sing really badly (off-tune)."
f: "Going to visit relatives can be boring." to "Relatives that are visiting can be very boring."
g: "Many monetarily poor students are on scholarships." to "Many people who are poor in condition are on scholarships."
h: "Johnny ate the bacon that was on the sofa." to "Johnny, who was on the sofa, ate the bacon."
i: "I didn't sleep in the same house as my spouse." to "I didn't have sexual intercourse with my spouse."
j: "I saw her duck, the animal." to "I saw her do the action of ducking."

2. If one puts the correct punctuation, such as a comma, then they will know if the one thing is modifying one thing or the other.

3. A man walked into a bar. Ouch. [The man could have either walked into a bar, as in a pole, or a bar to drink.]
*This joke should be said, not written* How long (or the name Hao Long) is a Chinese man.

This is about ORBITZTRAVEL. This states that Orbitz is the best choice there is just because of the hotel offer. The others were very happy that they got the discount while the person who didn't was very sad. There was a very limited amount of information. Also, this was an example of Hasty Generalization in the fact that there was only one man who was said for not getting the discount, and that was supposed to represent everyone else who did not have Orbitz. There is also an Appeal to Popularity, because everyone around the man who didn't get the discount were extremely happy, and it was the popular view. Becuase of this, people might be tempted to buy the product, since it was a popular view.

What Was I Thinking

Just like it says in "What Was I Thinking", I think it is true that people really just go with whatever is given to them, or whatever they see. Just like how people look at the prices and see the value of the item as it is, people learn to just take everything in the world in just as it is given to them. Their minds are so easily tricked into not thinking much. They never take the time to really think about things.

People learn to accept things such as prices. One example is clothing. We just see the price tag and we usually take it as it is. Abercrombie sometimes sells T-Shirts for $20, when it really can be bought for around $5 or sometimes even less. However, we just simply look at the brand, and we accept the price. We dare not to argue with what society has been telling us. We just learn to accept. Honestly I do not think that it is a good thing to accept things as they are because we should learn how to think for ourselves, and we should be reasonable with things such as prices. Also, just as how people are easily deceived, the mind is easily deceived as well.

There was one experiment explained in the article where the victims were told to write down the last two digits of their social security number. Afterwards, the tester was to ask the test takers to write down reasonable prices for some things. The people were unconsciously affected by the last two digits of their social security number, and put down every price within that range. This just shows how much the brain tries to make connections, and how much the mind can be easily affected. We should learn to really think things through instead of going about on our things in such a flippant manner. People should try to train their minds to be quicker with things.

As the years go by, people are starting to get lazier and lazier. They start to become very lazy even with their thinking, and they start to accept whatever is given to them, accepting it as the truth. Tests have shown that people are very used to accepting things as they are, and that everything around the people influence them, even something as random as the last two digits of one’s Social Security Number. This has come to show that people are becoming more accepting as well as thinking less.

Love is a Fallacy

There are eight types of fallacies listed in the story Love is a Fallacy. They are the following:

-Dicto Simpliciter: an argument based on an unqualified generalization. This is when someone makes an argument based on a generalization. However, that generalization is very off, because there can be other arguments based on that.

i.e. Milk is good for you, because it builds strong bones and it helps your body. However, some people are lactose intolerant, so in that case, milk can be very bad for them.

-Hasty Generalization: It is just using too little information, and basing a huge generalization on that. In other words, the number of samples being tested is too small to figure out anything.

i.e. I love music. She loves music, and because of this, everyone loves music.

-Post Hoc: Believing that something happened because of something else when those two have a high chance of not being related at all.

i.e. There is a spider, and when i tell it to move left, it moves left, and when I say right, it moves right. However, i take off its legs, and then give them the same commands, but it doesn't move at all. Therefore, if you take off all of the spider's legs, it cannot hear.

-Contradictory Premises: There are two premises that contradict one another, but they are happening at the same time. So therefore, there can be no interaction or a conclusion.

i.e. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

-Ad Misericordiam: This is when one relies on another's sympathy and pity to argue things.

i.e. I deserve to get a good grade on the project (which I was notified of a month ago) I didn't do, because my dad died, and right now my family is in a very bad situation where they are extremely destitute; we can't even eat three meals a day.

-False Analogy: The analogies cannot even connect to each other, yet it is still used as an analogy to throw people off.

i.e. Not bringing your pencil and paper to class is like a soldier going to war without a gun.

-Hypothesis Contrary to Fact: Saying what could have happened in the future, when it cannot be changed.

i.e. If Josef Stalin was taken out of the picture, the Cold War would have never happened.

-Poisoning the Well: When one condescends another person, and says negative things about them, saying that whatever they say is wrong.

i.e. That guy always does something that seems suspicious. So no one should get close to him.

The Five Other Logical Fallacies:

-Appeal to Authority: Just because a person is an authority in a certain subject does not mean that all of his/her claims are true.

i.e. A doctor who makes false claims so that he could get money off of his patients.

-Appeal to Fear: This is when someone uses fear to get another to do or believe something, when it has nothing to do with the claim.

i.e. A man who says that people should believe in God or else they will go to hell.

-Appeal to Flattery: This is when someone flatters another, and because of that, the other person feels good and does whatever that someone wants them to do.

i.e. Complementing the principal on how well he runs the school, then asking him to lessen your punishment.

-Appeal to Popularity: This is when people believe something merely because it is a popular view.

i.e. People once believed that the sun revolved around the earth, because it was a popular view.

-Appeal to Ridicule: This is when one ridicules an opposing claim so that people will support one's claims.

i.e. "Obama said that he will bring back the troops from Iraq once he is elected president. HAHA. And that's just ridiculous."

What is Reality (Truman Show)?

Are you living in the Truman World?

I believe that I actually am living in the Truman World, because I have never thought about truly finding out whether or not I am living in reality. I have never thought about questioning this reality-- I always just accepted it as it is, just like Truman did in his “real” world.

How do you live in the Truman Show? In what ways do you live in the Truman Show?

One lives in the Truman World by not really questioning how life works. If you just take the world for granted, and live life just following to the rhythm of the world, then you are pretty much living in the Truman Show. Truman always believed what everyone around him told him, when in actuality, they were all lying to him. He believed them because he thought that they were trust-worthy, and in his perspective, they were speaking logically. However, logic does not always lead to truth. Taking what other people say to be true and making it to one’s own truth is not truth at all. What if this truth is still confusing to that person? Should he or she still accept it? But that’s exactly how we are, and that’s how we live in the Truman Show.

A way to live in the Truman Show is to be satisfied with anything the world throws at you. You can also live in the Truman Show by remaining complacent, not really wanting to step out of your comfort zone to find out things that seem to be obvious to you. Accepting things for how they are is also another way you can live in the Truman Show. Let’s say that someone told you that all babies were carried by storks to the front of their parents’ doorsteps, and that’s how they were born, and you believed it. However, this is not the truth; you simply accepted what was given to you.

A way that I live in the Truman Show is by just going with the flow, and being complacent in my life. I am very uncomfortable with the way I am, but I don’t want to do anything about it, because I believe that this is probably the best it could get at the time being. I am shielded from the truth in many ways, because sometimes the truth might be something that is too much for me to deal with. Sometimes I’m scared from the truth, so my passion to find out the truth is sometimes shadowed by my own fears of truth.

What is real to you? How do you know?

I do not know what is really real to me. I do know that uncertainty is a real thing. Another thing that I know that is real is my being. I know that I am not anyone else, and that I am myself. There is a possibility that I am a clone or such, but I know that I am myself. I do not know much of what is real to me, because as I began to think, everything can deceive you. Honestly, I do not know what is real, except for deception and uncertainty.

The Truman Show

-What do you think of Christof's speech?

When I heard Christof's speech, it seemed very intelligent and very ingenious that he would think of using a person and shaping his life to show how easily people can be fooled. Christof shows that people can be easily deceived by the everyday things that surround them. He has a point when he says this, and he proves it by using a person who lives a life that is nothing like reality.

-What is the "real world"?

I believe that the real world is something that people should rethink. I hope I am living in the real world, because honestly the Truman Story scared me, and it made me rethink who to trust and what to trust. I think the real world still exists, but we will never know if we are living in one or not, because just like Truman, we might be believing that whatever world we are living is real. To Truman, his world was real. To me, this world, and this reality that I am living in is real, because this is what I get to experience and such. To me this place is my reality, and it is a reality for many people.

-Does Truman have it better than other human beings?

Truman does not have it better than other human beings in a sense that he does not get to do what he wants to do the most. He wants to be able to travel, but he is being kept away from doing so. I believe that everything else about Truman is not better or worse than other human beings. I merely think it is the same. People, just like Truman, are controlled by others, no matter what. They will always be influence and shaped by their surrounding as well as the people around them. Also, just like Truman, people go through life not knowing much, and just accepting everything as they are given to us.

-Do we accept the world given to us-- like Christof says?

We do accept the world given to us, and we do not question it. Until now, I had never questioned reality seriously until I saw this movie. I always accepted this as the reality, and accepted whatever was thrown at me because others have told me that I must just accept everything as it is. I stopped questioning like I once did. I stopped asking 'why' to everything like I used to. As I aged, I lost the art of questioning everything. Until now, I have accepted the world just as it is given to us. However, I know that in the future, I still will absent-mindedly because it is so well programmed into my mind to do so.

-What do you think has kept Truman in the show for so long?

I think the thing that kept Truman in the show for that long is because he grew up with everyone telling then that whatever is given to him was the reality, and that he had to embrace it and accept it. Every time there was a strange incident that might have led him to the truth, everyone else guided him into thinking that it was just him, and no one else. However, when he sees his dad that he loved so much again, he starts to realize that something in his world is not right, and that he is being kept out from a big secret.

Is Truth Absolute, Relative, or Subjective?

I believe that all truth is relative. Everything is related to how different people perceive things, and how the culture influences them. There is no such thing as an absolute truth, because everything is based on everyone's way of thinking and perceiving things.

Our truth is in actuality related to us and what we do. Also, people come up with these truths based on how they perceive things and how they feel about something. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and truths. Do some people, due to their culture, cannibalism might be something that is a very regular thing to do. However, in places like Britain or America, it is an illegal action, and it is looked down upon by society. All cultures and such are different, and the reason why they are different is because to their won country, whatever custom or way of thinking may be right to how they are thinking in its own way.

Also, our truth has to deal with the way we feel. Based on our emotions and feelings towards certain things, we can make bad judgment. Also, one can look at something, and give it a misjudgment just because that person was not feeling well or something. When someone simply sounds like they know what they are talking about, we tend to believe them more, simply because of their tone. So to someone, when a man is saying something with a lot of sympathy in his voice, it might seem like he is really sincere. However, to another person, it may seem like the man is just trying to gain attention, and in reality, they are not sad at all.

If truth is said to be absolute, how do we know for sure that it is absolute? People simply say that they know it's true, when it is something that is true to them. In example, Jews believe that there is only one God, and no trinity, while the Christians believe that there actually is a trinity and only one God at the same time. Both believe that their truth was the absolute truth. However, looking at this from an Atheist point of view, it seems as if both religions are just trying to push their relative truths, not the absolute truth. That is how it is for all things. What might seem like the absolute truth for one person might not be the absolute truth at all.

If truth was to be subjective, that means that only the person’s individual truth matters, and it’s not the actual relative truth that matters. However, one might say that something is red when in actuality, it is green because the person is colour-blind. Also, someone might say that it’s all about the individual, so if someone does not see a tree falling in the middle of a forest, they do not acknowledge it when it had actually happened. However, others were there to witness it, and they had seen it fall. This is just like being overly skeptical, not believing in anything that anyone else is telling you.

How much do you think you could know about the world if you never trusted what anyone else told you, or anything that you read?

How much do you think you could know about the world if you never trusted what anyone else told you, or anything that you read?

I think that I would not know much about the world, because there is no way I can know, unless I myself go to the place to experience everything and see it for myself. However, I am not omnipresent, so I will not be able to know everything that is going on at the exact moment. So there is already a lot that I do not know about the world. Because of this, I will only know what I see in front of me. There can be a huge accident on the other side of the world, and I would not acknowledge it's happening simply because I was not there to see it. However, it has actually happened because others have seen it.

Also, I would not know anything about the past, because I was simply not living at that time to see and experience it. So if I do not believe what anyone else said, that means that I would also believe that the world came into existence as soon as I was born, since the past does not exist in my thoughts. So if I don't believe things that are written about the past, that means that I will already not know a lot about the world because I will not know what has happened before my time.

If I am truly 100% skeptical, then I would be very narrow in perspective, and I would not know anything else that is going on outside in the world. I would have a very small perspective on everything, and I would know nothing about the world. I think I would know less than 1% of what is going on in the world if I did not trust what anyone else told me, or anything that I read.

Second Hand Knowledge

Cultural Tradition is Good: Cultural Tradition can be good because it provides a universal knowledge and tradition. Things like time is measured into two twelve hour periods, and this is a universal measurement that everyone can use to keep time. Without this, everyone would not be able to measure time together, and it would be hard to do things such as appointments and such. It is a simple and universal way to tell how things are, and it is very convenient.

Cultural Tradition is Bad: The reason why cultural tradition can be a bad thing is that everything changes over time, so what we might be doing can be wrong. However, how will anyone know that what we are doing is wrong when they, too, use this method and so they cannot find another method. Let's assume that there were actually 400 days in a year. However, because everyone goes by 356 days a year, there is no one willing to not accept the fact and go beyond to actually look for the right measurements of days in a year.

School is Good: School is a good thing because it allows people to learn all various sorts of things. Through school, information from generations to generations is passed down. Without school, children and people in general would be uninformed about many things, and it will cause them to suffer later on in life.

School is Bad: School is a place of education and learning. However, schools these days are just simply feeding students information that they will have to regurgitate later on during the year. Students do not learn anything from this. They are simply taught to absorb what they are told to absorb without being able to question the material. Everything is the way they are because it was taught that way, so there is no room for reasoning with these knowledges that are being taught in any way.

The Internet is Good: The internet is good because it is very convenient to use and you can get the answer that you wanted in just a few minutes, or even in a matter of seconds. It globally connects everyone, and you can find information that is from some other nation in just a few clicks of a button. With this, any wanted information can be found, and it is very simple to use. It has connected everyone globally and it will continue to do so.

The Internet is Bad: Although the internet provides information very quickly, it does not provide the most accurate information. People just simply believe whatever is on the internet, and they are not skeptic about the information that they are taking in. People are also developing a new way of thinking, where they no longer use their brains to their fullest potential.

Expert Opinion is Good: This is good because these experts have done the research in their field, so if they are experts, they know more about the field than we do. It is better to rely on these experts in their field than rely on people who are not experts in that field.

Expert Opinion is Bad: these experts may be the best in that field, but they are not always correct. There is no one in the world who can no something for certain, so even what experts say are not really The Truth. Also, some experts only say that they are experts, and people tend to believe these "experts" more due to their title for being an expert.

New Media is Good: The news media provides people with news going on everywhere around the world. People can become aware of what is going on around them through the news. With the news, they are able to be more knowledgeable about not just what is going on within their area, but on a broader spectrum.

News Media is Bad: The news media may provide us with a lot of information, but it does not provide everything. It only provides what the news media thinks is important. In example, some news medias would cover more about celebrities and their scandals rather than broadcast on an emergency going on in another country, which is far more important and caustic than what trouble a local celebrity is going through.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

"And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." -Nicholas Carr

I believe that Google is actually making us people dumber. Our minds are being filled with information that could be easily accessed, and because of this, we are so accustomed to taking in everything on a very brief scale. I agree with Nicholas Carr's statement above, because now people are really just skimming through the surface. People of this day and age are too used to taking in the information that they easily have access to, without giving it a second thought on if it really is true or not.

I believe that this is a problem, because the Internet is now indirectly teaching us to just believe things on the internet. Before, humans were very intelligent beings who would contain all of their knowledge in their head. As time passed by, technology got better, and things such as writing was invented. With these new innovations that would help people have an easier time retaining their knowledge, it is making them lazier, and they start to use their brains less. Now, this innovation has gotten all the way to Web. And this has made people extremely lazy to the point where they will take in whatever is given to them.

The internet, to me, is seen as something that will provide all sorts of information in just a matter of seconds. Because of this, people have learned to think about what's in the surface, and no deeper than that. People just go on the internet, get the information needed, and then go to another browser to do the same thing. From this, there is no real learning done-- all that's done is just a matter of absorbing things so that it may be regurgitated at a future time. No one who uses the internet tries to think beyond the information and text provided. They just simply take in what is being fed to them.

Sure, the internet is great for connecting people from all parts of the world, but at the same time, this is making everyone think and act the same way. There is no real individual thinking done, since everything is so unified under the internet. The world has become globalized, and this has made humans from all different parts of the world lose their cultural identity and their ability to think for themselves. Now, everyone relies on the internet for their information, and they do not think outside of the internet's boundaries. If someone wants to search up the best hair styles, they do not seek out a hair stylist, but the internet. This is the same with everything else. When faced with a problem, people learn to become complacent, and they just try to figure out things that are still within the boundaries of this world; they do not want to think any further than the limitations that they have placed on themselves. Because of this, people have become lazy and dumb. They are keeping everything within what the world has placed as their limits, when before, those people back then were capable of doing just that-- thinking for themselves. No one thinks for themselves now; they do not ask if something is true or not. They simply take it in without questioning it. We human beings were made to think and do so much more. Our brains are capable of so much more, but things such as the internet has killed our minds and our ability to think.

I Google, therefore I am losing the ability to think

I believe that John Naughton is right in saying that Google impairs us from the ability to fully use our heads. Because of the network, and because it is so fast and easy to use it, we tend to simply absorb information without giving it a second thought. The internet, which we look to for education, actually makes us into dumber people, since we cannot seem to rely on anything else for our information. People of this modern day and age rely on the internet for everything. So their brains are programmed to just soak in only the information that is necessary to them at that time. Because of this, we tend to do this with everything. People just want to hand pick out things that only they want to know at that moment, and they do not try to think about anything beyond that. The internet has changed the way human beings think, and it has made us into people who just take in whatever is given to us. However, what will happen if we keep on doing that? Eventually, we as people will lose our ability to think for ourselves if we keep on absorbing anything. Because of Google, we have lost the art of questioning everything, and truly digging into the real deal. A man named Nicholas Carr, who was mentioned in the article said that, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." People have lost a sense of digging beyond the surface into the depths of a situation or a problem. In theory of knowledge, it is all about getting people to think deeper into the situation. However, people just take in whatever is thrown at them, and they become “dumb” by just simply accepting everything as it is. People were made to think way beyond that.

Also, due to the internet, the truth is twisted. The people are just so used to believing in everything that the media throws at them. Because of this, they do not try to figure out what is really true or not. They just take the bait and eat it. In actuality, these people do not have a mind of their own. They are just taking in what society says is right, and with that, they are just learning to take in and regurgitate what they have learned. There is no real thought in what they are saying, these things are all just the things of this world that were rephrased and put out. Human beings have a very big brain, but we do not even use 10% of it. This is mainly due to our lack of knowledge outside of just the things that we want to know. Also, the knowledge that we are taking in might not be the absolute truth, yet we still take it in and accept it as a truth simply because it seems factual. In example, things on Wikipedia look very professional, when in actuality, it is not. The site is open for anyone to edit it. It just seems very professional and factual, when in actuality, it is a trick, and there is a high chance of the answers on the site to be wrong.

The internet does not do any good for us, and it only seems to be making us dumber and less open for other sources of knowledge. I believe that without the internet, we humans would have been far better off because we would have to truly take in a problem, chew on it for a bit, then swallow it or spit it out.

If a tree falls in the middle of the forest, will it make noise?

“Did you hear that?” “No”

If a tree falls in the middle of the forest, and no one is there to hear it, will it make sound? Will it make noise?

The tree does NOT make noise. Noise is something that was created by humans. If a tree fell and no one was there to hear it, that means that it made no noise because there was no one there to hear if there was a noise. Others will say that noise is something that exists no matter what, but is it really? If a person cannot hear it, and if they have not discovered it yet, then the people do not consider it a noise or a sound. Noise is something that is heard. But if no one was there to HEAR the noise, then that means that noise could not have been there. This thing called noise was made by man, and if man wasn’t there to hear, there was no noise.
Let us say that there really was a man who happened to hear the tree fall. The only reason why that sound is considered noise was because the noise made a sound in which the man probably heard. Because the man was there to hear the tree falling to the ground, it was considered a noise, since there was a man there to hear it. His presence there has made a tree falling make noise. If there was no person there, that means that there was no action of hearing being done.

Some say that they know that the falling tree would make noise because they believe that noise exists no matter if there was someone to hear it or not. However, how would they know if they themselves were not there to hear it?

Although at first, this may seem like a very simple question, it is not. Many people would reply yes, because they have learned from basic knowledge that when trees fall, they make noise. However, how about the people in the city, where they do not even see many trees? How would they know that a tree makes noise? They just simply heard that a tree makes noises, and such. And once they saw one tree making noise in a video, they conclude that all trees make noise when they fall. Also, how do we know if we could truly trust our ears to hear the right things? What if there was no sound and we were just imagining these sounds?

At first, I, too, believed that a tree would make noise. But as I started to think more into details, I noticed that a tree would not make noise. If people are not there to hear it, or if no one is there to hear it, then it did not make noise, because no one was able to hear it. To me, noise is something that is there for a person or other living thing to hear, but if it was not heard by anyone or anything, then it must have not made noise.

Three Truths

Religion: I was born into a religious home, and so I was taught the religious ways and my lifestyle centered around religion. Because of this, religion was something that has remained as a truth to me, and I never really tried to question it, since I learned that questioning religion is bad. Because of this, I never dared to ask people around me about what was true about this religion, and what was really behind this religion. The Christian preachers told me that it was through faith that you believe, but I am a very skeptical person, so I do not take these things very well. Honestly I do not know what God is and I do not truly know of his existence-- I cannot bring forth substantial evidence. I cannot bring solid proof of my God’s existence, and even if I can bring proof that there is a god, it can be ANY god out there. Is the religion that I believe in really the TRUTH? Other religions also say that their way is the TRUTH, when in reality, there can be only one truth. So which one is it? Or are none of the religions true?

Reality: What really IS reality? Is the world we are breathing and living in truly reality? Or are we just part of the matrix? Is what we sense, feel, touch, and see really there? Or is this all part of the matrix? What if we aren’t living in a reality? I really honestly want to question the concept of reality. What is real? I have come to assume that reality is where I am living in right now, because this is what is real to me, because this is what I feel, see, touch, smell, hear, and such. Ever since I was young, everyone has told me that this is real. But sometimes I do wonder if a reality can be actually a dream, and vice versa. I think that reality is something no one can really grasp. No one can really see outside of this world and see if this really is reality or not. From this, I also don’t know if what I sense is really what is true, too. An example would be the eyes. The eyes are easily deceived, so what if the things we see aren’t really what they ought to be? What if the colour blue is red in reality?

Moral: Why are some things considered immoral and moral? Ever since I was a child, I believed that some things were moral while other things were immoral because I was taught that way. Ever since I was an infant, my parents taught me how to be a good girl. However, who set the morals and who says that those morals are true? What defines good and bad? What if a person was taught that there is nothing wrong with killing ever since that person was an infant? Then is he to blame for being the way he is? To the person, what he is doing might seem like a good and moral thing. But to us, who were raised differently, we look down on his behaviours and such. What really is moral?