English class so far

In this class so far i have been pretty much enjoying what we're doing. I've never had to do blogs before and quite frankly its an interesting experience. I say that because for as longg as i can remember i have NEVER liked anyone at all to read my work! Anyone!..besides the teacher of course. I have always enjoyed writing but i dont know why i've always felt so protective of my work. Regardless of that now, ive gotten used to having to publicly publish my work and its not as bad as i thought, its a good learning experience. I like being able to read other people's work as well and giving and recieving insight. It provides room for constructive criticism and obviously it helps to become a better writer. Most of all i like the topics of discussion that we're given, most of it is opinion based so there really isnt a "right" or "wrong". Overall i like the class, and no complains so far! :)

The Matrix

The many ways of life and everything that surrounds us will always derive questions on the basis of our existence. What is our purpose here? How did we really get here? What does it all mean? Questions that will forever boggle our minds with frustration because there is no real answer to any of them. Fortunately for Neo in the film The Matrix, he received guidance from Morpheus, the oracle, and others around him to help him find his answers. What is reality? The world in which he lived in was not what he presumed it to be, instead, he was living in a false world (the matrix), and the real world was this gloomy place in which machines had taken over. There are many connections in the movie to those of philosophy and questions of life and reality. It’s hard to determine a “reality” in my opinion because we are all different as human beings and ones reality might not be the same to another. Others might not want to accept what is “real” as well and choose to stay unenlightened in the matrix. In that sense, it was very similar to the “allegory of the cave”, in where the one guy goes out to seek the truth and tries to instill his new found knowledge onto the others left in the dark. In the beginning that man is Morpheus, when he searches for Neo and pulls him out of the matrix to reveal to him the truth of his existence. In this situation it is very hard for me to say what I would truthfully do. Blue pill or red pill? The red pill is very tempting in the sense that I would uncover a new reality and have this new form of knowledge, but then again what is the actual reality in the matrix? A dark and scary place where the last humans alive are hiding from the machines. If it were put like that, then yea, why leave the matrix? Yes it’s a false world where you are being manipulated by a “greater” being, but what is the alternative to that? Either way I don’t think the matrix or its reality have any type of freedom. In the matrix you are controlled by the “agents”, and in the real world you have to be on the lookout for machines? I never had to really look at The Matrix in a philosophical way, but there are so many different possibilities and choices that it becomes confusing, which I think is the point, because that’s when we come up with all these questions concerning the meaning, existence, and reality. The only thing in the movie that I can connect to our real world is their whole concept on the difference of the two “realities”. I don’t really know if it can be a real comparison, but how different is their world from ours? Their reality is consumed by these machines that the humans built, yet they have taken over and they have to figure out a way to make it how it was before. Then there is the matrix where nobody is aware of what is really going on and they’re living in this picture perfect world. I can only say that some people maybe do live in “the matrix”, because they are ignoring the reality that is out there today, that our world really is consumed by machines. We aren’t necessarily hiding from them, but when will that time come? Because I do believe that one day it will. We depend on them WAY too much and there are only a handful of things that we do in life that does not require the assistance of technology. Ultimately what I think we can learn from this movie is that we need to wake up from the “matrix” and realize that we are letting ourselves become overpowered by machines. Sooner or later we will have to figure out a way to keep away from technology and start over from fresh, to reestablish the bond of human interaction.

Semester plan

I reviewed my syllabi for all my courses, and the work that needs to be done is pretty simple and spread out with what I think to be good enough time. Every week we are required to submit a blog for our English class, and very similarly answer a group of questions on blackboard with responses to other posts for our media and society class. For our American film class, we only have two written assignments that are due on the 23rd of March, and the 20th of April. We also have three tests that are on the 6th and 27th of April and the 25th of May. Finally, our final project for that class is due the 27th of May. Even though we have a lot of written assignments for our other two classes, we do however have a project as a midterm that is combined with our media and English class which due on the 19th of April. The final for that class, which is another project, is due on the last week of May. In terms of having to complete my assignments, I don’t see any upcoming problems that might affect me. I do in the near future see myself looking for a part time job, so until then I wont be absolutely positive on how that schedule might interfere with my school work, but either way I think I have been pacing myself pretty well and even with a job or other responsibilities to attend to, everything should be completed in due time. I don’t imagine any of the upcoming work to be any easier, but I am pretty confident in being able to put it all together, hopefully.

Truman syndrome

After researching the Truman syndrome, it basically comes down to being a mental illness in which the person believes they are being on surveillance at all times. They get the notion into their heads that for some reason everything that they do is staged and set up for their “make believe” life. I think that with the many forms of technology we have today, its very possible to feel as if you are being watched. With webcams, all these chatting opportunities, and candid camera shows, I can see why somebody might think that they would be a victim to one of those shows. It might sound strange but I do myself feel that way at times. I wouldn’t say I suffer from the “Truman syndrome”, but I am naturally a nervous person, so I get this feeling sometimes that maybe somehow somebody out there is watching me. But then again I absolutely hate the attention, so it could be just my subconscious playing around with me. I got my information from wise geek.com, and I guess it sounds pretty legit since I checked out a couple of other sites, like an article on CNN which explained the same symptoms and such. I wouldn’t trust just ANY site, but once I look around a few other articles that have the similar story, then it starts to sound more convincing, especially if its on a reliable news source like CNN. Its hard to trust just any site on the web since anybody can post whatever they please and can put things that are completely bogus, but I’m fairly confident in the articles I got my information from.

The truman show

While watching "The Truman Show", there were so many different thoughts and questions running through my head. The first thought that popped into my head was how could people be okay with themselves knowing that they were manipulating this poor and innocent man into believing that the life he was living was reality. The fact that it was the biggest thing in society and that absolutely everyone was into it and that no one stopped to question the morality of the idea was ridiculous. Obviously it's only a fictional story, but the situation can be compared to many real life circumstances in which a person is used for someone else's gain and entertainment. Personally I don’t believe it matters what the circumstances are, it isn’t morally correct to use someone’s life for your own benefit. Very similar to today and our hundreds of reality TV shows, the directors, producers, and even us viewers ourselves are using these reality stars just like they did Truman in the movie. The only difference between the Truman show and actual reality shows today would be that the people in the shows are aware of the fact that they’re being recorded. In my opinion having all these shows only imply that we are so bored with our own lives that people have to come up with sufficient pitches for another “entertaining” reality show. Truman’s life was completely manufactured to be “perfect”, but even with that illusion, as soon the doubts of its true reality settled in, his curiosity to the truth only intensified. If I were to be put into his situation, I might be torn on what to do. Even Truman himself at first was hesitant to accept that what he perceived to be reality could in fact be all made up. Thankfully there hasn’t been a instance in which I have had to question my reality, but what if it happened? I don’t know. The closest thing that I can compare it to is being lied to and then having to find out the truth. Even though I don’t think it’s as severe as learning your whole reality and existence is fake, but it still undeniably forces you to question the “truth” and whether or not to accept it as it is. If I lived in Seahaven and knew that it was a perfect and safe place and was still offered the choice to enter into another world, I think it might take a while but eventually I’d take it. Knowing that there is a whole new and different world out there that I know nothing about provides enough curiosity to go with it. In my opinion, the worst that can happen is just that I might not like what I see or learn. If that were the case, I could easily return to Seahaven and everything would return to “normal”. It all comes down to the notion of our free will in our lives. Each and every person on this earth has the ability to do whatever they please. Using the movie as an example, christof did everything he thought possible to prevent Truman from leaving Seahaven and being exposed to the truth, yet it didn’t stop him because he was truly determined to leave and see what it was that he had been missing out on. Truman’s triumph only shows that the role of free will is extremely powerful and if we really desire to acquire any kind of knowledge despite the circumstances, it is possible. Ultimately his situation is similar to that in “The Allegory of the Cave”, in where prisoners had the opportunity to leave the mock reality they believed in and be taken into the real world. Finally, it depends on the individual person because the one man that was forced out, was enlightened and accepted the new truth, yet when he tried to get the other prisoners out, they refused to follow despite the promising details. The role of free will in our lives is principally whatever we choose it be, just like Truman who decided to go on and progress with his.

Allegory of the Cave

“The allegory of the cave” summed up in my words is describing the story of a group of people, or society, in which one leaves what he has been shown to know and is exposed to new things and becomes enlightened with the outside world. It basically just explains how there was a real and different world beyond what these people knew and thought was real. Because they were nurtured in a specific environment and never shown to anything else, the fake shadows that were always displayed in front of them was their perception of reality. In my opinion I don’t think that Socrates believed that everyone’s reality was necessarily real. He implies that there is knowledge beyond our understanding that we won’t ever know exists if we refuse to go out and seek it. I have to say that I absolutely agree with his philosophy due to the fact that not everything we know is all that is out there. We grow up with a limited amount of knowledge depending on our education and if we decline to bring ourselves out and beyond that, there is a world that we will always remain ignorant to. It is all about the choice of wanting to acquire knowledge and if whether or not we are able to accept whatever the true reality is and what we decide to do with that knowledge in the end.

Cyborgs

In my own definition, a cyborg is a person that is so closely attached to technology and its advantages that it becomes a way of life and almost impossible to break. A person that wakes up every day to check their missed calls on their cell phone and go to the computer to check their email before they’ve even had their breakfast. Life becomes a challenge when technology breaks down and they find themselves having to leave the comfort of their home to resolve an issue personally rather than taking care of it online. Being that we live in a period where almost everything has become integrated with technology, it’s hard to say that being a cyborg is uncommon. Technology has taken over every aspect of our lives and if you refuse to follow up with it you will be left in the dark.
I myself would say that I am a cyborg and fully support the idea that life is somewhat frustrating without the technological advances that we have today. It is a part of my life and has become essential to my everyday activities. If we really think about it the technology that we have today has not been around for a long time, but we have become so attached and so used it in a shorter amount of time. As far as I can remember, when my mother first put a computer in our house, I would not want to do anything else. There wasn’t a such thing as playing board games anymore, if I wanted to play a game, I’d do it online. Today the uses of a computer are so much more indispensable and so easy that you can even look for and find a job from your computer desk. From personal experience, traveling and looking for a job is extremely time consuming and tiring when having to walk from place to place just to fill out paper applications. For me it has made everything simpler from being able to apply online, to being able to access my email from my phone when I don’t have access to a computer. Something as simple as a cell phone has become a life organizer and a portal to connect to the whole world. Sometimes people go beyond the extreme and refuse to use or do anything that does not involve technology to their advantage, and to most of us it is inevitable.