3/2/11

DAY TWO..
and i still feel like a rookie.
I'm still not sure how I am meant to be writing this? Formal? Like a personal journel? A summary of what we did in class? Just general thoughts? Who knows..so I'm just going to keep writing until i get in trouble for doing it wrong. :)


In class numbero dos, we did our first philosophical thinking! [does that suite?].. we were questioning, or Mr. Skinner was questioning us as a class, 

"How do we know if a source is reliable?" - Skin dawgs

 And yes, i do like to do it big and red..it shows the importance..possibly? Back to the question though, how DO we know if a source is reliable?

Thanks to google and wiki, we can't really tell if your sources are reliable..unless we double check using other sources a.k.a, books?! The reason we don't bother with the 'double checking' is because how lazy the human race is..we would much rather do a quick google search and come up with our answer within seconds than hours.  If we went to a library, we would be face with big, incomprehensible words.  As Mr. Skinner said, "few of you actually check the reliability of our sources!"


The question is, what is being knowledgeable about? What does it mean? Well, from my novice experience, it is believed that 'being knowledgeable', is organised common-sense. But the real question is, how do we know our common-sense is reliable? Mind-blowing; I know.  But it makes sense..think about it, we have been brought up learning from our friends, family, experiences, teachers, books and especially media, how do we know they are all reliable sources? We don't. We can't obviously just abandon our common-sense, otherwise we would be left in a rather messy confusion. But we can be open to different ways of thinking because our common-sense is full of inaccuracies and cultural biases.


A surrealist artist, Rene Magritte, painted a cigar titled "The Betrayal of Images".  At the bottom of the painting though, it's translated to mean 'This is not a pipe'. What is it then if it's not a pipe? I was turning the image sideways, trying to be a few steps ahead of everyone and see what the image really was.  We all gave up and Mr. Skinner said "This is not a pipe. This is a painting of a pipe."

We were all baffled.. So simple, yet I was trying to find some sort of hidden image.  Magritte's intentions were to confuse viewers and question, if it's not a pipe, then what is it?!


A quote i loved from Mr. Skinner and was so true, is that

"What we see, is not what we get".

Certainty next!