Conclusion

Over the past few months, I have looked at the different ways we view and understand the world around us. Through readings and videos and discussions I have come to the conclusion that, while there may be different elements of a world view, the scientific, aesthetic, spiritual, and intellectual ways of knowing are all connected and part of each other. 

One of the things I am very interested in and wish we had maybe discussed more in class is the intersectionality of these ways of knowing- the points where the lines between them blur and we end up with our most valuable insights. 

Many of the things we looked at had elements of this. Kate Tempest's work, Brand New Ancients, though clearly an artistic piece, took it's inspiration from spiritual materials. The cross over between art and spirituality is one of the more present, obvious examples of crossover, with religious subject matter being the basis for art for centuries. 

Another example is Jill Bolte Taylor's description of her experience with having a stroke. From one angle, it is a highly scientific experience, especially given that she is a scientist and so explains what is happening in a very scientific way. However many of the things she described could be seen as intellectual (the question of where we begin and where we end) and spiritual (the out of body point which she talked about). 

Even the documentary, Black Athena, deals with things that we know on not just a scientific level (such as with the finding and dating of artifacts, our knowledge of plants and such) but also an intellectual level (what would these societies have behaved like, how would these things have been used, etc). 

Everything exists together, connected to each other on some level or another. If we are unable to experience things in one WOK, then the other Wok's become limiting, not helpful. I addressed this in my most recent journal post:

"This in turn got me thinking about the things we actively choose to ignore. The things that disagree with our worldview and so we decide not to see them. It isn't always a conscious decision, but it is undeniably true that a majority of people will, when confronted with something that contradicts their way of viewing the world, rationalize it in a way that makes it fit.

For example, let's take an experience my mother has had. My mother, being a very spiritual person, might enter a house, feel the presence of someone who isn't alive, feel the temperature drop, and instantly know that what she has experienced is the presence of a ghost. Someone who has a more scientific way of knowing might have the same experience, but instead of the simple explanation of oh it's just a ghost, they would say it's just a weird house with drafty rooms. Even though the presence of a ghost is the simplest explanation, it is the harder one to accept because it requires the scientist to change their way of knowing. In it's exclusion of the spiritual, science becomes not a way of knowing, but rather a way of not knowing. It is a safety net to rationalize things without having to change your world view. "

The best way of viewing the world is through all 4 lenses at once, to a point where you no longer see them as lenses, but as one whole vision. 

My last example is the myths we listened to. Those myths were part of mythologies and religions that blended together all WOKs. They were there to explain how the world worked (science) and why people behaved as they did (intellectual), all the while being part of a greater spiritual belief system. These myths then inspired art and song (aesthetic) to create a whole balanced way of viewing the world. As our world has developed we have segmented theses things, pulled them away from each other, and lost our balance. In order to regain a balanced life and world view, we have to learn to blend all 4 ways of knowing back together into one. 

FOR SCIENCE!!!!

I think this is the end of my puns

Science is the process of understanding how the world around us works. In this way, science is universal. It is knowledge anyone can figure out because it all exists already. The world is working, wether we understand it or not. 

One topic discussed in class was universal nature of science. It exists regardless of who you are or what you intend to do with it. Elements combined in a certain way will react the same, regardless of the intent of the user. This becomes a double-edged sword. While it makes it so that you cannot have one group controlling and limiting all of science to only a select few, it also means that those intending to do harm are able to use science as freely as others. (I realize there are organizations intended to stop this like say the UN or whatever, but the point still stands). In this way, science is a clean slate. It is neither inherently good or inherently bad. It becomes good or bad based on humanity and how it is being used. 

Another element of the universal nature of Science is its application to the other ways of knowing. It can be used to explain spiritual events. For example, it is scientifically proven that we all have our own "energy" so to speak. Now you can chose to see this in a spiritual way or in a scientific way, but it is the same phenomenon. Science can also explain why certain colors look better together, why we find some things appealing and others disturbing, or why some music calms us and other music puts us on edge. 

There are places where science overlaps with sexuality, with personality, with emotional experience, with all sorts of things that we don't think about when we think about science. In this way, science is incredibly universal. 

In this unit I would have like to have learned more about the interesting places science overlaps with or explains things we often think of as non-scientific. 

Focusing on the Intellectual WOK

I couldn't think of a fun pun for this unit title. I apologize. 

The Intellectual way of knowing is, to me, the process of thinking about the meaning of the things you are experiencing. It is the need to go beyond just knowing and into the understanding. 

The other night a group of friends and I ended up sitting around the table talking late into the night. The topic? The cinematic merits of Lord of the Rings movies. And we aren't even film kids. Now, had we just stayed up that late geeking out about Lord of the Rings, that would have been the way of knowing called being a huge nerd. However that wasn't the conversation. The conversation went deeper than just "oh man that scene was really cool!" or "yeah that actor was bad". The conversation discussed the ideas. It discussed the metaphor created by the barbaric way Denethor was depicted eating. It discussed the emotional impact created by juxtaposing that with Faramir's suicidal ride towards Osgiliath, a ride he makes on Denethor's command. We discussed not the what but the why. 

In Plato's Symposium it isn't enough for them to just say love exists. Instead they talk about the nature of it and the why. The things we think of as intellectual, the philosophy, the psychology, all have to do with the explanation of our nature and motivations. The intellectual WOK is about explaining the Why for the What that we do. 

In this way, the Intellectual WOK becomes a second level or counterpart to all the other ways of knowing. It is the process of taking the what which you know from your world view, and expanding it to a why. It is the process of connecting Ways Of Knowing together. Taking the fact that this image is calming and finding the scientific reason behind it. it is the process of connecting the dots. 

I would have liked to learn more about philosophy as a subject. Talk about some of the big parts of it, maybe learn a little history of the ideas. I think that would be cool. 

Foreclosing on the Appearing Dock

I think of the Aesthetic Way Of Knowing as a move visual way of knowing, rather than the experiential Spiritual WOK. Aesthetics are about how things appear and look, how they work together to be pleasing or unpleasant to the viewer, how different patterns connect to each other and the interpretation of color and composition.

Knowing how to read and communicate visually, rather than through written or spoken language, is an art our society has very much forgotten. The other day in my Lighting Design 1 class we were shown a video about how to read art. The video told us about the symbolism and meaning behind the details in the painting, the stories it told, even though there was no text or even motion of the characters. Our ability to perceive these stories and this meaning has faded. And yet, it still remains one of the most effective means of communication. The saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is not untrue. So many times I have found myself trying to explain something and instead drawn a picture. There is a reason theater technicians are given drafts and light plots, visual representations, rather than a written description. It is much easier to look at a drawing than it would be to read a whole paragraph detailing the ground plan for a set or the layout of the first electric. We learn visually for the first major chunk of our lives, before we have language to communicate we recognize images.

It is also important to understand how the aesthetics of the things we see affect us, since they do so every day. The way a room is painted can change our mood. The way furniture is arranged can help or hinder productivity. How brightly illuminated our space is can make us more or less afraid. There are countless ways we are influenced visually by the world around us without many people even knowing.

I am a firm believer that all ways of knowing connect. For example, take the aesthetics of a room. The visual flow of the room, how it makes you feel, the color, are all aesthetics. However the layout also effects the flow of energy, which manifests itself aesthetically. Do you have a wall where your visual flow gets stuck in the corner? well so will the energy and so will your things. If your room is aesthetically chaotic, it will influence the energy flow and will cause you to feel chaotic while you are in it. I spent my childhood coming home to my mother having completely rearranged our living room because it didn't have good energy flow. Another example of interconnectedness of the ways of knowing is the intersection between scientific and aesthetic. An artist might look at a sea shell and think that the spiral in it was beautiful, where a scientist might look and know that the spiral pattern in the shell is a reoccurring pattern in nature and that is why we find it calming.

This intersectionality of the ways of knowing is something I would have loved to look into more.

This blog post doesn't really have the definite sections that these blog posts were supposed to have, but this is the way my ideas on this topic came out so I hope that is ok.

Faux-clothing on the Spatula Clock

Introduction: This is a blog post. 

Starting Point: I start with all the points of reference I have accumulated over my life. Some of those include being Jewish, being white, being American, growing up middle-class, growing up in a small liberal town, etc...

What I Learned: I have learned lots of little facts and such from the readings, but those sorts of facts and external realities seem to trivial and mundane for this class. Perhaps because of my very open and diverse upbringing, I have found that I haven't learned anything new about myself and my worldview so far in this class. However I know that recently, although this may have more to do with college than this class, I have been able to recognize more and more the places and experiences in my childhood that were unique and shaped me into who I am. That understanding has been really interesting for me.

What I'd like to Learn More About: I think it would be interesting to learn more about actual philosophy and the actual ideas that have shaped cultures throughout history. This is a very self-centered class, focusing mostly on how we as individuals see the world, and, for all the discussion about how we got to be who we are, we haven't really been looking into the past or learning how the ideas that we have now developed. 

Conclusion: This has been a blogpost. 

Composting in Convex

INTRODUCTION:

I have always seen the world in a very empathetic way. Since I was a child I noticed and absorbed the emotions and feelings of other people around me. I was the kid who would take a spider outside rather than kill it. I try to understand where people are coming from and why they do what they do. That is the way I make sense of what is happening around me. 

STARTING POINTS:
Most of who I am and how I see the world has to do with my parents and how I grew up. On one side, I grew up in a family with a vegetable garden, a family where being outside was important, in an environment where my parents let me run free in the neighborhood, trusted I was ok, and the friend's house you were at when lunchtime rolled around was the house you ate at. It was an upbringing that helped shape me as a very open child, unafraid to have experiences and let information in. On the other side, I also grew up in a household full of emotions to absorb. My grandfather died when I was in Kindergarten, then my parents split when I was 8. This meant that a lot of my early years were spent surrounded by events that were only perceptible through emotions.

However I think the most defining event of my childhood, and in many ways, the most damaging 2 words I was ever told, was when my Kindergarten teachers insisted I "Don't Cry". In a class full of rowdy, troubled, and aggressive children, I quickly became overwhelmed and, unable to let out any of the feelings and emotions I was picking up on, turned them inside, shoved them down, and stopped letting myself deal with my own emotions. I still saw what others were feeling, but there wasn't any room for my own feelings. My own feelings were bad. It has taken most of my life to this point for me to process my own feelings as well as those around me. 

WHAT I LEARNED:

I think the idea of how we look at the world and how we understand it as having different categories and methods is helpful to be able to see balance and understand biases and flaws in your own views. I find it helpful to understand why I see things the way I see, versus my friend who may see things differently, or even myself seeing the same thing at a different time in my life.

CONCLUSION:
I frequently use emotions to understand the world, through a Spiritual WOK. I see other WOKs in other things I see in events and experiences I have.