Week 2 Blog Reviews

Lauren Spencer:

I love reading your posts. You have such great voice throughout your blog and you have some of the cleanest transitions I have seen. I also love how you always state your opinion, but that it doesn’t come off as rude or snotty. You really are a great writer and you make me believe what you are saying through your posts.

Jacqueline Pridgett

I love your blog. You have some amazing metaphors that make me laugh and really keep me interested! I agree completely with your Good without God post. You were very straightforward with what you believe and I agree. There can be people who are good and don’t believe in God and also the other way around. I also really liked your getting to know you post. It is so true that you are more likely to show your true self when you are online and are able to think about what you want to say, instead of being put on the spot. I can’t wait to read more of your posts.

Katie Kosturik

I really liked the intro to your Good without God post. You are so right, there really is no yes or no answer to the question. I liked the way your broke down the question to help us understand just exactly was being asked. You also have some really smooth transitions and great thesis sentences. You have a lot of opinions and it’s a really good thing. I can’t wait to read more of your posts and see what else is on your mind. 

What is consciousness?

           Is the study of consciousness scientific? Without a clear definition are we able to determine this?  In my opinion, yes the study of consciousness is scientific. I think the study of consciousness is scientific just because of the word “study”. In order to study something you have to have a hypothesis, then you have to observe, maybe gather data, analyze that data, and then come up with a conclusion. This sounds a lot like the scientific method. This, to me, makes it scientific.

            According to the text, many scientists don’t believe the study of consciousness is scientific. It also says “For the time being, scholars cannot even agree on what exactly the question means, much less imagine the form an answer might take.” (Beedles, 95) Just because they don’t know what the question is exactly asking, doesn’t mean they haven’t already made a hypothesis. Just taking that first step in coming up with a hypothesis makes it scientific.

            I think most, if not all aspects of consciousness are scientific. The definition of consciousness is: “an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation, awareness: having knowledge of” (https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:consciousness&sa=X&ei=TyZ9TMOfA42-sAOOwNiCBw&ved=0CBYQkAE) With this being the definition I am going off of, then most parts of the study of consciousness are scientific. Being aware of yourself if not a scientific matter. I think this is more psychological then scientific. The same as being aware of your situation, I think it is more psychological then scientific. I do think, though, that being in an alert cognitive state is scientific. In order to tell if you are in an aware cognitive state, you have to run medical procedures which will tell you , in the end, if you are indeed in an aware cognitive state. This makes it a scientific procedure.

            The study of consciousness is a very difficult topic because no scholar has yet to come up with what exactly the term means. This makes it almost impossible for there to be an exact definition. Without an exact definition there is no way to conclude whether or not consciousness is in fact a scientific study. I used what I thought to be the definition of consciousness and I have concluded that yes, consciousness is a scientific study. I think then that this places me in the theoretical camp because I am going strictly off theory and nothing more. 

Good Without God??

Can we be good without God? To me, that seems like a huge matter of opinion. Do you believe in God? What do you mean “be good”? Does that mean taking out the trash so my husband doesn’t have to? Following traffic laws? Or does it mean something much deeper? Does it mean doing good to thy neighbor and relatives, never committing a crime, going to church, recycling? I think this has to be determined before we can go any farther. To me, being good means all of these. To be good means to follow the rules, be considerate, try to do the best you can, and above all make sure you are happy. With this being my definition of “being good”, now we can answer the main question. Can you be good without God? I think so.

            According to Conyers and Harvey, “recent research suggests that a religious person is more likely to commit a crime than a non religious person.” (Beedles, 63) If the United States is one of the most religious countries, than that makes sense. Say 1 out of every five people doesn’t believe in God. That means if one of those four commits a crime, then they just justified that statistic. If anything, religious people may be more violent because if you believe in something so strongly, you are more willing to fight to defend it. There are hate crimes based on religious reasons all of the time. There are many reasons why it may seem that religious people are more likely to commit crimes.

Belief in God doesn’t control the way you act. I believe the reasons we do what we do are due to various reasons. We may do something because we wanted to, needed to, or because it felt like the right thing to do, not just because of our religion. Religion also doesn’t determine whether or not you will “be good”, your family, environment, and society all have different effects on the way you act. Just because you go to church doesn’t mean you are a perfect angel who had never done anything wrong, and just because you don’t go to church doesn’t make you an unstable person who is going to run out and commit felonies. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Belief in God may help you make decisions. It may lead you in the right direction, but it could very well lead you in the wrong direction. I don’t know how many times I have seen a person grow up in a VERY religious family. They always went to church, never cussed, always said prayer, and never disobeyed. The second they left and were out on their own, everything changed. They were now cussing, they never go to church, they are breaking all sorts of rules. Their religion didn’t turn them bad; the tight hold their parents had on them let them experience life at a much later age. Religion is no way to determine if a person will “be good” or not, you have to look at the whole picture. 

Cogito, ergo sum

After reading the Identity and Consciousness chapter, I have a different view on self-identity. First off, meeting people online is completely different than meeting people in person. When meeting people online there are many things that are missed, than if you were to meet in person. Online you won’t see a persons mannerisms or the way they dress. You also won’t know if they have an accent, how they talk, if they have a disorder, if they are confident or shy. All of these things really help us get to know and understand someone. Online we may say and do things that we would never say or do in a traditional class. Because we aren’t in a traditional classroom being judged and seeing the reactions from people, we feel more freedom to say and do things. We are able to be more opinionated and be more honest with people online. In a traditional classroom I am afraid to speak out because I don’t want to say the wrong thing or get laughed at, but online I feel I can say just about anything and because I have never met these people, and they would know me if I walked past them, I don’t care what their reactions are.

            Can you ever really know me if we haven’t met in person? According to this chapter, we don’t even know who we are. Therefore, it would be almost impossible for strangers to really know me. In an online blog, you are more likely to say what you really feel and be honest with others. Then again, you can be who ever you want online. If you want to pretend you are some forty-year-old dude, you can. Nobody will ever know the truth. With me, I think I am more honest online. In class I’m not very talkative and keep to myself, so nobody really gets to know me. I think it really depends on the person, whether or not you can really know them online rather than in person.

            I honestly don’t know if I agree with Gergen or not. According to Gergen, “We become pastiches, imitative assemblages of each other… selves become increasingly populated with the characters of others.”(Beedles, 54). What he is saying is that we are really imitators of those we have seen. We act a certain way, dress a certain way, and talk a certain way depending on whom we have seen. I partially agree with this. I think every person has their own identity that they have just for themselves that isn’t an imitation of someone else. I also think that people do imitate in certain situations. If you go into a business interview you will act, dress, and speak differently than you would with your friends. You know how you are supposed to act because you have been told, or seen, how to act. I don’t think that people walk around dressing a certain way, talking a certain way, acting a certain way in everyday life, being themselves, because they are imitating someone. You imitate in certain situations when necessary, not 24-7 because you feel like you have to. The society plays a role on how we act, but I don’t think we are all imitating people. I think we are who we want to be, and we act the way we want to because that is whom we truly are. 

Who am I?

My name is Tasha Cerimeli and I am a Senior this year at ASU. When I first started at ASU I was going towards a degree in Elementary Education, but during my special education class I changed my mind. We were doing a lesson on speech disorders and talked in depth with a speech pathologist and right then I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I love working with children and I would do anything to help a child in need. That’s why I am now pursuing a major in Speech and Hearing Science. In May I should get my bachelor’s degree and then hopefully in the fall I will start the master’s program. I love traveling. I met my husband, Tyler, in Switzerland on a foreign exchange trip we did through our high school. Since we have been together we have been to Cabo, Hawaii, Washington D.C., and California. I can’t wait to see where else we will travel.

Tyler and I have an amazing puppy. She is a year and 1/2 old and she in a little pound puppy. I got her at the pound when Tyler was in California. He was a little surprised when he cam home. She is so cute and adorable and we are a little happy family.

This year has been crazy. I was washing dishes in April and I cut through both the tendons on my index finger on my right hand. I was rushed to the hospital and had to have surgery to repair the tendon. I was stuck in a weird cast for my wedding and had to go through rehab to get movement back in my finger. Then, three weeks ago my dog head butted me and broke my nose, so now I’m sitting at home missing the first day of school because I had surgery on Monday to fix my nose. Let’s just hope this year starts to turn around a little bit.