HW #4 Blog Comments

Rachel

I feel like you are taking a "rebel without a cause" approach to the way you disagree with David Banach's lecture. You are only including yourself in your examples in order to back up your argument. I would recommend to exclude yourself and give more general points of view. I also found it humorous that you assert David Banach is fake through his writing and imply he knows a lot of fakes

-Juan Soteldo


Hannah,

All your examples and ideas are very interesting to read. I like how you made connections to your personal experiences in things like your art and your defiance to your ex-boyfriend with reading the twilight series. I agree with Jace when he said that you were not acting in "bad faith", but instead challenging somebody to let them know that you are not under their control.
I'm really curious to know who in particular are the members of the so called "rain boot crew" hahaha
You mention that if people do not like what your wear, then "it's too bad for them". This shows that you have personality and you are not trying to be somebody else in order to fit in.

-Juan Soteldo

HW #3

We as human beings are not physically free of our appearance or external circumstances. "Am I free to become Barrack Obama right now? Am I free to become a woman? Am I free to close my eyes right now and find myself in the Bahamas when I reopen them?" asks David Banach. We might not be free to do any of these things but we do have endless internal capabilities. In our minds, we are allowed to do whatever we want. We are free to have our own opinion, we are free to believe and "we have the power to edit the frames which constitute our experience into the film that is to be our life".

The only person that impedes a you from being yourself is you. Nobody can tell us that we can not laugh or cry when we want to. Or that we can not act a certain way because it does not go along with our personality. We as human beings should not intend to be somebody else only because a person in our life makes us feel that way. Having a "mental TV screen" of oneself could be fake because that person might be trying to be somebody else just to fit in, but sometimes it can also be a good thing if it is for our freedom of happiness. If a person decides to change an aspect of himself in order to improve his personality rather than to fit in then it would not be considered trying to be somebody you are not. For example, somebody is different when he is around other people by being less social or less humorous, and then the person decides he should try to be as genuine as possible with everyone. Therefore he will be an absolute individual and internally free from all outside influences.

hw #2 Blog Comments

Rachel C

I feel like you have a lot of good questions to write your opinion but i think you need to go more in depth with your argument. In your own opinion, you should write more about what you think is absolute individualism. Also making connections helps the reader to understand your ideas.
-Juan Soteldo

Katherine V
ummmm... I fell like you need to expand your idea more.
-Juan Soteldo

HW #1 The Ethics of Absolute Freedom

Through out out my life I have always wondered if what we live is fiction or reality. What proofs us that what we see actually exists or that other people are other actual human beings that think and feel like we do. Like how David Banach says "we cannot feel what is going on in anyone else's mind". We are trapped victims of our own mind. There is not objective way to know and feel like the other person. We can only try to understand people by what they tell us and feel the way they do comparing with own life experiences. Sometimes I see it if I am the only person alive and living in a made up world with fictional people. It feels like life is a novel and I am the protagonist in the story. According to David Banach "we are minds trapped in our bodies" which is true in the perspective that our mind is all we have. It is our best friend since we connect with it all day and I think that is what David Banach means by Absolute Individuality.

Regarding the fact that it is impossible to know exactly what someone else is feeling, there are times that assure me that what I am living is real. When I'm with a person who I really connect with and feel comfortable with, all doubts about reality immediately abolish. Also, I believe in a human sense when people have a mental connection even though they are not talking. Remember the example I gave last year in your class that everyone though was cheesy and funny? About when sometimes I am in the subway and i see a complete stranger and have a connection with that person and we each know the connection is going on even thouh we are not talking.

Another way I am one step closer to feeling a true connection with another human being is with emotions. Emotions are what makes us human. Without emotions we would be just like robots. When someone around me feels very happy or sad I sense that they too are living their own lives. A life full of struggles and obstacles. That they also have curious minds and wonder these concepts.

Once again there is not objective way of knowing that what we are living is real. That everyone around us has the capability of feeling what we feel. We are victims of our own minds and live in an absolute individuality. The only thing we can do is have faith in what we believe in and let our instincts guide us.