Monday, November 28, 2011

Blog 8 (The Over All Journey )

Matrix
Dystopia, Truth of life, Soft Determinism.
Oedipus
Dystopia Ruined his own life, Soft Determinism.
Allegory of the Cave
Utopia, Soft Determinism.
Gattaca
Utopia, Soft Determinism
Man on the Moon
Discrimination, Soft Determinism.
Minority Report
Utopia, Soft Determinism.
Free Will and Determinism in the World of Minority Reports
Hard and soft Determinism.

Thematic Connections


Throughout the journey of this class we have went through various texts, movies, and so on ; which therefore have changed our mind of thinking and believing something as real. When it comes to the thematic connections between movies and texts I would say that “soft determinism” took place among all of these. Because everyone had their own choices to accept the truth or not, and to change their predetermined future by going for other options in life.
In the movie matrix we saw that Neo was provided with two choices among the red and the blue pills by Morpheus. Therefore Neo could have choice to live in the same rather than then creating his life a dystopia, where truth became harder to accept. So we can say that a soft determinism took place here. Additionally in the movie Gattaca Vincent accepted his truth of life that he isn’t going to live longer, he knew that he was weaker than this brother Anthon as a result he never got scared of death. All he knew that he will be changing his predetermined future and will show the world by fulfilling his dream of becoming an astronaut. He has proved that no matter how weak you are or how bad you predetermined future is, you still can see dreams and can fulfill them through hard work. Lastly Minority Report where John changed his predetermined future by Agatha where he was seen to be a criminal by killing Lew Crown. Although the situation took place in real where Lew was in front of John’s gun point but John control over his anger and therefore changed his predetermined future.

While in comes to the texts then the same situation took place with Oedipus, the prisoners in the cave and so on. Coming in the discussion on Oedipus then he had the choices either to let the truth to be unknown from him forever or to ruin his life by his own hands. Choice was his no one pressurized him and he took the decision to know the truth that he was the killer of his own biological father Creon. Further, in the Allegory of the cave although a utopia situation took place but still the prisoners had the choice either to stay in the cave forever or to escape the cave and to enter in the world of reality, i.e the actual world. Last but not the least “Man on The moon” discrimination was taking place but the people who were discriminated had the choice to raise their voice against this illegal act,some did and some didn’t .

Monday, November 21, 2011

Blog 07 Reflection

Using blogs instead of journals make a huge difference in itself; it makes your writings more informal in regards of journals. The benefits of blogs are you can see your improvements thought out the stages. Secondly you can read your fellow mates blogs and can see the difference between your writings and some else. Thirdly, comments which you get in your blogs will be helping you to improve it further. When it comes to the drawbacks then I would say that the journals you write are us between yourself and the professor where in blogs your writings can be seen throughout the world by different bloggers which some where might be embarrassing.

When it comes on sharing my experience in writing blogs and getting benefited with it, then I would say that it’s really helpful. Sometimes when I went through my blogs I observe a huge amount of changes in myself. I saw my writings to improve a lot, which was only possible for the blogs, because through them I saw my blogs and other in my class and compared my writings with them. I observed their writing style, way of presentation which later helped me to improve my own blogs.
Blogs are even beneficial at the time when you revise for the preparation of your final essay. The blogs you write can give you overall information in short which you can use in your essay. The beneficial of blogs doesn’t with the end of your class. They are going to stay forever as your writings. Knowledge never goes waste likewise in your other class you might feel the necessity of using your blog writings to make the assignment more beautiful. Journals might be thrown away or lost but blogs are going to stay for your life time.

Presenting your writings in front of others might take some courage but it’s beneficial, because your fear goes away and you become friendly to express your ideas to others. Firstly I was always scared to express or share my ideas and thoughts with others, but after I joined the blog my fear has gone away. Now I am able to make a proper interaction between my writings and others.

In life you should always go for something new. Trying new gives you experience and a clear cut idea of using it or not. If I never had tried blogs in my life I might not be able to get an experience with it,its overall benefits in life.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Blog 6: Free will and determinism

Every human being in this world have the right to choose what's good or bad for them,this is what we call as free will. If the future is predetermined then a person shouldn't be punish for committing the crime as he had no free will to go for any other options. In the movie “Minority Report” the cops were able to arrest the criminals before they have committed the crime with the help of the precogs insight. . We see that a guy name Howard Marks who was arrested for the future murder of this wife Sarah Marks, but how comes the cops can certify him as criminal, they haven't seen him to murder his wife in real? Until a crime takes place in real it can't be regarded as crime or the person as criminal. Future might be predetermined but there are lots of chances to change it , all it depends on the free will of that person.

Comparison- Both in the movie “Minority Report” and the play “ Oedipus the King” have shown that whenever a future is predicated people start to believe in that prophecy, they never try to think that it might not take place in the future. In 'Minority Report' John Anderton was arrested by the cops for murdering Lew Crown , although John haven't committed the crime nor the cops saw him to shoot the guy in real. The cops started to take the prediction of precog ( Agatha) as real and punished John for the crime he didn't committed. Similarly in 'Oedipus the King' when Laius heard the prophecy that his son is going to kill him and take over his kingdom and will be marrying his wife Jocasta , he took a decision to get ride of the problem by killing Oedipus after his birth. Laius for once didn't thought that the prophecy might go wrong in future , Oedipus might not kill him if they give him the teachings to choose what's wrong and right for him.

According to the article “ Free will and Determinism” we know that two kinds of determinism takes place. One hard determinism where you have no free will and your future is predetermined, another one is the soft determinism where your future is predetermined but you still have choice to change it. While it comes in the contrast of the movie and the play then this two determinism are taking place. In the movie “Minority Report” John was predicated to murder Lew by Agatha but he didn't do so,he had his free will to choose whether he wants to kill him or not. And at last John chooses not to kill Lew, therefore in this situation soft determinism is taking place. Rather on the other case Oedipus was predicated to kill Laius and finally it happens because Oedipus didn't had any options to go for unless killing his own biological father. Regarding this case hard determinism is taking place. We can't blame Oedipus as criminal because he didn't had any free will to go for and his future was predetermined.

Overall, it can be said that we need to change our mind of thinking prophecy as real in future. In every single situation there is always a possibility of chances that will be taking place. You can't arrest a person for his future crime unless you see it in real,. That's injustice for humans because we have our own free will to decide what we want or not, someone can't judge us on our predetermined future. And if we don't have free will than even we aren't criminals because the crime was the only path to follow up,no other options were open to go for.