Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Something that I consider beautiful and is art:

A painting called "The Swing" by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The painting is beautiful in the sense that it has aesthetic appeal and provides a perceptual experience of pleasure. But the painting can also be classified as art because it is intentional and expressive. There is a deep meaning behind the picture as well: the young man hidden in the bushes is watching the woman on a swing, being pushed by her husband. Her husband is hidden in the shadow, as he is unaware of the affair. Obviously, the artist put a great amount of thought into this painting.

Something that I consider beautiful that is not art:

The Prague Castle. 

Beauty is a very subjective matter (as the old saying goes: "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"). I personally believe that the Prague Castle contains a certain aesthetic appeal that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure. However, the Prague Castle was not originally built for aesthetics. Most castles were built as fortresses from invasions, not to be looked at as works of art. They were functional, as opposed to expressive. So although this castle is beautiful, it is mostly classified as non-art.

Something that I don't consider beautiful but is art:

The painting "The Potato Eaters" by Vincent Van Gogh.
To me, this painting doesn't exactly hold any sort of aesthetic appeal. The colors are a bit dark and depressing, the shapes of the peoples' faces appear odd and disjointed, and the overall picture just isn't pleasing to me. However, the painting was made intentionally by Vincent Van Gogh, and it is both expressive and creative. Therefore, it is art.

An attempt at shifting paradigms

One of you is a philosopher and the other is a mathematician. As such, you can both be classified as rational and reasonable people that understand logical areas of knowledge. Which is why I don't understand why you are both defending beliefs that are thousands of years old. Galileo gave you perfectly reasonable evidence for the fact that the Ptolemaic system of the universe, in which the sun orbits around us, has been proved wrong. According to the Ptolemaic hypothesis, "stars" are not supposed to be observed around other planets, but alas, Galileo found several objects orbiting around Jupiter. He was able to see the moons of Jupiter through his telescope and stated that they orbited around Jupiter, not Earth. This means that Earth is not the center of all orbits! If you two had simply looked through the telescope, you would have realized that the solid evidence against the Ptolemaic hypothesis.

Why will you not change your outdated beliefs in favor of a more pragmatic theory? I understand that Galileo shattered your previously held theological and scientific beliefs, but if the new ideas makes more sense, why should you preserve the thoughts and systems of Ptolemy and Aristotle? As Galileo stated so neatly, "What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times?". Your paradigms, my friends, are trapping you into a certain frame of mind and making you close-minded to other ideas. I understand you may be frightened of a new theory that could revolutionize all of society, and that you hate being proven wrong because you may have emotional attachments to your beliefs. However, you are logical professionals. Won't you at least try to look with your own eyes instead of the eyes of your authorities?

Oh, and here's a video of an old man impersonating Galileo's trial before the Holy Office:

A Review of Incognito

The aim of the book as a whole was to make sense of what goes on in our minds. Granted, this is an extremely tough job, as our minds are exorbitantly complex systems. David Eagleman proved that the brain and sensory organs don't always reveal the world as it is; our mind can play tricks on us. Eagleman further argues that the actions of the unconscious are so powerful that they can overthrow consciousness and, when combined with the influences of genetic expression, undermine our traditional ideas of self-control and free will.

Neuroscience raises deep, disturbing questions about crime, punishment, and the organization of society, which may have been the most interesting part of the whole book. Should mentally challenged people should be held responsible for their actions? On one hand, they aren't completely consciously responsible for their actions, but on the other hand, they committed a socially unacceptable crime. Does that deserve punishment?
 
Now, I suppose I didn't enjoy how Eagleman made us double-guess ourselves about consciousness and free will. As one student pointed out in class, I like to think I'm in control of myself. If I'm not, who is? It simply makes me unsettled to think that I don't get a say in my own identity.

In summation, the book had its ups and downs. There was no coherent order to the book and it tried to cram in too much information. A multitude of interesting facts was intended to shock the readers on almost every page of the novel, and shock us it did. However, it included so many optical illusions and surprising psychology experiments that I couldn't take it all in at once. I feel that Eagleman tried too hard to impress the readers, and I ended up with a headache at the end of the novel. If you're interested in random facts about neuroscience, then I recommend it. Just don't read it all at once or you may become overwhelmed.

Mm mm good.

Several decades ago, McDonald's began mass producing its food. And as mass production requires speed and efficiency, McDonald's began buying frozen french fries instead of peeling fresh potatoes in order to cut down on time. Frozen foods, of course, lack most of the flavor that natural foods contain, and McDonald's wanted to make their fries appealing without slowing down their production. There are, in fact, an enormous amount of factories dedicated to the science of flavor and scent. Scientists found that taste buds, although helpful with taste detection, are very limited in comparison to the human olfactory system. Indeed, "flavor" is essentially the smell of gases being released by the chemicals people ingest, thus making aroma responsible for most of a food's taste. In addition to flavor additives, some companies also use color additives to make processed foods look fresh and appealing. Studies have found that a food's color can greatly affect how its taste is perceived. Brightly colored foods appear to taste better than bland-looking foods, even if the flavor compounds are similar to each other. Many processed foods nowadays offer a blank palette: whatever chemicals are added to them will give them specific tastes. There is hardly even a difference between natural flavors and artificial flavors anymore. They sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods, but still at the same chemical plants. In summation, there are numerous taste processes that occur in order to make processed food more appealing, and McDonald's french fries are no exception.

One side of the article discusses the negative ramifications of all these processed foods. The canning, freezing, and dehydrating techniques used in mass production destroy most of food's flavor, and mostly artificial additives are used to regain flavor. These additives are just mixtures of volatile chemicals and usually aren't the most healthy. But the other side of the article talks about how amazing the science behind taste is. All of the experiments and studies, involving the olfactory system and food color and so on, are incredibly complex. Personally, I believe it's fascinating to think of all the chemical processes that go into creating a new flavor. I just wish that more natural flavors were used instead of millions of volatile chemicals. If I went to McDonald's, I'd rather drink a milkshake made from real strawberries than from a compound of chemicals, wouldn't you?

The ways of knowing in this situation include sense perception and emotion. Many senses are involved in the process of taste. Smell can affect the perception of taste, and many experiments are conducted on perfumes and chemicals to produce appealing smells. Vision, also, can cause one to notice whether food looks off or unappealing, and cause them to make a decision on whether they want to ingest the food or not. Additionally, emotions can play a part in the situation. A smell can suddenly evoke a long-forgotten moment. For example, imagine that your mother always made apple pie and it made you feel comfortable. If you went away to college, you might be home-sick and purchase a slice of apple pie as "comfort food." This food would influence your emotions and your experience of the food.

A knowledge problem for this situation is figuring out the origins of all of the flavors in food. This affects people like vegetarians, who often have no way of knowing whether a flavor additive contains beef, poultry, or shellfish. Some color additives may even violate a number of religious dietary restrictions, cause allergic reactions in susceptible people, and come from unusual sources (such as acids found in insects). Consumers aren't being given all of the information; if we were, our senses would label the food as unappealing and the companies would never generate any money.

So the knowledge issue is this: To what extent do our senses influence the way that we perceive things?

It's like when you know stuff...but like...it turns out you don't...whatever.

A few days prior to the start of the school year, I decided to drive over to Staples and buy school supplies. My dad accompanied me because he also needed office supplies at Staples. We split up and as I finished putting all of my supplies in the shopping cart, I spotted my dad near the printer section. I ran over to him and tapped him on his shoulder. Much to my surprise, however, the man who turned around was not my father. I mumbled an apology and walked away in embarrassment.

The ways of knowing in this situation include sense perception, reason, and emotion. My sense of vision caused me to believe that a complete stranger was actually my father. The rods and cones in my retina matched up the stranger's appearance with the familiarity of my father's appearance, and this observation deceived me into believing that they were both the same person. Deductive reasoning was also used in the thinking process. My dad has black hair, was wearing khakis, and a plain T-shirt. The stranger had black hair, was wearing khakis, and a plain T-shirt. From these observations, I reasoned that they were the same person. Additionally, emotions played a part in the situation. An emotional person is unlikely to see clearly or to reason well, and in most cases, emotions are not a reliable guide to the truth. I felt happy to see my dad and I wasn't paying much attention to details. This outburst of emotion caused me to overlook the minutiae and run over to someone who I didn't know.

The knowledge "problem", or the big deal, is that I mistook my father for a complete stranger. I deceived myself into believing that a stranger was actually the same person as my father.

So what are the limitations on the act of observation, and what effects do such limitations have on the consequent decisions we make?