Big Bang

In the final chapter of the book, Sophie's World, we learn that stargazing is a form of time travel and thanks to this concept the book is better understood by the reader. Albert tells his daughter Hilde that when we look at a star we are looking at what that star looked like millions of years ago because it takes millions of light years for it to reach our eyes. It works the same for someone in another planet that is for example four light year away, if he were to be watching me with a telescope, he wouldn't see me writing this blog, he would see a thirteen year old boy doing whatever I was doing back then, he would be looking at the past not the present. Therefore, this concept makes the reader assume that Alberto and Sophie are many light years away from Albert and Hilde, which explains why Sophie and Alberto can see Hilde and Albert but cannot be seen by them. When observing Hilde, Sophie is actually looking at what Hilde used to look like, at her past, when in the present Hilde does not exist anymore.

I think that time is a very complex idea because it makes me doubt existence. If I am looking at an object close to me it means I am looking at the past or how the object looked many years back, so this means I can never see the present, so how can I be sure that anything really exists. This is something that really scares me and is something that is left unanswered in the book because I keep wondering who really existed, Hilde or Sophie?

http://www.likecool.com/Gear/Projects/Looking%20Into%20the%20Past/Looking-Into-the-Past.jpg

Karl Marx

Karl Marx defined the basis of society as all the material, economic, and social relations of a society. He claimed that the way a society thinks, the kinds of political institutions there are, the laws it has, religion, morals, art, philosphy and science are the society's superstructure which is caused by the basis of society. Marx divided the basis of society into three levels, society's conditions of production, society's means of production, and society's production relations. Society's conditions of production refer to the natural conditions or resources that are available to society, and determines the type of production in the society. Thats is why it can be said that this level determines the nature and culture of a society. Society's means of production means the various kinds of equipment, tools, machinery, and raw materials that are available to society. Society's production relations, the last level, refers to the division of labor, or the distribution of work and ownership.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_eWajkm24PVw/SO7_ZZjDzWI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/SFlT37u32M8/PICT0238.JPG

This is a picture of a little village in the middle of the desert which shows society's conditions of production because these people have to rely on other sources to get their food supply due to the fact that it must be very hard to grow their own food in that unfertile soil.

http://drupal.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/files/donkeys/images/IndiaConstructionWork.jpg

This is an image of a construction site in India, that shows that they do not have access to modern and high quality materials to build their buildings, which makes us guess that they do not have very big buildings and actually live ina poor neighborhood. This picture shows the second level in the basis of society, society's means of production.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_r4TzZPyyD-c/SmCGThO63aI/AAAAAAAAAHo/NGP-Hu079Aw/s400/RBP9029401_P.jpg

This picture shows the final level of the basis of society, society's production relations. It is very clear in this picture who works for who, it can be assumed that the guy in the suit is the owner of whatever they are building and the short guy is his worker.

The basis of society can be related to the area of ethics. Before people did not consider slavery or the abuse of workers as something bad, because they had no other means for production, and until machines subtituted these workers they continued to exploit them.

The basis of society can also be related to the area of human sciences, more specific to the branch of economics. It takes money to own any means of production and to be able to distrubute it aswell. To be able to buy all the equipment, tools, and machinery needed to produce and to be able to provide good conditions for production.

Aristotle Post

Aristotle believed that women were "unfinished" men, therefore making them inferior to men. He believed that the man was the one that created life because all children inherit the male characteristics that are found in the sperm. Men are active and reproductive while women are passive and receptive. He also believed that men should should lead civilizations and women should play an unimportant role. Thanks to Aristotle women were seen as he believed them to be throughout the Middle Ages.

This belief can be related to ethics because his view of women can be considered unethical due to the fact that he discriminates them in society. This type of discrimination can still be seen in poor, developing, third-world countries, like Honduras, were women are still seen as less important than men, and are forced to stay at home to clean the house and feed her family while the men work.




http://nieonline.com/sptimes/images/xpress/xpi_20100111_unfinished.jpg



http://tantek.com/presentations/2008/06/how-to-be-a-superhero/ethics.jpg


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/28/article-0-026FBCE600000578-69_468x371.jpg

Arts Blog


http://blog.makezine.com/burial-ceiling.jpg

1. Intention of the Artist: The artist wanted to portray that people who smoke are already six feet under, that they might as well be planning their funeral. He wanted to catch the audience's attention with his way of viewing smoking and how harmful it is.
2. Quality of the Work: The picture is a clear work of art because it is a very interesting and true concept. It is highly educational and the way it is portrayed is very appealing to the eye because it is unlikely to be watching people as if they were inside a grave.
3. Response of the Audience: I think that this an entertaining and interesting work of art. I find it very enjoyable and this definetely caught my attention as a non-smoking person but I think this would catch anybodies attention, non-smoker or smoker.

1. Art as Imitation: This is an original piece of artwork and it is nothing like any other picture that I have seen before and it gives a real message that many other pictures transmit as well but this picture does it in a very original and entertaining way.
2. Art as Communication: This picture has let me know that smoking is harmful and can kill you, and I like how it is transmitted and it is demonstrated clearly in a very entertaining and appealing way.
3. Art as Education: This picture clearly shows that smoking is harmful and it teaches us that it can kill us and this is done with and entertaining image that catches the audiences's attention.

The Stroop Effect

1.The Stroop Effect experiment was designed to create many different stimuli to test the reaction time of the participant taking the test and thus prove if the introduction of different stimuli affect an individual's reaction time.

2.John Ridley Stroop created three different type of stimuli by making three different versions of the same test. In the first one, names of colors appeared in black ink. In the second, names of colors appeared in a different ink than the color named. Finally in the third one, there were squares of a given color. Every participant had to read each one of the names with the different stimuli.

3. As a result, Stroop identified a large increase in the time taken by participants to complete the color reading in the second task compared to the naming of the color of the squares in experiment 2 while this delay did not appear in the first experiment. This taught us that humans can onyl concentrate on one object to fully be able to perform a task.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect

http://www.sireporter.com/user_images/1260419903_r_121009i_ScienceFairBest1_bw.jpg

Ethics Blog

Child Labor

http://www.globalenvision.org/files/Child_Labor07.10.08_0.jpg

The Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs the number of working children between the ages of 15-17 in the USA at 3.7 million.*

The outcry against soccer balls stitched by children in Pakistan led to the relocation of workshops ran by Nike and Reebok.*

Thailand, sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, or Morocco and they will tell you how they regard this altruistic hyperactivity - with suspicion and resentment.*
*http://samvak.tripod.com/childlabor.html

I think that if a kid wants to work he should have the right to work but in workable conditions and for a fair salary but I do not think that a child should be forced to work because I wouldn't like to be forced to work and worse if it is in non-workable conditions.

Historical Analysis

http://www.asiaobserver.com/images/fbfiles/images/2010_01_08_Cartoon.jpg

Origin: United States. It is from the point of view of the members or followers of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Purpose: To make people believe that what the KKK does is acceptable.

Value: This is important because people all around the world believe that what the KKK does is wrong and this reassures their belief.

Limitations: There is no label on the cartoon that says that the person in the picture is part of the KKK, we are just assuming that because it looks like them but we are not sure.