Andrea Ramos

There is one side of me that believes in civil disobedience and then another side that's opposed to it. I do agree that civil disobedience is acceptable if the government is abusing their power and not going by the rights. However, I do believe that as a citizen we have to live under the laws and be civilized about it. I do believe that laws aren’t going to make everybody happy so civil disobedience isn’t always the answer. I do also think that civil disobedience does bring light to certain problems. Sometimes hearing people protest about a certain issue brings alertness to the problem for the people that knew nothing of it. I am just in the fence about this.

John Stuart Mill believes that as long as the government isn’t forcing you to do something by the state, then you are free. I personally do believe in everyone having the right to do as they please, as long as they are not harming anyone else in the process. I do also believe that the government does have the right to interfere if one is harming others. In my opinion, there should be a balance in government authority and self-freedom so we can live in a civilized way.

I do think it is possible for one to follow the beliefs of Buddhism. Buddhists believes that the source of suffering comes from one’s own desires and selfish cravings. In order to live a life based on these needs, one could live a minimalistic life. In this life, one is 100 % detached from everything one physically does not need. This includes have extra of things around the house. Not many people can do this but I do think this life is possible. 

I believe what is left out in philosophy is the role of faith for religious conviction. Of course as known , faith has no role in an argument through philosophical lens. I personally am a fan of the cosmological argument because I do believe that something cannot come from nothing but at the end of the day when speaking about religion.. it’s all on faith. Either I have faith that the universe was always in existence, or that God was always in existence.

I think that as humans living in a civilized society we are programmed like computers. We are raised to be taught the “norm” things to do like go to school, work, etc. However, it does depend on what type of household you’re growing up in. Every person in each household gets taught differently. I also think that a programming of a computer would be way more limited than the programming of the human being since we can expand our knowledge. Computers can only do so much. As humans, our knowledge has no limit and we can keep growing what we learn without a capacity.

Dualism is the idea that the mind and the body are two separate entities. Meanwhile, Materialism is the belief that there isn’t a non-physical world. In this week’s discussion board, I wrote about Materialism because I believe more in the idea that whatever our mind processes has to do solely by the processes happening in our brain. This process being a physical process. Mind could be a thing for somebody with a materialistic mindset but has to be explained with physical body objects. There is no more than just one type of reality and matter is essential for this type of reality.

I do believe on the concept of empiricism because I do believe that knowledge comes from experience. For example, I do believe we must have needed to go through breakups to know what a break up is. We learn what a break up is through the experience of going through rejection or whatever of the breakup was. We also learn about a  motherly relationship based on the feeling of warmth and comfortability. However, Basic math problems like adding and substracting I believe can show that this form of knowledge isn’t all reliable, since you don’t need sense experience to do math.

I believe Socrates is right about us being like prisoners in the cave without philosophical education. Allegory of the Cave shows how although the prisoners see the land of shadows…..these shadows are not a representation of the real word, instead they are replicas of what is out there. In the same way, we view the world only in the way that it seems to look like. In order to get closer to the “reality”, we have to stop being like prisoners and start living and learning. There is so much more than what just our five senses can capture. Philosophy can be liberating because it takes out that thought that the “sky is the limit.” It also allows people to distinguish the difference between ignorance and knowledge. Therefore, I do believe Socrates is right to be so pessimistic about life without philosophy.

Believe it or not I have never had a Tumblr back when it was the trend so I have no idea how to use it. OK, my name is Andrea and I am majoring in Liberal Arts. Outside of college, I do makeup and someday I wish to open up my own makeup company. It is something I really am passionate about. I am also a mom to a cat who I adore so much! When it comes to this class.. I want to learn to apply critical thinking throughout the lessons. I have touched the subject before and learned how “thinking can be dangerous.”