We see and understand things not as they are but as we are Essay Example
We see and understand things not as they are but as we are Essay Example

We see and understand things not as they are but as we are Essay Example

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  • Pages: 4 (956 words)
  • Published: April 8, 2017
  • Type: Essay
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“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are”, this claim shows how much our beliefs and experiences changes how we view the world. Our beliefs and experiences are what make us who “we are”, therefore this are what influence on our ways of knowing. Since the ways of knowing is what shapes our understanding of the world and views then we can see things as “we are”.

Examples of this would be: “The needs of the many outweighs the need of the few”(Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), considering that a person believes in equal rights then this statement will seem logical.This is because the combined needs of the larger group will be much larger than the needs of the smaller group. Now think about the next quote:

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“that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not”(John 11:49:50). If a person has accepted the logic in the first quote then the second quote will also be logical. This means that the means of the many or nation should outweigh the needs of the few amounts of people which in this case would be the “one”.

Nevertheless when we look at both of these situations with our emotion rather than using reason we stumble into a predicament. Using our emotion some people may argue that no matter how little the amount of people there are they should not be ignored and therefore the mayority do not always got to be the best choice. Now with the second quotation people may ask: “Who is that man? Is he good or bad? ”. Those questions will

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affect if a person decides to sacrifice the man or not.

One person could argue that everyone should be treated equal therefore no matter what the man has done he deserves to live as much as the other group. Now consider if the minority group where children and the mayority group would be old people. Emotion and beliefs will take a great part into deciding what person deserves to live. If someone really encourages the value of life he might not decide on killing anyone and let everyone live. If someone beliefs that the elders should sacrifice for the children because they are the future of the world then the old people will have to be killed.

By looking at the religion part of the issue a person would value the pure and innocent souls be more valuable than the ones that have commited sins therefore the children should live. If the person does not hold any of this views they may argue that knowledge and experience is the base of everything and therefore elder people will still live. This is a good example of how emotions take great influence in the way we view things. Due to the different backgrounds and beliefs the situations where looked from various perspectives as to wether or not they are “right”.

Some conclusions contradict each other and which creates one dilemma about what conclusion to believe. It is either between one being “correct” and the other one being “Incorrect” because there cannot be both “correct” answer. This can cause a problem wether to trust the reason or emotions. A counterclaim to this could be scientists. Scientists try to be as objective

as possible and do not allow other kind information to affect their decissions.

In order to get to their conclusion scientists’ consideres all variables of the experiment and try to get as acccurate results as possible.This research allows a person to see things as “they are” because findings are stated as a fact supported by evidence. One example could be at my Biology class we where doing an experiment about the diffusion of glucose and starch through a visking tube. The visking tube was made of a slightly permeable membrane therefore one glucose could pass through and starch couldn’t. We did experiments on the solution and put in some benedict solution to see if there where any glucose, the benedict solution change from blue to red this means that it was positive and had glucose.

We tried it also with iodine solution to test if there was any starch, the orange colour remain unchanged this means that it was negative and no starch was present. Now we all did the same experiment and saw the same things therefore we can assume that we saw things as they are because we both interpretated the data that the glucose molecules where smaller so they could pass through the semi-permeable membrane while the starch molecules where larger because they could not pass through. We supported this by applying evidence and therefore we can assume that it is a fact.This example is how objective truth can be used to create things as “they are”.

Emotion can easily affect the way we understand things. For example in El Salvador recently a law has been updated that minors are now punished for

15 years of jail for commiting a crime. At first the decision seems exagerated. Now consider that gang members have been abusing the previous law that said that minors could only have 5 years of punishment in jail, this is by convincing poor minor boys to do the criminal actions for them.Emotion would take into account that the increase in punishment is justifiable by the actions commited by the gang members.

Although another person who believes strongly in childrens rights would fight against that law being reinforced. To conclude emotion is closely linked to the way we understand things, although in some areas of knowledge like science and maths we can assume that most of our decision are objective since it provides solid evidence.

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