in the eye of the beholder, we see the beauty they want us to
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cac99V5cNpE
I was thinking a lot of the bombardment of truth that I apparently found out about myself, i.e. the nazi lover missing the frontal lobe, and just started reflecting on the experiments shown. It seemed as though it was saying that the things and messages around us shape us. Moreover, it showed how easy it was to get us to perform in the way others want, or to pick what another wants us to because of hidden agendas and messages. I do believe in free will, but I also know that it is not so far fetched to think that we can be, “taught,” so to speak, to do and pick what others say to. This is subliminal advertising, and it is everywhere. Take, for instance, the McDonald’s color of the arches. It has been proven that yellow is most significantly paired with hunger, and people tend to feel hungrier when presented with yellow. Thus, they made their arches to be yellow, as well as put a lot of yellow in the joint itself, so that people would more than likely buy and consume more food.
That’s more of a blatant one, so think for a minute about beauty commercials and how they are structured. When you see a hit name artist or celebrity sitting there, all beautiful and tricked out with a bunch of photo shop and make up, you are thinking, “I think I may need to buy this.” They show you how beautiful they are and how beautiful you, “can be,” by showing off their own thoughts of beauty. In a deeper way, they are also showing you what your definition of beauty should be. Even if you say, “well she looks so trashy like that,” it helps shape what you think beauty is, which will then make you look towards another brand or style that has been touched on. Sadly, we wouldn’t even know how to define these words, or even put more than a 5 minute thought or conversation on them, if we weren’t influenced.
This is also why I chose this link. I personally love this link because it shows two things in my opinion: it shows that there are, in fact, people out there specifically taught and educated to manipulate what you want and desire, and that ALL people can be affected. The best thing is, reverting back to me saying that I believe in free will, once we become conscious of all that affects us we can thoroughly define our lives as individuals instead of just people or products.
Jeremiah Blalock on Critique on Humanistic Psychology
10:17 am, 11.22.10
great post! i agree with the fact that humanism does wonders in an open-field thought and study, but also that it shuns away from other schools. If we have learned one thing from the schools, I feel, it’s that we cannot be totally behavioral, psychoanalytic, etc. You will always pull from other schools to get to where you are, and have some ideas that agree, if not totally support, another school to fit your own. just some food for thought.
Jeremiah Blalock on I Choose Not to be a Racist
10:14 am, 11.22.10
i think it’s an interesting post, and find it interesting. You are aware of what the test is doing, probably because of what you’ve learned and seen in similar instances perhaps. Had you not picked this knowledge up, I wonder, would you still be so apt to shoot it down or go against what they want to accomplish? just a thought, great post though.
Jeremiah Blalock on Subliminal Messages
10:11 am, 11.22.10
that is a very good point! it is a very huge thing today, subliminal advertising. We need to be aware of exactly what goes on around us fully, as well as deeply, lest we fall victim to priming. It’s not always bad, but it is a point of sheer manipulation. great post!
Jeremiah Blalock on A Formula for Brilliant?
8:15 am, 10.25.10
well, i would say to look at it this way; what change has ever come from positive? To clarify, why would someone change their way of acting or, in this case, thinking if everything was working and going great for them? In my opinion, and it could be truth to some or most, an authentic change in any process has to go through some negative. Look at it this way, if you did not go through any adversity, would you have changed at all? let’s say you always fought in school, and nothing ever came to intervene. You never lost in both pride, respect, or even the fights themselves. you never had anything negative derive from your fighting. Would you stop? Would you put your hands down and apologize? I wouldn’t think so. This also incorporates thought process to me, because if the way we were thinking was good enough, or at least satisfied our own life questions, then we wouldn’t question it until adversity hit it, a negative came about, and we realized it was time to change or divert from the norm even if it meant the norm of society. just a thought, loved the post.
Jeremiah Blalock on The role of the intellect
8:08 am, 10.25.10
I agree with what you are saying, James is a very bright person however i would actually think that it would be the later. I think there is a difference in having Faith in something and Hope, as well there is by definition but also in regards to why we would use the terms. If I have Hope in something, that means I know that it can fail and there is either an equal or greater chance of failure, so I am gonna lean towards success and want the best with all my heart. However, Faith is when you BELIEVE in something, and even if there may be no physical evidence you KNOW it is there for you, with you, and by you. I guess what I’m getting at is that if James had said Faith instead of Hope, I may have been more apt to be on his side, however since he did not I still feel that thinking through everything in the presence of facts and stats vs me just wanting something to go down the way I want it is no contest, you must always think before you leap.
Jeremiah Blalock on AI of the Future
8:01 am, 10.25.10
Great post! I agree totally that the reliance of these machines could be a great downfall in the longrun in terms of both practical living and decisions. the one that catches my attention more is the ways that actions are picked by the AI, which is sad but also what we ourselves have programmed into our society, so to speak. We want, “effectiveness,” and, “progress,” so much that we ourselves can even in certain aspects take away from our emotional/nurturing side that would rather save the child, or let our kids and families out of the house into a danger-filled world. Great post again!
Jeremiah Blalock on Thoughts on Behaviorism
12:05 pm, 10.11.10
This is a very good post, and while I agree that Behaviorism is not something to just full one believe in when dealing with development, I do think it plays the biggest role in social factors and norms. We imitate, from birth, everything around us that we deem to be “acceptable,” and, “cool,” and sometimes don’t know why! Heck, some things turn to rituals just because it was always done, and these rituals can’t be explained as to why we do them, but we will still do them regardless. Great post.
Jeremiah Blalock on The Right Way Brain
12:01 pm, 10.11.10
I agree with Mary, I think you would benefit in your search/questioning by reading this book. It is actually an easy read and, although it does not touch onto as much spirituality as you would think, it comes to pin point certain aspects that would be useful in understanding this all.
Jeremiah Blalock on Right or Left Brained...
11:58 am, 10.11.10
i think it is a pretty equal mix of both perhaps. I don’t think it is absurd to say that they logically thought through some things, as shown by people like Descartes, Sartre, and Socrates, and also not putting a limit logically on what they thought and knowing that anything is attainable. I feel it’s a similar to the concept of, “You can be anything you wanna be,” because you can truly suceed when you push past your own limits, or see past them which is what i think they do with their right brain.
Jeremiah Blalock on Is Perception Really Reality?
8:47 am, 10.04.10
i think Socrates, for me, put it best in saying that in our own perceptions, we make a world of our own truths, of which we are not wrong until proven otherwise. A little confusing, so i’m gonna try and explain as well as I can. Let’s say you and I are walking down the street, and we both look at a cloud. To you, the cloud looks like a face in the sky. To me, the cloud looks like a soccer ball. Which one would be wrong? Neither, but we wouldn’t say, “Hey, you probably see something different but to me this is….” We, in usual cases, look to the other person and are like, “Dude, look! It looks just like a….” When you state this, you feel you are right, and it is to how you see it. When I interject that I see something different, that is when we both try to see the other person’s way. However, had neither of us been next to each other nor talking about this cloud, it would still have been a face to you and a soccer ball to me. However, though neither are wrong we would both be right to our perceptions. Our reality of that situation is that it looks like what we see.