Skepticism, Evasive Agnosticism, & Narrow-mindedness

Skepticism is reluctance to accept conclusion as true. There is skepticism as a permanent attitude, which is unhelpful, and then also skepticism in fitting situations where the information given in insufficient. There is also the moderate and extreme skeptic. The extreme believes that there is no truth and the moderate believes that humans are not capable of understanding it. Agnosticism is when a person believes they do not know enough to come to a conclusion and therefore does not deem a statement true or false. Evasive agnosticism is when a person claims to not have enough knowledge to come to a conclusion when they actually do. Narrow mindedness is when a person refuses to consider certain options because they do not fit with their prejudiced assumptions. For example, if a person were to refuse to listen to a band because they were classified as a country group. This person had previously decided they hated all country music because they heard a few country songs they didn't like and is refusing to listen to this band even if it was a separate sub-genre of country.

Logical Fallacy: Gambler's Fallacy

Gambler's Fallacy
The gambler's fallacy is the idea that since something does not follow what is expected to occur, it must end soon. This fallacy comes from people having a false understanding of probability. When flipping a coin there is a 50% chance of landing on heads, and a 50% chance of landing on tails. Say that a coin was flipped 10 times and landed of heads each time, it seems more likely that in the next 10 flips the coin will land on tails. This, however, is false. When a coin is flipped it is not being affected by any of the flips before it; the chance is still 50/50.
Video with more on coin toss probablity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf4ZmWc_jmA


Appeal to Authority:

Imperfect Perception Tests

The Dot Game
Click on the black dots as they appear as quickly as possilbe for 30 seconds.

Trial	Number of Dots	Percentage Change in Score*
1	27
2	29	7.4%
3	29	7.4%
4	31	18.5%
5	29	7.4%

In the Dot Game I was able to detect the dots faster as I became used to the game. My brain became used to the pattern and I was able to click on the dots automatically without thinking about it. 

Synesthesia is a disorder where two sections of the brain are two close in contact-causing the senses to collide. 
When I listen to music I often visualize images that match the tone of the music, but I am not actually seeing these things in front of me as a person with Synesthesia would. Emotions are often associated with certain songs, depending on the mood of the song. Music can also give people the desire to move, which is related to the sense of feeling and also the sense of proprioception (being aware of the location of your body parts without needing to look at them).  

The Stroop Effect Test
First Time:16.185 (colors of word match)
Second Time: 21.673 (colors of word to dont match)
 5.88 more seconds
The Stroop Effect applies to the difficulty of trying to read a word for a color that is in a different color than the meaning of the word. It is thought that the reason this is difficult it because the brain is able to read the word faster than it is able to identify it's color-causing your brain to be conflicted. It is also easier for the brain to read the word rather than to identify the color.

Sense Perception-Depth

Depth perception is how our brains decide how far or close something is. Th Ames Room is a specially built room to trick our senses of depth. The room has unparalleled walls and a tilted floor; the mind is tricked into thinking the room is normal because our brain assumes that the walls and floor are level. As people walk around this room, they appear to grow and shrink extremely fast. In art depth perception is extremely important. Rendering and using different values to create shadows can really cause and image to pop off of the page. I have learned that objects at a distance often appear to have a lighter and less intense hue. Sidewalk art is famous for making 2-D surfaces appear 3-D.

Vegetative State and January Presentation

Communicating with people in a Vegetative State
There has been a new discovery that allows doctors to communicate with patients in a vegetative state. The doctor will speak to the patient and ask them questions, then they will see what parts of the brain are active to answer the question. This is very important because doctors will be able to determine whether their patient is in pain or not.
Knowledge Questions:
How can we determine if the patient full understands the question?
If we ask the patient if they would like to die, how can we be sure they understand the gravity of the question?
Who has the final say in whether the patient should live or die?

January Presentation
Should a piece be considered art if it has been produced by a non-artist?

What is considered art?
What makes someone an artist?
Is the definition of an artist dependent on the definition of art or vice versa?

Context

Context has a great influence on how we perceive our world. We judge the value or importance of a thing based on what is around it. For example, when a famous violinist played in a subway station, no one recognized him or gave him any attention. Because the musician was playing in a subway and not a theatre, the pedestrians did not give him a second glance. When I visited the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), I had a similar thought to this. I have seen several pieces of modern paintings that I believe the average person, or even a child, could create. When I had gone to a friend's house I had seen a framed drawing that my friend or one of their siblings had done when they were a child. At first glance, I thought it was a small piece of modern art. As I got closer I saw that it was just a child's drawing on a sheet of paper.
Because the context of the drawing was it hanging on a wall, the same as I had seen many of works of modern art, my brain quickly assumed that the piece was modern art as opposed to a child's drawing.

Sense Perception and Knowledge of the External World

To see 'what is the case' context, inference, concepts, experience and interpretation are required. Context is the events around you experience that cause you to come to the conclusion. Inference is assumed knowledge used to come to the conclusion while experience is knowledge that has been confirmed through past experiences. Concepts are mental representations that help you come to your conclusion. Interpretation is how you use all of these resources and your senses to come to your own personal conclusion.

By 'the fallacy of immaculate perception' Nietzsche means that there is no "innocent eye" or that no one's ind is a complete clean slate when coming to a conclusion therefor multiple different conclusions can all be correct. Joseph Jastrow proves this by using the well-known optical illusion of a duck and rabbit--the person viewing the drawing can only see one animal at a time. In class we have done this when we took the test on the power point and looked at optical illusions; there are multiple answers but they can never all be seen at the same time.

When Abel says "to perceive is to solve a problem" he is talking about how we look for constant patterns so that we can see slight differences, which has survival value. In determining how things 'naturally look' social conditioning is very important. Social conditioning is how the world around you trains you to naturally perceive things. Your first impression of something may very depending on were you live and your culture.

Durer's rhinoceros story is significant for this point because he gave his own perception of a rhinoceros. Because he was not influenced by culture, since he had never seen the animal before, his perception was extremely different from someone who had been exposed to the idea of this animal for their whole life.  

When Abel writes "believing is seeing" he means that believing in something strongly can influence what you think you see. It has been proven that results in social experiments may be influenced by the unconscious bias of the scientists performing them.