Our Brain and Our Sense of Self

Dr. Lovett’s lecture was very educational. One thing that I learned was the physiology of our brains. I always enjoy learning about new psychological aspects of our world and the way our brains are partitioned into different segments was really intriguing. I was surprised to learn that we do not you ten percent of our brains. That fact caught me off guard because it had always seemed like common knowledge that we don’t use all of our brains potential. Apparently this is not the case as many people would have you believe. Dr. Lovett explained how we constantly have neurons firing in our brain all our lives and we use a lot more than ten percent. The most interesting part of his lecture for me was the story of Phineas Gage. The railroad worker survived an accident in 1848 when a three foot iron rod went through the left side of his face and came out the top of his head. He survived the ordeal, but because of damage to his left frontal lope his personality shifted. He became an irritable man, lazy, and prone to fits of anger. This change in personality showed early neurologists how the front part of the brain controls personality.

This past week I have learned a lot about the brain, personality, memories, and how we define our sense of self. I used to view my ‘self’ as my entire body, everything mental and physical, and how I acted when alone or in public. I still believe all of these aspects of self are important, but now I put a lot more emphasis on the role of the brain. My brain controls everything I do and think, and if my brain is altered so is my entire sense of self. From now on I plan on always wearing a helmet whenever I play a dangerous sport because if I damage my brain, I can involuntarily change my personality, or lose some of my memories, or even lose my life. I have a newfound respect for my brain and the role it plays in my life.


Photograph of Phineas Gage and the rod that pierced his brain
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

The Virtuous Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin is probably my favorite contributor to the Age of Enlightenment. He was a scientist, revolutionary, inventor, and philosopher. One concept he struggled to find a solution for was the discovery of self and how we control our own actions. He believed that what made up our individual personalities were the thoughts we expressed and the actions we took in life and on a daily basis. In an attempt to rid himself of all possible faults and sins he created a code of conduct that he would try to follow. His conduct would be controlled by thirteen virtues that he would try to uphold every day. Whenever he failed to live a virtuous day he would carefully record his error on a chart and try to improve his behavior for the future. Instead of taking on all his virtues at once Benjamin Franklin tried to master them one at a time to make the task easier and more realistic.
This week I tried to follow Benjamin Franklin’s model by living a week of following his virtues. I did not try too hard. Instead I acted as I normally would, but recorded my inappropriate behavior for future reflection. I discovered that I usually behave with good decorum throughout the week. I will admit that my behavior changes slightly when it’s the weekend, but this week I was pretty virtuous. I agree with Franklin in that our self is defined by our actions and how we think about things. I also think that to live a life of virtue would be difficult at first, but if you can succeed you will have a better, more enjoyable life.

Chart provided by: Brian Gordinier '13

Night

Compare the reactions of Job and Wiesel to their suffering and to the way their suffering affected their faith.

Both men had absolute trust and faith in God before their journeys began. As they witnessed ever increasing amounts of pain, violence, and suffering they both began to loose their faith. Job was able to stay steadfast in his beliefs even when his family was killed and he lost everything to plagues, invasions, and disastors. It was not until he started to suffer personally that he began to question the justice of God. He knew that he had lived a good life and followed God's orders wthout question so he couldn't understand why he should be made to suffer now. He doesn't really loose his faith in God, but he gets angry with God and demands to plead his case before Him. He argues the rightousness of God, not the existense of God.

Elie Wiesel was a very religious young boy before he went through his terrible ordeal. He was knowlegable in the sacred texts beyond what was expected of someone his age. His faith in God was unbreakable until he saw the horrors of the death camps, and the atrocities the Nazis committed during the Holocaust to the Jews and others that were persecuted. As the days pass by in the camps Wiesel slowly looses his faith and by the time his father dies he has lost all faith in his once benign God. When he asks God for deliverance and God remains silence he feels God has been murdered and their is only violence, destruction, and chaos left in the world. In his book Night the main character, Eliezer, sees a young angelic boy slowly die from a hanging and this symbolizes the turning point in Wiesel when he feels God died with the little boy.

Although Job eventually regains his trust in God and sees God's divinity, Wiesel does not. Job is rewarded with double of everything he once owned while Wiesel looses everything, but his life. The Holocaust cost Wiesel everything and he doesn't consider it a divine miracle that he survived, but instead a stroke of luck that could have easily passed him over.


Photograph of Elie Wiesel Age 15 taken from: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/HOLO/ElieBio.Htm

Reflection on Professor Denis' Lecture

I found the lecture on Wednesday to be very informative and stirring. I'll admit that I have a very short attention span so lectures or encore performances usually don't keep me captivated for very long, however this lecture was different. Professor Denis gave a very passionate lecture on the Holocaust that was better than any I had heard before, with two exceptions that were given by actual survivors of the Holocaust. I learned not only about the death of the six million Jews, but also about the five million other minorities that the Nazis persecuted and destroyed in the largest genocide this world has ever seen. One thing that surprised me was that all six of the death camps during the Holocaust were located in Poland, not Germany. I don't know the exact reason for this, but I found it strange that they would all be in a different country. It's almost as if Hitler couldn't stand the Jews living, even for a short time, in Germany so he had them all collected in a different country for extermination. This is just another example of Hitler's terrible hatred, persecution, and racism that fueled the horrors of the Holocaust.


The most interesting part of the lecture for me was the different works of art that were created during the Holocaust. It's amazing how people can still create beautiful things even during times of great pain and violence. The pictures of the Holocaust are never taken by the victims , only of the victims. The artwork the victims created may show the same chaos as the pictures, but they are worth so much more because they can also show us how the victims felt about their situation. Elie Wiesel illustrates how Eliezer feels during Night as the main character narrates his painful fight to stay alive. The art helps me better understand and visualize Eliezer's and the other eleven million people's suffering during the Holocaust.



Artwork by Ernst Eisenmayer
Artwork taken from: http://www.kingston.ac.uk/pressoffice/latestnews/2009/april/21-Long-lost-artwork-of-Holocaust-survivor-discovered/

Reflection on Professor Kather's Lecture

I found Professor Kather's lecture to be very enlightening. I often have trouble understanding a story when it is written in poetic form or some other type of uncommon format. It seemed like every time a character was speaking or trying to make a point they could generally have their ideas summed up in one sentence. Instead of Job just saying "I am innocent" he goes on and on for several pages using examples to state his innocence. I enjoyed Professor Kather's lecture and the introduction by Stephen Mitchell much more than the actual story because they went more in depth and explored the characters better. They did not ramble on about the same basic idea, but explained the meanings or backgrounds of the events and the characters. Both gave me a better understanding and appreciation for the story which I found originally to be a little confusing.

Even though the lecture was mainly about the illustrations for the story, the most interesting part of the lecture for me was about William Blake. I really enjoy history and I was fascinated about the life of William Blake and his interpretation of The Book of Job. I was surprised to learn that his work was not widely appreciated during his life and many considered him to be very eccentric. He supposedly had visions that he would then draw or write. I think William Blake is an interesting and important person in history because of his contributions to The Book of Job as well as other contributions in different areas of art and writing.


Photograph taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Behemoth.jpg

2nd Half of The Book of Job

Is Such A Conception of God Still Relevant in the Modern World?

It depends on the person and their own beliefs. Those who do not believe in God and rely more on scientific resoning will be less likely to believe that this old conception of God is still relevant. On the other hand, if the individual puts faith in God they would probably find it very easy to see the relevance. To many, the God they worship today is the same unchanging God in the legend. The relationship between Job and God is personal and unique. That is why Job's friends could not empathize with him when he was suffering. Their own beliefs, experiences, and relationships with the same God were different. Everyone today still has different perspectives of God even if you belong to the same sect of the same religion. You may vary from others in how your beliefs make you feel, how strong your beliefs are, and how you conduct yourself in accordance with your beliefs. This goes for anyone, even if they believe in a different God, gods, or no God at all. What you believe is an internal concept and it is different for everybody so it really just depends on the individual's beliefs on whether the conception of God in The Book of Job is still relevant to them.

Image taken from: www.tammyvwp.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/farside.jpg