Carry it forward: information into knowledge

Hands down, today was the best discussion we've had in English class so far. Having the whole class involved was amazing, and everyone's individual perspectives were extremely intriguing. Discussing the differences between information and knowledge opened up my mind to many new ideas and possibilities. I believe the relationship between information and knowledge has a lot to do with the theme of "carrying it forward".

The way I see it is, one is given information; whether it be from a teacher, parent or friend, the information is just fact. It is what it is. To go on and take that information that was given to someone, they would have to strive to really understand what it means. That would mean, either experiencing it or continuing to ask questions about whatever it is. In other words, one has to carry forward that information for it to actually turn into knowledge.

Turning information into knowledge is done in a very interesting way in Jostein Gaarder's novel Sophie's World. For a large portion of the novel thus far, it has been clearly divided into Sophie's narrative and lessons about philosophy. Gaarder makes it obvious to the reader, by teaching philosophy in the letters, and he even goes out of his way to make it clear to the reader by using a different font. There is an underlying theme throughout the whole book that there are two specific parts to each one greater thing. Some examples of that are; the idea of faith and reason, technology and nature, good and evil, and dreams and reality. Juxtaposition can be seen in all of these things, because while they are seemingly opposites, they can also have more similarities than they initially appear to.

Information and knowledge are similar to the previous examples because, like each of them, one can not work without the other. What I'm saying is, life needs a perfect balance, or equillibrium to really work and be the best it can be.

what if: we stood on our hands

I wanna write something fun in this blog entry. What if everyone decided to walk on their hands every wednesday from 3:30-3:45. No matter what, hands down(pun intended), people would just have to walk on their hands. Everyone would do it, because it would be the norm. Usually if the majority of a group does something(no matter how odd it may seem) it will begin to catch on, until society views it as a cultural norm. I know this may seem obvious, but it is really interesting to think about the things that humans have control over. It seems obvious because we are constantly surrounded by manmade things, but I, along with many others, sometimes lose sight of the world and how easy it is to actually change things, because we all get caught up in our individual routines and beliefs.

Another thing that people living in this day in age do from time to time, is say that things are impossible. For example, up until today, I probably would've said that there was no such thing as a shirt that lights up and talks. But lo and behold, today Fred strutted into class showing off a shirt that I thought would never exist. It all goes back to keeping an open mind; humanity, and the things that humans create is ever-changing, and people should not close their minds off to knew ideas, or new ways of living.

Basically the point I was trying to make with people standing on their hands is that, although something may seem weird or impossible to work in our society, but amazingly enough, there is always a possibility for changing the way we live.

Best of Today: Question everything

Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Am I even living?

Questions like those are what made me used to hate philosophy. If I would try to answer these questions, I would give up within minutes if I wasn't able to answer them. The thing I didn't understand about philosophy was that there are for more questions posed than actually answered. Sure, I can come to further conclusions on each of these questions, but there will never be a definitive answer. That being said, some might argue that these questions are pointless to even ask, and why should we waste our time thinking about those things, when there are other tasks that we, as humans, need to complete. The fact is, humans may oftentimes forget the amazing abilities they possess because they get caught up in routines and schedules.

What separates humans from other animals is our distinct ability to question ourselves and the world that we inhabit. It is unbelievable to be able to question all things in this world, manmade or not, and be able to hear different answers from different people. It's understandable that people are afraid to ask those philosophical questions. In our society, bottom-up thinking occurs much less frequently than the standard top-down process of thinking. In school, we are conditioned to fill in bubbles on a scantron rather than expand our ways of thinking by thinking outside of the box(or bubble in the case of a scantron) and dig deeper and think about philosophical questions.

Curiosity is a beautiful thing, and it is something I intend to keep in my life until I die. My mother always told me that there was no such thing as a stupid question, and I agree with that 100%.

iMedia: The Digable Planets

Digable Planets - Where I'm From
Uploaded by LilQ. - Explore more music videos.

I chose to write about a song called "Where I'm From" by the Digable Planets. Lately I've been finding that I actually learn quite a bit from rap. I used to reject the genre and think of it only as music that talked about money, gangs, and women. I've started listening to some older groups, and I have found that rap is, at it's essence, just slam poetry. Although it may not deal with the same topics that traditional high-brow poetry does, it deals with real life, and real life issues.

This song "Where I'm From" also relates to the differences, as well as the similarities, that humans share, no matter where people come from. I researched a thing called the "Where I'm From Poem" and it is basically a template where you fill in the blanks according to your own individual life, and it comes out being a different poem than anyone else would have. The song doesn't fit the exact template, but it seems as though the template might have been an influence on the Digable Planets when they were writing this song.

I think it is really interesting how people could take the same template to start off with and end up with something so completely different. Instead of just saying bluntly how important rapping is to the members of the group, this is how they expressed it;

We live to love and we love to rock mics

We speak in ghetto tongue cause ghetto's the life

Food for thought so get a buffet plate

The lyrics are so fat you might gain weight

I think that expressing feeling through a rap or a poem is a very unique and interesting way of expressing feelings. Hearing music like this inspires me to want to share my story of whereI'm from, hearing music like this makes me interested in the lives of others. I also find it quite amazing that songs like "Where I'm From" is kind of like a little chunk of history, and peoplewho look back at the song, or the music video will be able to experience what it was like where other people were from, and the different lifestyles that people live all over the worldat different times in history.