interesting artist

Must remember this guy: http://www.viralnova.com/ron-mueck-sculptures/ Ron Mueck for his life like sculptures.

Another Semester - Gone!

Grades are finished. Just before leaving for my group discussion - and a quick stop at the library to pick up some things on hold. Hopefully no one will have any questions, but if they do, all they need to do is ask.

And now we wait

The last class has met for the semester and now we wait for the late papers to come in. As usual, there are a few. Considering they hold up the grades from being posted (I think) the late ones hold up the news for those who finished on time. Meanwhile I get to catch up on my reading.

Towards Semester's End

I have one more session tomorrow - Logic - and this semester will be over. It went by fast! I am already up to date on my inbox and have nothing left to grade as of this moment, so if anyone hasn't received a response from me on something they sent there is something wrong some place. Please send it again or check your spam folder for my reply. The spam folders are playing some interesting games lately. The message my spam folder sends me to let me know what spam they are holding back - was itself in my spam folder. I am not sure how I found it!

On the Ukraine

Watching the turmoil this morning in the Ukraine certainly reminded me of the Arab Spring. While Anne Applebaum (Apple Tree) describes the clash as between “institutions and rule of law” on the side of the European Union, and arbitrary rule on the side of the Russians, (Washington Post) it seems to me to reflect a wider issue: that of modernity versus tribalism. That is why it seems related to the Arab Spring revolts. Institutions and rule of law go with modern society while the normal human habits fit the more tribal behaviors as described by Frances Fukuyama in his book The Origins of Political Order. This ties in beautifully with the question of the value of education – specifically, a liberal arts education, because that is what makes the difference between the two societies. If a certain percentage of the population has been educated into the liberal western tradition and think of themselves as individuals with rights and obligations in a society that is legitimate and governed by a democratically elected legislature then all of the benefits of modernity ought to be available. What is happening in more third world countries, or second world countries that find themselves to move away from the dominance of Russia, is more people are becoming modern and so want their societies to become modern too. What is of concern is that while this movement is happening in a wide circle around the EU, in modern countries we find a decreasing interest in supporting the education that enables people to grow up to be modern. Decreasing the funding for arts educations decreases the number of people necessary to maintain a free egalitarian society. “Freedom is not free” is not true just with regard to expenditures on arms and defense, it also is true with regard to the cost of raising modern individuals. These are people who read literature and grow up to respect others outside of their immediate circle. As Steven Pinker explains in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, we are living in the least violent per capita period in human history (check his statistics). What has brought about this could easily reverse itself if we do not continue to raise educated modern people. These are people that do not simply know how to perform some vital function in the technological infrastructure but that also appreciate the history, philosophy, morality, and splendors of the culture that arose out of the Christian west. If we give up on that we will rapidly become the kind of society all of the people in the rebellious periphery of modern society are trying to escape.

Some resources on Shakespeare Romeo and here is the poem in its English translation. Did AC Bradley write about this play as part of his description of tragedies? It appears to be more similar to the comedies.

Common sense too much faith in common sense can lead to...it is not rocket science. We are really good at rocket science. But common sense does not work outside of concrete everyday situations. Complex systems don't use those forms of logic. A problem of the concept of obviousness itself. (Black Swans only works in reverse since everything was being said and we only figure out what was relevant after the fact.) Which clues are red herrings? The explanations can only be told once we know the ending. Why is Mona Lisa more important than John the Baptist? Why was Harry Potter so successful? Because it has the attributes it has! This is vacuous. But in complex systems history never repeats itself. Admit to yourself that your intuition is not as reliable as it seems. The scientific method is based on distrust of intuition. So we should apply this technique to other areas we have not thought appropriate. Don't rely on one opinion. Especially your own opinion. Give up predicting things you can't. Instead build strategies that don't rely on those accurate predictions. Generate hedge strategies to reduce your exposure to unexpected outcomes. The Halo effect - is uncorrelated in reality. Sports is almost the only thing like that - where we measure independent observations. When it is not possible resist the temptation to evaluate it based on its success. Talent and success are not closely connected. Today technology enables us to gather data on social connections. Funny! He then goes on to try to predict the future based on the past!

Fighting against entropy

on and on and on....A sentence - it can happen. Universe in a box. One brain would be more likely. Why they started in this very special place and configuration? Quickly. Yesterday's versus today's. Used to be three versions. Big Bang - opened and closed. Infinite versus crunch. A Boltzman brain. Does that explain the invention of the stint? Hearts deconstructing - doctors and medical inventions compete against the entropy. Lambda Positive. Negative lambda - causes sudden death to the universe. In our universe lambda is positive. V = HD Hubble's Law.

This has been a month for reflection on death. Besides friends who have had loved ones die, our family lost a beloved uncle at 84 one week, and then Donna lost her father. Then we went back east to attend the funeral for Donna's father at Wetzle Funeral Home - that link should be to the pictures they collected for a slide show. We are carrying his ashes back to Alaska to spread them on his favorite mountain. But while here we also visited my mom and dad in Cape May. We arrived to mom and dad both in serious conditions. But within the three days while there mom had multiple appointments and dad ended up being flown by helicopter to Penn Presbyterian where they inserted a stint. All of this only happened because many family members were deeply involved in trying to do the best for them even though their own lives continued at a frantic pace. It feels wonderful having brothers and sisters / in law and neighbors all pulling together to help mom and dad. At the moment both are feeling much better, but I can't help but worry that this is a temporary fix for both of them. Sigh. What a way to be reminded how mortal we all are. Each day is another in our own temporary lives. For months Donna has been studying angels and experiences of near death in books of all sorts. I have been reading things like the Catholic Catechism, works by Thomas Aquinas, including a new book on him by Denys Turner, and Alister McGrath's Introduction to Theology (I have seriously enjoyed several of his other books especially Dawkins's God. So Donna and I have been interested in the same sorts of things but via different approaches - I think. To add to this - I am the oldest I have ever been! When I read the obits I see at least as many names of people that died younger than I am as people older. (Though Kant's first great book was written when he was my age - 62.) And then we drive through Philadelphia - at rush hour - in a subcompact car. It is so small we had to tow our luggage. Thank goodness they have wheels on them.

I had trouble finding a video on Youtube titled How to read a Gothic Cathedral Facade but apparently I was clicking in the wrong search box for it. Meanwhile, it seems I have slacked off a bit both with regard to posting new videos and book reviews. Must catch up!

Here is another sort of list for critical thinking stages. Compare these to the ones I have from before: Reflective thinking stages

Here is a pdf summary of DD's intuition pumps: http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tpagaard/PagaardSite/Resources/PDFs/Dennett7ThinkingTools.pdf

Good bye Mr. Clancy: “I tell them you learn to write the same way you learn to play golf,” he once said. “You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired — it’s hard work.”

There are several things that I need to remind myself of that developed in class this week: for Aristotle we are discussing the categories and this page is relevant: For Humanities we may say that a theme that united the lectures Monday evening was the idea that initially photography extended the way people found the nature of what they could believe - seeing is believing - and pictures were believable. But today you feel people no longer trust what they see - since all commercial photography and professional media seems to doctor what they display. Every thing shown is touched up or photo-shopped. (Even my own web site picture of me!) Yet there are images we can trust - perhaps Youtube videos that are poorly made and obviously un-doctored - can be trusted. Again, as my own home made videos seem to me. So the evolution of photography and moving images has gone from extending the knowable to creating a world of the unbelievable. For Intro to Philosophy the question concerns the nature of Historical Jesus Scholarship and the very nature of Christianity. Of central concern here is the Harold Bloom point that most who consider themselves Christians today in the US are actually pagan in their practices. What exactly does it mean to be a Christian?

Developing a thesis for Making Learning Visible Something along the lines of Blooms Taxonomy Establish sets of phrases in student writing that can be a guide to the level of critical thinking the student has reached. The goal of a philosophy class would be to increase the level of critical thinking.

To do list: dates in syllabus for HUM do not match those for the writing assignments. links on Logic syllabus are old and need to be removed.

Working on Mycenaean Greeks and see

Starting our History of Philosophy we can read about the pre-Socratics: http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0205783856.pdf

Exciting new things

While class does not start until the 26th things are already happening here in the Eagle River Center as the Mat-Su School District is back in session and the young people participating the the Alaska Middle College School are here in the building. I got to meet them yesterday, though the opportunity was so brief I basically just had the chance to notice they are all taller than I am! Today they are listening to impressive discussions about the purpose of the program and what it offers them. Some really heavy hitters from the school district are here. I notice because of the location of my office - inside the area where they are meeting - I get to hear the briefings. Granted I am still trying to do work while listening - wrote my review of Daniel Goleman's book Focus and updated my review of Reza Aslan's book Zealot - and did some FB entries! But I still find what I hear to be impressive and it thrills me to be a part of it. Merging the college and the school district for this program is an exciting new thing.

Summer Break

So the summer sessions are completed and grades are all finished. And it is raining. So we are back to normal! I find myself still looking in about the same direction. My new office window faces Denali which I hope to be able to see on clear days. I will take pictures if it does. Heck, I will take pictures even if it doesn't. The camper is re-registered and insured again. All that is left, I hope, is a new battery and it should start right up. Fingers crossed! We do have an issue of a wasps nest in the heater vent. I am hoping that once I take it for a drive they will clear out. I would rather not have to take measures since the buzzing insect population is vital to our ecosystem and they appear to be very busy. Our roses are always full of them. Banging. They are doing construction underneath me. I am listening to Nuria Rial so can pretty much ignore it. I have noise suppression head sets. So what philosophical issues are of interest to me at the moment? Two. The first concerns the balance between close reading and modern technology. How much time must a person spend doing both in order to achieve a best balance between knowledge accumulation and IQ growth? As I look forward to working with young people at the end of this month I am curious how a solution will work out that is best for them. Second issue concerns the reconciliation of modeling or multiculturalism with the Hegelian Absolute. Of note is an essay by Charles Taylor, a book by Joseph Ratzinger, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, and Hans Kung in his book on Christianity trying to describe the essence of same.

Truth tables for quantified statements

Today we had a very interesting discussion following our attempt to do problem number 10 on page 446 in Stan Baronett's Logic. In doing the proof it looked like we might have a typo in the conclusion. To check this and see if the argument was invalid (which it looked like considering the conclusion was a conjunction of Aa and not Ha with EG applied to it, but Aa would have to be entered into the proof via Addition. Only DeMorgan's would enable us to change it. But after multiple approaches none seemed to work. So we attempted to do a truth table to check it. It was at that point I realized I have never seen a truth table applied to quantified statements before - they are not truth functional? Here is one explanation I found: (from http://williamstarr.net/teaching/2310/10.20-4up.pdf) Truth tables work by explaining the truth of a complex formula in terms of the truth of its parts Example: :P is t i P is f The problem with using truth tables for quantifi ers is that the truth of quantifi ed formulas cannot be determined from the truth of its parts Example: 8x Cube(x) is t i ??? Cube(x) is t? f? Neither! Cube(x) isn't capable of truth or falsity, it's too incomplete! So, we can't use truth tables to explain what quantifi ed sentences mean But see the link and following discussion of Tarski's World. What helped was removing the quantifiers and doing the table for instances of the statements. Doing that it became obvious that the argument was invalid by that truth table.

Doing exercises in Stan Baronett's Logic I did a truth table for problem 30 page 409 and the argument is invalid - for table with P = T, and Q R S all F, the premises are true but the conclusion false.

It is that time of the logic course where we cover fallacies and I always use this time to also talk about humor. The main reason is that talking about humor means playing some hilarious videos which main class more enjoyable. But it also brings up a very interesting point - and very real point - that jokes seem to be invalid arguments. So what we can do is look at the varieties of fallacies and compare them to the varieties of jokes to see if the templates behind the fallacies are similar to those that seem to structure the jokes. Keep in mind that behind this whole exercise is making the point that the structure of fallacies / jokes might be entertaining but what makes the structure funny is at the same time what makes the structure a poor way to frame an argument.

Intro to Logic class start

Beginning the second five week session of the summer today! Intro to Logic met for 2 hours and looks like it will be a fun group. So far I have been using the video camera to record the lecture and they are posted on my Youtube page here:

Okay, so here we have Ellen doing a show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V5IzWgZzcY and here we have Robin doing a show: I find both are funny but I can really only watch Ellen because of the vocabulary. Robin uses vocabulary that makes me feel - uncomfortable. Why does he have to do that? Can't he be as funny as Ellen without it?

Trying to keep up with the wave

We have had a real dose of summer this year! Several days of above record temperatures - to accompany above record swarms of mosquitoes. Chocolate is soft. People are complaining that it is too warm! Imagine!? Meanwhile, my reading and courses continue with all sorts of interesting things going on. Who said philosophy is old? New books in my awareness include Daniel Dennett, Thomas Metzinger, and Douglas Hofstadter, as well as a host of others. So this summer I have moved away from the Zizek, Badiou connection to try to keep up with the wave of more analytic philosophy with an emphasis on the mind and language. This certainly ties in with Zizek and Badiou, but the language is easier to follow. I have to admit one of Thomas Metzinger's youtube videos was a challenge to follow since it was in German and fast. It also included more humor than I recall hearing in a German lecture - ever. Since his English is so good, I wonder if English style humor is a characteristic that can bleed over into German speech? Check it yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1MBG7FaZKM Okay, so the first was a mistake and occurs just at the end of the first segment. He misquotes the famous line from the Tractatus. "Wowon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen." Thomas accidentally says "sprechen" instead of "schweigen" - so "speak" instead of "be silent". Obviously the audience laughs when they catch it and Thomas becomes instantly funny in response. Of course much of the reaction I interpret as humor is actually a response to some unusual things he says, as that religion and spirituality are not related! He is using spirituality more along the lines that William James does in "The Varieties of the Religious Experience".

Summer!

Well, summer has arrived. I am convinced. We have not put our plants in the ground yet but today or tomorrow we will start. I have been watering the "lawn". Only one course has started since one of my two online courses had low enrollment and so I elected to change it to a five week course starting the second session. So far it still has low enrollment so please encourage folks interested in taking Intro to Philosophy to sign up for section PHIL_A201_592_51962. I am also looking forward to moving my office to Eagle River this summer so I am ready for Fall courses at the UAA building in Eagle River. I will be teaching three sections for the Alaska Middle College School. This should also mean I will be walking to work! I will still have one section at UAA main campus on Monday evening. So far this summer I have been trying to catch up on my reading. All of those books I checked out this Spring I am going through bit by bit and posting my thoughts on my Amazon Vine page. So I split my time from reading in the office and reading on the back deck at home. My hope is to stay a fluent speaker of many disciplines.

As of this moment I have graded all papers in my inbox. If you have not received a response to something you sent me please email me back and check on it. If you have anything still left to do I will still take work through the 7th. Please do a good job with it but hurry! I will actually calculate the grades based on what I have on Wednesday evening when I enter them.

This morning in Truth Beauty Goodness the question was "what do you think motivated the brothers to attack at the Boston marathon?"

The quiz question for Intro to Philosophy this morning was: Have you ever been Saved? What does the expression "Saved" mean to you? (I discussed this in the context described by Josiah Royce in his book "The Sources of Religious Insight"). For Intro to Humanities II the quiz question today was for you to pick the animal that you would imagine as illustrative of your own personal characteristics. (This based on the description of the imagination we need to be successful in David Brooks TED talk on the Social Animal.)

For Truth Beauty Goodness the quiz question was to contrast your cognitive map with mine: http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu/quest/cmap.htm Today the quiz question for Intro to Philosophy was concerned with the relationship between Wagner and Nietzsche, and what did you think of Wagner?

Today the quiz question for Intro to Philosophy was concerned with the relationship between Wagner and Nietzsche, and what did you think of Wagner? In Intro to Humanities II the quiz question concerned what you thought of Basile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57uH0lYIVe0

For Truth Beauty and Goodness today the quiz question was what is the metanarrative of CREAM?

The quiz question for Intro to Philosophy this morning was: do we seem like we are moving towards the kind of world wide revolution Marx predicted? The quiz question for Intro to Humanities II this morning was: do the differences between progress in South America and regress in Africa look like they are associated with the advance in education in South America and the regress of education in Africa?

For Truth Beauty Goodness the quiz question today concerned the basic moral principle of love for others: are you pro love? Anti-love? Neutral? The quiz question for Intro to Philosophy this afternoon was: does the sequence of positions described by Kierkegaard seem similar to your own experiences?

The Quiz question for Intro to Philosophy on Thursday morning and Monday afternoon was is the work by Francis Fukuyama titled "The End of History" Hegelian?

Thursday the quiz question for Intro to Philosophy was: does the sequence of positions described by Kierkegaard seem similar to your own experiences? For Introduction to Humanities II the question was: What did you think about the books selected for the course? Do you have any recommendations regarding book selection?

For Truth Beauty Goodness the question concerned your visit to museums: what museum have you visited? what do you think of it? For the Intro to Philosophy lecture on Kant the quiz question concerns the situation of the beautiful woman driver being confronted by three ugly guys. Two parts: is it your duty to interfere? Second, what do you think you would actually do? As of this moment I am completely caught up on all grading so if you have sent me something prior to now but have not received comments for it then please send it again since I did not receive it.

For the Intro to Philosophy lecture on Kant the quiz question concerns the situation of the beautiful woman driver being confronted by three ugly guys. Two parts: is it your duty to interfere? Second, what do you think you would actually do? For Intro to Humanities II the question today concerned the appreciation - or not - of the use of the black smith anvil in the music of Siegfried. Do you agree with Hanslick that it is not music? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdPCug8PfhU&list=HL1364358956 is Jay singing the piece and reforging Notung das Scwherte. Hanslick: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Hanslick

For the class this afternoon that met at 2:30 P after it was announced that classes starting at 3P or later were canceled because of the snow, and because it was the lecture on Hume, I made an attempt to video the lecture in segments so I could post them on Youtube. Here is the link for one http://youtu.be/P4my_TeAAGU but it looks like as they upload that they are not going in correct sequence. They should take a while yet to complete and most will not be labeled until I have a chance to view them later myself, but if you wish to get a sense of what we talked about here they are.

For Truth Beauty Goodness I contrasted book and movie versions of narratives. The quiz question is for you to contrast the relative strengths and weaknesses of books and movies based on the books in your experience. Today's quiz for Intro to Philosophy is how do you know you have a persistent self?

I am still grading a back log of papers - currently working on things from two weeks ago. Sorry it takes me so long to read everything. Today's quiz for Intro to Philosophy was how do you know you have a persistent self? For Intro to Humanities II the question was concerned with computer gaming and what relevance you think computer games have to the meaning of life for young people who play them. Remember if you have the chance to attend the lecture Friday evening at 7 in the library room 307.

For Truth Beauty and Goodness the quiz question today was what is your favorite literature? For Intro to Philosophy today the question was do you agree with Leibniz that this is the best of all possible worlds?

I hope everyone is having a great Spring Break. Today Donna and I stopped by West Chester University long enough to take several videos and buy a few things at the bookstore. It is always neat to visit the school where we met and spent so many years. I have to admit there is something special about those years and I hope my students are having the same sort of experience at UAA. Earlier in the break we visited a museum - the University of Pennsylvania Museum and spent hours remembering all the times we each spent at that museum as kids - even though we did not know one another then of course.

For Intro to Philosophy today the question was do you agree with Leibniz that this is the best of all possible worlds? For Intro to Humanities II the quiz question was given the sentence labeled a: a: The sentence labeled a is false. Answer the question: is sentence a true or false?

This research on the difference between Yo-yo Ma's and Rostropovich's interpretations of the Bach Cello Suite is wonderful! And I have the permission to share it with you: From: Sharifa A. Charles Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:56 PM To: William S Jamison Subject: Monday's question Who played Bach's Suite 1 (Prelude) correctly; Rostropovich or Yo-Yo Ma? When first asked the question, I thought Yo-Yo Ma played it correctly; no doubt about it. However, as a musician myself who has played the Prelude, I can't say one played it more correctly than the other with a good conscience without proper facts. Before researching, I believed technique wise, Rostropovich was spot on; playing it quickly and taking few if any liberties. Yo-Yo Ma took many liberties and put feeling into the song that Rostropovich did not. Looking at my Bach suites for Violas book, the prelude is to be played at 69; with Molto Moderato(Lively and moderate) and it should take the player 2.5 minutes to complete. Rostropovich's playing time is 1.59 minutes and though he plays it faster, does not make it lively. Yo-Yo Ma on the other hand, takes 2.46 minutes in one version and 3.12 minutes on another and indeed plays it lively (if we are going by the Merriam-Webster number 8 definition , "full of life, movement, or incident"). Yo-Yo Ma achieves "liveliness" by playing the dynamics that are written, where they are written. Rostropovich, on the other hand, moved the dynamics from the piece around (Rostropovich's version could be "lively" but because of his movement of the dynamics, the piece sounds dull and expressionless). When played at the same time and looking at the sheet music, you can clearly hear the difference between the two cellists. With the facts gathered, I still believe Yo-Yo Ma played the Bach Suite 1 Prelude correctly.

For Truth Beauty Goodness the quiz question today was what is your favorite poem? The quiz question for Intro to Philosophy this afternoon was do you think of Thomas Jefferson as one of your heroes?

The quiz question for Intro to Philosophy this morning was do you think of Thomas Jefferson as one of your heroes? The quiz question for Intro to Humanities II this morning was what do you think of the music sung by male sopranos. But there was an alternate question asking what the name of the picture was of the angels going down the stairs with their musical instruments?

For Truth Beauty Goodness today the quiz question was who plays the Bach Cello Suite correctly? Rostropovich or Yoyo Ma? For Intro to Philosophy the quiz question for the class on Spinoza was the scenario of the young man who shot a man in Mountain View. If you were on the jury would you have found him guilty or not guilty?

For Intro to Philosophy the quiz question for the class on Spinoza was the scenario of the young man who shot a man in Mountain View. If you were on the jury would you have found him guilty or not guilty? For Intro to Humanities II the quiz question today was to evaluate the social differences apparent between the audience listening to the Red Skelton performance and that of Eddie Izzard.

For Truth Beauty Goodness this morning the quiz question was what place would be more of a utopia then Disney World / Epcot? For Intro to Philosophy today the quiz question was what do you think our inalienable rights should be in our social contract?

For Intro to Philosophy this morning the question was what do you think should be our inalienable rights? For Intro to Humanities II the quiz question was what do you think of the thesis that our contemporary way to reach religious ecstasy is through humor?

Today for Truth Beauty Goodness the quiz question was What do you find most beautiful? For Intro to Philosophy the quiz question was How do you know the world is as you perceive it? (This is the question posed by Descartes and the movie The Matrix - how do you know you are not deceived about the way the world is?)

Quiz question for this morning in Intro to Philosophy talking about Descartes concerns the evil Deceiver - or the modern version in the movie The Matrix - how do you know life is as you perceive it? How do you know you are not being deceived or living in a dream? For Intro to Humanities II the quiz question was what is your favorite ballet?

Today the quiz question for Truth Beauty Goodness concerned the TED Talk by Sam Harris on the Moral Landscape. Did you find his argument persuasive? In Intro to Philosophy my quiz question was what movie should we watch on our final session? Would The Name of the Rose be a good pick? Yesterday in my morning Intro to Philosophy the question was "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Who brought that argument up?" In Intro to Humanities II the quiz question was What is your favorite deconstruction? As examples I talked about Umberto Eco, Mel Brooks movies, even the musical Wicked. But the class seems to think almost all current TV fair deconstructs some cherished narrative.

Today in Truth Beauty Goodness the quiz question concerned the relationship between narration and language games. Do narratives structure language games or do language games structure narratives? In one possible situation we can say that involves whether or not a person's sex determines the roles they can play. Does the Socially Constructed Reality enable us freedom to construct our own narratives of who we are, what our place is in the universe, and how we maintain that place, or are the constraints of the form of life a limitation on the freedom we have to create our own narratives? A bit ahead o schedule, I expect the quiz question for my Intro to Philosophy class today will be how persuasive you find the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God?

Today in Intro to Philosophy we talked about the Middle Ages and the Ontological Argument. The quiz was do you think the Ontological Argument is persuasive? In Intro to Humanities II today we talked about Structuralism and I asked what you thought about the Chinese movie The Battle of Wits? Does it show that western conceptions of narrative structure have begun to dominate ancient Chinese narration among contemporary Chinese? This looks like a link for it: http://www.gooddrama.net/chinese-movie/battle-of-wits-watch

For Truth Beauty and Goodness today I asked what is the saddest song you have ever heard? And asked if you would send me the link. This was the song I played for the class as an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkXbzffVl44 Here is one submission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5E6JT89BS0 I mentioned another from The Lord of the Rings that won an Academy Award: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24fGmWG6kpg

Here are some of the more recent quiz questions I have used in class. These are mixed together! What is your favorite syllogism? Which is your favorite example of religious music? (Send a link!) Why is Gangnam Style so popular? Did Jesus give the coin of tribute back or did he keep it? Which son was Abraham about to sacrifice? How do you keep looking at the bright side of life? (I find it amazing on reflection how the seriously ridiculous satire The Life of Brian ends on this song when one way of interpreting Saint Augustine seems to suggest that is really the main point.) What did you think of Weiwei and his art?

For those frustrated students that wanted to see the MIT Gagnam Style video with Noam Chomsky in it the link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8-UfLQ7jXc and Noam shows up around 3:25 in the video saying Opan Chomsky Style". The quiz question for TBG today was if so many people find the Gagnam Style videos disgusting why are they so popular? For an interesting discussion on this see Slavoj Zizkek Masterclass from December 2012 and note his opening comments on this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kugiufHh800

Today's quiz question for TBG was: What is your favorite axiom?

Actually, that last link seems to require you to enter via this one and then click on view animation. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ibex/JourneyToHeliopauseAnimation.html

For those wondering about the argument I made concerning the movement of the Sun here is a visual: javascript:openNASAWindow('http://mfile.akamai.com/18565/wmv/etouchsyst2.download.akamai.com/18355/wm.nasa-global/IBEX/GSFC_20081003JourneyToHeliopause.asx ')

The quiz question for my Introduction to the Humanities II class today was: what is your favorite word. You may wish to describe why you made that choice.

Since the new semester has started and I promised to post my class quizzes here I have some to catch up on. All four of my classes shared the same first quiz which was: What are the ten commandments? Some described what the phrase refers to but the task was to write as many of them as you remembered before looking them up to satisfy your curiosity. For those interested in my favorites they are posted here: http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu/Favcmds.htm and for my set of correct answers and comments on them I have a page posted here: http://wsjamison.uaa.alaska.edu/cmdstats.htm For my Introduction to Philosophy classes the second quiz was: Imagine Jesus arrives at your door. You know it is him and that he is God. He tells you to sell all you have, give the money to the poor, and come follow him. Question: do you go with him or do you refuse, argue, or what? The third question for my Introduction to Philosophy courses is (or will be) do you have a soul? If so, what is it?