False memories &Direct experiences

The section in this chapter that interested me the most was direct experience and false memories. We do remember the major events occurred during our lifetime. I do remember them as if they happened just recenty even though it might have really happened more than 10 years ago. However, they can be pretty vague and I can say that there have been a few times where I might have changed in my mind what really happened. It's almost like I wanted to change it because it was a better memory. This can throw off the truth when it is really needed. I believe that the police is always going through these kind of discrepencies just because witnesses can be in trauma. The example in the book of people giving inaccurate with the answer of the question was a great example for people experiencing a memory that was not wanted. The false memory syndrome was astonighing to me just because I never knew a case like this was ever named. I'm pretty fortunate to have this considering I would want to actually have lived the memory that I have came up with.

UFOs

To this day people are so curious that they conduct their own experiments dedicated to UFOs or claim they have actually experienced its sighting. Condon, Hynek, and Paynter all have their own opinions on UFOs as well. To Condon, UFO should not even be a subject of any experiements because it's a waste of time. Hynek believes we should focus more attention on them with out current knowledge and technology. In Paynter's opnion, aliens do exist and that abductions have and can happen anytime. But he also beliees that we all need physical prrof that this is true. When it comes to Paynter, he thinks that all we need is reasoning for the truth. Both of their arguments are strong due to their tactic of finding out the truth. I am all for Paynter's argument because he believes that physical evidence is th most important. The public is consistently surrounded by media. By showing that there is physical evidence of UFOs and extraterrestrial life, more people will believe it compared to just a mere reported sighting.

Wisdom and Knowledge

In the beginning, to me wisdom was like word from the wise. We can apply what we have aquired to our everyday lives. As for knowledge, we gain it for the sole purpose of our studies for our life-long careers. I thought they were pretty similar but in fact, far from the same. Because we gain knowledge from our studies, it's where we get it. We learn knowledge from the teachers of education. With wisdom, we gain it from the lifestyle of ourself and others. I actually believe we mostly gain knowledge form college because of the large amount of studying and assignments we have to learn and memorize. But we can gain a bit wisdom through how to live on your own with paying for your dorms, how to socialize with the right kind of people, and how you can manage time to help you in your future. Because we are all curious at the young ages of life, the information age is very helpful.

Communication Styles

A concept I found interesting was called “Communication Style, Sex, and Race. In this section, it is explained that men and women tend to “clash” in conversations. Females tend to conversate to keep relationships. I feel like that if any of my friends stopped talking to me for a while, I won't feel as close to them in a relationship. As for my boyfriend and his friends, they don't make it as big of a deal to communicate with each other as much as me and my girlfriends. According to this section, scientists say that this is all due to genetics while others blame it on our social skills. There's also differences in ethnic groups and races because of our different lifestyles and our racial equalities. For example, I actually do have a lot of African Americans who are all pretty assertive when they talk. Our world is full of various communication styles that are all equally unique.

Sally Ride

I believe Sally Ride is a critical thinker. According to her collegues, not only does she feel like communication skills are very important in life, she's very analytical. Ride can solve a problem quickly. She also is very attentive and will actually listen to you. This might be some of the reasons why she achieved success through graduating and getting her PH.D from Stanford University and was the first woman to go to space in 1983. Taking English classes, she was able to handle the job where she had presented NASA reports and all communications. In order to do this job, you would have to be a deep critical thinker to thoroughly report everything that happened in space. Also, she actually wrote books which I believe is an addition quality to being a critical thinker because you have to analyze how the plot will be perfect. She is a great example of why we should use critical thinking often: to be successful in what we do.

Devices

Sarcasm is a rhetorical that I always use. It is a rhetorical device that insults people by saying something they don't really mean. The way I used it was when I was actually making fun of my friend at our party. She was karaoking and I just thought she was terrible. I sarcastically said, “You sing so well you should try out for American Idol.” I also use hyperbole almost every day. It is a device in which you exaggerate your statement. Yesterday my Mom and I went to the dentist. She likes to strike up a lot of conversations and can talk all day. Sometimes she tends to embarrass me by telling others embarassing stories of me. This time, she had told the cute receptionist I ate most of the chocolate cake before coming to the dentist. I said, “Why did you tell her? That's so embarassing I'm going to jump off a bridge now.”

Reasoning and God

Personally, I believe in God and that he created our world. Whenever evolution is brought up in education, I am willing to learn about it but disregard it as well. My religious beliefs is definitely seperate than that of what I learn in science classes. According to the section on Perspectives on Reason Proofs for the existence of God, Dawkin states that our world today was not created by God and that this idea was made by people convinging other people that this statement is true. If Aquinas was alive right now, on the other hand, he absolutely believes that Dawkin has no proof to back up his claims. Dawkin says there is no proof on the argumenting side as well. I think Dawkin has to reason out all those miracles that have been experience and or documented. I believe that Aquinas will consistently show proof in the bible and how the stories are kind of difficult to just ignore.

Reasoning and Career Choice

When pursuing a career, people think about either what they love doing, how much the job pays or perhaps both. They can also think about what their greatest strength is in order to best utilize it and get paid along the way as well. One of my great strengths is following orders precisely and benefiting another person other than myself. This is why I am studying to become a nurse as a career. I found that while working in retail, I took my boss’ tasks, followed them correctly and was able to help customers in that way which made me feel good about myself. Reasoning is why I am able to find what is best for the people I am supposed to help. This is also why strongest type of reasoning I am best at is deductive because I believe in analyzing the premises for the best decision to carry out a task.