Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

Zoe Fuller-Young's picture

Very Loopy Indeed

Well if this science class isn't loopy then I don't know what is. Also, writing the night before class is a terrible idea because so many people have written it is hard to read all their thoughts and process everything. I voted "on the fence" in class mostly because of this same issue, there were so many thoughts going around and little time to process. Now that I have had some time, I am also an Emily Dickinson follower. We have been talking about the brain and the mind as if the brain is limited because it is a "hunk of mass," but I find that regardless of what the brain looks like, its capabilities are enormous. As someone mentioned above, the placebo effect is an excellent example of the way in which the brain can cause the rest of the body to react physically in a certain way that is perhaps not "actually" occuring- another poke at the theory that science as truth. What I often wonder is to what extent does medicine help certain ailments more efficiently than positive thinking, or changing negative cognitive thinking patterns? There are, most definately, mental diseases and pain that cannot be fixed by "being positive," but I think that we often underestimate the power of the brain to convince our physical body what is happening to it.

A note to Anna's comment about a "workable truth," I agree that it was difficult to swallow the idea that the only field that really works to test and retest and prove and conclude, is not only truth-less but infact incapable of finding truth. One way I have begun thinking about what Grobstein said is that there are scientific patterns. These patterns of observations are found and can be refound and in a way, this is a truth pattern. But in the end, perhaps this pattern will change and we will find a new pattern that changes the way we interpret truth. The word truth to begin with is problematic in a way, because it is always spoken of as if it is something we MUST find, and people are always in search of this illusive truth. But inevitably, as Anna said, everyone is bias in their own way and so everyone's truth will be different. The strange thing is when different people in different places find the same results, the same truth... but does this make it true truth? I was about to delete that last line but it's so ridiculous I will keep it.. See you all tomorrow!

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
3 + 0 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.