It is a truth universally acknowledged that Pride and Prejudice is related to empiricism. But how? Let's apply the rules of a rational process and analise the topic, only accepting as true what we can perceive in a clear and distinct way.
Time to do some philosophy. All you have to know is that you don't know anything.
You asked for bad and overused philosophy jokes? You get them :)
Since we haven't had the honour to introduce ourselves into Hume's or Hobbes' conception yet, I'm going to refer only to Locke's empiricism.
First of all, what exactly does empiricism imply? If you're an empiricist, in terms of epistemology, you accept that any knowledge that you obtain has previously passed through your senses. The logical consequence of this is the opposite of what Descartes' rationalism tries to sell us: any knowledge that we achieve exclusively by implementing rational arguments is not to be trusted if we can't prove it "experimentally".
In the book Elizabeth initially dislikes Mr. Darcy, but in the end, after realising that her vision was blurred, she falls in love with him. And this is how we relate Locke's empiricism with Pride and Prejudice. According to Locke, there are 3 main causes of bad reasoning in humans:
Received hypotheses: Often we just accept what other people tell us without questioning it, sometimes this even happens unconsciously. In other words, we take the validity of others' statements for granted if they don't cause obvious suspicion. This is what happens to Elizabeth when she believes Mr. Wickham's tales about Darcy. Since his stories seem to reaffirm Elizabeth's first impression of Darcy, her prejudice is enforced and she doesn't even consider to doubt Wickham's words before reading Darcy's letter.
Dominating passions:Pride and Prejudice is all about love and marrying. And I think we all know one thing for sure about love: it makes us blind. When you're madly in love with someone, all those heavy feelings you experience replace what, in normal conditions, would be rational thinking. There was this one sentence that I personally liked a lot, I'm not sure if it appeared in the film, the book or both... Anyway, it was: "We are all fools in love." You may think this is quite obvious, but in my opinion we tend to judge either ourselves or the other too strictly when it comes to love matters. After all, no one ever really knows what is the right thing to do when you feel great affection for someone else. Sometimes we just have to remind ourselves that others are as blind as us when it comes to love (while other people need to bear in mind that they aren't smarter than others).
Authority: Similar to the first cause, we tend to believe in certain statements easier when claimed by people we respect. We are easily influenced by authorities, which can be teachers, parents, siblings, famous people or even friends and partners. I consider this one the most dangerous of all, because many people don't manage to make the giant step away from all those old opinions they have received by other people and reflect seriously about them, with their own rational arguments. Of course it is important to learn from others, but we must remember that not all authorities are trustworthy and even if they are, they're still humans like you and I and therefore, they make mistakes. The best way to avoid a narrow mind is to compare different opinions from different authorities. This helps us to reconsider things from other points of view. In Pride and Prejudice, their social status grants some people great authority, like for example Lady Catherine. But Elizabeth is clever enough to distrust people despite their authority.
Finally, we can conclude that it's the accumulated experience that lets Elizabeth perceive the truth about Darcy. His letter triggers a certain switch in her mind that makes her think: She starts to remember everything that happened, all the experiences she has lived in relation to Darcy and then she realises that these experiences tell her the truth and not her own prejudices.
Oh God, what have I done. Thanks to that post title I'm going to sound really arrogant when I say:
This is the last oral presentation self-evaluation! (seriously, say that out loud once)
Presentation (10%):
I think I did a good job preparing the Prezi and the bonus video in the end means bonus points... Well, at least I hope you liked the little gimmick, guys.
10 out of 10
Body language & eye contact (10%):
Yep, I do use my body. A lot. Too much. I'm getting a little nervous while watching myself in this presentation... Maybe it's just because I can't stand seeing/hearing myself in recordings... But in my opinion my movements are too hectical.
7 out of 10
Structure (10%):
Well, the structure was quite clear... A small introduction into particle physics so I can explain WHAT neutrinos are, then WHAT makes them so interesting and WHAT are they good for. And curiosities. People love curiosities. Fun facts. Trivia. 10 out of 10
Content (40%):
I think the content in itself was solid and I tried my best to explain new and interesting information related to neutrinos without getting too much into complicated and unnecessary details. BUT - and someone remarked that on the evaluation on the 2batspace website, thank you, you were totally right - I didn't mention MY OWN RESEARCH PAPER at all. I did this willingly though. I knew that was the weakness of this presentation, but I prioritised teaching something about the topic in general. Nevertheless, it's still a weakness.
30 out of 40
Language (20%):
So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so.
SO MANY SO'S! SOS! HELP! I CAN'T BEAR IT ANYMORE!
Well, apart from that I guess the language was okay. 17,5 out of 20
Pronunciation & intonation (10%):
Again, I'm too hectical, speaking too quickly... I thought I got over this. Well, at least I'm warned now. I'd love to do oral presentations without a specific time limit because then I could decide freely by myself about the content. I wouldn't need to cut things out that I consider important for the sake of time and I suspect I would talk more slowly as well.
7,5 out of 10
Final mark (100%): 10%+7%+30%+17,5%+7,5%=82% => 8,2
I must admit, English presentations helped me to get rid of my anxiety of speaking in front of many people. I hated it before Batxillerat. Now I'm quite fine with it.
Exclusive VIP material, don't show it to anyone! Either that one person noticed me as hectical as I do or he/she hates me
And finally, the final script of the final oral presentation of the final round of oral presentations in the final year of English classes in the final year of school which actually coincides with the final year of Batxillerat and now I finally put a final point on this dumb sentence.
Neutrinos
matter = matèria
vacuum = buit (absència de
matèria)
Good
morning everybody! So today I’m telling you some things hor about neutrinos. Yeah, I also preferred to talk
to you about sitcoms and Barney and Sheldon and all these things… So I thought,
how to make this presentation at least a little interesting and entertaining
for you? I was thinking really hard about it for a long time and in the end I
found out that… it’s impossible. So, ladies and gentlemen, make yourself
comfortable, please don’t fall asleep (I’m not looking at any specific person),
I’m going to start.
Canvi 2
Ok,
the first big question. What is a neutrino? Can you eat that? Sounds kind of
radioactive.
Canvi 3
Well.
You know that we are all made of atoms, right? You know that an atom consists a
nucleus where you can find protons and neutrons and spinning constantly around
the nucleus there are the electrons.
At
least I hope that you know this because that’s what they explained to us in
ESO, maybe even before of that, I’m not quite sure.
Ok,
so this is the smallest form of matter that exists, you know that, right?
RIGHT? Yes. Well, actually you don’t know that, because it isn’t.
Canvi 4
A
proton, for example, is made up of 3 quarks. And quarks are elemental
particles. So, you can say that a proton is formed by smaller particles, but
quarks aren’t. I guess, the reason why we never talk about quarks as single
particles is because they always appear in groups of 2 or 3 building bigger
particles, like protons.
A
neutron is also made of 3 quarks, but it’s another combination of quarks,
that’s why a proton and a neutron are different.
Alright,
so let me see if you can think logically. A proton is made of… quarks. A
neutron is made of… quarks. And the electron is made of… (quarks), Exactly!
You’re completely wrong! :PPPP
As
strange as it might to you, an electron is, in fact an elemental particle, you
can’t divide an electron into even smaller things.
Canvi 5
Please
have a look at this. You know this one, this is the periodic
table, we use this in chemistry and here you can find all the elements that
we’ve discovered so far.
Well,
this table here is called the „Standard Model of Particles“ and it’s kind of a
periodic table for physicists. This is a collection of every elemental particle
that has been detected in experiments up to this day. These 6 here are the
group of quarks. Here you can see the electron, as I mentioned earlier, another
elemental particle. And these 3 right here, are neutrinos. Yeah, I’m sure that
now you feel like 5 million times more intelligent than before, right?
Canvi 6
So,
the next big question is. Ok, so that’s a neutrino. What’s so special about
them?
It’s
very simple in fact. There are maaaaaany of them. For every proton, neutron and
electron there are approximately 1.000.000 neutrinos. BUT. They practically
don’t interact with matter. Every second about 650 billions of neutrinos coming
from the sun are penetrating every square centimetre of your bodies. And you
don’t even notice it. You’re ignoring them. Poor neutrinos.
Canvi 7
So,
if they don’t do anything. What are they good for? Precisely because they don’t
interact with matter they conserve a lot of information from their origins. For
example, when a star explodes because it has arrived at the end of its life
cycle, we also call this a Supernova, it sends off a huge amount of neutrinos.
Detecting these neutrinos can help us to determine the energy of the explosion
or almost the exact direction of the star. Another thing that is very
interesting about them is, that the neutrinos the come from a Supernova arrive
at the Earth before the light of the explosion. In other words, if we detect
the neutrinos we’ll be able to tell there’s a Supernova before a telescope
could see the light of the explosion. Neutrinos aren’t really faster than
light, at least not in a perfect vacuum. The reason why the neutrinos get to
the Earth earlier is that the Supernovae occur in very far galaxies, so it’s a
ridicously long distance that they travel. The particles of light are
theoretically faster, but since there is a lot of matter between the Supernova
and the Earth, the particles of light interact with that matter on that way,
unlike the neutrinos, the interactions with the matter slow the light particles
down and therefore the light arrives here after the neutrinos. But the actual
speed of the neutrinos is lower than the speed of light.
Canvi 8
In
fact, two years ago there was a big debate about this issue. Some scientists
measured neutrinos travelling with a higher speed than the speed of light. In
the end it turned out to be an error in the measurements. And that’s rather
good in my opinion, because if it had been true they would have crashed
absolutely everything about Einstein’s theory of relativity. And that means
basically, punch modern physics in the face. It’s like telling you after all
these years that 2 and 2 make 5 and not four. Yeah, you would all commit
suicide immediately.
Finally,
I’m about to finish, ok, I wanted to point out some curiosities.
Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory works with the stuff I just exposed to you. So
if you hear him talking about neutrinos in some episode, think about me, I told
you. For the people who think that particle physics isn’t actually important
for our daily life, all of your mobile phones, computer and YOUR iPad were,
partially, developed thanks to particle physics. So neutrinos and Candy Crush
aren’t that much separated in fact.
And
the last thing, do we have time? I wanted to show you a video that has nothing
to do with neutrinos but with quantum physics in general. It’s just something I
found impressive to see.
Particle physics is
one of the most advanced fields in modern science. Many products that we use in
our daily lives were developed thanks to the discoveries of particle physics,
from the microwave in your kitchen to the computers in your school.
But even at the
forefront of technological progress and new scientific methodologies there are
still many unsolved questions about the Universe. Why is the Universe the way
it is? How did its beginning, the Big Bang, occur?
The neutrinos, a
special kind of subatomic particles, are promising candidates to find the
answer to these puzzles. Due to their special properties, even within the
mysterious world of quantum physics, experiments with neutrinos are getting
more and more relevant, in particular nowadays since more sophisticated
technologies are available.
My research project
consists of an introduction (beginning from the basics) into particle physics,
a concrete study of neutrinos underlining their unique
traits and the history of neutrino science and a report of three practical
tasks: a visit to the Laboratori Subterrani de Canfranc, an oral interview with
a scientist working at the South Pole at the project IceCube and a
collaboration with the Spanish physicist Federico Sanchez in relation to the T2K
experiment located in Japan including calculations using real data from the
experiment.
For the last news post, I thought I should do something special. And when I say special... You know me, expect something REALLY special to come ;D
This term I've focused a lot on games in my yoursays and my news posts were all about scientific topics, except the Whatsapp-Facebook dilem fusion. These science news featured different topics, a lot about astronomy and the origin of our Earth and the last one covered a little neuroscience.
Sadly though, some people don't appreciate the advantatges science grants us. The last news item is dedicated to those people, mostly the male fraction. I'm sure you will find two convincing arguments that science is amazing in this post.
I'm really sorry, girls. I think I'm making you suffer a lot this time.
So, a fashion magazine called Sports' Illustrated publishes a special issue on an annual basis: the swimsuit issue. (Hmmm.. I'm sounding as if I were an expert on that stuff... I don't like that. I'm only using information from the news article, really!)
This time they decided to do something special as well (probably there's a crazy German working for them). I don't know about you, but I can't quite imagine that brainstorming session:
Boss: "Alright guys, we need a special feature for this years' swimsuit issue. Any ideas?" Assumedly crazy German: "Zero G?" Boss: "BRILLIANT!"
Zero G refers to the sensation of zero gravity, as if you didn't weigh at all. The Zero Gravity Corporation from the United States organises special flights where people can experience the feeling of zero G thanks to the parabolic trajectory of the aircraft:
Usually, one of those flights includes 15 parabolas. 12 simulate weightlessness (0G), 2 make you feel as if you were on the moon (G/6, a sixth of the Earth's gravity) and 1 that lets you prepare for your one-way trip to the Mars (G/3, a third part of Earth's gravity).
Each state of reduced gravity lasts for approximately 30 seconds.
What about wind tunnels now, huh? Not that great anymore, right? (yeah, I haven't tried them out by myself yet...)
If you're considering to go on one of these flights... Bear in mind that around two out of every three participants.. Well. They can greet their breakfast from that morning once again. And that's the reason why these flights are also known as "vomit comets".
Please imagine that situation ocurring in zero gravity. Majestic.
And there's another thing to remember, please have a look at the parabola diagram once again. Note the indication before and after reaching zero gravity: 1.8g.
That means that, after flailing around like an idiot (although a happy idiot, I admit), you are accelerated against the interior walls of the plane with almost two times Earth's gravity. In other words, if you weigh 70 kilograms, you are pushed against the wall in a free fall as if you almost weighed 140 kilograms. So it would be better that either you or the walls were padded. In this case, both the walls and the model were well padded. If you know wha Bah, retoric questions aside, you know perfectly what I mean. There's a comment on the article related to this that I liked a lot:
Kate Upton smashing into the floor of the plane with 2gs... terrible,
had I been there I would have volunteered to stay under her and break
her fall
Sorry for appearingly destroying your dreams of zero gravity flights in such a draconian manner. In fact, that's not correct. If a supermodel can smile into a camera while experiencing zero G, you would withstand it as well, I'm sure.
And now with all seriousness, my opinion about the beauty industry, models, etc. actually coincides with the article writer's. BUT. At least more people got to hear about the possibility of zero G flights, a cool product of science. And that's a positive point. Additionally, I do respect the model's capability of posing in front of the camera with these circumstances. I don't even look good in photos with normal gravity.
This time I've got the feeling I can make a good use of the new vocabulary I've learnt: padded flail draconian
A doctor from a school of psychology was receiving emails from his students where they used to include emoticons like the combination of a colon, a hyphen and a right parenthesis ":-)"and that led him to further thoughts: do we recognise emoticons the same way we identify real faces?
According to prior studies in neurosciences, when we perceive a person's face, we distinguish the relative position of the mouth to the nose and the eyes, which activates certain parts of our brain. Once the face is inverted our brain is also stimulated, although in a different manner.
So they decided to conduct an experiment to analyse the brain activities when people observe emoticons. 20 participants were shown real faces, emoticons and then meaningless strings of characters.
The interesting result: Other than it happens with real faces, there are no face-related stimuli when emoticons are stripped of their usual order, that is to say, when they inverted the traditional configuration ":-)" to "(-:" many participants' brains didn't recognise it as a face (even though I'm pretty sure they were aware that it was supposed to be a face by logical reasoning, but it is a fact that their brain didn't receive the same stimulations).
So, what does that mean? Well, since our brains only identify the emoticons directly as faces in the traditional order, we can conclude that emoticons have become a linguistic code on their own which we only read when they're used in the proper configuration. You could compare this to normal words. If I write "glob s'namreG yzarc A" you probably don't get the meaning at the very first sight. Soon you understand that you're supposed to read the line from the right to the left, you convert the code into our linguistic agreement, putting the letters in the correct order (mentally) and then you identify the message. But that's just what applies to our culture, note that Arabian languages are read from right to left. In other words, cultural influences go very deep, they even have their effects on our brains. I even remember myself having read a comment on a website which featured a "D:" and I didn't understand at first sight that it was supposed to be a negative version of the classic ":D".
All in all, I think it's a nice fun-fact, though nothing groundbreaking. Also, the news article did not specify the ages of the participants. Emoticons started appearing in the 1980's and have become especially famous thanks to the Internet. So I think it's reasonable to consider separating that experiment into different age groups. The effects that emoticons have on people of my generation who have grown up with the Internet might be different than the ones on those who have experienced the revolution of the Internet from the very beginning or the ones who lived this revolution at an advanced age.
Finally, I'd like to spread a message of optimism: Be happy, guys. There's always a reason to be happy. :)
Oh, the vocabulary... Damn, that was such a nice conclusion -.-
