[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Review Quiz #3
1. (If you were lazy and asked Professor Google, it said “human existence”, but that is not helpful at all, so make sure you never just put what Google says.) Dasein is the only entity that is concerned with its own being. It is a being that doesn’t know what it is and realizes it won’t always “be” (i.e. death). You and I, as self-conscious humans, are such entities.
2. Since I am thinking abut this crazy question, this question and thinking about and typing my answer to it are phenomenologically closest to me right now. Everything else fades into the background so that I can concentrate on this task.
3. A steering wheel normally appears as an everyday tool I can just take for granted (i.e. ready-to-hand). It barely appears at all…it is “just” a steering wheel. The other items are not normally taken for granted but are more mysterious.
4. Ready-to-hand is an experience where things barely appear at all because it is so familiar that we pay almost no attention to it so that we can focus on the task. The ready-to-hand fades from awareness, so it looks like its almost not there at all, but we know it is there, because we are using it.
5. If math or my job is directly related to my life goals (you will need this math in your career or your job is in your career field), then to concentrate on my current task I have to forget about those longer goals and let them fade into the background to concentrate on each task. This can be bad, because I might lose sight of those goals. For most people, however, math class and their job are not connected to their goals and those goals do not appear at all except when daydreaming. This is really bad because you will likely continue at these irrelevant tasks and never reach anything you seek.
6. If your death became truly present-at-hand this would mean we are studying death objectively to assess the value of our pro-jects. This is because you realize that all of our projects are ending (breaking), and this, if Jeff’s hopes are realized, would allow us to study all of the projects behind our everyday tasks and evaluate them to assess their worth. “Since I am dying (we all are, by the way), do I really want to do this task to achieve that goal? Wait, I am not even working toward any of the goals that matter. Damn it! Please help me Jeff, and here are some baked goods for bringing this life-changing fact to my attention.” (Or, you know, something like that.)
7. (This is a tough question, sorry) “a. I am” the They. Remember, the They is everyone and oneself, but always no one in particular. The They cannot be located as a definite thing, whereas the other choices are definite things. This is the worst thing about the They, that is, that it cannot be ignored or defied, because it is not definable, but we know what it thinks, because it is what we think. (spooky)
8. The They says, “Sure, death will happen to you, but not soon, so don’t think about it. You have plenty of time to take control of your life someday. For now, just keep working at the Krusty Krab to buy another companion cube.” (Note: Krusty Krab = your job/school; companion cube = your phone)

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Review – Quiz #2
1. My belief is only true if it agrees with reality. My believing it has no effect on its truth.
2. We test the basic rationality of a value claim by seeing if it is consistent with the facts and with the author’s other beliefs and values. This requires us to get to know the author of the claim to see what their values are.
3. You grow a beard (I am so ashamed of my immaturity.)
4. The Cave story mocks the “seeing is believing” mindset, because it shows the cave-dwellers (most people) staring at illusions and mistaking them for reality. If all you see is deception, then your beliefs will be delusions. And, in Plato’s view, the whole physical world of sight is deceptive.
5. Our everyday, physical world is untrustworthy for three reasons (pick two): 1. The world is always changing, 2. Our perspectives are always changing, and 3. The theories we use to interpret the world are always changing. (But, note, that doesn’t mean that objective truth doesn’t exist, it just isn’t found using everyday perception. It is found in the realm of ideals, like math and philosophy.)
6. The sailors rejected the new captain because he didn’t have “practical experience” and didn’t use his everyday perceptions like most people. Instead, his trick was to use unchanging truths (astronomy and math, in this case), instead of ordinary sight. The larger point is that theorists and philosophers are often ridiculed, but their ideas are often more sound than the changing view of the masses. (Which is why you should stop making fun of Jeff and instead give him baked goods.)
7. Philosophy is the study of presuppositions in all fields of knowledge. The Cave prisoners are us, and their stupidity and stubbornness about their assumptions should inspire us to want to study philosophy to check our assumptions so that we can escape our stupid and oppressive caves.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Review – Quiz #1

Here are the basic elements in a good answer. (Please make corrections/clarifications to your Reading Questions answers. This will help with your Final Exam.):

1. The tasks for each week are listed at the top of our webpage: (1) Do the readings while (2) answering the Reading Questions, then (3) watch the videos to get further clarity in your answers, then (4) take the Friday Quiz.

2. Our readings, reading questions, and videos (schedule, discussion board, roster, and grades) are all on jeffsreadings.com (We will only use Brightspace for taking quizzes and turning in exams.)

3. Password: I can’t paste it here, because of Russian bots (I wish I was kidding), but it starts with “f” and ends with “3”

4. The best prep for the Friday quizzes is the Reading Questions, because most of the quiz comes straight from those questions. (But please be sure to read the questions carefully, because there are some subtle differences from the reading questions that I want you to think about. You can paste some of your reading questions answers straight over, but this won’t work for all of the quiz questions.)

5. The Friday quizzes cannot be made up, but there are many extra points built into the quizzes and final exam to make up for missing a quiz or two. So, if you miss a quiz or have a bad week, getting high scores on the next two quizzes will get you caught up quickly. There are no “extra credit” assignments.

6. Grades are based on earning points (not percentage; that’s way harder). For example, a “B” is earned when you get 80 points (out of the 126 possible, that is only 64%…you see, Jeff is a softy).

7. Philosophy is the study of the presuppositions in all fields of thought. (Philosophy is the home of genuine critical thinking, carefully checking the support for all of our ideas, even the ones that we assume and seem obvious.)

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Alina,
One subject I teach is diagnostic reasoning, and “House MD” is one of the only medical/crime shows that actually gets the reasoning process right. And I just love character-driven writing like that, beyond my diagnostic fetish.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

I love board games, but I just started playing my first D&D-style game, and it is pretty intimidating. I just don’t have enough background to keep up with a few of the experts in my group. I am always trying to solve puzzles or be silly, but the others are spinning these fantasy tales based on all of these fantasy references I just don’t understand. I love the mechanics’ I’m just not too far on the nerd side of the nerd-geek spectrum.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Alina,
My history is the same. Turning into a nerd as soon as you start college is perfect timing. Nerds have way better lives. There is no payoff for being cool in your 30s and 40s. While nerds have fun jobs and get to tell the cool kids what to do.
And I also studied religion for several years in my early career.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Alex,
Please recommend a good beginners astronomy book. I have Tyson’s “Starry Messenger” on my book list…is that a good one?
As for physics, my favorite book is written by a total weirdo who knew nothing about physics before he wrote it: Zukav’s “Dancing Wu Li Masters”.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Thanks Jaidyn

“The Art of Racing in the Rain” just went on my book list. And I love it when I get to watch the movie right after I read the book. Woohoo!

I just recently got to do this with “Me Before You” and, as mentioned above, “The Other Bennet Sister”.

And the all time winner for great book and great movie combos is “Fight Club” hands down! And second place goes to “Ender’s Game”.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Michaelides’ “The Silent Patient” is the book.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Diego,
I can’t believe I still haven’t starting watching “The Boys” … what is wrong with me? It sounds so good.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Cat,

Yes, good one.

A book I read recently is in that spirit. It is “The Other Bennet Sister” by Janet Hadlow. Think of a fun fan fiction book that actually wins awards for being a great novel in its own right. The idea of the book is to write the story of the “plain” sister that barely gets mentioned from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. She is determined to be herself in a culture that says a woman’s identity and survival depends on finding a wealthy husband.

And another great thing is that they just came out with phenomenal a miniseries based on the book. So when you finish the book you can watch it. It’s lovely.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Taty,
Good recommends, Mindhunter is solid, and Six Feet Under is phenomenal!

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Aaris,
Yes, it’s fun. And after you’ve played it a bit and realize your friends are a bunch of sickos, grab the game “Say Anything” where you get to write your own shameful lines instead.
And if you want a nerdier version of these ideas, try “Balderdash” especially the England version that has different themes.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

If anyone wants to start reading books like Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” I would recommend a few more friendly books first, like his “Beyond Good and Evil” or “Genealogy of Morals”. “Zarathustra” is written as a series of short, almost random aphorisms, and without seeing his broader motives, most of those aphorisms make little sense.

Or if you want an even friendlier starting point for these kinds of philosophy books, try a shortish novel like Turgenev’s “Father and Son” or Dostoevsky’s “Note from Underground”. And the next steps up would be something like Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling” or Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism”. After that, you’d be ready for Nietzsche.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Hi Des,

Nice… I’ve got you on 2 of your 4: There is some good reading and psychology in this class.

I studied nutrition for a couple of years and my conclusion was that it is both easy and complicated at the same time. No one understands it well enough to know exactly which nutrients a person truly needs, but, luckily, simple food has everything you need. The best book, hands down, was the simplest one, and it is the only book that most health nerds have agreed on for years and years, as all the fads and new research keep changing: Pollan’s “In Defense of Food”. If anyone wants a preview of it, email me, and I can send you some excerpts.

Jeff

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Autumn,

For years I used to teach a seminar called, “Understanding Evil”, and, over the years, it tended to focus on the more mundane causes of cruelty than the psychopathology. Studying things like Milgram’s experiment and the Holocaust, which we will study in this class this semester, makes you think that normal people are far more scary than the rare psychopaths.

My favorite book on neuropsych is Ramachandran’s “Phantom’s in the Brain”. But if you want one that is just really fun, try Sacks’ “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”.

Jeff

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Ryan,
That book gets raves, which is impressive for being such a nerdy subject. Reviews say the writing is compelling. Those years – the mid 1800s – were bizarre and cruel, as the nations of Europe simply carved up the world to gain control and resources. Sadly, I am not familiar with what is happening in Mexico at that time. Shame on me.
Jeff

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

I’m Jeff Salbato (your teacher), but I prefer Jeff. You only need to introduce yourself in one of these sub-topics, but, because I’m the supposed leader here, I’ll post in all of them…

Hidden food joints: Arirang Korean, iGrill, K Style, Coda Vietnamese Bakery, Viet Rice, Taaj Palace, Gyros Mediterranean, Alqud’s Mediterranean, Olympia, Thai Cuisine, Thai Vegan, Don Choche, Pollito con Papas, Tap N Taco, Federidelfos, Papaturro, Il Vicino, Relish, Nagomi, Ichiban, K-Lynn’s.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
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[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

I’m Jeff Salbato (your teacher), but I prefer Jeff. You only need to introduce yourself in one of these sub-topics, but, because I’m the supposed leader here, I’ll post in all of them…

Everyone should read Fromm’s Sane Society, Epictetus’ Encheiridion, Chomsky’s What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Milgram’s Obedience to Authority, Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Holloway’s Godless Morality, …and hundreds of others…go read some books now!

(If you want a fuller list of book recommendations, click the “Propaganda” link in the header above and you’ll find a bunch of categorized lists of my favorite books.
Thanks, Jeff)

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

I’m Jeff Salbato (your teacher), but I prefer Jeff. You only need to introduce yourself in one of these sub-topics, but, because I’m the supposed leader here, I’ll post in all of them…

My nerdiest interests are philosophy, psychology, political theory, history, books, and languages. My geekiest interests are video games and board games.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

I’m Jeff Salbato (your teacher), but I prefer Jeff. You only need to introduce yourself in one of these sub-topics, but, because I’m the supposed leader here, I’ll post in all of them…

TV shows you’re missing: Rectify, Silicon Valley, Newsroom, Happy Endings, Ted Lasso, Masterchef Australia, and the best show of all time: West Wing.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

I’m Jeff Salbato (your teacher), but I prefer Jeff. You only need to introduce yourself in one of these sub-topics, but, because I’m the supposed leader here, I’ll post in all of them…

Video games no one talks about that are genius: XCom2, Train Valley 2, Slime Rancher, Creeper World, Shapez, Defense Grid: Awakening.

Video games that are popular and deserve to be: Portal, Borderlands 2, Far Cry 3 & 5, Satisfactory, Saints Row the Third, Stardew Valley.

2 player board games: Battle Lines, Spirit Island, Targi, Arboretum, Pandemic, Lost Cities, Viticulture, Quest for El Dorado, Wingspan, Santorini, Slay the Spire.

3-4 players: The Crew, Space Base, Azul, Pandemic, No Thanks, Gizmos, Quirky Circuits, Quest for El Dorado, Wingspan.

For groups: Wits & Wagers, Balderdash, Scattergories, Say Anything.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
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