Essay 3 "Pass"

Free will is the ability to make a choice and no one interfering in that choice. Fate, however, is the concept that things or events happen because they are predetermined and they are supposed to happen. When looking at these two concepts you can automatically see the difference between them. In free will you always have a choice to go one way or the other. In fate you do not have a choice and your life is predetermined.
I believe that i have free will. I say this because I can always make my own choices, decide what I want to do, and how I want to do it. The problem is not finding out if free will is certain. The problem is in the decision making process in our minds. What I mean is that we do have free will, but because of our way of thinking, we tend to make the same decisions because of what we have been "programmed" to know and how to react in certain situations.
The programmed mind is something we need to understand in order to comprehend free will. If we look at the example of a child, we see how children absorb the world around them from when they are born till when they start school. Human beings are not automatically filled with all knowledge in order to understand every aspect of the outcome of every decision. We are taught to believe certain things, think a certain way and also to react according to someone else's standards. Now, this in itself does not mean that we cannot be knowledgeable in order to truly make a decision based on what we truly want. This all depends on the person.
In "The Matrix" we see how Neo lives in the matrix not knowing if it's real or not. We see how he sees the "world" as a vague and unreal world with no purpose for existence. Since he already has this view sinking in the very foundation of his mind, Morpheus is able to convince him to make decisions that lead to him being unplugged from the matrix. The essential case made here is that even though Neo had free will to choose, it was expected of him to make the decision that he made. All the events in his life led him to this one important decision and we knew what was going to be the outcome. Another way that we can look deeper into this is by the idea of Determinism.
In "The Matrix and Philosophy," Schick develops the idea of Determinism. Determinism presents the idea that everything that happens is caused by something else that pushes it into fruition. I believe that this is true, but not to the extent that Laplace claims it to be. Laplace states that nothing happens without a cause. that is understandable. My disagreement is with the idea that the same cause always produces the same effect. I disagree because the effect depends on the decision of the person in the cause. I probably wont react the same way as someone else because as i stated earlier, we are all "programmed" differently. This cannot be determined.
If free will is based on us being able to make our own decisions then we do have free will. There is no error in the concept. The reality of it is that we need to consider many possibilities. We have to consider our upbringing, knowledge, and beliefs because all these things determine the paths and choices that we will make.

Blog 9 "Research Project / Media Final"

So far i plan to work on a music video with Ender. We are planning to work on original lyrics and music. We would like to write about everyday issues that people have to go through. I would like to write a song like a story. Topics would include child abuse, rape, and drugs. Our main priority right now is to write the song and develop it from there. We also plan to add videos of certain situations that involve these topics. Now, for the reasearch paper we plan to use blogger and basically give a daily log of everything that we are gonna do, what we're working on, any ideas, etc. This log would basically give "The Making of The Video" and all work put into it.

Blog 8 "Me++ 7-17"

Boundaries are the formula behind my comfort. My skin protects the inner me so that i don't bleed or more than that, my heart can't be seen or my emotions. It allows for my organs and tissue to work properly. This then leads to me setting a boundary to cover my nakedness to protect me from weather, temperature and being embarrassed about not having clothes on. Next, this leads to my room being a boundary for me from family and people when i want to just be in my room alone to be able to work on music, school and to be able to think efficiently. Then there is the boundary around my room which is my apartment that protects me from the outside world. There is a boundary between me and the cold, people i don't know, and from the dangers of the outside world. Another boundary is the family van that takes us from place to place and it also keeps us warm. The van can be considered a connection to get from place to place. Another boundary around me is my school that keeps me on school grounds and also my church where I'm closed in for service. All of these boundaries can and have been penetrated one way or another. Many of the connections that penetrate are the Internet, sewage, phone line, etc. And everything online is basically networked. I order items online, it gets sent to the warehouse, they send the item through UPS and UPS delivers it to me. Everything works and depends on a network. In order for information to be delivered networks are needed and the connections are what make up that network. A network can be looked at like the structure of a company, a business, or even authority. I constantly access these networks daily through the Internet, in school as a student being part of the educational structure and even as an American citizen because I'm part of the structure of this country. Another thing that dictates the life around me is time. I need to make times for everything. I need to have my school schedule so that i can plan around the time that i have available outside of school. My phone is a constant reminder to me of what needs to be done throughout my day, week, month and year. All of these things are what dictate the very society we live in.

Blog 7 "Essay 4 Reflection"

The Woodstock Festival came to be my topic for my Midterm paper and PowerPoint presentation. I started by going to the Wikipedia website to lay out a basic foundation for my research which then led me to other reliable sources. I then checked on Google and other sources that were linked on Wikipedia and i was definitely able to find a good amount of reliable sources. I found a magazine article from The Rolling Stones magazine and other websites. I was also able to find the documentary from the History Channel "Woodstock: Now and Then" which actually gave me a great amount of info concerning every angle of the event. I also used the article finder in the library website of LaGuardia where i found a tremendous amount of articles giving information on almost all of the major if not all the major issues surrounding the event. I put an extreme amount of attention into my writing also be cause i believe heavily in good delivery of a message or statement. If it sounds intellectual it will also add to the reliability of my information and argument. If i had to rate my effort on this from a 1-10 i think that it would be between a 8 or a 9. I think so because i put many hours into the development of my paper making sure that it complied with the MLA format. Also, i put in a lot of hours into the detail of my PowerPoint presentation to make sure that it look good but more importantly that i was able to effectively provide sufficient information without diluting the facts. I think that my final product is a 9 because i believe that I gave more than enough information to back up the iconic importance of Woodstock in the influence of Mass Media. Honestly though, this has definitely been a difficult molding process because this is actually the first research paper and PowerPoint presentation that i have ever done. My hope is that i was able to deliver effectively and efficiently and that i was able to answer the core thesis of the midterm assignment.