Local Violence??

I am not sure where this post falls categorically when trying to place it under one of the three usual topics for this message board. However, something peculiar happened to me or at least- I was aware of something peculiar happening near me. But, in the end, the whole sequence left me confused and hoping that soon some light will be shed and some conclusions will be presented that will allow me to put my questions about what occurred to rest…

So that all sounds entirely confusing, but you will understand in a second…

My day was going typically today. I woke up around eight in the morning and went to the Rec Center and completed my daily work out. After that, I went to my one o’clock philosophy class. At the conclusion of that class, I decided that it was about time that I took advantage of living in Florida. As such, I decided to go down by the pool in my ghetto apartment complex, relax with my headphones on and catch a suntan. Or, you know, something like that…

Either way, I am just laying there- relaxing; reading a book actually- when I heard three distinct gun shots. I am telling you right now that I have past experience that allows me to distinguish exactly what constitutes gun shots or not. I can even go so far as to approximate the distance of those gun shots to about 800 meters and then, I can also fairly accurately guess that they came from a southerly direction. All of this would put the gun shots somewhere south of the Fletcher and Bruce B. Downs intersection and, more exactly, I am going to say that they occurred southwest of that- approximately near the mall. (As a side note, I can get all nostalgic and pull on forgotten skills to approximate a guess that the rounds were fired by a hand gun and, probably, of a small caliber- we’ll say a .22 caliber or 9 mm pistol)

For unexplained reasons, my reaction to all of this was a total lack of reaction. I paused my music, set down my book, thought about the situation, and then proceeded to turn over, suntan my back and continue reading my book. Within minutes, I heard sirens screaming from the location described above. Not long later, I saw news helicopters flying over my apartment complex as well as the area in question.

Now, I am left scanning the news and the internet, wondering what just happened. I do live across from several hospitals and I do hear sirens throughout the day. The occurrence of sirens in this case could have been coincidental to the occurrence of gun shots. It is also plausible that the news helicopters were merely flying over as it was three in the afternoon and rush hour traffic was somewhat imminent. However, I am going to play conspiracy theorist here long enough to think something crazy happened and that, soon, I will get my answer via some breaking local news story.

I just thought I would tell you guys about that…

Perception

The following is based on a discussion held concerning an article in the March, 2006 issue of Scientific American. The article can be found on page 34 and describes the relationship between language and perception. While truly understanding the argument held below needs one to read the original article in the journal as well as the first response made to the article (below is actually the fourth response to the article in a series of responses on an online message board), you can still get a grip on the abstract, but somewhat interesting thoughts that are provoked by college-level philosophy classes. The following was written for, in particular, a Philosophy of Science class. Enjoy.





I agree with the majority of your posts in reference to this language/ interpretation of reality topic. In fact, I will go further and state that many linguists (or, at least people with knowledge of multiple languages) go as far as to point out English as the or, at least, one of the best languages to use when great detail is needed. This is because English has an endless array of adverbs and adjectives- objects that many other languages lack in such a supply as English has. However, I don’t know if this means that English speakers understand reality differently then those that speak other languages as much as it proves a model that states that English speakers can better describe the reality that they perceive. That being said, I am going to have to go and review the Sci Am article as well as the Wikipedia links that you provided because I am sure there is some sort of scientific data used to back up the claim that English speakers are actually perceiving reality more completely then others (such as the left side/right side brain examinations that you mentioned)…

Now, all that being said, you are touching on a subject that I have abstractly thought about many times, although usually when I am much less sober then I am now. But, really, a good majority of everything in the world boils down, by definition, to a man-made word. For example, while we can break down the Hydrogen and Oxygen compound of water, it is only called “water” because we say so. I mean, does a bird know that he is a bird? I know this is a very abstract thought process going on here and, surely, I am going to have to expand on at a later time (which just gave me GREAT reason to get bombed real soon) to really describe why this idea has intrigued me. But it does tie into your posts, because- if my own thoughts do hold weight- then it helps to prove the theories that you have posted here true. If everything is little more then words at the core, then those of us with a language of more words, or at least more descriptive and more scrutinizing words could very well understand everything at a more descriptive and scrutinized level….

I hope this was *at all* followable…