Monday, October 17, 2016

First Person Plural: Multitudes or One Individual Consciousness?


I believe that I am composed of a single and individual consciousness. At the end of the day I still make my own choices with my one conscious. I do also agree with Paul Bloom, author of the First Person Plural article, in that we do have different desires and that in us we plot against each other. The examples he gives us are about the cake eater who wishes not see articles over obesity and the adults who remembers that every occasion is special so he/she can have at a least a drink. We tend to trick ourselves so that we can get what we ultimately want. In this article, Bloom mentioned a quote by a philosopher, Jerry Fodor, “If, in short, there is a community of computers living in my head, there had better be somebody who is in charge; and, by God, it had better be me.” Even though there are different ways our minds work because of past experiences or memories, we are still in charge. We are still one singular person who wish to pursue happiness in one way or another. We have different styles in a number of situations but we are just one self. I believe that when we beat ourselves up by calling ourselves “lazy bastards”, for example, is because we knew we could have done something different but instead we wanted to take the easy way out. In our minds we know the other options are there but we continue to battle within our minds on what to decide. Some may call it over-thinking. It is not that we have different selves, it is that we think about things quite too much. We learn from our decisions and we also decide what we want to carry with us from them. That is why I believe I have a single, individual conscious because I ultimately come down to a decision from my own one persona.

6 comments:

  1. Jasmin I agree with you completely. I believe too that we only have one single consciousness and it doesn't make any sense to have multiple. I have a strong belief in personality types and that everybody's brain is wired differently. The things that we think and the way we react to certain events comes from our past experiences as well as our personality type. We know what's best for ourselves and even though our brains may fight with us sometimes about the decisions we make it is ultimately all the same "voice" or conscience. We may act differently around certain people or act one way in a certain setting and different in another but if you really think about it our brains are what's putting that all together for us, and that is one singular voice that we hear.

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  2. I believe that we are all composed of a single, individual consciousness unless a personality disorder is diagnosed upon an individual. I am a firm believer in the face that everyone makes their own decisions however an individual’s decision can be impacted by outside influences, such as what is trending or what other’s want that person to do. For example, when Paul Bloom stated in the article that, “Personality also changes according to situation; even the most thuggish teenager is not the same around his buddies as he is when having tea with Grandma”. At the end of the day, regardless of influences an individual comes across, we make the decision based on our personality and morals. I also believe that we are all composed of a single, individual consciousness because only outside forces such as people in a bad attitude or hearing bad news affects our moods and decisions. “Good smells, such as fresh bread, make people kinder and more likely to help a stranger; bad smells, like farts (the experimenters used fart spray from a novelty store), make people more judgmental.” However, although the experiment concluded that we all have different personalities, we are all our own individual, we all make our own conclusions and decisions which can be influenced by outside forces.

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  3. I agree completely our minds only contain one consciousness. But the are certainly different aspects of ourselves that influence our decision s. We're always at work with ourselves about what to do and why we need to do it. All you jave to do is try waking up at 6am to realise that your being influenced by having to choose one of these two decisions. Either you can wake up and have time to eat breakfast and shower or get another 30, shower and risk being late. These internal conflicts can be controlled if you have the willpower to do so but many don't hence all the trouble people have with it today. But if tpu can master yourself you have the potential to master anything.

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  4. I agree completely that our minds contain one conscious and that it depends on the different aspects we choose to deal with or have that influence ourselves and what we do such as waking up in the am to work knowing we have kids to feed and money to make to stay alive... you can easily choose what's more important to to you at the time is sleep valuable or is your kids eating comfortably everyday the internal conflicts present can be controlled or resolved based off the persons priorities or etc...

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  5. I agree with Jasmin as well, in that our minds have one consciousioucness and that we are able to choose the way in which we act and react to the world around us. I do believe that regardless of how a person is, the brain is hardwired to think of "me", whether or not we allow ourselves to think of "we" is a given choice. All the decisions that are made in our own minds are completely our decisions, although we are influence by the existence of the things around us, the ability to make decisions on your own always exists. As stated in the article that personality can change depending on ones situation, although someone may be acting different in certain situations that doesn't change who they are or what they think on the inside, it just means one is acting properly for the situation the outside world has presented.

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  6. I agree with you completely on the fact that we control ourselves. No matter what goes on in our heads, what functions take place in our minds, we control the final outcome. It really doesn’t make much sense to say we have multiple conciseness. To me that sounds like we would have multiple different personalities, which would only make sense if you were crazy. Just like Madison said, our brains may fight with us and we may be torn between situations, but we ultimately have the control as to what happens, it’s all the same “voice” or conciseness. Yes, depending on where you are or who you’re around, you may act different, but this doesn’t mean that you are a different person; you are still you, one conciseness. Our brains are running in hundreds of different directions all the time, but the brain is still ran by one factor, the person. There are many different things going on in our brains, but we have ultimate control over our actions, we are made up of one conciseness.

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