HW 2- Comments 1

Hayley-

Hayley,

First off, I found that your piece was interesting because of one idea, that everybody lives their respective lives for their own moral satisfaction as you worded it. I thought that this was an interesting concept that I will expand upon later.

You talk about the concept of an "absolute individual" quite a lot in this piece, which I feel is only right, seeing how it is such an encompassing topic. What took a minute to sink in for me was that you state that different parts of your mind go unaffected by the outside would and do not change accordingly. I think this is another interesting point, in that it is almost as if you are suggesting that there is a second person inside of a sealed room that will do things as they see it, and everybody else in your head (Metaphor of course, not crazy voices) can be influenced by the interactions they have.

What is worth noting is that your idea as I see it completely defies many other people's ideas. For example, Kate said that nobody is an absolute individual, according to Banach. This is true in many respects, in that if nobody were to be influenced by the outside world, they would just be as they truly are. You are suggesting that our true self remains the same no matter the interactions we have.

I think that your idea of the true self can be explored further. For instance, I feel that we are our true self no matter what, however it may only be a certain aspect or two, and much of the rest of us is malleable by the world. Like a person may have one trait remain a constant throughout their entire life, and that could be a reflection of their true self. The part of your piece that talks about moral satisfaction is also interesting because morals are hard to satisfy. To me, they are more like guidelines of living which can be followed more than satisfied, which to an extent I guess could be satisfaction, but I feel that goals are more of a satisfiable thing then morals.

Your post has made me think about my own life and how the outside world influences me and my actions and who I am. I think that there is a certain part of me that does not change, and oddly enough those are my morals (Irony yay). I think that a lot about me is in flux though, changing according to what I see and hear, such as my feelings towards people and my perceptions of certain things in the world. Things that were not drilled into your head as a child or things that can act on their own or are tangible things are constantly changing and your perception of them changes with them.

Thank you for posting this, it has made me think about how my life changes as time passes and how the world around me is never seen the same twice, even by me. I think that your idea or a second true self is very true in many ways, and is something that will stick with me and dominate my thoughts and self-awareness for quite some time.

Kate-

Kate,

Your post is nice and concise, everything I need to know in a nice little handy package, something many people try to do but fail at, but you manage to do and maintain actual intellectual content with.

You generally seem to agree with Banach that people are individuals, but argue his reasoning in that he contradicts himself, which upon reflection, he does do. People are absolute individuals to you and everybody is different as a result of how they experience the world around them. What I don't fully grasp though here is how you really feel about the subject, since most of what you say seems to be your interpretation of Banach's lecture rather than your ideas on the subject matter.

I think that you brought up a good point towards the end of your post about where the line between individuality and society lies, and how it is often hard to distinguish. I think that this is quite a common question about one's self, although at the moment I cannot come up with a direct reference to refer to.

I think that the idea that people are largely their environment is true, which is one of the reasons that a person cannot be cloned and be the same person, as they experience things differently. This ties into the whole society vs. self discussion, because society has such a grand impact on people. Unfortunately, this is nearly impossible to observe in reality. The only way to do this would be to have 2 people live the exact same life in controlled environments and then have them experience something different and see how society affects them from then on.

Your post makes me think largely about how people project themselves onto society, appearing as a little blip in a sea of plankton, having just making a large impact as everybody else does the same. Self vs. society is a very difficult topic to clearly observe, and I think that it makes people question who they truly are.

Overall, though just 2 paragraphs of analyzing Banach's lecture, you challenged my thinking of what I previously considered a relatively clear concept (Society) and made me think about the real role it plays and how our roles reflect that.