William Wong : Is mathematics the grand design for the Universe, or merely a figment of the human imagination?

Nature’s Patterns

Ian Steward in his article believes Mathematics is a “complex context-dependent mix of both” invention and discovery. His example of the ripples on the sand dunes being similar to the wave patterns in liquid crystals illustrates that Mathematics already exists as a design of the universe. However he also believes “mathematics is in the eye of the beholder” meaning that it is also discovered. “We human beings do not experience the Universe raw, but through our senses, and we interpret the results using our minds.” Next steward tells us that invention and discovery can happen at the same time within a particular context by using Edison as an example, “Edison would have felt as if he had invented the idea of electric lighting, but then spent many years trying to discover how to make it a reality.” The title “Nature’s Patterns” suggests that the surrounding environment displays evidence of both invention and discovery.

I agree with steward as his argument claims valid and he has reinforced my beliefs towards this particular subject.

Baking Bread

In this sub-section Stewards explains that Mathematics is derived from the “real world”. From observation of two sheep and two more sheep make four sheep, 2+2=4, we have produced Mathematics that can be applied to “reality”. In addition Steward also claims that “Mathematics has an internal structure of logical deduction that allows it to grow in unexpected ways” which is reinforced by the title as it suggests that an idea in Mathematics can be used to create other ideas.

I have learned much.

William Wong : Emotions

I believe that emotions are both innate, already exists at birth, and natured, developed by the surrounding environment. One way to prove that emotions are innate, is the observation of a new born baby. At birth, a baby can show several different emotions, one could be sadness suggested by crying which shows hunger. During this time, the baby has not been able to develop his/her emotion unless you regard the development of the body in the womb as development of the emotions. Paul Ekman who created a theory on emotions found that even members of an isolated, Stone Age culture could reliably identify the expressions of emotion in photographs of people from cultures with which they were not yet familiar with.

However emotions are also developed, as one grows older and encounters different situations, their body will adapt to it so next time when a similar situation is being experienced, the body will be able to achieve a better outcome by doing whatever is necessary. If we take an identical twin, having minimal variation in genetics, and place them into different environments then we will find that there will be a large difference in their emotions or reactions to events.

Emotions are a function of the sensory and motor areas of the neo-cortex. Emotional reactions also require the use of the limbic system including the hypothalamus, anterior thalamus, cingulate gyrus, and hippocampus. These areas of the body have been proven different in all humans because of variation in the genetic makeup. If what controls our emotions are different, then we can assume the outcome which is the emotion will also be different if they are not developed by the environment into the same.

AOK: Mathematics, Ming Fung

Nature's Pattern:
Ian Stewart is stating that mathematics is imprinted on earth itself, "God was a mathematician". He says that we can see this from the natural trends we see in everyday life, e.g. circular ripples honeycombs are perfectly shaped mathematically. However, he states that these raw material or data we do not experience. But we use our senses to capture these data and interpret rationally with our minds. After that, he discusses that maths, maybe a combination of discovery and invention. I guess Stewart is right, I think many of the things that we invent, would be a mixture of both. And if we do not invent things we cannot possibly discover new things, and vice versa. This maybe why mathematics is incorporated in nature, as we extracted it from nature, and invented new theories and codes like numbers to rationalise what we actually sense.

Herd of Elephants:
Stewart compares mathematics to science. He states that we can put science into practice, but how about maths? Scientists use maths to calculate quantitative chemistry, and also physics. Then he writes that we, human beings may well be behaving according to mathematics, but it would be just be too hard to understand. Mathematics is everywhere, and is linked to everything. This suggests the world is programmed by these numbers, figure, mathematics, everything having direct links and correlation to each other. This reminds me of the matrix, how Neo should be quite a good mathematician because he can comprehend the mathematical matrix and manipulate it.

Robert Win - AoK Mathematics1

Natures Patterns

Here, Stewart explains that in nature, we see similar or the same mathematical shapes and patterns on different things, such as the circular shape of waves on sand dunes similar to the shape of rainbows. Using this, he tries to demonstrate that mathematics is an aspect or even the basis of nature and the universe. Stewart also tries to promote his view, that us, people, both invented and discovered mathematics (as, in his view, mathematics already existed in nature, but we took advantage and developed it further), using the example of how Columbus discovered America while trying to invent a new shipping route to India. This suggests Stewart believes we stumbled upon mathematics while trying to figure a way to interpret and sort things simply.

This particular example does not convince me, however I do believe that mathematics was both discovered and invented as mathematics, in my view, is just a psychological tool we use and a way to technically interpret things, which is what i also learnt from reading the article.

Lottery Illusion
Here, Stewart mentions that mathematics is embedded in biology, conveyed using the example of the number of petals on a flower usually being one of the Fibonacci numbers, which is a number pattern group, therefore implying that mathematics is also embedded in nature. This example is quite convincing to me, and has allowed me to consider the link between nature and mathematics more, however, i cannot say whether i agree or disagree with this statement, as I am not currently sure.

Stewart also discusses whether the mathematical patterns seen in nature are actually by chance, and that they do not represent any significance between maths and nature. Stewarts evidence supporting that humans discovered patterns which are of mathematical significance, and that maths exists within nature, is by implying that early humans noticed patterns, whether or not it was by chance or not, they knew that patterns discovered could be used in future and relied on these patterns. This reliance on patterns and has developed into what we know now as mathematics, as we use patterns and figures to prove or disprove a point.

Stewart also tries to share his view that mathematics is universal by suggesting that aliens would also be able to do mathematics, although not identical to our maths, they would probably also notice similar patterns which they could use to benefit themselves in understanding things


Overall, I have learnt form the article that mathematics is (in my view) a technical way of interpreting things, and a way of knowing and understanding things (as i mentioned above) and is also one tool we use to explain and to simplify things to allow us to understand complex theories.

Chloe Chan - Mathematics lesson 1

Baking bread
In this section Stewart considers whether existence is a discovery or invention. Stewart argues that it is not just invention or discovery that makes existence but a bit of both, as suggested by the title, the mixing of ingredients (invention and discovery) make bread, the existence of something. In the case of discovery the item already exists but was just not known to humans in comparison to invention which suggests taking a discovery and playing with it to make something new. Stewart gives us a guiding question of why maths would be so important if it were invented by people and tells us his answer that maths started in reality and in nature and therefore would apply to reality of life. However maths can lead to new ideas and theories can be made which apply to many different things, baking bread for example started out as a discovery from reality and open paths to new ideas. Stewart’s use of language, of questioning, makes the reader feel involved in the topic which in turn convinces the reader of his view.

In this section I have learnt that maths is one of the most basic yet complex things of life as maths started off naturally yet opened up to never ending branches of unknown ideas.

Lottery Illusion
Here, Stewart argues that mathematics is the source of many other subjects such as biology where the petals found on flowers are Fibonacci numbers, which is due to the cells of flowers. With this, he wonders whether mathematics is innate in nature and within us, where we have the natural tendency to detect and try to correlate things into patterns, which supposedly benefit our survival. Stewart argues that it is due to this natural tendency that we come up with many other theories and formulas. Therefore when watching the lottery we tend to think we see patterns in the lottery numbers and the winners but in actual fact this is just an illusion. He also introduces the idea of aliens having their own type of maths which could be similar or different to ours.

This section has made me realise that it is true that we tend to try and correlate things even if we know something is random. Therefore I think maths really is innate.

Norbert: AoK Mathematics 1: Baking Bread and Lottery Illusion

Baking Bread

Steward is exploring the key similarities of discovery and invention. Discovery to him is research in an area which has a specific answer to a question, and invention is trying to gathering ideas to solve a problem but sometimes it might be lost. To prevent this, we always make assumptions to invent the most we could. 

He also says 2+2=4, no matter what you are counting, from the smallest of ants to the biggest of planets, no matter how abstract it is, and no one should be surprised if it applies to reality. He thinks however that a discovery is useful; we sometimes will find it difficult to apply to our daily life because it only applies to a specific object. One might argue: what is considered as daily life and what is more abstract ideas. It is different to everyone, and it is factual. A scientist might see law of Mathematics a part of everyone’s life, but we might not have thought to create the things we have, mathematics actually plays a bigger part in our lives than we think it does.

What we can learn from these statements is that whilst mathematics is important to everyone, it might be viewed by us that it is more important to someone than to others, and we just have to accept this fact. It is also certainly making a point that mathematics is a discovery; a discovery of specific things in our daily life and not everything. We need to invent ways, and we already have, to help us make assumptions, otherwise we will be stuck.

 

Lottery Illusion

Stewart is claiming the nature has a lot of similarities to mathematics. He used the number of petal a flower usually has to a set of patterns, and from this example he claims mathematics is derived from nature, and we use mathematics to understand nature..  He thinks we also seek these patterns to ‘help us survive’, and that if we didn’t, we would die.

He raised up the question, would another species of living things agree with the mathematics we use? Steward said we might not have the same laws of mathematics because we have different things that surround us. To me, all he has said is very convincing, and rather logical as well. One point that although I agree mathematics helps us understand nature, but I disagree that nature made mathematics exist. In my opinion, mathematics is just a representation (language) of the everything that is physical. This is why I also agree máthema could mean science and mathematics.

What we can see from this section is that nature and mathematics has to be related, that is just a part of our lives. Mathematics let us understand nature, and nature has made us discover Maths, and invent more, and make the world a better place than it already is.

Yixia Gu response to AOK: Mathematics "Is Mathematics the Grand Design of the Universe?"

Herd of Elephants:
Maths is an abstraction. Yet from these abstractions, we are able to draw conclusions from the facts presented. When we count things, we are already subconsciously doing calculations such as 1+2=3. Compared to science which is a social construct which needs to be tested against external reality, Math can be applied and is compulsory in obscure subjects such as Physics. However, in Biology, mathematics plays a less fundamental role because of the complex arrangement of matter which is described. Because science is a social construct, many scientists can only determine whether they agree with each other and whether what they have observed is consistent with their theories. Nevertheless, there is maths all around us is it just that the calculations are too complicated for us to comprehend. Thus, I am able to conclude that Maths can be practical and quite important, because with Quantum Theory of a structure of a crystal for example was founded based on their mathematical patterns, later called atomic lattices.

Lottery illusion:
If you look closely at the Nature around us, every tree and shrub, we can find plenty of things which fit Mathematical patterns. One example is of the number of petals on a flower which can be calculated with the Fibonacci sequence. And indeed, evolution has encouraged this type of pattern. Yet, what we see and how we interpret these patterns and detecting them may have just been Mathematics put to work as an instrument of understanding nature. So is the supposed sequence in lottery numbers merely an illusion? Perhaps, we may have just imagined these patterns because they are already imprinted within us. The human mind could not have plainly invented these ideas, or come up with pattern seeking in Lotteries, so as Stewart explains, it must have evolved due to the mathematical element in the Universe.

AoK - Mathematics - Homework Response - Hey Tou Chiu

Is mathematics the grand design for the Universe, or merely a figment of the human imagination?

Nature’s Patterns
Stewart in this section puts forward numerous patterns that we see in everyday life to illustrate how mathematics can be seen as the basis of the Universe. He then quotes from different scientists and philosophers some saying that God is a pure mathematician and that “the Universe is made from information, the raw material of mathematics”. However, he puts forward the other side of the argument – where “fundamental mathematics is in the eye of the beholder…in the beholder’s mind”. This is because we use sense perceptions to experience the universe and then interpret these senses in our minds. Stewart then tells us how he believes that mathematics is a combination of invention and discovery. Using examples of Columbus landing in America and Livingstone’s discovery of Victoria Falls, he displays how invention and discovery can both happen at the same time as many things cannot just fall into one category. I think the examples he uses here are good illustrations of the differences between invention and discovery and I believe they are quite convincing.

I am able to learn from this subsection that mathematics is really not what it seems to be. From here, I realize that mathematics is everywhere around us and that we see it everyday in our lives. The idea of mathematics being the grand design of the universe was only first considered when I read the article.

Lottery Illusion
This last section of the article again focuses on mathematical patterns. Stewart tells us how Fibonacci numbers can be traced to the behaviour of cells at the tip of a growing shoot and how lumps of cells (primordial) develop into arranged patterns that leads back to the Fibonacci numbers. He then presents the fact that lottery numbers on the contrary, do not follow patterns of mathematics suggesting that mathematics may not be inherent in nature after all. One important point he makes is that – ‘mathematical minds cannot evolve in an unmathematical universe’ meaning that it is impossible to be mathematical if the universe itself is not mathematical at all! Here, we see that Stewart himself believes that the mathematics is the grand design of the universe even though he does not explicitly conclude so.
I find myself agreeing with Stewart on the fact that our minds have evolved to learn detecting patterns as I think this is very true. However I do not think this is enough evidence to suggest that mathematics is the grand design of the universe. For example, the number of petals on flowers may just coincidentally be the same as the Fibonacci numbers; we can never know whether they are truly following mathematical patterns.

AoK1: Mathematics -- Lesson 1

Guiding questions to Lesson 1:

1. What is mathematics?
2. How and why is mathematics an important area of knowledge?

Stimuli used to consider guiding question 1 include:

• What do you know about maths?
• 'To speak freely, I am convinced that it [mathematics] is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other…'. (Rene Descartes, 1596-1650)
• 'Everything that can be counted does not count. Everything that counts cannot be counted.' (Albert Einstein, 1879-1955)
• 'The mark of a civilised man is the ability to look at a column of numbers and weep.'(Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970)
• 'Survival' maths' vs. Maths 'believed necessary' in society.

We began addressing guiding question 2 by considering:

• its Greek etymology (máthema) = learning, study, science.
• its main concepts -- namely, 1) quantity, measurement (e.g. numbers – mass, time, distance, heat); 2) structure (e.g. set theory, proof theory); 3) space (e.g. geometry); 4) change (e.g. calculus)
• the differences between 'pure' and 'applied' mathematics.

Homework -- to be completed by January 14th and 16th

Read carefully the Ian Stewart (1996) article given out in class, 'Is mathematics the grand design for the universe, or merely a figment of the human imagination?' Stewart starts with the question that is in its title and lies at its heart: "Where does mathematics dome from?" Though he opens by saying that mathematics is both "already out there [in the physical world], waiting for us to discover it" (p. 1) and "in the mind of the beholder" (p. 1), waiting to be invented, he goes on to suggest that neither "discover" nor "invention" "adequately describes the process" (p. 2) that, for him, is mathematics. Stewart argues his case in four main sub-sections: Nature's patterns, Baking bread, Herd of elephants, Lottery illusion.

For this week's blog posting assignment, you are to pick two of these four sub-sections to focus on. In particular, you are:

• to summarise the main point(s) made in each sub-section you've selected (hint: what does the heading itself suggest?)
• to consider carefully the evidence Stewart uses in each sub-section to convince readers of his point of view (hint: identify the evidence -- e.g. appeal to sense perception, language, reason, emotion, another area of knowledge? does it convince you -- why? why not?)
• to discuss what you have learnt about mathematics in each sub-section.

Each of your two sub-section treatments should be about 125 to 175 words long (i.e. 8-12 sentences); you may want to group the 'summarise'/'consider carefully' foci into one paragraph, and make the 'discuss' focus its own and separate paragraph... which means that each sub-section treatment should be two paragraphs long.

Please contribute your post to the blog by Monday, January 14th.

Please comment on someone else's post by Wednesday, January 16th. Choose posts that DO NOT treat the same two sub-sections you have focused on (if one of two is the same, that's fine... but both is not). Your comment should:

• retell (i.e. summarise their post's point);
• reflect on what you've learnt by reading it -- feel free to agree and/or disagree with them; and
• relate it to your developing understanding of mathematics as an area of knowledge).

Reminder: Please bring coloured pencils to the next lesson!

Emotions: Jacqui

I think that emotions are something that we learn. Emotions cannot be a biological part of us because if it is, we would all be the same, there would be no difference between everyone and we wouldn't be who we are.

A little girl at the age of 3 needed to go to the toilet at night, still awake as she only went into bed not long ago. She couldn't reach the switch and went in the dark. Having not been taught or experiences anything bad yet or seen horror movies or thrillers, she didn't have these haunting visions in her memory to scare her so she didn't feel scared or feared the dark.
A major percentage of the world are scared of the dark, and a main contribution to this are the fantasies we've been taught. The media nowadays are a major influence and this includes horror movies and thrillers. A human's brain processes this and under a simliar circumstance, we tend to remember this and fear it. This emotion cannot be "biological". It is learned. Although the reaction of it is linked to biological factors, the emotion itself isn't. Without being taught the scary things, it would be very hard, but not necessarily impossible to feel fear.
Fear could also be of losing a person, losing a game or even phobias. Fear of losing a person and a game is 'cause of what experiences you've been through and learnt from them. A phobia is due to extreme experiences we've had before which we don't necessarily remember therefore with this shadow in our memories, it could develop into a phobia. Yes, this is biologically related but without learning from the experience, the phobia itself wouldn't have developed.

Although I've only given examples of one emotion, I still strongly believe that emotions are gained from learning and experiences rather than biologically. I mean, how would you explain that the little girl wasn't scared due to biological reasons? I know for a fact that the brother of the girl is scared of the dark being 10 already. It's definately not biological. Emotions are learned.

Emotion - Robert Win

I believe that we are born with the basic emotions which allow us to communicate our feelings to other people from the start, but we gradually learn new emotions as we mature and develop the basic ones. An example would be that a baby would cry when he/she is hungry and uncomfortable, or after being told off by their parents, which is the expression of the emotion of sadness. These emotions are then developed as we grow older, from our experiences and education as well as our general environment. Evidence to support this is that everyone is psychologically unique, as no two people are able to think, feel, do, say the exact same things, all at the same time.

We are born like a memory stick, a blank piece of hardware with only the basics installed. As we mature and increase in experience, the memory stick gains more and more data, the data being anything we absorb during our lives experiences, including emotions, giving us a wider range and variety of emotions to feel or to choose from. Each memory stick would also gain different data in different orders to other memory sticks, making each one unique.

Emotion- Ming

Emotions are innate. From the very day we were born, we would weep and feel sad when we were hungry, sick, uncomfortable. We would feel happy, when our parents play with us, watch TV, amused by objects or beings. We smile and laugh, since when we were babies.
However, when we grow up, mature, we learn other feelings of this society, like guilt, ashamed, disgusted of what we have done. This can only be known when we have something to compare to, what is good or bad to do. Also, many of these emotions, we learn how to express them more effectively. Example, when we're sad, we do not only cry, but invent ways expressing our feelings, this maybe singing, become silent, speechless and even stoned. Of course, we can learn not to show our emotions, for example not to shout, scream, tremble when we are scared. . Therefore, emotions are innate, but some are learnt from other people and how to filter and express their emotions.

Emotions: ZOHA

Some may argue that emotions are in us from birth. Hence, they believe that expressing emotion is a completely biological process. If emotions are something we feel inside shouldn’t this be related to something un-physical? If one is saying that emotions are innate then we’re simply interpreting how we feel as psycho-chemical reactions in our brain.
Therefore “love” should be our reaction to hormones, and “fear” is just the result of high blood pressure and the release of adrenaline into the blood. It has been argued that if emotions weren’t innate how could a baby cry at birth.

The crying of a baby at birth isn’t an expression of “sadness” whatsoever but a reflex action. A baby doesn’t learn to cry due to “sadness’ or ‘anger’ until a certain age where he/she acquires that emotion. Before this, the act of crying is an exercise of vocal cords and the means of communication, a baby may cry because it’s hungry or thirty are these emotions? If one placed a nervous system into a robot who could then express laughter, crying, fear, sadness one would then have to support the idea that the robot is human.

Emotions are what makes us human and distinguishes us from animals. We don’t see a crying dog, or a laughing cat even though they have a nervous system too. Sure, one may argue that they express their emotions in another manner but it is scientifically proven for now that animals don’t have emotions. Therefore I would have to say that emotions are something we learn through experience and the environment.. As we get older we forget the last time we did something for the first time. For example if you’ve never touched snow would you know what it feels like?

Emotion: Yixia Gu

Emotion, I believe is something that a human is equipped with, and can be expressed from birth. Take a neonate for example: it greets the unfamiliar and quite intimidating world with a cry- an obvious emotion which also functions as a biological check to see if the vocal chords are is working properly. The baby had already knows how to cry without the influence of the environment. Many emotions also involve the brain triggering a response, as in the response to anger or sadness. In addition, certain parts of the limbic structure such as the Amygdala is responsible for production of negative, fear emotions, whilst the Insula is important in producing feelings of disgust, which contribute the notion that emotions are innate and biological.

Nevertheless, as we grow and learn from others around us, we begin to imitate different emotions and thus are shaped by the surrounding environment. According to the Social learning theory, we are incipient of the emotions modeled by people we come in contact with so we reproduce them, and this is also the time when we ‘acquire’ new emotions such as anxiety in precarious situations, and embarrassment when we do something out of the social norm.

Thus, the emotions we have are through a mixture of what our body is programmed with and also through the way were nurtured and other environmental factors.

Emotion: Chloe Chan

I think we learn the physical side of emotions from observing models but we have innate emotions. I think that the common idea that people who have never experienced sadness and therefore will never be sad is untrue. I believe all individuals will feel sad in some point in their life, but they either don’t know how to express it or they don’t recognize the feeling as sadness.

In more detail, emotions such as sadness are learned in the way that we can see emotions expressed physically and therefore we can imitate and express sadness ourselves. But in order to be able to express our emotions we must be able to relate it to the right physical expression. This is where the structure and wiring of the brain also comes in. Perhaps one brain maybe more able to relate to a certain emotion than another. Therefore, if someone has a growing tumor in an area of the brain that is supposedly responsible for a certain emotion, the emotion will become disordered.

WoK#4 - Emotion - Hey Tou Chiu

Responding to the ‘nature-nurture’ question, I believe that our emotions are both learned and in us from birth (innate). I think that emotions are within us when we are born, however when we express these emotions i.e in what situation, are learnt socially. I read Jason’s post, and I find myself agreeing with him. The fact that new born babies cry when they leave their mother’s womb is strong evidence to support how emotions are within us. The child has no environmental influence and yet, they show emotions right from the beginning of their life.

However, why do we show certain emotions in certain situations? Why do we smile when we are happy? Why do we cry when we are sad? We learn to do this through the environment we are in, and the people around us. In psychology, this is referred to as ‘Social Learning’. Albert Bandura claimed that our behaviour is learnt and that we first observe a model, and then we imitate them. So for example, a child may see her mother breaking her favourite plate and sees her mother starting to cry. The child would then understand that her mother is sad because she has lost something she treasures a lot. The child will therefore also cry in the same situation i.e when the child is unhappy or sad. This example shows how the child learns when to cry - when the child experiences something unpleasant or feels unhappy.

I think that the way we acquire emotions is something that cannot be explained by only one side of the ‘nature-nurture’ questions. Our emotions are related to the environment and are also in-born.

WoK 4: Emotion - Jason

In response to the 'nature-nurture' question. I believe that our emotions are both innate and learnt through experience. We'll take an example, a new born baby. When babies are first delivered from their mother's womb, they will usually be crying because they are uncomfortable (sadness). From the fact that they were just delivered from their mother's womb, there were no nurturing in the process. This suggests that some emotion such as sadness is innate(rationalism).

New born babies cry when they are hungry or uncomfortable. My brother showed happiness, sadness and joy in his first few years. He cried when he was hungry or uncomfortable. As he grew up, I notice that he began to show other emotions such as anger and fear and learned how to use those emotions that he showed from his early age. Now, he does not cry when he is hungry or when he feels uncomfort. With nurturing from the day he was born, he was able to learn how to use emotions. This suggests that emotions are also learnt through experience(empiricism).

Immanuel Kant once said, "Intuitions without concepts are blind, concepts without intuitions are empty".This basically means that you cannot grasp the truth without using both experience and intuition. How this quote can help support my view is that without nurture, you would not be able to learn how to use your innate abilities; and without innate abilities, experience itself alone would be nothing.

Emotion

I think that we are born with emotion and its not something you can actually control for example outbursts, they just happen you cant "learn to have an outburst", that just sounds ridiculous. I do agree that our emotions are deep within us and our life experiences bring them out of us all differently maybe even depending on the people around us. I also think emotion is very vital for us to have because without it life would be pretty blunt and boring and I also believe certain people only fit in with certain other people because of simularities in their emotional personalities and types.

Alyssa

Norbert - WoK Emotion

To expression our emotions, i.e. whether we are happy or sad, we look at others, and ‘copy’ how they express their emotions. It is scientifically proven that people often copy what others do, then act the way others do appropriately. However, how we feel (our emotions) are felt deep within us, and that is affected by our upbringing and experience. This is why parents are very important to a child’s upbringing. Parents guide them on how the child should think, and how to FILTER the physical raw data we are given everyday. It could also be innate. When you see a situation, everyone reacts differently, regardless of your upbringing and experience, and has different feelings and emotions. This could be different depending on your genetic layout.

WoK3: Emotion

In our first lesson, we operationalised a working definition of emotion -- i.e "reactions or responses related to sense perceptions, internal states, thoughts, or beliefs about things or people, real or imagined" (Dombrowski et al., 2007: 50) -- by

• responding to the viewing of Aerosmith ('Sweet Emotion') and MadTV (Tickle me Elmo/Emo); and
• exploring the physical sensations we experienced in response to 'core' or 'basic' emotions identified by behavioural psychologists Paul Ekman and Robert Plutchik: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, curiosity, acceptance and joy.

Alchin (2006: 102) notes that emotions can be:

• either instinctive (e.g. anger, love)
• or social (e.g. guilt, shame); and

• either inward-looking (e.g. fear) -- i.e. 'drawn into ourselves'
• or outward-looking (e.g. wonder) -- i.e. drawn 'out of ourselves'.

Problematising our initial responses and explorations, we then used a BBC article (Generosity 'may be in the genes') to consider the 'nurture-nature' guiding question: Are emotions learned (i.e. acquired through interactions with the environment and others) or innate (i.e. genetic and pre-programmed into us at/from birth)?

Building on this first lesson's classwork, you are now to blog a one-paragraph:

• post that responds to the 'nurture-nature' guiding question -- Do you believe that emotions are learned or in us from birth? What evidence can you offer to support your claims? Be sure to craft your paragraph so that it includes a connected series of statements intended to establish your position... convince us through evidence and inductive/deductive reasoning; and
• comment to someone else's post that either supports or challenges their claims/conclusions (and, of course, explains why or why not).

Please post your response by Monday, 17 December; your comment to someone else's post by Wednesday, 19 December; and use your first name in your post's title.

If you so feel inspired and want to learn more about your own 'emotional intelligence', then consider completing the on-line EQ test and reflecting on the results. It's free to do and receive the abridged results.

References

Alchin, N. (2006). Theory of knowledge (2nd ed.). London: Hodder Murray.

Dombrowski, E., Rotenberg, L. & M. Bick (2007). Theory of knowledge: Course companion. Oxford: OUP.