Popper-Kuhn-Rawls

a) Why aren't all true beliefs justified?
True beliefs aren't justify because we will get into an infinite regress, where we will need another idea to prove the first idea and a third idea to prove the second one and so on... Another reason is that general theories can be proved but not disapproved, that means if a theory or a belief can;t be tested then we can;t argue if it is real or not, like the existence of God.

b) What is anti-foundationalist?
An anti-foundationalist is a person who thinks there's no certainty, specially in science where it is totally impossible to prove somethings right and they will rather focus on falsifictionism where it will be easier and better to find the mistakes of ways to prove wrong an idea or theory an try to find ways to fix it.

c) Why is it easier to falsify a statement that to verify it?
It is easier specially in science to find the mistakes on a theory so you can find the ways to make it better than trying to verify it like the example of the aliens where it will be easier to recover the knowledge when we already have a base (like the books) than trying to start from zero again , so it is easier to find the points where something can be proven wrong and find new ways to replace the old theory than verifying it, also because science maybe be kind of subjective some times because the point of view of the scientists.

d) What reasons does the article in The Economist give for doubtful quality of much published scientific research today? How is falsificationism related to this problem?
They said the the quality of the articles published and its facts had decline, that many of them are just proven to be wrong and the majority are like just experiments which are known for being trust but not enough verified, so these is related to falsification because the published papers are not being good enough for science, there hat been proven wrong because mistakes have been found on those researches just like falsification, a mistake has to be found to fix it and make the research better,

e) How is this statement for the article related to Popper's views? "[Science's] privileged status is founded on the capacity to be right most of the time and to correct its mistakes when it gets things wrong."
Scientist have been recognize for finding answers to questions of our world, creating theories to explain us the origin of things, and using different experiments and doing a good research we learn from their discoveries, but another thing that has been seen for a really long time is that those theories have some gaps that have to be filled, like the theories of the universe where astronomers have correct it and the new theory is more exact than the older one (falsificationism).

f) What is an open society?
An open society is a society where everyone has the right to take personal deceptions and the common wealth but not like communism, in these point of view everything has to bring something good to the society, although everyone has the right to be equal there are some cases where the rule can be broken like the example of the doctor, they do win more money that other people in a society but everybody needs a doctor, so as long as he brings good to the society, it will be okay if he wins more than the rest.

g) What is a paradigm shift?
Is an idea that is accepted through, and after some time, like when you have a theory but it's been proven that somethings can be fixed or it changes at all, but the new idea need time to be accepted, not everybody always agrees with changing an idea and moving to another just because somebody said it is wrong, so a paradigm shift is like a change of model or idea.

h) What is distributive justice?

Theory based on the concern of justice distribution of primary goods like rights liberty and money (things that rational people will want to have), and the members of these society have to be conscious about their needs, they must be motivated to search moral principals and be rational

i) What is the veil of ignorance?
An hypothetical state of freedom and equality that makes takes the people to a state of ignorant of their characteristics, like class, race, intelligence and background, but they rational, capable of the sense of justice and know they need primary goods, even though they may not know which ones.

j)Why did John Rawls need the veil of ignorance for this thought experiment?
So society can be sure to reconsidere what they really need and don;t by letting them in a state of ignorance in which they have to choose what will be the best of them and really care about the principles of justice.

Unsolved questions

As I read in the article of the 8 philosophical questions that we’ll never solve, and I think that’s actually true, while I was trying to understand what everything meant I actually found myself wondering how do they actually got to that question or that conclusion, some of them where questions that I honestly have never imagined or at least not at all, but there were specially 3 questions that I found really interesting. So here are those questions:

1)Why is there something rather nothing?

it refers on the question of why are we what we are and why do we act like we do and how things supposedly work here, but there’s actually not a real explanation of how the world that we know works this way. the answer is based on the anthropic principle „The notion that out particular universe appears the way it does by virtue of our presence as observers within it“ (G. Dvorsky) I actually do agree with these because it is actually true, we don’t know what’s going on at all but we at least know it WORKS just because we are here and we (or we think) we are working just fine.

2) Do we have free will?

It talks about the determinism and the indetermnism, of how are actions are control by causality or are just considered random effects, so that means that we actually don’t have free will at all?

And then the theories that our brain takes decisions even before we notice it but that’s still weird, just as the predeterminism… these ideas just make me think that there’s not a real explanation of why do we choose what we choose and it just makes me sad thinking that there’s a possibility that i don’t have free will!

3) Can you really experience anything objectively?

So here’s the one I find the most controversial, we actually experience everything ins a subjective way, for example going out with friends and trying to choose something to eat will be a problem because nobody has the same tastes on food somebody will prefer one thing rather than another and so on, that’s the way things happen in our lives, but the only way I found (with some help) to have an „objective“ experience is through numbers, math, science, measuring… but taking in account one of the article’s questions, what if numbers are not real? then we do have a big problem…

So here are they, the 3 questions that complicated my day making me think in other ways i never thought before, but, I think I prefer thinking my way instead of trying to understand what I will probably never solve.

John Locke

He was concerned about human understanding, during his childhood explode a civil war in England and I guess that gave his life a new meaning. He studied medicine, after he travel to Germany he enter to the court and got really important positions, he was really good friend of the count. After some political problems he escaped to france where he met important scientist. He came back to London but goes to The Netherlands when the count died.

As we can see his life was not that easy and his experiences led him to write " A Letter Concerning Toleration" where he made a distinction between religion and politics and of course between the government interests compared to the church's interests, he also wrote an essay based on human understanding and civil government. He was an empiricist, and hat liberal ideas, for example the theory of rights which are really important for us now a days specially the pursuit of happiness, completely opposite to an absolutist regime.

He also talks about the separation of powers, what we live everyday, legislative, executive and judicial.

His ideas about politics, economy and education are remarkable for our daily lives.

Political Philosophers

From the philosophers we read about I think the one I find most appealing will be John Locke, because  he was concerned about humans, he talked about the relationship between the citizens and the government they have, and the separation of powers (just like we know it and live it), and the human rights which I are one of the most important things for a human, now a days we have better lives because of them, we can follow our interests buy the things we like, talk to the people we feel comfortable too and so on. He was right about separating powers so nobody takes control of an entire nation or a continent and of course the government should care about the citizens, they were elected by them, they represent the citizens and theatrically they are citizens.

So, the least appealing for me was Machiavelli, his ideas are really interesting too but I think what he established on "The Prince" is old now, it did happen in different parts of the world, and we all know the consequences of a leader who preferred to be feared as loved, but we also know some examples of leaders who their people loved and they were still good governors.

I think that Thomas Hobbes was the most realistic, he is right about everything, societies are pretty difficult to understand, like as long as we have safety they won't care about freedom or maybe they won't even notice they are missing some freedom. although he is a little pessimistic, he is also kind of right men can be the most terrible being on earth and we actually are.

Plato and "The Republic" where he established the utopia is the less realistic philosopher, because he just imagined a perfect world for him, but what about the rest of the people, I am sure that my opinion of a perfect world is totally different to my neighbor's or a friend's opinion. It's a really nice idea, really original maybe his intentions where good, for example in a perfect world there will be no revolutions or wars which destroy an entire society and maybe everyone will be happy but I will never try to take an Utopia in to practice, I like to be just me :)

In conclusion, some of the philosophers think that the best way to keep a nation under control is with human rights, democracy and a republic while others think a monarchy will be the best, one side of the ideology is that people can deal with their issues and find their happiness one day just like Aristotle said avoiding vices and living a good life, but some on the other side, there are the ones who see the human being as a big monster.

The Big Bang Theory

(Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady)

The big bang theory is a 7 season TV series on Warner Brothers is about a group of scientists who become friends after meeting in the university where they work, each one has a unique personality and representative characteristics that make the Geek’s team really funny, the problem begins where a blond girl moves across the hall of two of our character’s apartment, there’s where they discover how little they know about real life, that not everything is theories and numbers, and how they begin to interact and learn from each other.

Lets introduce the characters:

Sheldon Copper is a pretty weird and complicated guy, he is against all normal behaviors, or at least against of what people believes its normal, he has his own way to live his life, he hates being expose to society and he things he is the most wonderful, intelligent and perfect human being on earth so in conclusion Sheldon is the perfect example of a cynic. He enjoys showing he is more intelligent than the rest and enjoys bothering his friends and people around him. I find his personality really analytic, he is always looking for a scientific explanation and he bases everything on the correspondence theory, if he doesn't know a thing, he will find it out someway. Sheldon is also a perfectionist almost methodic, he follows an specific schedule each day o the week, even food, will be predetermination depending on what day it is, he will wake up always at the same hour and sit in the same place, that kind of reminds me on Immanuel Kant, who was known for always following a perfect schedule. He has also rules for everything, even a roommate agreement, which is like a social contract just like we saw with Thomas Hobbes; he makes a social contract to regulate the behavior and terms to get along with the rest of the people. However, he is one of my favorite characters of the series, even thought he is weird he is really smart and funny.

Here is an example of how he will behave on his territory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AWN_JvrWmE

Leonard Hofstadter is Sheldon’s best friend, as he moved to California to work on the university he looked for an apartment, a small announcement lead him to this building where Sheldon lived, he was even making psychometrical exams and testing the candidates intelligence to know if they where available to share an apartment with him and of course he was accepted, but he never noticed how crazy Sheldon is until he moved in (just like we saw on the video), he is also in love with Penny since the very fist time they met. Anyway Leonard is an stoic person, he doesn't care if he is boring, he controls his emotions and just gives his opinion when necessary, he is also moderated, he never goes to wild parties, he does all his work but he never goes to the extremes, I think Aristotle will have loved him specially in the way that no matter how the rest of the people think about the way he is he will always find a way to be happy. He follows society rules and tries to be a good citizen. Like Gottfried Leibniz he also believe in free will, he let things just be, he respected others opinion and always sees the good side of everything; he will also never say no, so he gets in a lot of trouble because of that, sometimes he will just fight against Sheldon using Ockham’s razor challenging him with the argument that the simplest explanation should go first instead of creating a big drama and some new weird different scientific theories which will make everything more complicated than it actually is.

Here’s a video where we see how he gets in trouble for trying to be nice helping penny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AG-uCSQg1Q

Penny, is kind of like a representation of the blonde girls stereotype, she is pretty funny and nice and sentimental but she is not really that clever, and that will be a big deal when she starts to get along with the scientific across the Hall, she won't understand at all what they are really talking about, I think penny is an hedonist, although she likes to meet new people, get along with them and just spend a day chatting with friends, she can go wild, specially at the beginning of the seasons where she was a party girl, always making parties across the hall going out to the discos, drinking and doing crazy stuff. She wants to be an actress and rich and perfect but things are not working as she thought they will work, she is also a little bit anarchist, she has sometimes a “whatever” attitude, like there are some driving rules but she doesn't care if her car has no back mirror or is not working, she doesn't believe in rules at least not at all. She is also empiricist, her knowledge is based on her life experiences, for example all her high school dramas, her life with her dad who always wanted a boy and so on, she is a nice character.

Here’s a video of how Sheldon how to teach Penny physics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEIn3T6nDAo

Howard Wolowitz is Sheldon and Leonard’s friend, he is a small skinny guy with a big ego, he is also a Jew and lives with his mother (who never appears on the series). He tries to hard to be a player and a party guy, but although he is a little bit narcissist he has a great heart. He thinks he can play the hedonist part of life but he is actually an epicurean, he enjoys small and simple things of life, like going to play x-box with his friends, or medieval board games even go to the comic book store and watch super hero movies and cartoons, he enjoys life like for example he eats meet and everything he wants, even if his religion demands not to. I think he is also a little bit like Augustine on his confessions, he will always says how smart and responsible he will be, and about his wife and his dreams, but later, when he stops having some fun and chill around, this actually comes true, he goes with NASA to the space and he got married with a friend of Penny, and that changed his life completely, from being a person who just cared about having a good life to a good and responsible husband and still care after his mother.

Here is how Howard and his mom get along with each other

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaeY8N4T7Do

Raj Koothrappali is Howard’s best friend, he is represent the foreigner stereotype, he tries to get along with USA’s culture but he can't just forget about all his costumes, he is the son of a really rich doctor in New Delhi, and he goes to California to work on the university department of astrophysics, he is the skeptical character of the series, he has a really weird psychological issue in which he can't talk to women, and he is constantly sad because he thinks nobody loves him, specially women. He is a shy person, but when he is okay with the people around him he changes to an epicurean person, specially when they discovered that having a glass of alcohol can help him forget his mental not talking to women issue. I kind of relate him to Montaigne because he thinks everyone has a good side whatever the rest says, he respects how other people express their selves, just sometimes it’s really difficult for him to understand life out of India and there’s where the skeptic comes back to stage, Raj has also the macho mentality but he is also one of my favorite characters.

Video of Raj getting through a bad time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVC5c2e4iNk

So these where the main characters of The Big Bang Theory, one of my favorite shows, it has a mix of everything I even used it for some of my school presentations and homework, I think it is really cool and funny and if you really pay attention to what they are talking about you can learn a lot of new things, about science, philosophy and ethics.

Thomas Hobbes

1588

He was born in England and he had a pretty long live, he died when he was 91, I think that was not really usual in those times. He was son of an Anglican pastor and he spent a lot of time in the Anglican aristocracy, we had really good basis on the classics and geometry but then he got into philosophy.

With the beginning of the Civil War he refuged in France where he started his major works in philosophy, he thought the anarchy was the worst thing that can happen to a society, and that the politic should have a strong government and an authoritarian regime.

One of his most remarcable works was the Leviathan, a big water monster from the Bible which he compared to the state, that it is monstruos but still protect us from the Vemot (civil war), he also believed in sovereignty, laws and justice.

He had a realistic view so he just believed in the existence of bodies which where divided in natural and social, and the last one divided into ethics and politics

He also considered the  Life of nature a big problem for the society because it comes from the stone age where the people where primitive, solitary, poor and brutal.

The laws come from agreements between people, to keep an order and stop confronting one another and he also said that the strong people can impose to the rest, so he stated that a soberan who rules a society can't fail to the society but his decitions are not questionable, and every subdits is free, there is equality and justice.

He was also really pessimistic, he compared the man to wolves, but we can defeat the anger and our problems to live with harmony.

"Fear and I were born twins together"

Blaise Pascal

He was a really smart person, his father notice his abilities since he was little and when Pascal's mother died the whole family moved to Paris and his dad himself instruct him so he had a really good education. One of the most important influences he had was from Descartes and Montaigne.

Pascal was mathematician and philosopher, he state that the reason and faith were separate things and that God's nature is beyond our ability to understand so we are not able to prove his existence.
Pascal died when he was 39 years old, he was often really sick and he was closed to die several times.

His major writing was Pensees or thoughts and one of his more remarkable theories was Pascal Wager where he stated that it is safer to believe in the existence of God in case he does exist; if you believe in him and he does exist you'll be eternally rewarded and if he doesn't, is not that bad.

He made really important contributions to Math (now a days used in gambling), in the probability theory and he created an hydraulic press

Baruch Spinoza

Spinoza was a merchant who lived in Amsterdam, his family had a firm that imported dried fruits; but the business had very poor conditions.

Spinoza was excommunicated from the people of Israel, he used to be a jew, but the reason of his excommunication are not very clear.

The causes are considered to be his radical ideas, but we can't really tell how true this is.

His great philosophical pieces were The Ethics and the Theological-Political Treatise which were pretty scandalous for the decades.

One of his most famous ideas is his conception of God, and it is very different from the traditional God, and he called it "god of nature", this god does not creates plans, commands or judgements, and he also said, "there is only nature and its power", in this point he differs with many different philosophers like Aristotle whit believed in God as an spirit, perfect and pure. He also thinks there is not such thing as nature creation, he believed that nature was always there and it will always be there and he also said there is no thing as miracles, it is al superstition.

He didn't believe in Contingency neither, all our choices and actions are part of nature just as the plants and the rocks are. And if we think that god is just like us we will live waiting for eternal reward or with fear from eternal punishment.

He believed that religion was just a meaningless and empty practice and that the only "True Religion" was "Love your fellow human beings and treat them with justice and charity" and he considered everything else as superstition just as he considered afterlife, when you are dead you are dead

Spinoza denied that the Bible had a divine origin, neither the Pentateuch or any prophetic writings, he said there where just written by humans and that they are a collection of writings composed in different times from different people so we have a "corrupted and mutilated document"

So everything he believed in we can considered it heresy, at the end he stop believing on the jewish religion and his points of view where not really accepted from other people on the society, but he considered himself innocent and he just accepted his new destiny as excommunicated.

Richard Dawkins

During his interview they talk about different important topics that usually caused some controversy within the society, for example the comparison between brains and computers it's pretty cool, I never thought about it before but I kind of agree with it, he said that in computers there's a programmer and in brains the programmer is natural selection, and it's true actually, our bodies reprogram every time we need them to.
Another thing could be that he does believe in determinism, that our bodies just like computers work and program based on existing conditions, and it's kind of like true, bodies don't change based on free will, it will sometimes just happen.
What I didn't understand at all was the device thing, he created it to record animal behavior, and to transfer it directly into the computer instead of doing all the transcription work, and it works with a software based on small different sounds that will be decoded, but how can the device actually recognize the behavior how is it build??
Then he talks about the most misunderstood aspect of human evolution, and he says that it is that people see a living being and they think that they exist from causality, but that's all wrong because they obviously don;t exist due to random circumstances, and there's where the natural selection is the best answer to solve this problem; so I think this non-random force is God, because he is the one who created all the living things on earth, and based on his work, or like the genetic code is where the changes come from.
When they talk about religion, Richard Dawkins says, although he was born in an anglican culture, and he use to believe in it too, he also said that as human beings there is a predisposition to believe or have a religion in the culture, and it is know as a psychological predisposition which is pretty normal, there's a religion found in every culture, even the ancient cultures.
At the end of the interview the talk about Darwin's theory of evolution and how important or remarkable it is, and I do agree on his conclusions, it is a simple explanation for a really complex idea or process, and it is really weird that nobody had come to it before, even thought there where a lot of pretty smart philosophers on ancient years, and we did not accept it at all until the 9th century, funny isn't it?

Averroës

According to Immanuel Kant philosophy forms part of human life since we are little children, we always ask ourselves and other about what's going on around us but that doesn't necessarily means that we will always study philosophy it is know that we are not really finding philosophy studies previous to college or outside a Catholic Church, but studies had find in Morocco that almost everyone has at least the basic knowledge of what philosophy is.

Philosophy was mainly studied in Ancient Greece but then it faded away in an era know as the "Dark Ages",until some philosophical movements where they reemerge all around the world.

During the enlightenment and the rise of modern sciences the study of philosophy mainly took place in Islamic cultures, who wanted to recovered these old traditions, making Baghdad the intellectual center during the medieval world.

Averroës who developed close ties with Almohad caliphs became an influential religious judge and physician, he devoted much of his scholarly efforts to a series of commentaries on Aristotle. The most interesting thing about Averroës was although he was a muslim he had little influence on the medieval world, his works survived only in Latin and Hebrew translations. He mixed philosophy with religion and promoted logic as key to true understanding of religion.

Points of view:
1)The world has always existed
2)Souls will survive, but will never return to the same bodies
3)intellect and soul are separate

He affirms that there should not be conflict between philosophy and faith, but he accepts not everyone should question religion as philosophy demands.

Because in great Muslim Universities was no place for philosophy because they were mainly religion Averroës ideas were't important for them, however thanks to his ideologies many universities in the western world make philosophy part of their program.

Epicurean

1) I stayed at home the whole weekend to study and practice for my calculus exam 

2) My mom goes to her room to watch some TV

3) My dad sits on the coach every evening and takes a nap

4) I play some music on the car when I drive to school (or everywhere I go)

5) My sister goes to her room to read a new book she just got

6) By brother spends his afternoon playing on his x-box

7) I call my dad on the afternoons to ask how everything is going on work

Me and my friends go to a sushi restaurant to talk about everything and anything

9) The girl went to the movies to enjoy a movie by herself

10) I went for a walk after my exam to relax 

11) My dad sits on the living room and plays cards on his computer

12) A friend bakes muffins at home 

13) My dad rides bicycle on weekends to do some sports

14) I call my best friend who’s living in Aguascalientes just to keep in touch

15) We go to Starbucks on school breaks to buy some tea or coffee

16) The woman goes with her children to the church

17) My sister takes the dog for a walk

18) My brother walks with his friends to the mall or the park

19) My sister dances ballet every afternoon

20) I watched a movie with my family every weekend

Aristotle (384-322 ac)

He was son of a doctor in Macedonian court, when he assisted to Athens academy he was disciple from Plato for 20 years until he decided to separate form Plato’s teachings saying that he was a friend of Plato but he was more friend of the truth that’s when he created his own philosophy, Aristotle was realist he believed that the concepts and ideas are present in the world, and that based on the existence of individuals and objects, our mind creates the concepts, which show our capacity of thinking on the diversity of the world, ideas are fictitious, there only exist individuals.

In 344 Filipe of Macedonia calls him and names him preceptor from his son Alexander the great,; with Alexander’s help he created the lyceum where he dedicated to the study of physics, biology, ethics, politics, etc. Then he created a big library and a zoo with money from the court.

Aristotle said that the man was a rational and politic, we are rational because we are capable to think and reflect about our actions and surprise about them, and this is considered to be the basis of philosophy, to be surprise of things and then ask ourselves about it, but we are politic because we have to live in civilizations or cities, nobody is able to live alone we have to share a language and our life with somebody else.

Aristotle also created the first classification of science; productive science, which consists on beautiful and useful objects; practical science which where mainly ethics and politics and the theory science which were about knowledge that then turned into metaphysics. 

He believed in the empirical knowledge of nature, which comes from observing and from life experiences, Aristotle is known as one of the first Scientifics he used to prove his theories based on observation and making experiments. He also said that change was really important, it was the process of being a potential to an act, for example the seed of a tree is in potential a tree, because even though it will become a tree with time or like chairs, you can have an old one, a new one, some color chairs, and in every shape but they will still be chairs.

Aristotle also created a new are of study, the ethics, everything starts on customs and personality of the individuals, and in conclusion everything is an instrument to find or achieve our goals but beyond that everyone is searching happiness. In few words ethics is the study of human action in a pursuit of happiness, and freedom but we have to develop virtues, which give us the strength to avoid weakness. We have to practice them and always pay attention to those who we considered excellent in their virtues and make from ourselves virtuous individuals.

Plato's Cave

Plato’s Cave

Plato’s story it’s about how knowledge works, if we stay on what I will say our comfort zone we won’t be able to learn anything else about what surround us we need to look beyond of what our eyes show you, we live in a big world that nowadays everything is connected, specially from country to country and people to people. If we just stay on the idea that the place where you live is the whole world for you; you’ll be just loosing time, of course it is important but there’s more that we can reach

The first video tells the story with cartoons and a narrator explains what is going on, I think it is a good video because it helps us understand the background and the main concepts, it is really specific about what the prisoner learned and how everything so interesting was, the idea is concrete and simple. 

In the second video it show us the story with images and a much younger voice, but I think it is kind of confusing because what I imagine is actually a cave and here it shows pictures of our actual world and it is kind of confusing, they just show the things, like when they say the prisoners where watching a type of screen it actually shows a TV and when it explains about the fire and the shadows it shows actually fire, just fire and I think I didn't get the whole concept of the story with this one, I know I can compare it with real life but I rather make the connection my self, because too many information of different sources kind of confuses the story and the main idea. 

The third video was the one I like the most it is like a documental and explains every point of the story, it shows the learning process of the prisoner who went out of the cave, and the different points of view about the story, how some students thought on the cave like a human brain or as the world.

I think the video I will show to explain the story will be depending on the people I want it to explain, I f I want them to get their own conclusions from nothing I will show the first video with animations but if I want them to understand more than their own conclusions I will show the third one.

Epistemology

From all the types of Philosophy we are studying in class i think Epistemology is the one i find the most interesting because it talks about how do we know things, and how do we know if it is true.

I think is the most interesting because it's what we, as human being, have always done, we learn since we appeared in the world, when is time to eat, when is time to sleep, to talk, to walk, to keep relations with other people like our parents, our siblings and our friends, in few words is what we do everyday in our lives.

Personally, I Iike learning languages and this philosophy kind of explains how does that works.

The Divine Comedy

It was a text difficult to read but I kind of got it, the chapter we had talks mainly about the visions or the rules in which your sins may be punished. It also talks about some visions about how it is and who can or can't go there, a comparison between hell and heaven or even purgatory.
The ways the sins are seen and the circles your soul may go.
Basically it's a man that talks about what he discovers and what he sees, for example there are 3 animals which represent the bad side of human behavior.

Beowulf

First it talks about evil and good, the difference between heaven and hell, specially how evil came to the world and where is it after everything happened. Then in a great kingdom there's a warrior who with his army will fight against a monster, and they're planning the attack, and saying that if destiny says is time for them to die, then is time, but a great warrior from outside came to and he will help them to win the battle. Defeating the monster was difficult because he kind of like enchanted the warrior's weapons so they can't hurt him, but at the end they won the battle and the monster was death. The next fight was against a witch and the third against a dragon, these warrior won all of them so everyone celebrated his victories

Sundiata, an epic of old Mali

The story takes place in Mali where a hunter defeats the red bull and marries one of the girls of the king, the problem is that the old woman who was the red bull ask the hunter to marry an specific girl from all of the daughters of the king, she has not beautiful at all, and the court didn't like her at all, and the problems got bigger when the first baby arrives, because he is already 7 years old and he doesn't walk yet. Other 2 children came and nobody knows what will happen, what would the king choose?
The first son, the one from the first wife or the next 3 with the ugly woman he married?

It was kind of confusing because of the names and stuff but I think it can have a good end, anyway is just the beginning.

African and Native American Trickster Folktales

Here it talks how ancient stories have been so popular around the world specially those from tricksters. African and native american stories have big similarities, they use animals as main characters and sometimes they play the same type of problems, although non of them is totally the same; each story shows the characteristic of each culture and how they used to teach each others by telling stories for example grandparents to grandchildren. In México we used to have the same kind of traditions, telling legends one to another or fables in which you always learn something. The problem now days is that the children and their parents are not longer interested in this kind of traditions or they have no time or we are just in a different century where these traditions are staying as old traditions

Popol Vuh

As I read I discovered that the book was about stories come of them like the genesis in our bible, stories that explain how the world was created and how they explained some mysteries on earth. Stories about the mountains and the animals, how some of the"gods" we can say created those things and how they used to fight against each other until someone wins.
It is a book from a mayan culture, but actually we can't consider it to be a bible or spiritual scrips they're just stories, or legends they used to tell to explain everything around them.
The one I liked the most was on the first chapter because it was the creation of the world, how the gods by just mentioning the name of the things made it possible to exist the difference is that the story is to short and they don;t talk really much about the flood like on the bible and that they were different types of men before the ones we know.

The Paulownia Court

In this chapter of the story, there's and emperor who loves a lady very much, the problem is that she is very sick, she is barely at the court and the other ladies kind of hate her and her son. One day the lady got very ill and died leaving behind the emperor, her mother and her son who lived at his grandmother's house until the emperor ask for him to go back.
The boy was the favorite of the emperor so he was sent to school and they took really good care of him; but there was another lady, the first on the emperor's life who was jealous of the boy because she didn't want him to take the throne instead of his son, but the boy was still very young.
I think it's the typical story of everyone being jealous of everyone and it gets pretty messy until somebody realizes the one they hate is not that bad and they are friends at the end. Anyway, it's just the first chapter, who know :)

Tao Teh Ching

I did a little research and the title means something like the road to virtue. What I've read it's mainly spiritual stuff like if you avoid can make better lives and things that things that if you really do can make a big change in it. How opposites complement each other  like difficult and easy or music and voice, and how sometimes it's better to stay in the middle of both, it's never good to go to extremes, not to much and not few. It explains that heaven and earth are forever because they do not exist for themselves and how the virtues or in this case the mystic virtues take you to better lives. I actually agree to this ideas but it's also too spiritual, I prefer objective and clear things but that's my point of view.

"The Story of Santanu and Ganga"

In the Indian culture there's kind of like a book Mahabharata with some traditional stories based on the Indian mythology, with the video and the story, I realized that as the romans and greeks they made stories about their gods and believes. From this story which is better explained than on the video I kind of like understood the most of it but it's still complicated. The fact that the king (dad) was a man of word and kept his promise, then the girl married the son of the king under the agreement he'll never question her decisions but after so much suffering loosing his 7 children he stopped her, and realized there was a curse threatening them, but as he broke the agreement the girl had to leave him with the 8th child who still had the curse.

I actually understood that the curse was because one of the ancestors stole the sacred cow of a god and gave it to one of his girls to keep someone away from suffering and sickness. I really didn't like the story at all but i's okay, it's a good story just not my type; however, I really like Indian culture and I will love to have the chance to go and appreciate it and live it personally.

The Koran

The Koran it's really different to our bible, it talks about it's religion as the only one and the rest are non believers who one day will understand the mistake they're making, it's also about avoiding the terrenal desires and it's mainly spiritual, but I noticed that some characters also appear on the bible like Noah and that there's a punishment for those who do wrong and a heaven or heavens for those who do the good on their life. I think I can't understand it very well because my beliefs are different to theirs and I've grown with them, but the beliefs in the Koran are also really strong and I admire their devotion

Olympic Games

This tradition began on Greece and nowadays it's a worldwide event where a place is chose and people from around 200 nations meet and compete for being the best of the world on their sport, but it is more that that, it's an event of union where it does't matter where are you from we are just one world.

Zodiac Signs

Astrology and Astronomy, both sciences brought by the greek. The zodiac is a circle that shows the celestial coordinate system, it has 12 divisions which are called signs. The name of the signs have mythological names like: Aries, Cancer, Leo...
Every day in the magazines or internet people read their sign and the prediction of their future based on the stars and this signs.

Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief

Fantasy fil, directed Chris Columbus.
Based on The Percy Jackson & The Olympians novel (Rick Riordan).
Plot: The lightning Bolt was stollen, and Zeus accuses Poseidon's Son Percy Jackson and gives him 2 weeks to return it or it will be a war between gods. Meanwhile Percy a "normal" teenager is living his life on earth when he discovers the truth of who he really is, he decided to travel in this quest and retunr the lightning bolt.

Catedral de San Miguel Arcángel

Baroque and neoclassic style. Culiacan's Cathedral was built between 1842 and 1885 by initiative of Lázaro de la Garza Ballesteros, Bishop of Sonora and Sinaloa.

The Cathedral has a characteristic color pink and quarry walls, the main entrance has an arch, the pillars of the church show a Greco-Roman style.

Congress of Deputies

Neoclassic style, designed bye Narciso Pascual and Colomer.

Built in 1843 in Madrid Spain.

Mainly based on the Partheon in Athenes

The Trojan Woman

The power of a woman, with a single act she can start a war.

Helen is trying to defend her actions to her Husband, blaming the gods of her mistakes of falling in love with the Trojan prince and escaping with him. And Hecuba the prince's mother can accept her words and the whole group want her death.
I think this minutes of video where really impressive, that a war can started because of a selfish woman.
Then the king who can't take Helen's life away and Hecuba who will defend her son and her people from injustice.
Both speeches where really cool, fixes the story and blamed everybody but herself and then Hecuba, showed everybody every lie and every mistake Helen told.
And now Helen is gone, she will pay for all of those who lost their life because of her. Hard to say, but true, she just wanted luxury no matter what.

Beetle Dream (Part II)

So I started walking in the direction my dreams showed me, once again the sand and my dreams.
I followed the map which took me to a lonely place with nothing but sand. I was so tired of the same; after all I’ve been walking down the sun for weeks watching sand and nothing else! This is it, I told to my self and I threw the map away, and I started walking, but the map stop moving and came back to me, when I tried to pick it up it started moving again, like it was showing me a path, something weird was happening, so I followed it. The map took me to a secret cave and stopped next to a big rock with a message on it, I didn't understand it al all, it was in an ancient language I didn't recognize and now what? Now without wind there was no way the map could escape again, when I bend down to pick it up I saw something shining in a hole next to the rock, I got closer and I saw a little beetle, made up with gold and shiny jewels, it looked similar to the beetle of my dreams so I tried to pick it up too, when I touched it I heard a really loud noise, like some rocks when breaking, when I tried to escape the rocks closed the way out of the cave, there was no other way out and I couldn’t see a thing, until I heard something moving, the rock with the scripts opened and I heard a wing’s noise like the one in my dreams, so I decided to get in. Inside the tunnel there was a low orange light coming out from torches on the walls, so I started walking, I followed the wing’s noise for a long stretch until I got to a small room, the light was similar to the purple one of my dreams, the walls had scripts just like the ones on the rock, right in the center of the room I saw a box, the weirdest thing was that the box had actually my grandpa’s last name carved on it. Was that actually possible? And I opened it.
-And what happened grandpa? Asked the boy.
Well I woke up, and found a box next to my bed, just like the one of my dreams, and when I opened it, there was a wonderful necklace, you know, the one grandma’s wearing right now.

Beetle Dream

From the few dreams a still remember, there’s one in special, which I am not sure if it was actually real or just a fantasy running through my thoughts. It was a windy night, in the middle of the dessert, I saw myself walking beside the waters of the Nile. It was a warm summer night, the moonlight next to me.
When I decided to turn around and go back home, I heard a noise, it sounded like a cricket, or was it a wild animal? It seemed to be wing’s noise, or maybe something hiding from his predator… pretty normal I guess. I started walking. The noise came back, harder and harder, so I run, as fast as I could but the wings were closer and closer when I heard a voice telling me “I’ve been watching you, I know the type of man you are and I have a mission for you” I actually didn't believe it, not at all, and that night everything begun…
First everything was black, when I saw I light, not any light, it was a really shiny purple light, something wrong was happening to me, but when I tried to wake up, something took me back to the light. I started hearing some more noises, just as the one I heard earlier the same day, when I realized it came from a beetle, A huge black beetle, like in the stories my dad used to tell me about their pharaohs.
I started to run but the insect was smarter, and I have to say, it was even faster than me, like he could read my thoughts and be warned of my options to escape, then he talked to me, just like before, he told me something will happen, he needs to go back to the Nile and find a magic box with a necklace in it, it was green color, shiny green and full of gold, that supposedly it belonged to an old ancestor of his.
I couldn’t believe it! It was a dream or something is wrong with my head for sure! But this beetle message never disappeared, I started to hear about it every day, every chance I could, and for a week, night after night; there’s when I started thinking about it, what if I look after this family treasure?
The 10th night when the beetle appeared I asked him for help, I needed to get a map from him, or directions but I needed to prove if my beliefs were wrong. So I tried, and it actually worked, I got both, a map a really old map which appeared next to my bed the next morning.
Here is how I accept the mission, how difficult could it be to find something an old man hide from others not to find it and keep it for the eternity. I woke up the next day, I picked up some clothes and packed some food, I will go exploring even if I have to get to the pyramids!
As difficult as it got, the less I wanted to continue it was a silly idea I don't even know what will it happen if I find the necklace.
I walked the whole day and I was tired of keep going under the sun, I just needed some sleep, food and water, suddenly I found a place to stay the night, near an oasis where a met I really nice man who was exploring the zone, at the beginning I wasn't really sure of talking about the necklace, he may think I am just dreaming awake or lying.
But after a couple of hour talking he told me about one of his trips to North Africa where he heard a story about an ancient family, their bodies remain in a pyramid and of course all their jewels and valuable stuff but the legend says that this man gave his wife a magnificent necklace as a present which only she was able to use. After she died the man kept the necklace on a secret place and protect it with a magic spell in which only the descendent of the family will be able to find the treasure and prove their right to the throne. I was really amazed about the story but could it be truth?
When I told him I had a dream similar to his story he said it could not be a simple coincidence, that the spirits of the desert where trying to communicate me a message and that the Beetle was used as a symbol for this family during their years on the throne.
That day I had a dream, the beetle came back with a landscape behind him where this old family used to live, also some of the scenes the explorer describe for me, like when the wife died and the man took care of a great funeral and when he took her most valuable jewels specially the necklace and hid them, also when he found a magician to put a spell on the necklace before hiding it from the rest of the world.
So I had nothing to loose if I find it maybe it really means something; is it possible for me to be part of a royal family? Or is it just a story, after all, that could mean the dreams may stop and I can keep living a normal life as always.
To be continue...

Flood Stories

WHAT ARE IMPORTANT SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE STORIES?
FLOOD STORIES
▪From the 4 stories we read the similarities are that in every story there's a flood to end up with life in earth because every culture's gods were angry and disappointed of human's behavior, another element is the arch or a boat in which special people got in and saved their life from the flood, they also took their families with and in the most cases animals to keep life on earth, and of course that they used birds to figure out if the water is gone and they can get out of their boats, mostly of them landed on the top of a big mountain and of course all of them were rewarded.

WHAT ARE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE STORIES?
▪Although the stories talk about floods, saving life by staying on a boat, there are also some difference between each story, for example the time they stayed on their boats or the time it actually rained are in some stories longer than in others, that not all of them built their own boat, also that in one story were no animals inside the boat; another thing may be that in the greek's myth not everybody is death as in the rest of the stories.

WHAT ARE THE GODS LIKE IN THE DIFFERENT STORIES?
▪As every myth comes from a different culture the gods are different, in the first story one of them wasn't happy that somebody survived the flood, but in the second one God helped Noah and blessed him after everything had happened, on the greek's story there were also many gods, and on the third one one of the gods reincarnate on a fish who warned the man about the flood.

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCES OF ANIMALS IN THE STORIES?
▪The animals are important in each of the stories because without them life in earth wouldn't be possible at all, they are also living organisms who share the environment with us, they give us food to survive, their skin to protect us from cold weather and the circle of life to keep going. They represent life, and without each other we can't survive.

WHAT WAS DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE STORIES?
▪I guess that some words where really difficult to understood and as we grew up in another culture we don't have the whole background to understand what's really going on, for example a did understand the whole Noah and the Ark story because i knew it since i was a little girl.

WHY DO UTNAPISHTIM, NOAH, DEUCALION AND MANU DESERVED TO SURVIVE WHEN OTHER PEOPLE WILL DIE IN THE FLOODS?
▪I thing Utnapishtim, Noah, Deucalion, and Manu survived because the gods found good in them, they showed it with their good actions like helping the others, being honest and obedient while the rest of the people were doing what they wanted whenever they wanted and they didn't even care at all if what they were doing was right or not.