Monday, April 07, 2008

akoze ja som tu 7 mesiacov nic nenapisala...hm...asi to bude tym, ze som sla do Ba a tam nemam az taky pristup k netu...zatial...ale pravdu povediac zrejme som viac leniva...

ale tak som sa rozhodla ze nateraz tu zverejnim len jednu essay co som prave dopisala...na predmet Theory Of Knowledge...zneje to komplikovane aj je...ale v pohode predmet...daco jak filozofia, psychologia atd...dokopy...

we will always learn more about human life and human personality from novels then from scientific psychology... ‘ Noam Chomsky

It is true that books have always been the silent tellers of human destinies and thoughts. They have been witnesses of human thoughts, leaving one mind, and entering million others, for centuries.

Going through the bookshelves in a store and seeing all the different books, hundreds of them, millions, I always wonder...What do they all write about? Why are there so many different books? Will there never be a book about everything? The only answer to this is, that there are so many different human lives, so much of different human experience...that no, there will never be enough books to tell all human stories. Every human life is unique; every experience in a human life is unique. Even if two humans experience the same, still they experience something different, because they themselves are different from each other.

Who are the writers? Usually people, who have the need to express something, pass something on. Either to share their experience or just write down, their ideas, their imaginations, made up or real worlds, invented or real characters. Even if they are invented, they are real...in the authors head. All thoughts from his head are real, they exist, and they persist to exist in books.

However, to what extent can one write down this ideas on paper? How much do these ideas change before they get from the brain, through the nerves into the hand holding a pen onto the paper? It may be only a few milliseconds for a human being, but it is a long time for the brain. Long enough for it to think about the thought, long enough for it to change the thought into something more acceptable, understandable. What are thoughts and how do they transform into words? Why do they do so? Why is communication through language the pinnacle of communication?

At the moment I am trying to formulate the ideas of mine in a way that can make the reader to understand. Which makes me think, is there any other way of communicating my ideas? No matter how hard I try, I always write down things in a way for others to understand, but I am slightly aware that I evaluate what I write down, before I write it down, and that my original thoughts are not always what end up on the paper. Does that mean that I am dishonest? Is it even possible to write in a stream of consciousness style? Why is it so natural for us not to express immediate thoughts into language? Sometimes we are incapable to express our selves through language. What are the alternatives? In addition, if there are some can we express ourselves fully through them? Can one express more through art, music or other forms of art? (Music expresses that which cannot be said on which it is impossible to be silent’ Viktor Hugo)

I would think that novels are a very good way of how to get an insight into the depths of an unclear human sole, which one could not normally get. Only how much can books actually tell us? They tell us only what the author wants to tell us, or thinks he is telling us. Secondly, they tell us only as much as we find in them. Our opinions change, and reading the same book lets say, 5 years later, can be a whole new experience, the reason is we look at things differently...Are novels always credible? If not they are not very accurate...and again, to what extent does the written represent the truth?

Scientific psychology, on the other hand...is more distant for most of us. I am sure it can explain some aspects of human nature with greater accuracy then novels do, but novels are here for everyone whilst science only for the scientists. Therefore, anyone can read novels, but only the ’chosen ones’ have full access to scientific truths. That does not explain if books or science are more accurate, but it shows upon which is more accessible and understandable for the majority of us, which makes it in a way the more accurate one.

Also imagine the number of books written throughout the human existence, millions...and how much scientific research about human psychology has there been? It is one of the youngest sciences. In books, we can see many different viewpoints, opinions, experiences...through science, only the one scientific viewpoint with a conclusion, or no conclusion at all. In addition, I think that human psychology is to complex and complicated to be classified into a scientific truth, fact or to be generalized.

It is also good and important to have a look at the author of the statement, to discover more about its origin, and from that further one can try to evaluate why this statement could be true? If we try to look at it from the authors perspective, we understand why he said what he said better, and this will make us either agree or disagree with it more straightforwardly.

Noam Chomsky is a prominent linguist; he studies the origin, use, symbolic meaning, and decline of languages and words. From his point of view, he can probably see a lot more than an average person from novels and written works. He observes the state of mind of an author, characters created, etc. simply from the choice of words used. However, the statement could also mean that we (the laypeople of the world) determine the meaning of the world around us not by scientific works, but by the popular media. For example if the theory that the world was flat was presented to us in a convincing and catchy kind of way, we may accept if for a fact and base our behaviour on the misconception.

I think Chomsky as a linguist had a bigger interest for books than a regular person, and investigated the hidden meanings of words in novels more then a normal reader would. That is why I also think that as he was immersed in his job, he really could discover more in novels than we do. Does that mean that novels are really what he claims them to be?

What about the scientific point of view? If psychology did not exist today, we would still claim many psychical disorders for something else. We would think of many people as crazy, when really they only suffer from a simple, curable psychological disorder.

My personal opinion is that science is able to be more accurate. It is because science is not words but research. Only there are millions of novels and only few scientific publications about the secrets of human personality, therefore we can find out more from novels.

However, after comparing science and novels, with regard to what extent the reveal human psychology and behaviour...I still think Life is the only thing that tells us the most. Books can be useful messengers, science can be a useful clarifier but only life itself is the best teacher.



gratulujem ak ste sa dostali az sem...ja osobne by som to nedocitala...:)