right and wrong?

we have always been told to be honest in whatever we say. we have always been told that"honesty is the best policy". but is that really true? sometimes i see people achieving what they want using dishonesty. they achieve success faster than a person who uses honesty..i sometimes ask myself would i deceive my friend into believing her painting is good even though it isint?..so, all these moral rules we learn maybe right as a rule but they can be harsh when they are applied sometimes.
morals and ethics can never be distinguished as right and wrong.one can not say whether honesty is a good thing or bad. it differs from person to person. a robber can deceive someone into believing he is some one he is not and rob all the money. he used deception and dishonesty to get what he wanted. there is nothing wrong in this. he made a conscious effort to achieve it. the only reason people think it is wrong is because they compare themselves to the robber. they make themselves believe that they would never steal. they would use better ways to get the money they want. so at the moment, when they hear about the theft they will immediately call the police and get the thief arrested for his wrong doing. but maybe later when they really need the money and they have no option other than robbery, they might steal it.
hence no one can say what is right and what is wrong. it all depends on what you believe. if i believe stealing is wrong, i must stick to that and no stop any one else fro doing what they think is right.

who is responsible?the environment or the genes?

scientists have argued that both, the genes and environment have an influence of the physical and psychological characteristics of a person. john locke said that each individual was born as a blank slate(tabula rasa) and some believe that it is our genes that it is all written in our genes. and some believe that both the factors play a role. in psychology there have been many researches done on the causes of schizophrenia. some say it is due the family heredity, some say it is due to problems in the neurotransmitters and some say it develops due a stressful life. it has been very hard to establish a relation between the disorder and its cause.
i think that our genes form a basis to what we can learn from the environment. it predisposes us with the abilities to learn and observe things from the environment. the environment helps us enhance these abilities. it gives us a platform to show what our genes have predisposed in us. for example, if someone has the genes of her mother who was extremely pretty, then she can become a model and learn from others. so here she is using her heredity to gain somethings from the environment. another example can be that is someone has the gene for being very aggressive, he or she will show a lot of aggressive behavior and will learn to be violent from his surroundings.
this topic is still very debatable. scientists are still trying to figure out what exactly is responsible for our individuality.

unconditional positive regard

why is unconditional love or positive regard so beneficial to a person?why is it so important to be wanted or to be loved?for example, in psychology it is believe by some researchers that it is important to show unconditional positive regard to a person going through a mental disorder. does this make the person feel important and cared for?for me, this unconditional positive regard helps me unconsciously develop my identity. when anyone praises you, you feel a sense of pride. and this adds a new tag to your existing identity. for example, if you saved a person from a fatal accident on the road, and you were praised for your bravery, it can make you think that you are a brave person. therefore, you are adding the tag of bravery to your identity.people who have mental disorders, feel good when their family and friends show unconditional love towards them because it helps develop their identity. it shows them that they are more than what they think they are. it develops their sense of their identity. and when this happens they tend to feel better as it makes them feel more like a "normal" person rather than a patient and the psychiatric institution. it makes them feel like they are part of the outer world rather than the world that is created for them. even when you see a poor boy playing an instrument on the road for money, if you praise him for his music, he will feel good and this adds the tag of a musician to his identity. so, this basically helps develop his identity and his self confidence.

memories...

memories of certain sounds,smell, events, words, certain times and days evoke a feeling of wanting to go back in time and experience it all again.but we also have painful memories of someone dying or events that made you extremely sad. but,how often in our wanting to preserve the past do we make more out of the past than is necessary? I believe sometimes we enhance the past to make the present more tolerable…that maybe things in the present are not as we would like them to be, so remembering the past and the familiar things associated with the past brings us some kind of comfort. when one is stuck in the past and cling on to in such a way that it inhibits the growth of the present and hence the future, then there is a high price for memories. the past can paralyze you present and stop you from moving further.for example, my friend once went for a summer camp during her school break. the next school break when her parents asked her if she wanted to go she said no because she had bad memories of the camp and she dint like it at all. hence, at the present she is stopping her self from going due to the bad memories she had at the camp. so, it is in some way stopping her from doing something.
from this example i am not saying that memories are bad. memories can be great when we dont cling onto the past. fro example, i remember my grandmother so well. she used to be a great cook and i learned a lot from her. she taught me how to be responsible as a kid, she taught me how to believe in myself and i loved her a lot. she is a role model for me. so my memories of the things my grandmother taught in the past have enhanced my present and will enhance my future too.
therefore, i have learned to move away from the past and move on from the present into the future.

once during a family event back home some people were having a small discussion.one of our family friends made the statment“The goal is the same, but the paths we take are different.” she is a principal of a school. Once a student in her school started smoking and made it a habit. So, she called the school counselor to help him get rid of the habit. After a while he did finally stop smoking. Also, after the counseling sessions he converted himself into a Christian. So, when she called him one day, he told her that she should believe in Jesus. So, she said” to you it maybe Jesus, but for me it is Lord Ganesha. God is the same for all , but we believe in him differently.”
so is it true that we have similar goals?We all have different approaches to reach the same goal. I think all individuals ultimately want to feel peace and wholesomeness within themselves.they want to feel happy. happiness is nothing but and ideal state in which the person desires to be in.for example, a beggar begs for his desire of fulfilling his hunger. and by doing so he does reach some point of peace and happiness.A rich man earns a lot of money in order to be happy at the end. so, one reaches this state by trying to fulfill different desires.we all try to reach this state as far as possible Since, this is so subjective we have different ways of achieving our goals. The difference in approach comes when we see and understand reality the way we want to see it and work towards that goal according to our understanding.

generalisation!.

for my first project week i went to Ahmedabad to work with an organisation called Himmat.we did not work there but went to a place called Ekta nagar where all the muslim victims of the Gujurat riots lived. for the first few days i did a small research with two of my friends. we were told about how the Hindus attacked and how they killed innocent muslims.
after i got back from this project week i realized how people generalize things based on one event. this applies for terrorists. just because the terrorists are known to be muslims, people generalize that all muslims are bad and are terrorists based on some incidents. it's like an easy way out to address people.
i read this quote from The Forgotten Half of Change by Luc de Brabandere,which stated
“Every prejudice is like a pair of spectacles with deforming lenses or like directional loudspeakers. They make us shortsighted or hard of hearing.”
so forming prejudices is like wearing blinders. it makes you short sighted and does not let you look beyond.
i think one should be open minded and should accept things that come in thier way without forming any prejudices. people formed a preconceived notion about the muslims. this might prevent their interaction with them. and one forms these notions based on generalizations made by people earlier. hence, before generalizing or forming prejudices we must look into the situation and then form an opinion.

.....

“Philosophy is a study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently”....this quote made me think a lot about how studying philosophy has modified or changed so many of my beliefs. one of these them is the belief in God
before coming to MUWCI i some what did believe in the existence of God. but after my first year i no longer believed in God. i realized this recently when there was a religious ritual happening at home. when i was taking part in the ritual i did not take part with the same spirit as i would have taken part before..i questioned the methods of worship. i asked questioned the existence of God. and later i figured that all this while i just believed in God because my parents did.
after coming back to MUWCI i was having a discussion about this with a friend. she said that she believed there was some kind of force. and then i thought about what she said. after a lot of thought i came to conclusion that we all have this force within us. there is no supreme power controlling us. these individual forces guide us and keep us going. for example, i once got up and some how got a feeling that a family member was dead. and later my brother comes and gives me the news that my uncle passed away. this was purely on the basis of intuition. how was this possible? this subject still seems ambiguous to me..i believe individual forces or you can call it essence exists.

language!!

does language shape reality or is it merely a way of communication?
what is reality?..It is nothing but the way things actually exist. Our own perceptions of the surrounding is reality according to us. For example when I look around this room I see the television, the paintings and the table. According to me the paintings are beautiful, but maybe according to you the paintings are ugly. So, the way I look at my surroundings is my own judgment of it. This is the way I perceive the reality around me. Unless I knew language how would I know the term “beautiful” and hence I cannot pass a judgment of my own. Edward Sapir said even though we live in the objective world we all have use language as a medium of expression. Also, unconsciously the “real world” is built upon the language we use. According to him it is an illusion to imagine how one can adjust to reality without us
Language is just a medium of communication. We may formulate in our minds but ultimately we are using language to express our thoughts which is communication. How does communication work? When one says something the other person hears it, dissects the sentence in his or her mind and then acts accordingly. For example, if I am talking to you at this moment, you may not realize it but in your mind each sentence is broken down and understood. When I says this is a table. You can understand it because you visualize a table in your mind.
Therefore I believe that we are like painters who shape reality based language and our mind is the medium and canvas on which reality takes shape. and we portray this painting by showing it to others. in other words communicating with others.

identity status and psychological well being

this topic relates to my EE topic in psych which talks about the psychological factors that cause juvenile crime. so while researching i came across 3 with this interesting thing. it was said that if teenagers report a greater similarity between their ideal self( what they hoped to become) and their real self are less likely to commit a crime. whereas teenagers who lack this similarity are said to be stuck in a foreclosure and are more likely to commit a crime.

what does this similarity between the ideal self and the real self do to our psychological well being?..when our ideal self agrees with our real self we tend to have a higher self esteem. for example, if my ideal self wants to be a doctor and my real self is working towards becoming one and is doing well.then i can be more confident. whereas if my ideal self wants to be a doctor and my real self is doing extremely bad in biology at college level, then my confidence level can drop.

but does this difference in the self show the instability in ones identity? am i two different people while wanting to be a doctor and doing badly in biology?if that is so then ones identity is constantly reformulating. it exists differently in different situations.
well..i completely disagree. i believe that our identity exists the way we want it to exist. it takes shape on the basis of what we believe. if the teenager believed that he or she is a doctor then he is. if he believes he should commit a crime then he can be known as a juvenile delinquent. .

I think, therefore I see

once when i went home i had the usual talk with my mom. it was regarding work and like at MUWCI in general. she said" you are the one who decides what happens in your life. you choose things that are best for you, you see what i best for you and you hear what is best for you. so if you believe you can do well you will."..this went on forever...
anyway..after the talk i was wondering if i choose everything i see, what is the reason behind that choice. do my thoughts make me choose or does my choice make me think.
i believe that we think therefore we see.. our mind operates in a certain way. We develop patterns of thought that shape what we see or perceive and thus what we think, as well as how we will choose to think about new information that comes our way.we hold on to the pattern of thinking. when we see different things in our life our mind fills in the gaps between our experiences following the same chain of thought. it connects our thoughts and experiences in such way as to keep them as consistent and uniform as possible with what we already thought.
hence we see what we want. we develop beliefs that are consistent with what is already in our mind.anything that does not connect goes unnoticed.
hence, we think and then see.

To understand something you need to rely on your own experience and culture. Does this mean that it is impossible to have objective knowledge?

“What is the colour of an apple?” I was once asked this question in class .To me the answer seemed rather obvious. But suddenly a student who lived in New Zealand stood up and shouted “green.” I had never seen a green apple before; to me, an apple had always been red. This was a fact for me – an apple was red in colour. For most people in that classroom, the apple was red; this is almost an “objective fact.” But that class had demonstrated how experiences and cultures had diluted such an “objective fact.”
A person’s background has a large influence in the manner in which one gains knowledge. This influence is most obvious in the way people perceive the world. Culture and religion are integral factors that define how a person views the world around and therefore how he or she understands the world. Take the example of a cow. For me, as a Hindu, the cow is not just an animal but a sacred identity. In India, the cow is considered the “mother” of all animals. Compare this view with that of a friend of mine from Britain, where the cow is valued purely for its dairy products and meat – it is just a source of food. An Indian would never think of killing a cow, let alone eating it. For both of us, the cow is an animal with four legs and two ears, in other words it is physically exactly the same. However the ‘concept’ of the animal differs considerably. Likewise knowledge can be gained by people in similar ways, that is through our senses but the way we perceive the knowledge we gain is significantly influenced by our experiences and cultures
When considering the argument of whether ‘objective knowledge’ truly exists, recall the example of the apple,(“What is the colour of an apple?”) I gained the knowledge that an apple was red in colour through acquaintance with this fact. I had eaten red apples, drawn pictures of apples using red colours, and most importantly everyone around me agreed that an apple was red only red in colour. However when my friend from New Zealand answered that an apple was also green in colour, the objective knowledge I possessed was challenged. His experience had shown him that apples could also be green in colour. What seemed to be an objective fact for me was no more completely true, once again showing that reliance on one’s own experiences and culture may not distort the integrity of knowledge
. Hence I believe that although relying on one’s culture and experience is necessary in perceiving and understanding knowledge that one gains, such reliance does not assure the knower that the knowledge he or she gathers is complete or objective in nature.

identity?

One day back in Bombay, some of my friends got some awesome hair styles. They all seem very excited about it and they flaunted their hair everywhere they went. The one thing I noticed after their change in hair style is that they started appreciating themselves more. They seemed so confident. It was almost like they were new people all together. It seemed as though their new hair cuts gave them a new identity. So I asked myself do make overs change the person’s identity? Is the body the only significant part of one’s identity?

I do agree that our body is a factor that defines us, but it is not the only factor. I believe that each individual has this essence (consciousness) or inner belief that makes them who they are. In other words our mind and soul is the other factor that defines us. For example, two twins might look exactly alike. Does that mean they are the same person? What makes them different? Their thoughts and beliefs make them different. Each one of them have an individual essence. Like, if you ask them what their opinions on a certain issue are, they might have completely different views. And it is this difference in perspective that makes each of them unique. Our body just enhances our identity. It makes us a complete person. it gives our thoughts and beliefs an outer structure.

well, these are my views on identity. haircuts and make overs just makes you feel good about yourself and hence you think you are completely new person. ..so much for now!