Rational Thoughts on Philosophy:
The root cause of wrongdoing is ignorance, and we must therefore hold fast to the tools of perception and knowledge. Good character must be taught. Light must be spread afar, so that, in the school of humanity, all may acquire the heavenly characteristics of the spirit, and see for themselves beyond any doubt that there is no fiercer hell, no more fiery abyss, than to possess a character that is evil and unsound; no more darksome pit nor loathsome torment than to show forth qualities which deserve to be condemned.
The individual must be educated to such a high degree that he would rather have his throat cut than tell a lie, and would think it easier to be slashed with a sword or pierced with a spear than to utter calumny or be carried away by wrath.

Considering the paraphrased quote: “A Baha’i child is able to learn in a few days what normal people take a year to learn.” This opens up many doors for contemplation.
Firstly, I think this relates to some extent to the idea of one = all. This is the concept of an idea which a person has which leads to a much larger picture. This is done through the process of making analogies to “the bigger picture” and understanding this bigger idea very well. Baha’I are taught to meditate, through meditation, they can sit back and think on a topic from a distance, and are not absolutely involved in it. One who lives one’s life without meditation cannot possibly create a “summary” of their day, and glance upon it and reflect. In a sense, this can be seen as looking upon the bigger picture through a narrow window and understanding the world outside almost completely. Perhaps, pushing this concept to a limit, it also relates to the “turning point” when people gain inspiration,(or believe that they do) This is what makes meditation so important. Relating back to the original topic, the Baha’i child is different from the non-Baha’I child in one more significant aspect, they develop moral principles and strive to have very noble standards of life, perhaps these virtues and moral principles give an insight into life, and knowledge in general. Perhaps it gives a view into the “aether” that surrounds us and unifies the universe. If so, and this “aether” is indeed created by virtues, then love, the chief of all virtues must be the most important, and is the element which creates this aether.

Plato says that justice is an extremely important virtue, since it moderates the other virtues very strongly. But perhaps there is no need to moderate good virtues and there is no limit to good. Usually we relate to things on a dichotomatic scale where there is an excess on both sides and it is exponential increase. But this concept seems to show that you can only have an extreme of one side, the good one, and the extreme of the opposite in fact odes not exist.

It is interesting how many universities say that psychology can be considered an art.

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Chopin symphony as a variation of wave pressure." -- Albert Einstein


Freedom, is it necessarily good to understand the truth? We are always striving for it. This basic principle allows me to identify a concept where we should hardly ever judge anyone or an idea since we do not know anything about it. It is best to stay neutral.

Logic
Logical thinking, and logic itself is considered inhumane and cruel. Therefore, people tend to lean towards things which are illogical. The opposite of illogicality is probably spontaneity. People tend to dislike logic in solving problems. Especially day to day events. Therefore, we are extremely attracted to things when people spontaneously say something.
What I have seen is in movies: Characters start talking and one person then says stop talking, and a romantic scene develops. Why is verbosity unattractive? In this sense, speaking and creating explanations are all forms of logic, rather, emotion dominates and makes people very interested in everything that is done.

A lot of logical reasoning directly comes to prove Baha’i concepts, for example empathy is required for us to save the planet and care for each other. People are hard-wired to be affectionate and social rather than violent and self-indulgent.
Empathy allows us to perceive other’s suffering. Therefore in a world of no suffering it is impossible to empathic?

A common misconception which is made, is to make dichotomies of everything. It is also extremely possible for a solution to be more slanted to one side.
This relates to axioms.

ON the other hand one of the most important ways of obtaining knowledge is to make analogies. To make small examples of a big thing to be able to understand the big thing more fully.
Important methods of obtaining knowledge:

-Analogical interpretation
-Connecting information and identifying the relationship
-Finding new knowledge.

Moral Reasoning:
Categorical Reasoning:
The act is intrinsically wrong.
Consequential Reasoning:
The consequence is wrong or right.
Wider effects matter
If something is categorical? Is it because the person has rights? Where do the rights come from, they come from wider effects.
These questions are important everyday events and involve our everyday lives, therefore they keep on recurring even after philosophers considered them and couldn't answer them for many cneturies.


Is it possible to create small “Lines and Junctions” for everything in nature. (Excluding humans for now as it is almost impossible to predict humans) Minute axiomatic rules between the relationship of everything in nature so as to be able to predict the larger picture. If this were the case, a mathematical “formula” ( a very complicated one) could be produced to outline every possible thing in the universe.

Philosophy itself could be thought of as an axiom of logic. If these axioms of different subjects could be related…

Everything has an opposite. But no exact opposite.

Ignorance is bliss
Does knowing the truth make it better. It is true that ignorance is bliss, but this lifestyle is not necessarily the best.

The difference between older classical music which has lasted through the ages and pop music is not as I thought it, a difference of skill. There are many capable people in the modern world. People do not change, it would be illogical if that were so, instead, the culture changes. This means that since pop culture stresses entertainment, music where artists have a pragmatic view and try to attract attention is entertainment based. Therefore, there is less value.

It is obvious that there is a relationship between value and how long a work lasts. But this is not necessarily true, since good art could last a long time, or none at all.

Do females think less deeply than males?
Biologically?
This should be false, but from what I have observed it seems to be so. I think it is society that has caused this change in thinking.
Shun Yang gave me many views of this, his main explanation was that males think about existential questions whilst females do housework and other things instead. These are their different methods of releasing stress.

In a similar way society seems to have a larger effect than I expected. This plays with Baha’I principles where Baha’I principles are the foundations in our lives. If we analyze them we can find them.
Intelligence is perhaps also seen by society. Art is the same. There is no limit, this concept introduces a plethora of possibilities.
The idea that Baha’i concepts and principles are innate derives from the concept of analogies. This is another very important view. Everything has patterns and certain analogies which can link to something else. For example, in this case it is that a child is born Noble, therefore, concepts can be analyzed and found that people are innately noble too, and not only  nobility but other principles exist in humans. By analyzing nature we should be able to understand everything on earth, since nature on earth is limited to earth’s boundaries, on a broader scale, by analyzing physical realms, we can understand every possible concept and idea and pattern. The only problem is that we do not understand the abstract concepts required to find these links and formulate a pattern.

Over time some forms of art are found to
IN order to answer this question, we must consider the following:
I learnt of an interesting psychological condition, where people are generally mistaken because we always think from our own perspective. For example, why do we sneeze when we have a cold, is the answer: because the body is trying to release the toxins fromt he bacteria?
This is the misunderstood answer, but in fact this is the bacteria's way of transferring itself to a different person, in this way it can spread it self and become evolutionarily more stable.
Instead of looking at things from our own perspective, it is sometimes betetr to change perspective.
I learnt in geography, that hazards consist of two circles, the circle of the hazard itself, and the circle of the vulnerable population, only when these circles overlap do they create a hazardous situation.
In the same way, some art is famous for a period of time then quickly disapperas, whilst other art is famous for much longer periods of time or perhaps even timeless, comparing philosophy and other themes in philosophy, philosophical themes are mainly only important because of the person considering it in their certain period of time. IN their perspective their theory is extremely useful, but to us now, it may not be of as much use, but we are able to compare it with other things. Some art is pricelss/timeless because it relates to human nature, which does not change over time as time passes, whilst many other things change over time and therefore become less fascinating or important.
another reason why art is famous is simply because it is simply well designed and has a large amount of skill to do so, for example Bach is usually played because of its harmonic complexity. But this still does nto explain idealistic art, where rules and theories are applied very strictly and rigidly to create an unmelodious but extremely complex work of art, this is not appealing to anyone who views it. This shows that this is yet another dichotomy where an equilibrium is required. On one side of the scale is melodiousness, and on the other is harmonic complexity, consider Beethoven's Ode to Joy from the fourth movement of his Ninth Symphony, it is extremely harmnocially simple, and yet very melodious.
Why are there periods of time when there are a large amount of people who are excellent in one aspect, for example, Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, are all born in a similar era. The best explanation to this is nurture. Environmental conditions allow for certain importances to be placed. And yet, modern personality reserach suggests that nature is much more important than nurture and environmental conditions do not play much of a factor. At least this is what experiments have predicted, most people still argue that nature vs. nurture is largely a 50% case argument. Perhaps it is the environment which makes people different, or the people themselves, in any case it is an extremely complex case.
From Rawls point of view:
When we excell in something, perhaps it is only because society needs what we excel at in one particular moment. Rather than us ourselves being good at it, we are just lucky enough to have the condiitons required, for this particular skill.


Children let us understand oursleves and why we do certain things.


How do we obtain knowledge?
There is Piaget’s theories of assimilation and accommodation, which are two dialectical ways of internalizing external factors. This suggests experience
But there is also experimentation, people who “play” with things understand it well and in different ways. Perhaps, although a far-fetched idea, experimentation could be a minor aspect of scientific experimentation, and experience could be a small scale literary type of knowledge where experience is required over anything else.
This is one example in how analogies of small scale patterns can be made with regards to reality.

Why do we remember certain things more clearly? I think it is because we do not understand them and are confused as to how they work or what happened, therefore we try to analyze them.

What is the difference between forms of arts? This is seen in the type of art that people like. Generally, people who like art like all of the different forms and types of art, but most people will specialize in one form of art. So why do some people listen to more music than they look visual art? There are two main reasons for this
Firstly, perhaps these people have a difference in the way they obtain information and are visual learners as compared to auditory or kinesthetic learners. This idea is experimentally verifiable.
The second possibility is that different forms of art are able to project or implicate different ideas and expressions, perhaps impressionism is best expressed through visual art? Although some may argue that Debussy's impressionist music is also equally worthy.

Do we understand everything that we do?

The Postmodernist view is not true as it is possible to progress.
Which leads to… what is the difference between art and science, the main difference is progression, science progresses as art does not, This difference surprises me. But more importantly, does art also progress? Just in a form we are not familiar with.
The main difference between the two seems to be with progression. I do not know what I am interested in or what I am curious about, but it is interesting.

The first step in an argument is to blindly argue your view and be ignorant of the opposite argument.
At a more advanced level, we perceive both arguments and are unable to decide on an answer because both views are overwhelming. Due to our own ignorance we also cannot decide on one view.
At the highest stage, we have overcome the neutral point of view and are able to deduce a well-thought out answer and argument, whilst also perceiving the opposite view and understanding methods of criticizing it or praising it.

Rationality and Art:
When people are thinking, rational good art is not produced, on the other hand, when rational thought is absent, better art seems to be produced. This relates to a principle of rationality where people can only think of one thing at a time. Whilst people are focusing on one thought they cannot do something else. Therefore meditation cannot coexist with actions. When people are thinking they do not speak.
When making art, people must take breaks to refocus and develop new perspective.

This relates back to the earlier topic of spontaneity, where spontaneity is praised over logic since logic is very unattractive.
It is very easy to analyze art, or different forms of art logically. This is perhaps the only way of “understanding” a work of art. But this in itself is impossible since a work of art is based off emotions. Therefore, the artist themselves does not know why they have created the work or what its purpose is. They created it spontaneously. By analyzing it logically, it is creating rules or “lines and junctions” and applying them on a work of art which is based on different principles and elements, it is composed of elements of emotion. In a sense this makes it impossible to even view an artwork, since it is impossible to be illogical. But I think that viewing an art from an emotionalist perspective would perhaps be more beneficial. Although due to curiosity it is very interesting to try and “understand” a work.
This relates somewhat to a similar topic of formulaic and logical design as compared with emotional, or artistic design.

What is the relationship between Physics and Music? These courses are offerend in Universities, and yet what are the seemly opposite subjects doing in one course?
Perhaps because Music is the emotional side of physics?
In this case, is Art the emotional side of Biology?
This type of pattern should exist everywhere in nature.
Jazz improvisation reflects nature in the aspect where nature is based on probablilities, and improvisation allows us to probabalize.
as Stephon Alexander said.
The fundamental composition of most of our things tend to show patterns in different apsects of our life and we are just accessing different windows to understand the nature around us.


Why do we like something?
Because it fascinates us
Because we do not understand it.

This relates to the talk of pleasure, by Paul Bloom, devlopmental psychologist.
Pinker says that we like art because it shows status, when we have abstract art, it shows that we have the ability and skill to "understand" high class abstract art.
The simple theory says that art is made to mimic nature, but this does not explain abstract art, and it also does not explain why certain pictures which are thought to be originals, then found to be forgeries suddenly lose value. Therefore, Paul Bloom, argues that art is defined in its value to a certain extent by its history, and the story it has.
We measure art in a number of ways, eg. How long it took to paint, the artist, how famous it is etc.
By knowing these things, we mentally devise a value for the artwork. And therefore understand its history. If a painting is of a war scene, and we look at it and think about the war scene, then it is interesting to try and understand it.
Another theory is that Art mirrors nature. It is a window which opens up views to a different perspective.
Another theory yet again is that art is commonly does not mirror nature, but mirrors the person who looks at a picture, each person will have different thoughts when they look at something and think about it.
All of these theories are equally true, yet to say they are equally true is at the superficial level, to understand to what extent they are true, and which is the more valuable would probably be of more importance.

This leads to the concept of beauty.
What is beauty? Can anything be beautiful to people? Or are there well defined, genetically hard-wired aspects of beauty?
What led me to this question was the concept of popularity in art. Some music is popular whilst other music is not.
Chopin's music is generally considered to be very beautiful, whilst other music e.g. dissonant music is considered less beautiful.
One explanation is that dissonant music/ abstract art, is simply not "good" art. But the main argument against this is that artists who make abstract art can also paint impressionist paintings, or play extremely skillfully complex sonata's, and have the skill level to be able to do so, but instead choose not to.
This leads to the idea that abstract artists have become bored with what they paint, and want to try somethign new. As time changes, people swing on a sort of pendulum from organized, art, to dissonant art. So perhaps societies influence the art that is generated, and in this case, the artist is trying to convey a message to an audience in doing so, or is at least influenced by the audience. Or, abstract artists paint what they paint because they simply find it better, and more technique and skill is required to paint abstract art. This idea would then lead us to the conclusion that art, like science although generally not considered so, is progressive, where former artists would have ideas which future artists would use and be able to create "better" art. This is possible, but unlikely, since the popularity of past music is extremely popular, and techinically, it seems more complex. (This is using technicality as a method of judging the value of art)
But, leading back to the question, many people, whether they like abstract art or not, would consider abstract art to be less beautiful than for example, impressionist, or realist art. But since we have already decided that abstract art is technically competent to other art, it must be of the same skill level, therefore, beauty does not lie in skill. It also does not lie in effort, or the artist, or the history and story behind the work of art. So why is Chopin's music so beautiful whilst dissonant music is not. I think this is because beautiful music is the type of music you would imagine listening to in order to relax. Impressionist art is beautiful because you can relax to it, whereas staring at an abstract work is not as relaxing. Absolute relaxation though, does have the person involved in a minimal action, thinking, or mental processing. People are satisfied with thinking. Looking at a photographic image of lillies is not as relaxing as looking at an impressionist depiction of the same scenery. This is because the impressionist work will allow us to raise questions, how does this work? etc. (Although this can be discussed further, Why is art so intriguing?) Art is a method for us to exercise curiosity, we think when we look at art, and perhaps even raise different questions each time.
Art that is relaxing is usually beautiful, and beauty usually comes with romance and love. Perhaps beauty is one way of expressing love and a romantic desire.

But, refuting the above idea, beauty can also be anything that mimcs nature and gives us a different perspective of nature. It is true that anything that reminds us of nature is beautiful, I personally am more relaxed in a natural atmosphere and think it is the most inspirational. Nature reminds us of what we should be doing, how to live our life, and perhaps instinctively, people are attracted to this concept.

This leads on further to, What is Romance?
The only way this question can be explained is through evolutonary psychology, we find open places romantic, places we are alone, classical music is romantic. Probably because it is beautiful.


Education seems to play a role, to make something abstract, you must be able to understand the rules, of the art. Rephrased, "You must know the rules to be able to break the rules" Breaking the rules is a considerably higher achievement than simply following the rules further and trying to do the same thing. In a sense, by breaking rules, you have graduated from following the rules and try to do different things. This is similar with music, it is more progressive than we think since artists develop off former ideas and try to break rules. For example, the great poet John Keats was wondering what type of poem to write since most genres, love poems, nursery poems, landscape poems, commemoration poems, had already been written. Similarly, many artists want to try something new and try to do so by adding new ideas to it.

Relating this to Psychology, developmental psychology is interesting in a sense that we do not understand what adults think so we can look at a more primal form of the though process in children and understand what it is that intrigues us or makes us think in certain ways.

Children are very interesting, because they approach everything from a perspective which is ignorant of how they will be percieved, they lack ego and selfish motives. This allows them to observe things in an original way. Usually when we observe one thing we start out with an initial impression then quickly develop this impression or move onto other impressions, but it is usually better to start out with a whole new idea because it gives us another ifrst impressions where we can realize much more, by taking breaks it is usually more productive, expecially for creative work. Children do this all the time.

What is humour?
One type of humour is the following:
The stimulus for humour resides in the brain in the same place that danger does. So something that is thought to be dangerous, but later understood to be safe is funny. Consider an adult playing peekaboo with a baby, the baby is frightened for a while, but when he/she realizes it is their mother, they smile.

A few theories:
The incongruity theory: Emotion and reason are different to an expected outcome and clash with preconceived ideas.
The superiority theory
The relief theory: To relieve tension.
Embarassment: To relieve social tension.

Perspectives:
Perspectives are extremely interesting. In School, they are called theories of knowledge and consist of the following.
Emotion, Reason/Logic, Perception, language.
Many things which we do are governed by emotion, and we say or react due to this,
Reason and logic, though are less important.
Perception allows us to find new ways of understanding things.

Reason and Art can never completely intertwine.
Many psychological theories are based on ideas which have been found which probably supported a smaller sample, but then have been expanded, and natural phenomenon have been adapted to support the theory rather than finding a relationship in the information, this is not very reliable as the pattern is not as consistent, in this sense, no psychological theory is strong enough to support this data.
We can analyze an artwork with as much detail and theoretical logic as much as we like but still the artwork can never be complete, and we cannot create a work of art by simplky following these concepts and logics. Both sides of the equilibrium must be used.
IN this sense, psychology is a very young science which we cannot understand properly. It is probablky more valuable for the development of the human race to leave the question of the origin of thought for a while and focus on othe rmore tangible and successful areas of research.

I think all of this explains but one small idea of nature consisting of patterns.
One artwork in a museum really interested me, it was a line of many canvases with the one on the far left being blank and the one on the far right being black. Slowly, from left to right lines were added so as to make each canvas darker than the one to its left. The darker ones had mroe lines and junctions. These ideas are similar to the artwork in the sense that they are a few lines and junctions of ideas  and form many puzzle pieces which must be linked together to understand the universe, or the physical nature that we have surrounding us. Everything can be broken down into a set of rules that defines it, finding these rules and comparing analogies will usually allow us to identify these key aspects, and find furtehr rules in different areas.
We very often have many lines which are invaluable, but no junctions to connect them, once these junctions have been made they become of extreme use, as they broaden their usage and also spread to have many more ideas. In the Lecture "When ideas Have Sex" By ____________, The lecturer explains how when population increases, more ideas are generated at an exponential rate as people exchange things they are interested in. This is but one aspect of the "junctioning" of lines.


Something that fascinates us usually does so because it is unpredictable and out of our expectations. This is what fascinates us. If we apply this to music, four chord music has the same chords repeating frequently. This does not fascinate us enough. As compared with medieval music, or Baroque music, where there was almost no repetition of chords or harmony. This creates a different level of fascination. A difference though, is that by having four chords, the music can emphasize the variations in melody, and with the same harmony be able to compare the melodies. (A fair test is created in doing so)

Philosophical Graphs which represent all of the axioms in life:
(This idea has not been developed very well and must be developed further)
Sometimes it is better to use math to explain philosophy. Philosophy is generally explained through logic and rationalizations of thought processes, math could be used to represent a visual and direct method of communication.

Everything is easy to improve much more easily at the start.
There is punctuation it is not gradual, but looking from a larger scale it is possible to see a gradualistic change. The slope represents improvement.

In a general term, the slope of a graph or the derivative represents a happiness. As long as there is positive improvement, the person is happy, if the slope is negative, it means things are getting worse.

What complicates the situation further is when the second derivative is introduced. If the second derivative is constant, people will usually become bored, a “happy” life is one where there are fluctuations in the second derivative.

This is coined general because it does not represent all happiness and only superficial happiness, there is also joy. I believe joy to be an inner satisfaction in which people are “truly” happy or purely happy. This form of happiness requires more spiritual connections. This relates back to the concept of religion and science.

Normality vs. Abnormality: This is not introduced in the sense where a society is the norm and unusuality is the absence from the norm. Rather, normality is in the sense of natural, whereas this is the natural formatic. In music, Russian music has many sounds that seem to not fit, and serve as anomalies, yet they combine to form a different emotion.
Music normal to abnormal, what effect does this create?
For example in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an exhibition, the scene is imagined where Mussorgsky himself walks down the exhibition of his friend’s pictures, and music is provided for each picture accordingly. There is also a separate rather repetitive piece of music called the “promenade” which is the music for the walking. This music is very interesting in the sense that it is very normal and harmonious when compared to the music for the pictures. This creates an alarming effect.
Normal to Abnormal is also present in abstract art, if it were to be imagined in the sense of art, then it would be a work of art where half of the canvas is a beautifully portrayed scene and the other half is almost scribbled furiously. This is interesting in the sense that it combines two forms of expression, and is similar to impressionism. Where from a distant view, a picture is formed, but from a close scrutiny, the individual “elements” of colour and shape can be perceived.
What is the transition between the two?

Society and its effects:

Ignorance is bliss, the old Cliché lasts. On the contrary, confidence is usually ignorance, people who are truly wise do not rush to conclusions.

It seems contradictory that knowledge can cause people to think of themselves as tortured, using the old example from Greek mythology, Oedipus, Tyresius is supposedly extremely wise yet says that this tortures him. This seems contradictory to human nature as humans naturally are curious and want to know more Yet, knowledge seems to affect them. I think this perception is less accurate, and that a more accurate one would be to approach the topic from a different perspective and try to understand that the way we treat knowledge is wrong, although I am not entirely sure how so.

I believe that this interpretation is probably wrong and that it depends on how you use the knowledge.

This raises a question, what is curiosity, and why are people naturally curious. This breaks down human innate beliefs into axiomatic views and strives to analyze them.

This moves further to another interesting idea found.
I personally love psychology, biology also, but I realize the main difference between the two is that psychology explores Why certain things happen, Biology explores how they happen but does not explain why. I find this very interesting. The main field of biology which I am interested in is evolutionary biology, this is because it attempts to raise an explanation for the why in biology. Why are things this way?
This leads to , what is the difference between why and how?
A superficial answer would be to say that the questions with How are more general and basic than the questions with Why? But questions with How can be just as complicated.
Another possibility would be to think that perhaps I am more interested in behaviours, which leads to the natural tendency to slant towards one aspect.

Why do people do things? This relates to psychology and the origin of thought processes and the subconscious.
There are many theories:
Freudian Psychodynamic theories, where the ego and the id are competing. This can explain certain things that evolutionary psychology cannot.
Evolutionary Psychology, directly stemming from darwinism, this is the most widely supported, but does not provide many logical basis.
Developmental theory, fetus's develop their subconscious in the womb and we change due to our experience int he womb. There are two main cycles, the euphoria stage, and the pain and fear stage which allows us to develop qualities which we need in the life.

Every society has a factor of modesty??? (Explore)
Privacy is also modesty in a sense.

Intelligence main aspects and factors:
-Connecting relevant information
-Curiosity, perhaps curious people understand more since they think about things more often.
-Observant and sensitive to situations.
-Or the classic, process information faster.
-More knowledgeable
What is knowledge, apparently knowledge is simply assimilation ( expanding horizons)
And Attribution?

Object Permanence, the understanding that if an object is not visible it still exists
Conservation: The understanding that if an object is moved, there is still the same amount
These are all logical and scientific reasoning of abstract ideas which are understood.
-Creative

The role of a consciousness is to deceive ourselves and others?

Freudian theories are not empirical enough to be disproven, mainly rationalistic
Pieget’s theories are falsifiable
Dispositional and situational factors must be taken into account.



Evolution is not humanistic as it focuses on human ego being the centre of survival. 

Spirituality cannot be proven, must must be learned so that people identify information and knowledge in different ways.

A huge difference which I notice is from reading the children’s version of dawnbreaker’s. The Bab received everyone with a large smile as if he had known them for years. This is because he has a very very very strong love for the person. Most of the time we smile to show politeness, but The Bab does so because he is genuinely loving of the other person. This is true greatness which we should follow.

I also have a new perspective on interpretations. It is extremely easy to judge a person so this must be avoided. Also, interpretations are generally the main reason that an idea is wrong. For example if two people have two opposing views. They generally agree on the same concepts but interpret them differently, this leads to an argument.

How do we value art?
There are four main ways
Pramatic: How the audience receives it
Kathartic, artist based: How satisfied the artist is with the work
How structural and complex it is as a work of art itself.
How it portrays a world.

By observing Oran, I realized something. He likes music that is not very popular but extremely unique and artistic. This shows his innate liking. Perhaps I look at music and see that it is famous and therefore try to like it and deceive myself in doing so. Therefore I start to believe that this is truly what I like. This started after my consciousness developed and now I am starting to do this more often as I lack a confidence in my own works. One exception to this is music, which I have developed from a younger age. Also, is literature to a certain degree since I have been working on it for quite a while. Other than this, I must like something for what it is rather than be influenced by popular views of culture. It is very easy to see this in modern culture where everything is cultivated toward a certain style. As a start to gather on the importance of social influences, I start to realize many new things on how people learn. Perhaps this is a step in the punctuated learning curve.

I have started to like things because I genuinely do so, I realized that I must have been erroneous in my assumption that the environment was affecting me, but rather (dragging in nature vs, nurture works for nearly everything, this is because it is a pattern present in our society, it would be rather interesting to find other equilibriums or opposites on which our lives are strongly based) I was simply unfamiliar with music as a whole and had nto explored enough.

Why are people curious?
One after-effect of curiosity is to make observations.
Other than from taking an evolutionary stance, one reason why people are curious is because they have a thirst for knowledge and to learn more is extremely interesting. I used to frequently say that the best feeling is inspiration. But I later learnt that inspiration does not exist and in fact is a long term built up knowledge. This shows that the obtaining of knowledge is the best feeling, and also could explain that curiosity is in itself a very good thing.
Here I would like to contradict myself in the fact that perhaps the best feeling is not knowledge, but actually love. I believe this to be true, but still must prove it.

There was an interesting speech on Eureka moments, and moments of inspiration. People think it is true, talent or luck, but in reality these do not exist but rather that the person has developed these qualities over a long period of time and mastered them so that effort overrules everything in the end.

In Argument of the above, there have been areas or times in soceties where great genius was stemmed from many generations in a row. This must be due to environmental causes, and in this case inspiration not only is due to long term knowledge which is built up, but also due to sudden environmental fluctuations. With that said though, the only possibility of improvement is through toil, so that must be done.

Any nature vs. nurture argument can never be won, there is so much evidence on both sides that I am deeply conflicted, one day I may support one side and on another day I will firmly support the other. This is an area of great curiosity as it affects so much of our life and what we do, once the answer is found, we can also create different methods of educating people which will be more efficient. Perhaps the reason why there is no answer, from an empirical point of view is that the experiments have not been fair tests, in the sense that for one aspect, such as geography, nature and nurture have different weights, compared to mathematics for example. This would be an explanation of why there are so many different answers. In realizing this skeptics answer that, ironically improvement can be found because we can understand human nature and how it differs in different aspects and affects how we think about certain things. That is the beauty of epistemological philosphy, by saying no to something does not mean we disagree, but that we believe most of what they are saying, otherwise we would reject the whole concept as axiomatically incorrect.

Which leads to axioms on our life.
By using the logic of philosphy and science it is possible to pursue and find axioms and then perhaps create a universal language. Wittgenstein would probably say that this is impossible since the language, semantics, or set theory in which we communicate these ideas by itself has limitations and therefore can never express what is truly meant. But despite this, the concept by itself is quite interesting. Because even if we can never find the truth, we can still find out partial truths, (if they do exist, assuming everything is not absolute) and then work from there to create new axioms and understand human nature.

It is important to develop our talents.

Albert Einstein is a truly remarkable person, he has been on an independent investigation of the truth, and has developed his talents. He has also been immersed in his work and has changed the world. This is what I aspire to be as, develop my talents and try to change the world. Perhaps Psychology is not very good for this and does not affect the World as much, but Physics, Biology, and sciences are beneficial. I am still trying to find a way that Art can benefit the world we live in.

I also read some things about Sylvia Plath, after hearing about her because the other class read her poems. Apparently they didn't really like them, but generally poetry is not favoured very well, I read her journals and was immediately captivated by her exquisite language and philosophical questions, things such as "so much  to do, and so little time, " Or trying to be everyone and experience everything but it is not possible with just one life. These are all extremely interesting questions and give deep insights into human nature.

I soon started pondering on personality and human nature, after reading two personality books I'm starting to realize that there are certain traits which it is fun to analyze when you first meet someone.
Some questions: Why are people attracted to nature, whenever I am feeling down, or restless, I must go out and see nature in an isolated area, and this immediately brings me strong peace and a sense of relaxation, the only explanation I can think of is that nature is close to God, and is pure in a spiritual sense, perhaps it is far from temptations and is a direct mirror, but I can only speculate.
The question which soon follwos is, what is romance?, the dictionary definition states, an exciting or mysterious twist on love, but this does not seem to explain it, why are certain things romantic, I was thinking, but as I usually, do, I could not find a link between all of these things. Candles, are romantic, sitting in an isolated place in nature is romantic, a rowing boat is romantic, but not necessarily safe. Spontaneity is romantic, spontaneity is romantic probably because to be spontaneous is to be illogical, and people somehow enjoy it when people are nto logical and analytical but instead are rather instinctive. This also opens another window into human nature.

Motivational theories are extremely common in Psychology, but they all do not seem to explain the conditions very well in the first place. I learnt that people who are curious must be able to stimulate themsleves intellectually or else they do not feel satisfied, I feel sympathetic to this.

An unsatisfied feeling must be because we want to be closer to God, and therefore arts or nature can satisfy this need.

After reading philosphy, specifically three introductions and a book about Wittgenstein, I am starting to understand philosphical concepts, they are the leftovers of ideas which have no category of study large enough. My questions on art were mainly of the aesthetic philosphical questions. What is art, what is abstract art.

What is death, none of us can avoid death, and yet we lives our lives as if we seem to ignore it. Only when death is nearby do we realize its true gravity. I read this in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and understood perfectly well what it was saying, but I didn't realize that I hadn't truly understood it until I experienced it near me first hand. This is what started me thinking, what is my goal in life, this question cannot be answered, but to divert the question is possible, in doing so I asked myself whether or not I would be satisfied if I were to pass away tomorrow, and I must make this answer a yes. In the Baha'i Faith, reflection is an obligation, it is essential for us to reflect on our day and understand what came to pass and how we lived our life. Therefore I will try to do the same.
There are many ways for us to live our life, hedonistic ways are, simply try and get pleasure and avoid pain. This method works well for individuals, but when the group as a whole comes on, it starts to break down and morals are required. Although Bentham's Hedonism works well, I do not believe that it is absolutely right or accurate, as there is more to life than just hedonism. Many people will agree with this, and therefore they will have some form of morals which are not purely consequential, but rather categorical, or absolute morals. These morals make us treat each other differently. Suppose we live our life purely for Honor, or Status, despite not being directly related to Hedonism, it still encourages hedonistic principles. But perhaps there is a deeper purpose to life, a more meaningful one. The Baha'i Faith's laws specify very clearly strict rules and regulations. But I Believe these rules all stem from one root, the well being of all people. Therefore alcohol is porhibited, because it affects our well being. It is just the our society/environment has changed so drasctially so as to completely alter our views of the "norm". By engaging in individual pleasure, we create all of the problems in the world. The golden rule is the key to success. The best way to change the world is through education. Education catches the root of the problem and will change the future. By engaging in activities of self-interest, the world slowly loses its "colour". This is a far-fecthed method of improving the worlds condition, but it is the only method and will eventually become inevitable as the world deteriorates further as our norms do too.
Although we live in a world where there is considerably less violence and more equality, I think these are just two aspects of a whole average. I will try to use music to change the world, by trying to keep Baha'i songs by Baha'i artists in my mind as well as other peace songs such as "imagine", "where is the love" and try to capture a wide audience and spread a message. 

This leads on to:
What are we, (Steven Pinker's book The Stuff of Thought raises interesting questions about self-identity, where we are just a use of semantics.) You may call yourself a name, say "George" But to explain who George is, you must explain what he has done, or his physical features,  this is giving a narrative description of George, since this is the only possible way of describing someone. We are merely stories and ideas through a passage of seemingly infinite time. Ignoring the fact that we are very insignificant compared to the universe and its long span of time, and that we still think ourselves important (egotism is also very interesting), we are just a story of facts or situations.  This connects to Hume's idea of human nature, which is that we are merely clusters of nerves or ideas which form a human. Despite this, I believe (Believe is a stronger word than think) Descartes's dualism holds a strong point. We must have a soul, or else our existence is meaningless. Kant used rationalization to explain morality, and he conlcuded with two important imperatives, the categorical and consequential, of the categorical, there is the universal formula(If you can picture everyone doing the same thing, then is it OK) , and the golden rule. (Use people as ends, rather than as a means). 
Have to reinstall diary so...:
Today was a wonderfully inspirational day, I finished music class in top moods and I had good ideas for countermelodies or contrapuntal melodies in my head. I wrote them out once I got to the library. I also resisted temptations rather easily by simply ignoring them and stopping my previous notion of trying to understand them since it is almost impossible in that way.
I went to the library and read Robert Louis Stevenson's biography, Sylvia Plath's journals from when she was eighteen, and also The Normal Personality, a book by Steven Reiss.

The normals personality uses very interesting methods of devising ways to solve psychologcial problems through motivational psychology. Instead of the psychodynamic Freudian view that we are governed by things, or the evolutionary biologist's view, the motivational approach certainly seems far more humane and appropriate to governing our ideas. In reading the book, I was able to give one answer to one of the questions above; namely "Why do women tend to be less curious than men" There is a natural stereotype that men are more logical, and I believe that it is quite true, although saying that men are more logical may be taking it too far, women tend to be more practical than men, usually viewing what is appropriate in a set of circumstances. In raising this question, I was thinking along the lines that logical thinking, or intellectual curiosity is better than lack of intellectual thought. And I was also basing the idea that we are all the same people and equality between men and women is crucial. And yet I found this to be an inequality, this was a question of perception and an philosophically empirical problem whereas just because women think less does not mean that they are less "equal" compared to men, I was basing this on my own standards. As Reiss pointed out, we all have our own "circle" or area of knowledge which we believe to be the right way of life. If I live a life of intellect, that does not mean that I am any more worthy than someone with less intellectual curiosity. Many problems in our lives are due to this type of misunderstanding where we think our own beliefs are more important than other peoples', therefore we must always strive to see that we respect other people and never judge someone. (That is only one reason not to judge someone)

The natural approach, or fundamental approach of personality profiling tends to suggest that there are unresolved childhood issues, perhaps, but they probably do not cause most of the problems and there are other more fundamental causes. 

This leads to the idea of intellectual curiosity, intellectual curiosity can be satisfied, but only temporarily. The problem is that in satifying this curiosity, it seems that this curiosity only becomes greater. In a sense it is addictive. At a certain point, we are unable to satisfy this intelelct anymore, and become incontented. This would lead to a common ancient Greek theme, one of ignorance is Bliss. Tyresias said that knowledge was torture. The only way to deal with this incontentment is through either very strong distractions, or katharsism. Therefore this is one of the methods or reasons in which art is created. Incontentment leads to creation of art in many different aspects. There is still variation as to which forms of art are created and why we have music, or visual arts or dancing, but this can only be speculative.
The above is only one reason in which art is created, but there are many artists who create art because they love sounds, or love pictures, or love movement (dancing). And I think that the latter method of creating art is the better of the two, By using positive energy we are more able to create better things and try to benefit the world.
The philosphical view of philosphy is to try and make the world a better place by making people realize things, I believe this is quite true, but once again is only one small part of the large limitless bounds of possibility in aesthetics and art.

12th of December, we just did an intensive course for Ruhi Book 3 and did the first of 4 days of study. I learnt many new things and could raise many many questions about so many things regarding spirituality. I got a good idea for a story from a quote about a man with two visions, one is spiritual and one is materialistic. Also, I talked a lot with Katherine who is a very analytical thinker and we can discuss many things. I can study very well and ask Allan White many questions about the faith when we study Book 2. I also talked and made many new friends today, such as the people who came to the feast, her job is to skydive which is extremely amazing, and she has witnessed so many things and even broke her leg by hitting it on the plane. I truly think it is amazing what experience does to people and I finally realize that I was living in my own bubble of study and music and the faith which is not close to what I have been experiencing. I also must get rid of my ego because it does not bring joy or happiness and instead brings selfish desires. I learnt that although study is important, I must not move too fast without the component of joy. I learnt that Katherine likes to play chess, that got me interested, and I also found out that the best way to teach people is to inspire others and have a pure and loving heart. This way, we can all figure things out and be more peaceful. Ian is moving into a flat next month to start his year of service, that is also interesting and I hope to do something like that in the future, to stay with a group of youth and teach the faith. I also witnessed some joyful love between sister and brother (Ian and June) which allowed me to realise the importance of family. I will also go and pave the Baha' center on saturday and service is truly becoming a joy for me.

13/12/11
Recently I have been having a lot of thoughts about beauty, rather feeling beaity more than anything else, especially in viewing nature I picture art or music or even literature, it is truly wonderful to be able to be so inspired. I listen to music and start to think it is wonderful and it gives me so many memories, especially music which I used to listen to when I was younger, for example I have been watching Studio Ghibli films and Whisper of the heart truly brought back many many memories. And led me to think so much.
I have also been studying Ruhi, how to teach children's classes and start to teach children and I am revising how to do so.
I am starting to respect cultures more such as Japanese culture.