The life of my seed

Day one
Our seeds were handed out in the middle of class. I planted mine rougly one inch from the surface of the soil and covered it tightly. Later on I watered it with a little more than a tablespoon of water.

Day two
I realized that the seed would rot if I allowed the water to stagnate at the bottom of the cup. I poked several holes in the bottom of the cup so the excess water could drain.

Day three
The cup got some sun. I didn't do much to it.

Day four
Same as day three.

Day five
I added a little water to the cup. Haven't seen any real signs of life. I am almost tempted to break the soil just to see if the seed has begun rooting at this point.

Day six
My seed and I are having relationship issues. This whole "growing" thing doesn't seem to be happening as predicted.

Day seven
I wrote this blog about my love/hate relationship with my sunflower.

Day eight
Nothing special... again. I think it's dead.

Day nine
The soil is too dry. Maybe I poked too many holes in the cup...?

Extremophiles

Todays topic revolves around organisms that survive in environments that are too extreme for many people to comprehend. Imagine living in a highly toxic deepwater environment with over 200 tons of pressure bearing down on every square inch of your body (as we discussed in class). Better still: imagine living thousands of feet underground, away from the warmth of the sun and without food, clean water, or a comfortable place to sleep. Deep in the caverns of the world's most spectacular cave, Lechugilla, lives a bacteria that lives off of rocks. The previous statement seems somewhat ambiguous, but I hope you're taking it as literally as I have implied it; several species of these chemolithoautotrophic archaebacteria have evolved in the depths of the fifth deepest cave in the world. This cave isn't the only unique example of extremophile evolution. In fact, there are several other caves in the world which exhibit the spectacular evolutionary feat of life without the presence of sunlight.

Inductive and Deductive Logic

All thought processes can be broken down into two subunits; both of which are based upon the order and heirarchy of thought involved in constructing a logical decision. The term heirarchy implies that each thought not only has its own importance, but that its importance ultimately dictates its position in the logical cascade. Thus, two patterns of logic emerge. Deductive logic involves arranging thoughts in a manner that utilizes general knowledge in making specific conclusions. Think of it in this manner: the end result has to be deduced, meaning that some greater, overarching thought must be concentrated in order to form a more finite cognitive product. For example, you are using inductive logic to understand what my definition of deductive logic truly means. The large, overarching thought is simply "logic." The understanding of logic has thus been broken down from one generalization into two specified categories. Then, one of the categories (in this instance, deduction) has been further concentrated down into its roots and defining terminology to better your personal understanding of this abstract phenomenon. Inductive logic, on the other hand, works in the exact opposite manner. The fact that the logical progression is reversed causes the argument/logic to lose most of its integrity. A fine example comes from the database of common knowledge, otherwise known as Wikipedia. Consider the following: I always hang pictures on nails. Therefore: All pictures hang from nails. This progression is obviously flawed since it is based on a precondensed* experience that graduates to an overarching logical pattern. In this scenario, the only experience that I have is with the pictures that I have hung on a wall using a nail. I have barred all other methods of posting pictures, including facebook, on a stand, or with a screw. Thus, the overarching logic becomes just as limited as its preceeding basis. Bias would be the appropriate term to assign to this fallacy. In other instances, however, inducive logic can be considered useful. I guess you'll just have to apply this single experience to understand the big picture for yourself!


*reference the use of the word condense in my earlier statements to understand its implicit meaning here

Understanding concepts established in class

Our goals in this class have been relatively simple. We have attempted to identify a number of different methods of communication that we use daily. Most of us don't take the time to break these separate means of communication into their central components, including body language, sound recognition, learning styles, and etcetera, in order to recombine them into their functional whole. The tasks were fairly simple; we played a name game in which each member of the class was introduced to all other classmates. We also began communicating through the use of nonverbal gestures in order to decipher a secret code. Our communication exercises have since culminated on an activity meant to confuse our minds. We were told to write messages in alphabetical code, which was simply ingenious since any of the 26 letters of the english alphabet are allowed to substitute for one another. Upon constructing sentences using this code, there were infinite possibilities for each sentences true (hidden) meaning. Words containing three letters or more became increasingly difficult in succession, due to the endless number of possible combinations for letter substitutions.

Blog Post One

1) Explain in about three sentences the idea that our ability to communicate is a critical part of our "ability to learn and to know'

            -Aristotle made a very similar and equally bold statement that the success of our species is solely dependent on our innate abilities to communicate through the evolutionary advent of speech. Speech and communication allows our species to share knowledge and demonstrate necessary actions that allow people to make it through their daily lives. This is the most essential aspect of the learning process in humans, and probably will continue to be for millennia to come.   

2) Post a hand-drawn picture of "The swift red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog"

3) Post this phrase written in the language of your choice in the way that you would typically write/document this information.

4) Post this phrase written in english cursive.

5) Post a picture of an old-fashioned typewriter that would be used to type this sentence.

 

6) Post a picture of a swift red fox jumping over a lazy brown dog.

7) Post this phrase typed on your computer in the font of your choice.

            -The swift red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.