Week 6 Storylab

                                   (Copyright Symbol: Image from Wikimedia Commons)

A New Theory of Human Intelligence by Scott Kaufman

               The Four C’s: Capacity, Competence, Commitment, and Creativity should be differentiated. A graph was shown about the amount of predicted human potential a person should have. I disagree, Scott, with this graph. How can one person or a group of people who are most likely very similar in educational background compose a statistic on how much potential another person can have. I disagree with forming a way to analyze peoples potential but if one needed to the four Cs is a better way then others because it includes many other things other then intelligence scores. Scott shared a personal story about how in his younger days of learning he was placed in special education and eventually exited the program and was excelling in this high school classes. Scott wanted to do more and wanted to enter advanced classes however he was denied because the deciding factor was what his IQ score was at age 11. Speaking personally, I was not the brightest kid or very gifted at the age of 11 and from age 11 to the end of high school my intelligence and personality changed a lot, like EVERYONE else. To be judged on an outdated and inaccurate assessment of potential is unjust and wildly unfair. I want to conclude my notes with a quote that Scott mentions in his Talk “At what point is my achievement allowed to trump my potential”. This sat with me, why should something that you could do define what you instead of what you actually have done. Actions should triumph test scores, and IQ scores, and what’s written on a paper, we have to take into account the whole person.

Copyright is Brain Damage by Nina Paley

               Culture is a network, this is a concept Nina expresses in her video. She is talking a lot about copy right laws and how they have limited the ability for people to share and spread art. She compares art and culture to the neurons because the information must flow through them because they are all connected. This video is called Copyright is Brain damage because what copyright does is it cuts off that connection of art and culture, like the neurons, and leaves everything brain dead. Nina encourages people to ignore copyright and to ignore this brain dead state and freely express themselves in their art.

Wikipedia Trail from Mahabharata to Kurukshetra War

     The Article I began with was the Mahabharata. I chose this article because I wanted a broad overview of this new epic we are reading. It helped me to understand the basic premise of the epic and its characters. I then went to an article about Vyasa, this helped me to understand that this is a main character and the narrator of this epic. I also learned that he is thought to be a decedent of the god Vishnu. I then went to an article about Pandava, where I learned that these are the five sons of Pandu who all share a wife. They are important to the story because they are the cousins to the mother main characters. These two sets of cousins fought a war against each other which is the last article I read. The Kurukshetra War, was fought between these two sets of cousins because they all wanted the throne for the kingdom of Kuru.

(Kurukshetra War: Image from Wikipedia)

Reading Notes PDE Mahabharata: The Gambling Match Part B

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata: The Gambling Match by Donald A. Mackenzie

                                     (Roulette Wheel: Image from Wikimedia Commons)     

     This story is interesting in that it is following a common trend that I have noticed. The way the kings and gods are portrayed in these stories is much different then those in western stories. The gods and kings in these stories are like normal people with anger and jealousy and rage. You often see in western stories that gods and kings and royalty can not make mistakes, they are incapable of human actions and are portrayed as above humans. This is probably the reason so many people blindly follow them and idealize them. However, it is possible for the exact same reason that the Indian people idolize their kings and gods, because they are no different then them and are capable of the same emotions. In this story I have found another common theme, unlike in some stories where rage is showed as violence, in this story rage is shown by knowledge and deceit. Instead of Duryodhana calling in an army to attack Yudhishthira and his land he invites him to gamble. However, he is very tricky and has rigged the game to win every time. One thing I found strange was that Yudhishthira never questioned anything that was happening like how Duryodhana had his uncle role the dice for him or how out of the many games they played Yudhishthira did not win a single one. It is unlikely to win zero games out of many even when gambling and Yudhishthira should have been more cautious before he gave away everything. Vidura tries to help his nephew Yudhishthira by explaining that he set himself free before gambling away his wife and that she could not be taken however his help does not work.  

Reading Notes: PDE Mahabharata: Vyasa and Ganesha, Part A

Bibliography: PDE Mahabharata: Vyasa and Ganesha by John Mandeville Macfie.

                                   (Son and Daughter of Uparichara: Wikimedia Commons)

     

     This story begins in what appears to be the middle of a scene or the middle of another story. Vyasa is trying to find someone to write down all of the knowledge a person could know about life on earth and heaven. It leaves the reader to wonder, if Vyasa is writing down everything there is to know then by default, he must know everything there is to know. If he does have this knowledge, how did he get it? Is he a god, do the gods talk to him, is he immortal? He must be talking to the gods since on of them has offered to be his scribe. I am unsure what the comment about not putting the pen down means quit yet. My guess is that Vyasa will talk about something he does not want in the book but Ganesha will write it for everyone else to know, like jealousy or anger. In the next part of this story speaking of Vyasa’s father, I think it is interesting that the gods have the emotion of fear. In so many western stories the gods are so unlike humans that they do not have emotions like fear or jealousy like humans do. The gods also bribed King Uparichara which is also not very god like compared to western stories. It is typical and unsurprising that the king would not except his daughter and only his son. I have a feeling the daughter will play a large role in this story and the king may be sorry he did not except her. The style of writing is different from other stories we have read. There is no dialogue in this story only narrative, also different from this story is that the narrator is not a character, they speak as if this happened before their time.