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Assignment 1: Red Flags, Reasons for Belief & Critical Thinking

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Assignment 1: Red Flags, Reasons for Belief & Critical Thinking

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Adam Kunath

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Definition
This is the belief that authoritative figures in our life are hiding or suppressing information from the public.
Connection
My connection to this is the belief that the United Sates Government is hiding aliens from the public in area 51. I believe that this could be true, as governments across the world hide information from the public so they don't cause mass panic.

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Definition
This is something that we just cant explain. We want to explain it but we just cant. Sometimes we try to explain it.
Connection
My connection to this is Deja vu. This is the feeling that we have done an experience before or have visited a place before. Its unexplainable and no one really knows why it happens. Some people try to say its from a past life.

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How strange.

Psychologists who study memory point out that we have memories for things that have happened to us, and also memory for where we encountered the things that happened to us. That memory for where we encountered information is called source memory.

There are two ways that you can recognize that you are in a familiar situation:

One is to retrieve the previous situation from memory. For example, you might visit the town you grew up in. When you go to an old school you went to, you might remember a class you took and know that you had been there before.

But, you can also just get a feeling that you have been somewhere before. This feeling of knowing is related to knowledge about the source of a memory. So, when visiting the town where you grew up, you might pass the library and feel that it is familiar without remembering ever going there.

The experience of déjà vu involves having that feeling of knowing in a situation in which you are experiencing something totally new.

A paper by Anne Cleary, Anthony Ryals, and Jason Nomi in the December, 2009 issue of Psychonomic Bulletin and Review suggests one factor that leads to the experience. They had people study a number of drawings of scenes. Later, they were shown a number of new scenes and were asked whether they had seen them before. Some of those new scenes had a similar configuration to ones they had studied earlier, but all of the objects were different. For example, during the first phase of the experiment, people might have seen an alley between a fence and a building. Later, they might have seen an alley between a train station and a train. In this case, people often felt that the new scene was familiar, and participants often reported a strong feeling that they had seen the new scene before.

What is going on here?

We have good memory for objects. If you see a familiar object in an unfamiliar setting, you will often recognize that you have seen that object before. For example, if a friend has the same set of dishes that your parents have at their house, you might remark that it is odd that your friends and your parents have similar taste in dishes.

We are not so good at retrieving a memory based just on the configuration of objects. If you are in a place that has some unfamiliar objects, but they are set up similarly to a situation you have experienced before, you will get a feeling of knowing, but you won't actually retrieve any specific memory for the place. That feeling of familiarity is quite helpful, of course. If you walk into a new restaurant, but it is configured like many other restaurants that you have visited in the past, then it is good for you to feel like you are in a familiar place. Your knowledge about restaurants will help you figure out what to do next.

If the configuration is nearly identical to one that you experienced before, though, then you may get a powerful feeling of knowing. That is, you may get a sensation of déjà vu. In the end, though, the experience of déjà vu is just an extreme reaction of the system that your memory uses to tell you that you are in a familiar situation.

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How strange. Psychologists who study memory point out that we have memories for things that have happened to us, and also memory for where we encountered the things that happened to us. That memory for where we encountered information is called source memory.

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Definition
This is when emotions blur our normal and rational thoughts. They make us want to believe in falsities.
Connection
My main connection to this is psychic readings. My friend went to see one, as she missed her late mother. This brought her comfort and warmth. I still believe its fake as people like this prey on your emotions for a quick buck. In the above video we see more people going as COVID has made many people depressed.

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Psychic, medium readings increase amid pandemic

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Critical Thinking Analysis: Aliens in Area 51

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Critical Thinking Analysis: Aliens in Area 51

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For my critical thinking analysis I decided to look at Aliens in Area 51. The problem is that people think the government is hiding aliens in area 51. There are hundreds of claims and videos that UFO's fly out of there. I think these people are wrong. I believe people are using patternicity and seeing things that aren't actually there. The alternative is that this actually just a base where the government tests out new air crafts. I believe in this alternative as it just makes more plausible sense. Nevada's is popular for aircrafts due to the flat terrain and not as many people are around there. This is why the government uses this area. There's nothing special about it. Its just military stuff. The above video details this.

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ARCHIVE: Ex Area 51 employees say they worked on A-12 jet

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Definition
All natural is the belief that things that come from nature are better for you. This is false as many things in nature are extremely bad for humans!
Connection
My connection with all natural is the popular essential oils line. Its very popular with woman as many believe it brings them closer to nature and that its really good for the. Some people consume, rub it on themselves and use it in the air. Taking large amounts of oils is poisonous and some can cause bad reactions in people. Everyone should be aware of some side effects of oils.

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What Are Essential Oils, and Do They Work?

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Essential oils are claimed to offer many health benefits. Learn all you need to know about essential oils and their health effects.

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Definition
Mystical Energy is the belief that things, people or objects give off different types of energy. Through this energy they can heal, feel worse, control the body, etc.
Connection
My connection with this is Reiki. Reiki is a type of energy healing that comes from Japan. The idea is that we have this life force in our body that we can use to heal and destress. Personally I see this as a red flag here, as this idea of mysterious energy doesn't exist. People use this as a way to attract people who aren't doing well. They manipulate these sick people and take their money, just like many red flags.

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Reiki: How This Energy Healing Works and Its Health Benefits

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Reiki is a form of energy healing. Though science hasn't yet discovered the mechanism behind why and how it works, research has documented health benefits associated with it. It may help improve sleep, lessen pain, and decrease anxiety and depression.

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Definition
This is the idea that human naturally look for patterns. They see things that aren't actually there.
Connection
My connection is the inkblot tests. People look really hard at these images and try to see something that is not really there. Their eyes confuse them. For example, I see a bra in the above picture. That means nothing.

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Definition
Appeal to authority is when you use an authority figure to endorse products, sports and even politics.
Connection
My connection to this is when Donald Trump ran as a Republican and was eventually president. Many people who voted for him, saw him as a rich and well put together man who could run a country. The Republican's used him as a popular figure. He greatly influenced people to question their media and country. Unfortunately, this didn't make America any better.

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Definition
Ancient wisdom is when you use things or believe in things that our ancient ancestors believed in.
Connection
My connection with this is when the Mayans predicted that the world would end in 2012. Many people believed this, but in no way was this real. Many people used this as a way to drum up fear and humans always look for predictions from the past.

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It's remotely possible the world will end in December 2012. But don't credit the ancient Maya calendar for predicting it, say experts on the Mesoamerican culture.

(Related pictures: "2012 Doomsday Myths Debunked.")

It's true that the so-called long-count calendar-which spans roughly 5,125 years starting in 3114 B.C.-reaches the end of a cycle on December 21, 2012.

That day brings to a close the 13th Bak'tun, an almost 400-year period in the Maya long-count calendar.

But rather than moving to the next Bak'tun, the calendar will reset at the end of the 13th cycle, akin to the way a 1960s automobile would click over at mile 99,999.9 and reset to zero.

"We, of course, know that really means a hundred thousand [miles] and not zero," said William Saturno, an expert on Maya archaeology at Boston University.

"So, is [the end of Bak'tun 13] a large period ending? Yes. Did the Maya like period endings? Yes," Saturno said.

"Would this have been a period ending they thought was wicked cool? You bet. The biggest period endings they experience are Bak'tun endings."

But "was it predicted to be the end the world? No. That's just us."

Instead, for the Maya, the end of the long count represents the end of an old cycle and the beginning of a new one, according to Emiliano Gallaga Murrieta, the Chiapas state division director of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.

"It is like for the Chinese, this is the Year of the [Rabbit], and the next year is going to the Year of the Dragon, and the next is going to be another animal in the calendar," Gallaga said.

(Watch the full episode of 2012: Countdown to Armageddon online from the National Geographic Channel.)

Maya Prophecy for End of the World?

Written references to the end of Bak'tun 13 are few. In fact, most Maya scholars cite only one: a stone tablet on Monument 6 at the Tortuguero archaeological site in Mexico's Tabasco state. ( Take a Maya quiz.)

What exactly the tablet says, though, is a mystery, because the glyphs in question are partially damaged.

Nevertheless, scholars have taken several stabs at translations, the most prominent in 1996 by Brown University's Stephen Houston and the University of Texas at Austin's David Stuart.

Houston and Stuart's initial interpretation indicated that a god will descend at the end of Bak'tun 13. What would happen next is uncertain, although the scholars suggested this might have been a prophecy of some sort.

This 1996 analysis was picked up "on many New Age websites, associated forum discussions, and even a few book chapters" as evidence that the Maya calendar had predicted the end of the world, according to Stuart.

(See "2012 Prophecies Sparking Real Fears, Suicide Warnings.")

Houston and Stuart, however, independently revisited the glyphs recently and concluded that the inscription may actually contain no prophetic statements about 2012 at all.

Rather, the mention of the end of Bak'tun 13 is likely a forward-looking statement that refers back to the main subject of the inscription, which is the dedication of Monument 6.

In an October blog post about his conclusions, Stuart makes an analogy to a scribe wanting to immortalize the New York Yankees' 1950 sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies in that year's World Series.

If this writer were to use the Maya rhetorical device thought to be in Monument 6's inscription, the text might read:

"On October 7, 1950, the New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies to win the World Series. It happened 29 years after the first Yankees victory in the World Series in 1921. And so 50 years before the year 2000 will occur, the Yankees won the World Series."

Written this way, Stuart notes, the text mentions a future time of historical importance-the 50-year anniversary of the victory-but it does so in reference to the event at hand, i.e., the 1950 game.

"This is precisely how many ancient Maya texts are structured, including Tortuguero's Monument 6," Stuart writes.

2012 Apocalypse Just Poetic Flourish

According to INAH's Gallaga, this structure of Maya texts is what has confused modern minds, given our penchant for literal, straightforward reading.

Even if the Monument 6 inscription refers to a god coming down at the end of Bak'tun 13, it isn't a statement about the end of the world, he said.

"They are writing in a more poetic sense, saying, Well, on the 21st of December 2012, the god is going to come down and start a new cycle and the old world is going to die and the new world is going to be reborn-just to make it more poetic."

(Read about the rise and fall of the Maya in National Geographic magazine.)

Saturno, the Boston University archaeologist, agreed that the reference to a specific date is clear in Monument 6, but added that "there's no text that follows and says, Herein will be the end of the world, and the world will end in fire. ... That's not anywhere in the text."

(Related video: Surviving 2012-Preparation.)

Rather, Saturno said, the hype around 2012 stems from dissatisfied Westerners looking to the ancients for guidance, hoping that peoples such as the Maya knew something then that could help us through difficult times now.

In any case, even if the ancient inscriptions explicitly predicted the end of the world, Saturno wouldn't be worried, given the Maya track record with long-range prophecy.

"They didn't see [their] collapse coming. They didn't see the Spanish conquest coming."

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End of World in 2012? Maya "Doomsday" Calendar Explained

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It's remotely possible the world will end in December 2012. But don't credit the ancient Maya calendar for predicting it, say experts on the Mesoamerican culture. (Related pictures: "2012 Doomsday Myths Debunked.") It's true that the so-called long-count calendar-which spans roughly 5,125 years starting in 3114 B.C.-reaches the end of a cycle on December 21, 2012.