Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Living and learning
As people say, we learn from our mistakes, but is that really true? Do you actually learn from the mistake, why did you make that mistake? Was it because, as Heidegger says you were being inauthentic to yourself and others or was this mistake made because you were being authentic and genuine? From your past experiences what do you believe? Do you believe mistakes are always a bad thing or could they possibly be positive, do you think that you have benefitted from a "mistake"?
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ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting question.
ReplyDeleteFrom my own personal past experiences, I feel that I have benefitted from the mistakes I have made as they have taught me what to avoid or do differently when a similar situation were to arise in the future. I believe that people can grow when they make mistakes and mature. I think mistakes can be made from either Heidegger's point of being inauthentic or by being authentic, depending on the situation. However, if you were being authentic, then was it really a mistake?
I think the word 'mistake' is always followed with the perception of being wrong or a bad thing. But I do believe we learn from them, whether or not we are being authentic to ourselves or not.
ReplyDeleteReally, I think when we make mistakes, it allows us to learn to be more authentic to ourselves and do as Bertrand wants us to do, by letting go of all of what we believed and re-evaluating that mistake to better ourselves for the future.
I do not entirely think there is such a thing as a 'mistake' in life. Each experience brings us one step closer to learning what works for our authentic selves. Nevertheless; we do often feel like we have made mistakes because of the values and ethics we've established. Though if there is such a thing, I think we have to define the types of mistakes we could be making. For example, the kind of mistake Ms. Darby used in class was that her friend had cheated on her husband. That is seen as wrong by societies standards and probably after the fact her own as well. She was led by her desires, and had not used enough reasoning. Aristotle separates desires and reasoning, so we could say she made a mistake and lessened her possibility for happiness by following her desires. However; at the time she was being authentic to what she desired. Therefore, I think all mistakes are made by genuine fault.
ReplyDeleteI do benefit from my mistakes, though sometimes I feel stupid for doing it in the first place. Sometimes my mistakes happen over and over and I ask myself, why am I still letting this happen again and again? I think this repetitive "mess up" is because I am (in some way) being authentic to my desires and ignoring my lesson or reason. Which is a genuine(deliberate) mistake.
I think that we learn from our mistakes, but the mistakes them-selves can be both good and bad. I know I can say that from personal experience I have made a mistake which I first regretted, but then didn't as it turned out to have a positive outcome.
ReplyDeleteI feel that we learn from our mistakes, is being to narrow. instead I would like to purpose that we learn from out experiences. Much of the philosophers in class, have learned from what they previously had said and heard and further changed it. Ie moore writes his proof of the external world as a response to kant. Because they both critique each other they are able to learn from what they previously said, and make their ideas clearer
I had my work party tonight, and I had planned on going all year. when it came time to actually go I was conflicted and made the choice to stay home and work on my philosophy. I feel like I made a mistake and I realized that to another person they would be perfectly fine with not going. Someone important to me was winning an award and I feel guilty for not being there to congratulate her.
ReplyDeleteWhich leaves me thinking of why I am feeling this negativity and frustration with myself. I like to relate this to Heidegger as he would say i am being inauthentic. But I am not sure what it is I want in my life or if I wanted to go or stay home. I felt obligated to do both, with the pressure of work and performance, and school. I now know mistakes are the result of inauthenticity, but what if you are not aware of what is authentic to what you want until after the fact? I felt as though I wanted to go, but I was trying to convince myself not to for whatever reason. I will be constantly learning to trust my body and not always my mind, because in the end I feel as though I had made a mistake.
This was a good question Cody, it actually helped me out tonight :)
Aristotle believed that our virtues are only acquired through habit and need to be repeated and fine tuned.Quite frankly, I agree with this because we aren't born knowing everything and personally I learn more from what I do wrong than what I do right because then I know where I have to focus on for improvement.
ReplyDeleteWhen we make a mistake, we fail to meet the expected desire. If we try again and make the same mistake, we didn't learn from the mistake, or we couldn't surpass it. If we tried again, got a bit further but still made a mistake, then we used what we learned from the mistake to get further. But do we learn more from mistakes, or total success? When we make a mistake, we're more likely to understand what we did wrong. But when we succeed, we use what we did is the right thing and we keep doing that, or just assume its a safe path.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion there is always something positive in any situation even when we make mistakes. Heidegger said that human existents always appear against the background of being. In that context, we can say that we need to get through some obstacles in our life and learn from our mistakes in other to fill alive and appreciate everything good that happens in the future. Image a perfect live, with no problems, would that be considered a fulfilling existence?
ReplyDeleteI believe, people can realize they made mistakes, but its upto the individual to change or keep making the same mistakes and mistakes can happen throughout our lives because no1 is perfect...if you take that mistake as a lesson to your life then you have awareness of not commiting the same mistakes but eventually one can make mistakes in different things and take it as experience and a lesson and move on with their lives instead if one keeps thinking about the mistakes they made then can damage themselves and others around them.
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ReplyDeleteWe consider things a mistake if it doesn't have the desired effect. We do not make the same mistakes. They may seem the same but are differentiated by time and by events in which they have taken place. We might ask ourselves, had nothing changed? it would be useless to apply the same thing but something has always changed. it just may not be materialistic. we always learn that the chances of success from repeating a very same action to one that was unsuccessful. So a rational personal would probably do a different action. The reason we make mistakes because we aren't rational all the time. If we notice we choose to to like things that our friends do. we believe in things for which there is not scientific evidence.
ReplyDeleteI believe that mistakes are often the culprit behind biases. For example, if you had always made mistakes in math, resulting in low test scores, you will most likely develop a disliking towards the subject.
ReplyDeleteBertrand Russell tells us that the only way to truly learn is to free ourselves from such biases and to see as God would see. One of the problems with this is that God is supposedly "all-knowing" and unfortunately for us human beings, we are born clueless. This is where we can use our mistakes as an advantage. If we know from experience that 5 + 7 =/= 11, then we will know not to make the same mistake and then clearing our heads from our previous hatred for math, we may then learn math for what it truly is.
Well, I will stick to my own opinion shared earlier. I believe we learn while we live through something, not by looking back. I guess you just have to be aware of your authenticity at all times and not let it slip away from you in a moment of rash decision
ReplyDeletei think mistakes are most important part of the human learning process. how can someone become wise without making mistakes?. such as children learn to walk only by falling down again and again.
ReplyDeleteWe make mistakes because we are human and as humans we are not perfect. in my point of viiew,It would be a boring world if we were all perfect and wouldn't be able to learn from one another. We do not make mistakes on purpose but they are presented by opportunities to learn. Most of us are better at giving advise than learning from it on their own.
I'm happy to have made mistakes, but they only feel like mistakes in the moment. As other people have said here, you learn from mistakes, and it's completely true. Saying mistake has a negative connotation, so really a mistake is bad. Once you've learned from the 'mistake' it's a benefit to you, because your just a tad wiser. Once you benefit from the mistake it's not really a mistake anymore, just an experience. This is because learning takes away the negativity of that moment and turns it into something more positive.
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