Essay about Argument and Natural Selection

Words: 1306
Pages: 6

1. “I like the rain. Some people will tell you that the sun is the best, but they are wrong. What waits for you in the sun? Skin cancer. What waits for you in the rain? Puddles to jump in. I’ll take puddles over cancer any day.” Tell me as much as you can about this passage as an argument (especially the parts). p1. Sun will bring skin cancer. p2. Rain will bring puddles that we can jump. p3: Pain is bad, joy is good. If a thing causes more good things than bad things, then it is better. p4: If A is better than B, then we should like A. p5. Puddles are better than skin cancer because it creates more joy than pain.
Conclusion: I like rain better.

2. Find an argument from an external source (make sure to tell me where it is from).
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7. Tell me about a pattern that seemed causal but is actually more complex than that.
We believe that the world we see is caused by the world itself. We receive the sensory data from the world, and recreate the images in our brain. But in fact, it can be other way around. The world is projected by our mind. For example, things that happened in the dream, or things you imaged during hallucination. In short, we see what we want to see.

8. Tell me about something that is hard to communicate and how being specific and understanding the subtleties of definitions can help.
It's really hard to articulate the idea of morality. What ought we do and why. We need to first define domains of morality. Does morality simply include actions that limit others' freedom like lying and harming, or include actions that do not involve others like suicide. If we choose both and conclude that moral action are actions that maximize goods, then we need to further define the meaning of goods. Goods are things that we value like happiness, joys, meaning, humanity, and etc. Without a clear definition, people can't have a common ground or a common language to argue upon. One may argue about morality that means one thing (violating rights) and another might argue about morality that means different things (maximize happiness)

9. Tell me about a fallacious argument that you fell for. Why did you fall for it?
It is an ontological argument invented by Saint Anselm. It goes like