Different materials from the internet have brought new light to the world in the course of the week. They have made us see the world from a different perspective. The materials talk of change and show that change out occurs even in areas or in people who are least expected to change. However, when the change comes, it is finally accepted and adopted. Those who make change go through hard times but persevere to the end to enjoy the good fruits of change. A challenge is posed to all people to accept changes, including those that involve them in their day-to-day lives.
In the case of Adrian Piper, a story is given of her background: born to parents of mixed background, black and white. She attended art classes and later dropped out to join philosophy classes. Through her interactions, she was reminded of her origin and she decided to go back to her roots. She used the knowledge and skills in both art and philosophy to change into her real self. She could use her body as a prop severally and perform publicly before announcing her performance in advance. She did all these in an attempt to show that even blacks deserve respect as the one given to the whites. The actions by Ms. Piper have made her become well known over the years for her art about racism, for good reasons (Cotter, 2018). She treats racial identity as a delusion and also an entrapment. She informs us that, despite one having a light complexion, one can be black and vice versa. One only needs to make a change.
Another case scenario is the popular rapper Kanye West who has announced that he is writing a philosophy book called Break the Simulation. He says he wants to change the philosophy whereby in writing a book the author is expected to get advice from the publishers and other people. He aims to write the book in real-time and thus break the norm of writing a rough draft and then going through many editors. As he says it is his book and thus he has the mandate to write what he feels like. In one instance he narrates how he has come to know that human beings are obsessed with photographs. He explains this by saying that photographs take a person from this moment to either past or future and that people dwell too much on memories (Kaplan, 2018).
The other case is where a philosopher argues that people are not the way they were, say 10 years ago. He compares a person to a bicycle and views them as a complex system based on interactions at four levels: molecular, neural, mental, and social. A person is made up of the interactions of the four elements. A change in one has a change in the degree of a person. For example, in molecular mechanisms, though the DNA of a person remains, maturity brings changes in a person’s hormones like estrogen and testosterone (Thagard, 2018). Changes like these are the ones that make the question of whether one is the person he/she used to be 10 years ago hard to answer. Another case that complicates the question further is claiming that the self is the soul. This would mean that one identity remains even after death.
All these cases have an impact on society to embrace change. People are also challenged not to always be contented with what has been. They also have the effect of provoking thoughts and allowing people to view their world from different angles.
References
Kaplan, I. (2018). Independent: Kanye West Says He’s Writing Philosophy Book.
Piper, A. (2018). The Thinking Canvas.
Thagard, P. (2014). The self as a system of multilevel interacting mechanisms. Philosophical Psychology, 27, 145-163
Thagard, P. (2018). Are You the Same Person You Used to Be? Personal identity comes from interacting mechanisms.
