Can We Be Considered Creative?

I have a very good friend of mine, named Niranjana Arullappan. We have a lot in common and we are coursemates too. We love to hang around with each other and whenever we do, there is no limit to the amount of fun that we generate.

There was once we had to do a research and write a report about it. It could be about anything, the topic was open. We are supposed to choose a topic, do research on it, prepare questionnaires and do surveys about the topic, prepare a report and finally make a presentation to the lecturer.

We wanted our work to be perfect and a memorable one to the lecturer. While brainstorming on what we should be doing, we finally got an idea to actually research on the recycling awareness among the students of MMU. We had many plans to make it a perfect research. We first gathered information about recycling and then prepared questionnaires and handed them over to randomly selected students. While analyzing the data, we got to know that the students are aware of recycling but it is just that they do not recycle. The only reason being there is no recycle bin anywhere around the campus.

We then decided to interview the person in charge for landscaping under the Facilities Management Division  (FMD) and prepared sets of questions to be asked to him. After the interview, we actually got to know that they do have the idea to bring in recycle bins to the campus, however they do not have enough funding for it.

We still did not want to give up. We looked for ways to help them and finally came up with an idea to write in to the Majlis Perbandaran Sepang (MPS), requesting for the provision of at least one set of recycle bins to MMU Cyberjaya. With the consent from the FMD personnel, we sent the letter to MPS.

A few days later, they contacted us and asked us to meet them up. Since MPS is situated just behind MMU, we walked there and met them. They finally agreed to provide a set of recycle bin to MMU and introduced the recycle bin provider to us so that we can deal with them straight away after that. We were given an official letter stating that the recycle bins will be provided to MMU due to the request from both of us. However, they also told us that it might take some time for us to get them since there have been high demands for these bins.

During our presentation, we presented all our findings and as a final touch we handed over the letter to our lecturer. She was so impressed by our effort. By right, all those extra works were not compulsory. We could have even ended our research by recommending that MMU needs recycle bins. But we wanted to do something uniqe and we finally made it.

We have incorporated great deal of hard-work and independence in our effort. We also proved that we are indeed daring and dynamic in achieving our goals. Throughout the research, we tried to be as resourceful as possible. Since all these characteristics sum up to one big trait, which is CREATIVITY, can we be considered as creative people then?

Whether or not we are creative, we are definitely the best of friends and we thank god for that.

Near To Death Experience???

She is not my type of girl and I definitely would not want to become close with her. The only reason why I am keeping in touch with her is because she was introduced to me by a very good friend whom I respect a lot.

I find her to be very manipulative and always hiding her real emotions and intentions while putting on a more relaxed mask. There was once when she was sending me messages over the phone, trying to pull words from my mouth regarding an issue which she thought I might have more information than her.

I do not mind telling, but it is just that I do not like people who try to manipulate me. If only she asked it to me straight-forwardly, I would have told her everything that I know. Now that I have found out her intention to manipulate me, it is just not going to work out hereafter.

Anyway, I enjoyed playing the game with her. At one point, she said that she was close to death and had a narrow escape from an accident. I was concerned about what happened and started to inquire about the incident.

Finally, I got to know that she was driving on a rainy night with her mind and concentration being elsewhere. Suddenly, when she wanted to take a turn, her tyres lose control due to the slippery road and eventually bumped slightly into the drainage next to the road. Immediately, she managed to get back on track and nothing much happened.

From the way she said it, I really thought that something terrible had happened. But I did not know that even this incident can be considered as near-to-death experience. I guess she must be very good in using UP-PLAYER PREJUDICIAL LANGUAGE.

You Take My Breath Away...

X is a hopelessly romantic person who uses much of flowering language in his conversation, especially towards girls. Who would not like it anyway? He sweep any girl off her feet within a few minutes of conversation. He is a born sweet-talker, I guess.

There was once when he met a drop-dead gorgeous girl in a prom nite and he really wanted to get her attention. He wanted to make sure that her first impression on him will attract her towards him forever. He made it to seem as if he bumped into her accidentally and started a conversation with her.

He showed her that he admires each and every one of her movement and eventually uttered these words, "When are you going to stop taking my breath away?" It turned out so well that he actually managed to take the girl's breath away by his flowering and poetic language.

Loaded questions are not so bad though. They can even be used to flatter someone.

Hats

All these while I have been thinking that I never wear hat eventhough when I do find hats to be attractive. Only after attending the Critical Thinking class that I got to know that I have been wearking hats, especially of various colours throughout my life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is quite interesting to know that even though my favourite colour is green, I often put on a red hat equally with the green one actually. I give importance to gut feelings and I feel things through intuition most of the time. Also it happens to be so that my intuition never let me down, so I think I better follow it as much as I can.

However, there was once in a discussion where I was asked to put on the yellow hat of optimism. I did not really favour the idea discussed. I should have got a black hat actually; I would have performed better then. I just could not think of the brighter side of the issue no matter what. In the end, after much trial, I do managed to look into the brighter side of the issue and it was only then that I realised that I may as well have been overwhelmed by prejudice over the issue. The yellow hat really made me to notice the possible goodness even in the things that I do not really like.

Thanks to the Six Thinking Hats Concept!

Paper Clips

In last trimester, I had a subject called Managing Innovation And Technology. The lecturer was a friendly, beautiful lady who seems so classy and stylish. Her style of lecturing was interesting as well. At the beginning of the class, she started out by asking the students to introduce themselves and thus moved on to a discussion on what we, the students think is the difference between invention and innovation.

She let us all to give our opinions and answers without really analyzing or making corrections to them. Then, she took out a paper clip from her pencil case and asked us what is its use. As we all know, paper clips are meant to hold two or more papers together. However, she asked us to come up with different creative uses for paper clips.

It took us some time to come up with many uses for that single paper clip but the session really went on interestingly. Some of the answers given were so unique and different, that we have never thought of it before.

When it came to my turn, I could not think of anything much than to actually say that paper clips can be used as earrings and to further enhance its look, we can add on some extra decorations using beads and stones. After a while, I thought back about my idea and actually tried to work it out. Well, it turned out well actually. Thanks to the lecturer, I get to work out my creativity and thus producing a new use for paper clips.

Now that is what we call as doing creative thinking warm-up exercise during a brainstorming session.

Hassles of Break-Ups & Make-Ups

I always hear of this issue among my friends. One day they will be crying so depressedly due to an argument then the following day they will be happily talking with their boy friends over the phone. At first, I was concerned to lend them a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on. As time goes by, I started to adapt to their everyday dramatic soap-opera. I became immune to it where it no longer bothers me in any way.

They are well aware that the difference between the pairs are so vast and with the conflict of interest being present too, it is not going to last long unless they take serious measures to fix it. However, these people are just letting their emotion to rule them and they prefer to go with the flow by breaking up and making up endlessly without really finding for a good solution to their problems.

By right, they should have identified the real problem which has been interfering in their relationships and analyzed it thoroughly so as to find what is causing all those relationship issues between them and their partners. Then, they could have moved forward to the next step which is to identify the possible solutions and finally to decide on the most appropriate one to be used for their problem.

However, they tend to let themselves to be carried away by emotions and end up being indecisive. Perhaps they do not see that problem solving skills can actually save them much energy and time.

Stereotyping

I had a neighbour with a son who always gets himself involved in gang fights. His appearance itself doesn't seems to be pleasing, with his spiked-hair and all those metal accessories which he uses to over-crowd himself. I still can imagine how scarry he looks. I seldom talk to him, nor smile at him whenever I bump into him in the neighbourhood.

I would say that even his style of speech is not good either. He uses many vulgar words and dysphemisms and hurts people terribly. I have even noticed that he does not love animals and abuse them terribly. All these traits of him has made me to hate him with all my heart. Yet, I knew it very well that he was the only person who is not well-behaved in his entire family. The rest of his family members were all polite and loving types of people and I like them for that reason.

In fact, one of their daughter was my classmate while I was in Standard 4. One day, the bad guy was arrested by police for stealing from a supermarket. While I was talking with some of my friends in class, I got to know from them that they have actually boycotted this girl, just because her brother is not a good person.

I did not really understand why they did that, but all that I know was that I pitied that girl a lot since nobody talks to her thereafter. I tried convincing them to get into normal terms with her, however nobody listened to me. The only reason that they gave was that, "He brother is a thief, a bad person, so she will be the same too. Do not befriend her."

That was so unfair. They stereotyped that this girl will be a bad person too just because her brother is one. I wonder when people will stop making SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS like this...

Tapah - The High Tech Place

A few years ago, while I was doing my foundation somewhere in the northern region, there was once this argument in my class between a fellow classmate and me. He is from Tapah and I am from Kuala Lumpur (that is how they classify anyone who comes from Selangor).

He was condemning that Selangor does not have much development compared to his wonderfully hich-tech Tapah. At that time, I was not sure on how developed Tapah was, since I seldom hear that name for any reason at all.

One thing I knew for sure was that I will pass by Tapah on my way back to Selangor by bus. I am a nature-lover and I love sight-seeing while going on a long-distance journey. However, I have never really noticed Tapah on my way back.

So, the next time I went back, I was looking for signboards of Tapah all the way so as to see what is so special about this place until he calls it as being more developed than Selangor. To my shock, when I arrived at Tapah, there was no visible development that can be said as being more advanced than Selangor.

It made me wonder on why that person even initiated that topic in the first place. It was so irrelevant. Since I am a person who love to argue, I waited for him to initiate the same topic again in class. One fine day, he did it again.

As usual he said, "Selangor not nice lah....Tapah is always the best. You should look at the high-tech development at Tapah."

I immediately replied, "Oh yeah...I saw it the last time when I passed it by. It is indeed a very 'high-tech' place with much development and admirable 'skycrapers', but all in green actually."

Since then, he never raise the issue again. Well, at times I guess we really have to use Prejudicial Qualifiers in order to shut some people's mouth.

The Supergirl Who Killed Ultraman

There is a huge age gap of 10 years between my younger brother and me. When he was a little boy, he used to believe everything that I say. Maybe it because the way I said it was so convincing. He was a great fan of Ultraman then and he used to watch Ultraman series on the television almost every week.

I was so annoyed by the fact that I can not watch my favourite tv programme which was also being aired at the same time on a different channel. I was pissed off on Ultraman and wished that such series do not exist at all. I have even argued for hours with my brother that Ultraman is fictional and does not exist in reality but he just did not want to buy it.

Due to frustration, I started making up stories that there once lived an Ultraman, named Ultraman Leo who was the most powerful Ultraman of all. (I chose this name because I knew that there really existed an Ultraman character with that name but it is just that it was no longer continued). Then, I started continuing the story that we used to be good friends. However, one day we had a squabble over a simple issue which eventually grew up bigger and bigger until it ended up in physical fights.

I was so angry with him that I ended up killing him. My brother did not want to beleive me. He asked me for proof. I smiled and said, "You summon one of your Ultraman here now and we shall ask him whether or not my story is true. Then you will know that I am actually telling you the truth."

With that being said by me, my brother had no other choice than to believe my words and he really did, actually. Eversince, he started looking up to me as if I am a great warrior and he listened to all my words. Now that he got older and wiser, he is not believing such stories anymore. Otherwise, I would have tried some different version of similar stories. How sad...

Anyway, I am always the supergirl who killed Ultraman Leo. Thanks to Petitio Principii - Burden Of Proof Fallacy!

The Fox And The Crow

We all know the story of the Fox and the Crow. For those who want to recall the storyline, let me help you out with it.

 

Once upon a time, there lived a Fox who was very hungry and could not find anything to eat. Out of the blue, the fox saw a Crow flying off with a piece of cheese in its beak and perching on a branch of a tree.

 

The cunning Fox immediately thought of an evil plan and walked up to the foot of the tree. It started, "Good day, Ms. Crow! You are looking so goergous today with your glossy feathers, bright sparkling eyes and your dazzling beauty. I can tell it for sure that your voice must surpass that of all the other birds, just as how your beauty does. Let me hear but one song from you. In so doing, I will greet you as the Queen of Birds."

The Crow, feeling proud and flattered, lifted up her head and began to caw her best. Unfortunately, the piece of cheese fell to the ground the moment she opened her mouth. The fallen piece was snapped up by the cunning Fox.

"Thank you Ms. Crow! That was all I wanted. In exchange for your cheese, I will give you a piece of advice for the future: Do not trust those who flatter you too much. Do not trust flatterers!"

With that, the Fox walked away happily with the piece of cheese while the poor Crow was left wondering how foolish it has been.

Well, even the Fox knew how to use AD POPULUM - APPEAL TO VANITY. I guess it must have attended Critical Thinking classes.

Ad Hominem

Everyone in this world will use fallacies as a mean to make people agree with them, at any point of their life. I am not an exception to this too. However, there was this one person I know whom I would rather call as the "King Of Fallacies" because you can hardly see a logical argument from him. He only tries to manipulate the opponent emotionally so as to win the argument. His main issue is that he wants to win every argument and prove that he is always right, but he does not has the confidence to argue in the right way by providing logical reasonings. He would rather manipulate the opponent and attack them psychologically. If I am to list out all of his fallacies, believe me, the list will go on and on without an end.

Therefore, I would like to stress more on his favourite fallacy, which is also his area of expertise - AD HOMINEM:

1. There was once when I was having a real bad time in my studies and was struggling hard to fix the situation. He was pursuing his masters degree at that time. I am good at factual subjects that requires memorizations and extensive writings. His papers were mostly of this type. He was once complaining to me that it is hard for him to cope with such subjects, since he is not used to memorizing as well as writing a lot. I understood his situation, so I suggested him a few methods that he can use in order to do better in such papers.

He immediately said, "Look who is talking? You are having a hard time in studies too. You cannot even fix your problem, but you are trying to advise me for mine? Why should I listen to you in the first place? Who are you? What qualification do you have to advise me? Just mind your own business."

BCT - Ad Hominem Tu Quo Que.

He condemned me for the sincere advice that I gave him out of my concern for him. He justified his argument by saying that I am not doing well in my studies too. As a critical thinker, he should have evaluated the content of my argument rather than attacking me for the same mistake.

2. There was once when a conflict of interest rose between this person and my father. I did not want to be biased in my judgement, therefore I listened to both the parties and tried to understand their situations. Then, after talking it through with a few of my friends, I finally concluded that both these parties are being right in their own perception, but it is just that there is no common ground for them to agree with each other.The least that I could try then was to make each party understand the stand of the other. My father, with all those years of experience being a teacher, accepted my arguments openly and was willing to give a second chance to this person. This person, however, was not really willing to compromise.

He said, "I already expected you to defend him. I was waiting for you to say this. I knew you would. It is because he is your father. So, for sure you will not agree that he is actually wrong. No matter how wrong he is, he is still your father. So I am sure you are not going to give him up."

BCT - Ad Hominem Circumstantial

He blamed me that I am actually defending my father, just because he is my father. He never tried to understand the underlying contents in my argument. I could think of nothing then, than to drop the idea to negotiate with him about that issue.

3. On another fine day, this very same person was sharing his problem with me. He complained that his fellow groupmates are treating him unfairly. He is often being discriminated and taken for granted. Therefore, he ended up being overloaded with assigment works while the rest were just giving orders on what to do. I felt so bad for him that, again, I advised him to stand up for his rights. I asked him to bravely express his mind to his fellow groupmates so that they would understand his stand. He listened to all of my advices and in the end he started his routine work, which is to attack me back so as to hide his weaknesses.

He said, "Why should I listen to you? You are a poor student, an unfair person. You cannot cope well in your studies. You also did not support me in the conflict between your father and me. Now you are trying to advise me for my problem? You are not smart enough to suggest solutions for me."

BCT - Ad Hominem Abusive

Eventhough when I know that he never listen to advices or suggestions, I still could not keep silent when he shared his problems. That was because I cared for him. However, he cannot really stop being prejudice towards me and judging me personally, rather than looking into the content of my advice.

Whatever it is, I am just glad that this person is no more in my life and that I do not have to waste my time arguing with a fallacious person who does not argue based on logical reasonings.

An Interesting Argument

I have a friend - a balanced-minded person who has equal interests in both the fields of science and arts. He perceives and inteprets things differently, to be more precise, uniquely. That is what I consider to be his main attraction. His name is Sivenesh Arunachalam. He is a teacher by profession, yet he is also an ameteur artist who provides mural services. The following is his picture.

We both like arguing on facts and critically view certain beliefs and statements which we see as not making sense. There was once where this argument about beauty based on gender in humans rose between us. We took opposite stands, where I stressed that female humans are more beautiful than males, while he firmly defended that male humans are more beautiful than their female counterparts.

I did not really agree with him since I have been so used to seeing females as the beautiful and attractive gender in humans. However,based on his premises, I had no choice but to agree with him. His argument was so interesting and logical that I really admired it a lot, even when I did not really favour his conclusion. 

These are the premises that he gave to support his conclusion that male humans are indeed the more beautiful ones compared to females:

1. He said that we tend to be blinded by the delusion that female humans are more beautiful than their male counterparts. However, we should not forget that it takes a great deal of effort in order for females to seem beautiful. They need to apply much make ups, they have to dress up elegantly and use many ornaments such as jewelleries and other hair accessories in order to look at their best. In addition, some are even going for plastic surgeries, slimming programmes, liposuction, and many other firming and trimming programmes in order to cut those extra pounds off and and look as young and attractive as possible. These are not natural. These are actually artificial and through these, even the ugliest of person can seem to be the most beuatiful one. For example, look at the below pictures that contrast between the before and after make up look of 2 actresses. Can the beauty obtained through artificial means be considered as real beauty? (BCT - Valid, good, argument)

2. There is a common belief that beautiful people use beautiful things. In that case, all the beatiful and finest of things are used by females. Therefore, females are attributable to beautiful things, because they are beautiful themselves. However, this is not true. Lets take cars for example. Let us compare a Ferrari with a Proton Wira. Apparently, we would say that Ferrari is the most attractive one no matter what but isn't it strange that most accessory shops are having more accessories for Proton Wira than for Ferrari? This shows that Proton Wira needs more accessories in order to look beautiful while this is not the case when it comes to Ferrari. Ferraris are highly sought after by people just in the way they already are. Also not to be forgotten, even with all those additional accessories, people stil believe that Ferraris are more attractive and beautiful. There are possibilities for a modified Proton Wira to look better than a Ferrari, but it is an unfair comparison since one is with extra fittings while the other is in its natural form. The same applies to human beings. Females with extra artificial beauty incorporated to them are being compared with males in their natural form. Chances are likely that females will win. However, is it a fair comparison? Well, again it ends in a big question mark. Who knows, if males make up too, they might look even better than females with make ups. (BCT - Valid, good, strong argument)

3. Another good example would be our closely-related friends - animals. It is universally agreed that male animals look fitter, more beautiful and attractive than their female counterparts who look small, weak and less captivating. Things get even worse when these female animals grow older and give birth to their youngs. They then become saggy and unhealthy. Scientifically, there are many similarities between the human beings and animals in terms of cells, and biological processes. Then why should this issue be of any difference? The only reason why female animals stay unattractive and less beautiful than their male counterparts while female humans are indeed looking more beautiful than their male counterparts is that these animals do not have access to artificial beauty as do humans. Lets compare the females and males in the pictures below. Which one looks more beautiful in their natural form? Now let us imagine if the female animal, by any chance could get a make up and artificial beautifications, will our answer still be the same then? (BCT - Valid & Invalid, strong argument)

4. Therefore, it is wise to say that males are naturally more beautiful than females and it is undeniable that females do need extra fittings in order to look as beautiful and confident as males. Most females are not confident to go out without any make up, while males do not really bother about make ups. This is because they have confidence in their appearance. Besides, the effect of age is more prominent in females than in males. An aged male is still preferred by many and seen to be attractive while this is not the case with an aged female. There are many aged actors out there who still act as main heroes in movies, while aged actresses are not really preferred in leading roles in the very same movie. For example, Goerge Clooney was still accepted as an hero even when he exposed his grey hair, acting without dyeing his hair. However, the same acceptance may not be obtained by Aishwarya Rai if she acts with grey hair. (BCT - Valid, good argument)

5. Beautiful things or people own attractive qualities. In that case, let us take animals for example. Males have vibrant colours, louder and more captivating voices, and extra beautiful physical features. This shows that males are more beautiful. Similarly, in humans, males have louder voice, stronger body structure, more intelligence, more stable emotions and longer-lasting youth. This clearly shows that males are more beautiful than females, since males seem to possess more attractive qualities than do females. (BCT - Valid, bad arguments)

6. Beautiful and precious things come in limited edition while less beautiful and less precious things are found in abundance in our surrounding. For example, parrots are beautiful birds while crows are not. Which of these are seen more in abundance in the world? In that case, when we analyze the world population, there are more females than do males in this world. This also shows that males are more beautiful than females. (BCT - Invalid, bad, weak arguments)

He always says, "I am a nature-loving scientific person. Nature never lies, my dear pretty girls!".

BCT Analysis: All of the above were the premises and supporting arguments given by my friend to support his conclusion that males are more beautiful than female humans. I actually managed to identify many of the things learnt in critical thinking from his argument. He used much evidence based on physical evidence and observations. He has also made some assumptions.

Besides, there seem to be a certain degree of vagueness in the sentences, where it was unclear on what is the standard of real beauty and how it is measured. There were also some overgenerality involved. Most of his claims were objective and he did provide with proper examples and evidences. His arguments were mostly deductive, therefore, when he shows that the premises are true, the conclusion becomes true as well. His arguments, although valid, is a mixture of good and bad ones. Some of this assumptions seem to be inductive, involving both strong and weak ones.

Eventhough I do not really like the conclusion, but he has argued in such a way that he managed to persuade me that human males are indeed more beautiful than their female counterparts. I do admire his style of speech though.