faizainathens

Reflections were always the most difficult thing for me. I’m studying journalism, I’m working as a journalist, I can write a huge research and an article, but my personal reflections…

For me, the second important thing we studied was systems theory, a systematic approach to everything around us. The systematic approach contributes to the adequate formulation of problems in specific sciences and the development of an effective strategy for their study. The system approach is based on the consideration of an object as an integral set of elements in the totality of relations and connections between them, that is, the consideration of an object as a system.

The main specificity of the system approach is determined by the fact that it focuses research on revealing the integrity of the object and its supporting mechanisms, identifying diverse types of connections of a complex object and bringing them into a single theoretical picture. One very important example was given on the first weeks – the video about wolves saved the ecosystem. I was shocked about it and sent the link to some of my friends. At the first look, it seems absolutely unconnected with the class named «System’s theory, system’s psychology and social media». But then you understand what the system’s approach is.

Another example of system’s approach, and to approve the fact that there is nothing totally «black and white», I can show from my life in Athens.

Many Germans came to Greece for an exchange semester – they themselves explain this by the fact that in childhood and school years they often came to this country on vacation with their parents and fell in love with nature, climate, people and prices. It is pleasant to communicate with students from Germany – they are always friendly, friendly, ready to help in a difficult situation, like to go on joint trips with people from different countries, know English perfectly, want to practice it and have good manners. Even if there are 6 Germans in the company at the same time and you are the only one who does not know their language, they will speak English so as not to embarrass (it seems that this is an obvious rule, but not everyone adheres to it).

On the way home from one of the student parties, me and one of the German students, discussed our countries, their roles in the world community, the present and the past. It turned out that his great-grandfather fought during World War II on the side of Nazi Germany, after the Allied victory was captured in Siberia and returned home only in the 50s. He told his children and grandchildren that he did not want to go to the front, did not support the ideology of the Nazis, but there was no choice (of course, we cannot verify the veracity of these words in any way, these are only his phrases that reached his great-grandson). My great–grandfather, my mother’s grandfather, like many other ancestors, also fought, but on the side of the Soviet Union, went all over Europe, but did not reach Berlin – he was wounded on the border with Germany. Later he said that this wound saved his life – none of his comrades who reached the German capital survived. It’s a rather strange feeling to realize that your ancestors were on opposite sides of the barricades, were enemies, and now you, their great–grandchildren, are walking together through the dark streets of Athens from a party. And it is also a very important feeling – because we are something more than our countries, past and present. It is not so significant that in the past our ancestors were enemies, it is more important to take the lessons of history and put the person’s personality in front of you, his thoughts and feelings first, and not gender, age, nationality, religion and ancestral choices.

This knowledge is really important for me personally as a journalist. The system approach is an approach in which any system (object) is considered as a set of interrelated elements (components), having an output (goal), input (resources), communication with the external environment, feedback. This is the most difficult approach.

Systems approach in media is a way of looking at media from a holistic perspective, taking into account the various elements that make up the media system. This includes the technology, the content, the audience, the industry, the regulation, and the economic and political environment. It is a way of understanding how all of these elements interact and influence each other, and how the shape the media landscape. By looking at media from a systems approach, it is possible to gain a better understanding of how media works and how it can be used to create meaningful and effective communication.

So, as I mentioned before, it is the second thing what this class taught me. The first one is the people and viewing people not only separately from each other, but also together with their cultural code, character, appearance, behavior and language. ERASMUS semester in Athens was my first time in Europe: I’ve never been there before but I love Greece, Athens and Panteion from the top of my heart. First of all, because of the climate, although it is already cool in winter, it is still sunny, and it is enough to put on jeans and a sweatshirt to go outside. Secondly, the English–speaking environment pleases – in Athens there is no special need to know Greek for everyday life, and sellers, bartenders, waiters, drivers and just passers-by from teenagers to the elderly will easily understand you and will be able to keep up the conversation. Realizing how easy it is to communicate only with the help of one foreign language, you fall in love with English anew, its universality, worldwide popularity, logic and conciseness. The third is the people who surround me. Smart, open to new experiences, kind, friendly students from all over the world came to Athens, mostly from Europe, but there are also Britons, Americans, Turks and others. I don’t feel lonely being away from home, and the fact that I’m one of these students makes me happier.

European students have a small privilege – they can join companies on a national basis and go to parties together, to the beach, to spend leisure time. This is especially true for the French and Germans, because they make up the vast majority of exchange students. At my university in Athens, among 300 international students, only 4 are from Russia. But perhaps it is even a great privilege to be in a foreign country without the opportunity to communicate a lot in your native language and only with people with a similar cultural code. This way you integrate into a new environment faster, you have to practice the language and find friends from different countries.

This topic is relevant today, because in human life there is both order and chaos. Order means activity, work, and chaos means the periods between work and work, i.e. rest. In chaos, a person comes up with a new job, a new activity. Order cannot exist without chaos, for example, you cannot work 24 hours a day and not want to rest. Chaos is primary, it underlies everything. Chaos is understood as disorder, confusion, confusion.

In my view, life is impossible without these 2 extremely different things. We can see chaos in our everyday life, with lots if activities, fun, things to do, etc. as for order, it is also everywhere.

In psychology, the principle of consistency is an approach to the study of mental phenomena, in which they are considered as a system that is irreducible to the sum of its elements and has a structural organization. Due to the structural organization, the properties of each element are determined by its place in the structure.

The most important postulate of the principle of consistency in psychology states that all mental processes are organized into a multi-level system, the elements of which acquire new properties set by its integrity.

System analysis is the identification of the elements that make up the system and structural and functional connections (and not reducible to causal ones), the justification of its levels and system-forming factors, the unity of the organization and functions, stability and management.

The principle of consistency (the systemic structure of a mental phenomenon) is a principle that requires analyzing each element of the psyche in close connection with its functioning as a whole.

In this case, systems theory helps us to understand more what is going inside us and what we are able to do with it.

An American politician visits his poet friend in Mont Saint-Michel (France). Walking around the island of the Middle Ages, they discuss their philosophy of life. Then they meet Sonya, a scientist who lives in seclusion. She joins in their conversation. Two men listen to a woman’s ideas and discuss how they can work in their own political and poetic life. For almost two hours, three human figures loom on the screen, leading a continuous conversation on the highest matters. A physicist, a Politician and a Poet participate in the dispute. They discuss the philosophy of Descartes and Bacon, the structure of the atom, the responsibility of scientists, ecology, the crisis of perception, the theory of living systems, etc.

Sonya Hoffmann, aka Liv Ullman, a former physicist and an American citizen in the recent past embodies the whole essence of Capra’s work. Against the background of this lady, bubbling with a stream of intellectual energy, two men can not be called opponents in any way. From time to time, however, the dominant in the conversation turns to them, but solely in order to indicate a change of positions and a transition to a new point of conversation. The images of Liv Ullman herself, in which Bergman once revealed the special charm of nature, here personifies a person who is tired of the usual reality and has stopped time for himself to observe her, the heroine embodies the concept of Capra, but she also has a personality that is already beyond any scientific theories. the absence of her daughter in the frame and the most superficial layer of the contradiction of meldu pimi are able to destroy even the most important idea of this woman and lower her to a solid surface, where everything is real.

Feel sorry that I’m late with my reflections, but really want to share them in any case.

During discussing this topic I thought about the system called rhizomes learning.

To begin with, a little bit of theory. Studying the brain, psychologists and neurophysiologists have found that its work can be divided into two independent learning systems. They were called systems 1 and 2 (C1 and C2).

System 1
automatic
fast
slow learning
associative
parallel

System 2
conscious
slow
fast learnable
abstract
consistent

The first system is instinctive, inuitive, sharpened to recognize images, emotions, thinks in metaphors, looks for associations, multitasking (runs parallel processes). System two is conscious, logical, works with language, logic, exact mathematics, is single-tasking, but is able to solve complex abstract problems. System two operates and follows the rules and instructions.

The systems are not separated, they interact with each other. When we learn a foreign language, system 2 is active for the first time (since it basically learns faster). At the same time, working with the language is difficult for us, we choose words, remember the rules written in notebooks, get tired quickly. But soon, after long hours of repetitions and cramming, the problems go away, the speech becomes fluent and not burdensome. We no longer think about it specifically, as we want to say, it turns out by itself, atomically. System 1 has already connected and assumed leadership. The same effect works when teaching sports – at first we think through every movement, we slow down, after hours of training, movements begin to turn out quickly and reflexively, without effort.

Feedback also works. For example, when we are angry, we try to find logical justifications for our irritation. No, we are not in a bad mood – the whole point is that we are surrounded by fools and bastards. When we are cheerful, people delight us with their natural pleasantness and likability. So, depending on our emotional background, the glasses change from half full to half empty and back again. In the language of psychology, this phenomenon is called rationalization.

At the beginning of the class we shared our own ideas about AI, and it’s really curious that most of students mentioned negative aspects of one. This makes me wonder how the younger generation treats such inventions and whether they are really needed to live a pleasant life. I want to share my own ideas on one example.

There are already mechanisms in the world that allow drivers to drive vehicles without being in a car. The movement of the truck can now be coordinated by a robot, and a person can only follow the trip while drinking hot coffee in a spacious office. Sounds like a fairy tale, right?

Do not confuse a remote control car with a drone — these are fundamentally different systems. Unmanned vehicles exclude the presence of a driver in any form. But the creation of such transport is slow. Developers teach cars to distinguish between signs, the road, other road users, and people. There are successes, but it is far from perfect driving. And the cost of such a car will be too high — the laser radar with which the drone navigates in space costs tens of thousands of dollars. This type of machine will enter mass circulation in at least 20 years.

Remote drivers will teach cars to drive. With the help of the experience of truckers, trucks will “understand” how to behave in a particular road situation. Therefore, fully automated drones will replace remote driving. It means that during the next decades we can lose drivers as a profession. Are we ready for that? What will all these people do if they lose their work?

In my view, society has to answer these questions firstly, and only then introduce modern technologies our lives.

P. S. I like this topic because it close to my field of interest— I’m studying journalism, multimedia, media communication in international relations, and AI is actively used there.

This class we were talking about causality and unpredictability.

Sometimes things seem unpredictable – how a double pendulum will move, what will happen the next year, what will be your next step after graduation. Seems like everything can happen and you are not able to change it. The way I look at things looks like this: I am absolutely sure that nothing is predetermined, but having certain knowledge about history, psychology, life experience, etc., you can try to predict your future. It’s better than just going with the flow (my opinion). It’s like math or science: If you know certain formulas and laws of physics, you can solve the problem, understand how fast an object will move or how much energy is needed to heat a room. But in life, as in science, there are discoveries, surprises, when a scientist suddenly realizes that something is not working. It’s great and there’s uncertainty about it.

P.S. I really like how my vocabulary changes and I remember words I have forgotten or learn new ones.

Metronomes, even if they started working in different time, finally will go to synchronised movement due to a number factors. It’s not really important what led to this — the curvature of a table, the wind, the program or something else — we just know that thy will be synchronised.

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It reminded me that people do a bit the same thing — we are all from different countries and universities, study different subjects, live our own life, but right now we are at Panteion university.

I really loved this example from the lecture: “There is just a chemical soup inside us, and sometimes it has an influence to our feelings, emotions, actions etc”. I’m sure our body, hormones, neural connections, character, innate preferences affect who we are. Anyway, it’s not only the one reason we do what we do — other people, our personality has this impact on our state of mind.

Emotions are incredibly important and it is an interesting tradition to try to understans how do you feel every lecture. Sociology becomes more and more popular so a lot of people ask themselves about it from time to time . So do I, and becouse of our Thursday classes I have started doing it more often. My first month in Athens has passed… Did I do enough? Did I study well? Did I explore a lot? Sometimes I feel that I could do more. Also, it is important to remember that we are not robots and it is absolutely ok to do nothing, relax, binge watching YouTube and serf the Internet instead of run from one museum to another or read all the articles and textbooks.

As for the systems, I disagree that everything is a system. Moreover, I notice that our world is more chaos than a pattern.

What is good, I do not fell lonely here. All my close friends and family are far but I am not sad about it. Many interesting, intellegent, happy, open-minded, kind, talkative people all over the world are currently in Athens! The fact that I am here too and (maybe) I am one of them makes me happy:)

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