<p>Hey everyone-</p>
<p>I am applying as a transfer and was hoping that you guys could provide me with some comments on my essay. Thanks.</p>
<pre><code>In his landmark philosophical treatise, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume levies a devastating attack on what he refers to as necessary connection. He opens his critique by drawing the distinction between impressions and ideas. Impressions are the sensory experiences, emotions, and other phenomena directly perceptible from the outside world. Ideas are the relationships we construct between these impressions by reflecting on them. The fallibility of human reason, Hume argues, lies in the assumption that these relationships are necessary. For example, one may observe that when it rains there are black clouds overhead, but it is not prudent for one to assume that black clouds necessarily accompany rainstorms. This inference is based solely on past coincidence and rules out the possibility of a sunshower. Another faulty idea inferred from sensory perceptions is the relationship between mustard and hot dogs.
As one browses the twenty-foot-high aisles of the local bulk food purveyor, the humongous jar of mustard is bound to catch ones eye. The mere sight of the radiant yellow barrel releases a flood of memories of bar-b-ques, picnics, cookouts, and, of course, hot dogs. The innate framework of the human mind is such that one sensory impression can trigger a series of recollections of past sensory impressions. When one sees mustard, one thinks of the taste of mustard, and when one thinks of the taste of mustard, one thinks of the taste of that with which one eats mustardhot dogs. In addition to these recollection processes, one reflects on past experience of big things complementing associated big things. Big socks are associated with big shoes, big forks are associated with big knives
So, because this particular jar of mustard is so gigantic, the shopper thinks of an appropriately Oldenbergesque hot dog. The conversion would follow something like this: a one-and-a-half foot tall jar of mustard with a diameter of nine inches would have a volume of about one-thousand-one-hundred-and-forty-five cubic inches. A regular sized jar of Guldens Mustard (my favorite) has a height of three-and-a-half inches, a diameter of two inches, and contains eleven cubic inches of the condiment. The gigantic jar of mustard contains one-hundred-and-four times as much yellow goo as the regular jar. Proportionality thus dictates that the hot dogs flavored with this huge volume of mustard would be one-hundred-and-four times as large as a regular hot dog. These Brobdinagian ballpark beauties would be twenty-eight inches long and weigh twenty-six pounds.
Therefore, ideas inferred from past sensory experience entice the shoppers to buy the huge container of mustard. They couple the association of mustard and hot dogs with the presumption that big goes with big. Shoppers see the huge jar of mustard, which elicits the connection to hot dogs and the past delight experienced while eating hot dogs covered in mustard, and they assume that because this jar of mustard is so big, the future delight experienced from this purchase will be proportionately big. But before they struggles to roll the yellow bounty into their cart, they must realize their fallacious logic. Hume (who I believe had quite a taste for beef Wellington) would argue that past coincidences of hotdogs, mustard, and gained happiness does not guarantee future such coincidences. An increase in one of the three contributing factors, then, certainly does not assure an increase in the others. There can be too much of a good thing.
The power to reason is an extremely valuable tool. Past sensory experience combined with reason can provide a somewhat reliable prediction of the future. But one must realize the limits of human reason. For in the end, who really needs that much mustard?
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