Please taste my Mustard (Essay)

<p>I never posted the essay #1 that I did submit, nor did I ever post #2. I submitted an essay very similar to the #e i posted. </p>

<p>I can see how people would disaggree with my approach of “lining up the possibilities” rather than giving a concrete answer might miff some, but I think that’s a pretty common thing to do in philosophy (or even science) given imperfect information (which is obviously the case concerning the existance and nature of a soul). To claim I know the answer based on the way I answered the question would be religion. Many of the earlier Socratic dialogues did something similar–they would explore a complex concept like “virtue” and the conclusion would be that they didn’t know anything, but at least now that knew that they knew nothing.</p>

<p>That is true about the Socratic dialogues. But, they would still argue about the strengths and weaknesses of each position. Yours was more of a laundry list, albeit a well written one.</p>

<p>Have you ever read any of Leo Strass’s commentary on “The Republic?” He argued that it contains a clearly defined definition of justice that is available only to the most astute readers.</p>

<p>My essay was very similar to your RejectedRyan, I looked back on it. And I agreee that no solid statement should be made but many options should be evaluated and from that one can suggest a logical pathway. Your essay is more considerate than someone who only stated one way, but you should have at least hinted as to which was you thought was more plausible.</p>

<p>“As long as people like you who think that dehumanizing an entire class of people by making crude jokes about them is witty don’t get into UChicago, I don’t see the need for a gay club.”</p>

<p>Are you implying that you are such a scum of a human being that if I even suspected you of being a homosexual, I am automatically dehumanizing homosexuals as a whole with your association?</p>

<p>jnumberscpcnumbers,</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Stop trying to divert attention away from your prejudiced blunder of a comment with more of your witless jokes.</p></li>
<li><p>I am crying puddles of angsty tears because you keep calling me “a scum.” You might want to give my lacrimal glands a rest so that I still have tears to cry for you when you get your rejection letter.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>No need for your tears. I got a full ride and a position in Rutgers University’s honors program. Even though I would give it up for Chicago, I am in a very safe position. No hard feelings ok. Good luck on your club activities in the future.</p>

<p>“If you were smart and it were not too late, you would rewrite your mustard essay, because quite frankly, it reads like a 10th grade AP Euro paper.”</p>

<p>If you think it reads like that now, you should read the references to Otto von Bismark I included in my first draft.</p>

<p>Hahahah, yeah that would be pretty awful.</p>

<p>In all honesty, now that I read through it again, it’s not THAT bad. Aside from being funny, harshness is probably more useful when you still have the ability to make revisions. That being said, I think your overall point about large jars conjuring up large hotdogs is OK, you fail to make it interesting, or even create much of a connection other than through a Hume reference that feels like it was used more to demonstrate your knowledge of that philosopher than to advance your point. Plus, the other lines I pointed out, plus the overall “AP Euro” style of writing makes it feel very generic. I don’t think its an automatic rejection, but if your other stuff is mediocre I wouldn’t feel too confident.</p>

<p>But hey, what do I know, I’m not an admissions officer.</p>

<p>I have revised it heavily by the way. I think I made the Hume reference more relevant, my logic more convincing, and the overall ‘point’ of the essay more clear. Here it is:</p>

<p>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 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 correct 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.</p>

<pre><code> As one browses the twenty-foot-high aisles of the local bulk food purveyor, a humongous jar of mustard is bound to catch one’s eye. The innate framework of the human mind is such that one sensory impression triggers a recollection of past sensory impressions. So, the mere sight of the radiant yellow barrel releases a flood of memories of bar-b-ques, picnics, cookouts, and, of course, hot dogs with mustard. In addition to these recollection processes, one reflects on past experiences of big things complementing associated big things. Big shoes are associated with big feet, big forks are associated with big knives… So, because this particular jar of mustard is so gigantic, the shopper associates it with an appropriately Oldenbergesque hot dog.

The shopper’s subconscious equating would follow something like this: a one-and-a-half foot tall jar of mustard with a diameter of nine inches has a volume of about one-thousand-one-hundred-and-forty-five cubic inches. A regular sized jar of Gulden’s Mustard (my favorite) contains eleven cubic inches of the condiment. The gigantic jar of mustard contains one-hundred-and-four times as much as the regular jar. Proportionality thus dictates that a hot dog flavored with this huge volume of mustard would be one-hundred-and-four times as large as a regular hot dog. This Brobdingnagian ballpark beauty would be twenty-eight inches long and weigh twenty-six pounds.

The shopper couples the association of mustard and hot dogs with the presumption that big goes with big. He sees the jar of mustard, which elicits the connection to hot dogs and the past delight experienced while eating hot dogs covered in mustard; he simultaneously reflects on past associations of corresponding size, and concludes that because this jar of mustard is so big, it must be associated with a level of delight that is proportionately big. Therefore, ideas inferred from past sensory experience entice the shopper to buy the huge container of mustard. But before he struggles to roll the yellow bounty into his cart, he must realize his fallacious logic. Hume (who I believe preferred beef Wellington) would argue that past coincidences of hotdogs, mustard, and gained happiness do not guarantee future such coincidences. Furthermore, past observation of complementary big things does not ensure that a package of twenty-eight inch, twenty-six pound hot dogs to go with his gargantuan mustard awaits the shopper in the next aisle. Concurrence does not dictate “necessary connection.” An increase in the amount of mustard the shopper buys, then, does not assure an increase in his happiness.

If we are to grasp the workings of the world, we must be skeptical of the misleading tendencies of our minds and must not overestimate the accuracy of the conclusions we draw from our sensory perceptions. Egotism, unfortunately, impedes our ability to think and act prudently. We often assume that our judgments are accurate, despite insufficient proof. In making deductions we must learn to assess the entire body of evidence and only draw inferences that are appropriate given the breadth and depth of that information.

If we adopt these critical techniques, our ascent towards understanding will be a steadfast and successful endeavor. At first, the light of truth will appear to us a mere sliver penetrating a crack in the wall of ignorance. But if we chip away at the crack with acute minds, we will gradually achieve our highest potential—genuine knowledge. If we strike wildly at it, however, the wall will collapse on top of us. So, to ensure our escape from the cave, we must start by saying “No” to super-huge mustard.
</code></pre>

<p>I chose the astronaut essay, too. I didn’t come to a definite conclusion either-- what I did was reduce the question to a single variable that I couldn’t define (in this case, the existence of a soul). So I basically got it down to: If you believe in a soul, the answer is this. If you don’t, the answer is this.</p>

<p>um… isn’t it a little late for these revisions?</p>

<p>I am a Transfer applicant.</p>

<p>oh. Where are you currently? What’s college like? (lol)</p>

<p>Oberlin. I came for the creative writing program but realized that my true passion is political science.</p>

<p>Well, I don’t know how I encountered this long deteriorated thread, but I’ll give a brief anecdote on my opinion of it anyway. I’d love to give it a 3 paragraph critique, but I’m afraid I’ll be “dehumanized” like brinestone was. </p>

<p>So here’s to briefness…although I thought your essay made indisputable sense, I’m afraid nothing about it was at all alluring. From a philosophical perspective, it makes sense and is moderately fascinating, although most of it is implicit and requires only rudimentary logic to be understood. This caused a surfeit of words and sentences that wans the overall appeal of the essay.
(I don’t know, I think I should have read it more carefully, I’ll try to give you more helpful advice if you wish it…or is it too late?)</p>

<p>It’s still really good though, definately not something your average joe can write and definately not something anyone from my school can write. I’m more familiar with the harvard essay system, which asks for much more personal essays than this, so please correct me if this is the type of essay that chicago specifies.</p>

<p>Well, good luck Magellan! Here are my comments (btw, don’t take them or anyone else’s too seriously, college essays are best if you go with your gut instinct…):</p>

<p>Your essay had a very sophisticated and intellectual tone to it. But I’m not sure whether this is an advantage or not. There could be tons of other people with the same essay tone in which case yours would get blended in. However, considering that you are a transfer and there are many less app’s for the ad officers to go through, you could be easily more memorable. Another thing, I did not easily follow the jump from Hume to giant hot dogs until after I went back and re-read it some odd times. Again, I’m not an adcom so I’m not sure how obvious they like things to be, but if I were one I would prefer an essay that jumps out. But nice flow of sophisticated language; you sounded genuinely “intelligent,” as in I didn’t feel like you were some kid looking up words in the Thesaurus.</p>

<p>**And final note: my own preference for college essays lay with personal narratives, so I am quite biased against opinion/theory/I-don’t-even-know-how-to-classify-your-essay types.</p>

<p>Again, mucho luck to you!</p>

<p>Well, I’ve re-read your essay, this was theoretical, but I found it genuinely interesting. Other essays on this site have been less so(I should know, I’ve lurked on this site since december). I don’t know how admission folks will take it though.</p>

<p>Your essay is good. I like the style. Your voice sounds very intelligent.</p>

<p>I thought your essay was excellent and very unique. It might have been slightly short and lacking in content. You could develop your points slightly further.</p>

<p>Yeah, I agree with inuendo–you did kinda leave the reader hanging.</p>