h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

which is a shame but hopefully it will pick up. I'm now at the end of the 2nd section of 6. So far we've done The Self (which was ok but the course made it very boring for me) and The Philosophy of Religion (again great subject but the course is hideous. Plus IMO it lets the theists off with "God. Because.")

(and of course i'm here because i'm supposed to be writing an essay about Hume's objections to saying "god done it")

Ethics up next. I hope my interest can finally be piqued or it's going to be a flipping long time until the beginning of June when the exam comes round and the course is finished.

Still - I managed to work a Monty Python quote into this essay in about the 4th paragraph, and it's not even the Philosophy Song. So that's got to be worth a few extra marks, right?

A good argument against 'God did it' can be found in The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. No, it's not his usual anti-theist rant, it's a reasoned argument for evolution over Creation. (I used a capital C because that's how theists seem to view the act.) It's a while since I read the book so I can't give you a reference, but I'm pretty sure it's near the start of the book.

oh I have the arguments - it is a very specific essay about David Hume's 4 objections. It's just so bloody boring.

Dawkins features in the audios, but I hate his voice so I don't listen. I'll probably use a Christopher Hitchens argument/quote instead as I find him less rabid

Philosophy I like. Just not this course.

I did an undergraduate philosophy course in 1961 It wasn't well-structured like yours is. I remember rather a lot about Plato and I had to be sat down in the café by two burly engineers who moved the cutlery and condiments around to explain symbolic logic. Good luck with it

The course description makes it sound so sexy and interesting...

http://www.open.ac.uk/courses/modules/a222

oh well, about a third of the way through it. If only I'd stay off social media

You know what to blame: If it weren't for God and Evolution we wouldn't have social media

Hmm... Philosophy is a subject that can either really engage you or utterly bore you. It's a class that depends a lot on the teacher. I'm not very familiar with OU. I assume these modules were put together by a committee of educators which sounds like a sure way to lead to a dull ticking off of concepts and philosophies. I've never studied philosophy in any structured, educational manner. I've just self guided myself through reading different philosophies and writers as my interest leads me. And I haven't done much of that in the last few decades. I have spoken with a retired NASA engineer who has gone back to school and is studying philosophy and he seems consumed with the subject. It seemed a few times that philosophy is his hammer and every other subject was a nail. When we were discussing the upcoming naming of a new US Supreme Court Chief Justice, he felt that rather than the typical lawyer/judge a better choice would be someone with a philosophical background. I quite liked that idea and could see the merits but I also knew something like that would never happen.

oh don't get me wrong I love the subject. Just don't like this course

That's what I understood you were saying.

ah ok
I keep having to explain it to my tutor - he totally doesn't get how boring I think it is

Baron Grim's post reminded me of Plato, and I see his philosophy is included in the Law section of your course

It is frustrating when a good subject is not conveyed in a good way, so it makes things more difficult than they should be... I hope you get good marks for your essay with added Python

Python being not entirely unprecedented in this course, the textbook quotes the song that is the "opposite" of all things bright and beautiful.

We're all studiously ignoring the actual Philosophers Song

Please tell me that it is the vagina song...

haha - no it's not

so I'm still here. I'm still totally hating this course. I have an essay to write, should have been in last Thursday but I got an extension due to having to be in Korea for part of the course.

The last essay was a massive struggle. I seriously considered not handing anything in - in the end I submitted a half-arsed half-completed thing with some vague notes about what should come next - and got a pass 3 which was a surprise. A good surprise.

And here I am again, facing an essay I don't want to write and just about something that is supposed to be fun for me, to compensate for my stupid job that I also loathe.

And again I just can't do it. This course is just sucking all the fun out of philosophy and studying and I just want to jack the whole thing in.

I can't, of course, because I'm stubborn. But it's no fun at all and hasn't been since about November. And it goes on until June.

Sho, do yourself a favour and quit! I was in the same position a year or two ago. I was struggling with an assignment and not enjoying the course I'd chosen. Studying wasn't fun any more. I don't need a degree for my job, so there was no point staying with it. So I withdrew from the course.

There's a book called Psy-Q by Ben Ambridge, about one's psychological 'intelligence'. One of the things he looks at is people's attitude to losing money. I can't remember the term he uses (I read an extract in the Readers Digest some time ago), but apparently most of us have a tendency to go for the option that we think will lose less money. He gives the following example:

You book a break in France costing £150. Then you book a break in Italy costing £300. You're looking forward to both, but think you'll enjoy France more. Suddenly you realise that the breaks clash. You can't get a refund on either of them and neither can be transferred to another date. Most people would take the break in Italy simply because it cost more, despite feeling that they'd prefer France. The mental justification goes "The French break is cheaper, so it can't be as good."

I read that extract around the time I was struggling with my OU course. I realised that I was falling into the same trap by continuing with a course that I wasn't getting anything out of. Yes, it cost me £750 when I quit, but I set that against losing the stress of wrestling with assignments I didn't want to do. For appreciably less than the cost of an OU course I bought myself Rosetta Stone Chinese, something I can study at my own pace and actually enjoy.

Get in touch with Learner Support and find out what your options are. I suspect you'll lose this years fees if you withdraw from your course, but is that really any worse than what you're going through now?

well it's only this one course, so I don't want to give up completely because of this one thing.
I have politics up next, and it looks great, and speaking to others it sounds really good too (difficult though, but interesting)

if I quit I will lose my transitional fees and won't have a named degree. I've only got 2 more modules to go so it seems silly to quit now - if I change my named degree I have to pay the extra fees for the other courses.

Basically I just have to get on with it. But it's just so flaming disappointing.

I was wondering if you'd stopped - do you think you'll pick it up again?

My object to the Creation explanation is that it is not an explanation.

It doesn't tell you anything whatsoever. You know exactly as much after hearing the explanation as you did beforehand. It amounts to saying "nobody knows", but is more misleading because what you're saying is "nobody knows but we like to pretend they do".

oh don't get me started. I had a huge ding-dong on my course forum when we did the religion section, because I said it seemed a bit much that philosophers who can go so far with an explanation of the universe then get stuck because science isn't advanced enough - they go - well the universe science science science - er, because God.

Non theist philosophers don't get to have a get out of jail free card and it annoys me (because I think it goes "well the universe science science science - er, well, future science will be able to explain this")

I'm not sure I'll go back to my degree. I'm enjoying Mandarin Chinese, although I'm a long way from being able to say anything meaningful. Hubby says that I can do the talking if we go abroad, because I like languages so much. With Rosetta Stone I might even become a polyglot, which would probably be more use than a Humanities degree.

(If you're wondering what languages I know ATM: enough French to get by, kitchen German, a bit of Italian and some very basic Chinese.)