Sophie's World - 7

"A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little." (Sophie’s World)

This quote seems to have real meaning for me.  This quote, as I understood it, says that all of the people who have great knowledge and use that knowledge to answer what they do not know are not philosophers.  Philosophers are instead, people who know they know nothing of the real world no matter how much they learn; these people do not answer philosophical questions they interpret and digest them, discovering their true meaning in order to learn what the question poses to offer.  The quote seems to be almost scientific in nature, in science you need to prove something with your knowledge, but every advancement made sets you back with all the questions it opens up, such as if we discover how to travel at the speed of light we would then have to answer the question where do we go and many unknown more.  The idea that every advancement only proves how little you know is very scientific in nature, and this idea seems to manifest itself in math and science but not any other foundation of learning.

Connection - 7

District 9 was, in my opinion, both terrible and stupendous.  I recently watched District 9 for the first time in my science fiction class; it was a dull enjoyment to be honest.  The amazing quality of film technique and the great roles portrayed really brought the movie to life for me.  Unfortunately this was a blessing and a curse, the movie was so captivating that the gruesome portrayal of the main character’s transformation seemed even more disgusting.  I was thoroughly disappointed at the pieces the director decided to show as “realistic”.

The film had an interesting message though, it portrayed human abuse of the “prawns” or aliens.  The Prawns were originally cared for but eventually shunned as humans did not want to have to change their life-styles to accommodate the vastly different aliens.  The fact that the movie takes place in South Africa must also have poetic meaning; South Africa, the “home to apartheid” just relived its past with the prawns until one man decided enough was enough, to get out from behind his desk and fight back against the human oppression for the prawns.  Given he was turning into a prawn and he was no longer accepted into human society, but he still did fight for the prawns.  I guess if you took a philosophical approach, such as with Kant’s opinion, he was doing things immorally because of his intent to save himself, but anyway the movie was good in its less gruesome scenes.

Sophie's World - 6

In “Sophie’s World” Sophie ends with a garden party, the party goes strangely awry and it seems that it all strange.  The first ridiculous thing that happens is that Alberto, the philosopher, throws firecrackers into the yard, following this he puts a sparkler into the almond cake, not very normal behavior.  This could all be explained as just strange until Joanna tries to eat Jeremy and the attack each other with terrifyingly unexpected passion.  When Alberto reveals to the party guests that they are all fictional characters (or at least characters in Albert’s book) the logical rational thinking in the party just goes farther away the guests aren’t happy and Sophie’s Mother does not want her to leave at first, right after this Joanna begins to smear cake onto Jeremy’s face and lick it off.  Finishing with a religious meaning Sophie mentions how her Garden of Eden is now destroyed, and Alberto answers that she has been driven out.  Sophie and Alberto than disappear from Sophie’s den just before they are nearly run over by a Mercedes.  The strangeness of the chapter doesn’t seem to fit with the strangeness from other parts of the book, and points to the fact that we may know nothing of our own world.

Sophie's World - 5

Marx’s idea that philosophy should be practical is, in my personal opinion, one of his better and more reasonable theories.  The idea that philosophy should be more practical must have been around before Marx, it seems like such a simple request to be made.  The traditional questions of philosophy, such as why are we here, where did we come from, as well as other things like is religion correct and how should we view the world to live the best lives all seem to be missing the point.  What matters here and now is that a new more perfect system must be evolved through human thought, philosophy, to control and balance out the human imperfection.  Ideally to leave us in not a state of bliss but a state of harmony, a balance between failure and success that leaves us aspiring and moral.  Preferably without the need to destroy those who don’t agree.  This type of system could probably never work, due to the fact that it would rely on trusting in the idea that no one will take advantage of the system, unfortunately this is the same problem Marx’s communism had and now we are left with the communism we know today and find oppressive.

Connections - 6

Recently I was introduced to the Symphony of Science; one of the more interesting videos is entitled “A Wave of Reason”(linked below).  This video takes several different lectures and videos from many different scientists and cuts then together; the creator then auto-tuned the entire video to make it into a song.  The song is essentially summing up modern day reason, the fact that science is not something very different from religion.  In the song Carl Sagan mentions that science is more than a structure of ideas like religion, it is a form of thinking, of skeptically inquiring.  Lawrence Krauss is added in stating that science is a way to interpret the real, magnificent, world, and the only true way.  Phil Plait, around 1:28, states that if you can teach a man to reason he will think for a life time.  An interesting philosophy, reason and logic, basically the scientific mindset, are the root to philosophy, which makes a lot of sense.  Aristotle interpreted the world through science and perception, while some philosophers believe this is pointless it is the only thing that we have to rely on besides ourselves, and I don’t think anyone could be amazing to the point of no longer needing outside influence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PT90dAA49Q&feature=related

Connection - 5

You can’t really answer the question often hinted to in Inception, when you take off all of the extra science fiction baggage you are really just left with “is your world real?”  Now many people would think that it was a stupid question and that of course their world is real, after all what else could there be?  But if you think philosophically about the question you get into “fried noodle territory”.   There is no way to justify that your world isn’t real, so we have to assume it is or be thrown into chaos ourselves.  What would be the purpose of anything if we were in a “dream world”?  And anyway, according to Inception we could probably just kill ourselves to wake up¹.

If we were living outside of reality other people wouldn’t be in our dream, except for a few, everyone else would just be a projection of our imagination.  Would this mean that by destroying building or killing people we would be destroying our own sub-consciousness?  According to the movie we wouldn’t be but I still feel that destruction of parts of a dream would cause the dreamer to forget about those projections it made and possibly the memories under those projections.

Maybe the reason something seems familiar or that time seems to slow down or speed up and other strange phenomena could be caused by the fact that we are all hooked up to a machine in some hospital or military facility.  And these oddities are us seeing that we are in a maze before we get distracted or disoriented, similar to trying to remember a dream, even if it just happened.

¹ – not a good idea to try out

genetic engineering

What if your only child died or was dying from an accident and cloning was the only way to save them?

Making a child for the sole purpose of using them to cure someone definitely seems unethical.  The fact that you would need to clone someone in order to save them is also fairly absurd.  There have been recent developments where it was possibly to transplant a trachea into a person that was grown from their own stem cells.  But growing a person is definitely unethical, the person would have a mind and consciousness, and you would use this human being to save someone without asking whether they wanted to try to save them.  If a child is born through cloning, whether in a test tube or naturally born, what connection would the parents have to that child, the child would always be second when it came down to it.  The child was born to save the first therefore the first was more important, and how can you love a child that you had through desperation?  It seems like a sick idea when not situational.  The child might even be put up for adoption after being used, disposed of.  Also, the fact that it takes a child around 12 years to even get their heads to the same sizes as they will be when they are adults poses the question of what disease could really put aside that long to wait for a child to develop to normal size?  And after 10 years or more with a child, raising it as one’s own, who could then use their flesh in blood like that, even if it was to save their only other child.  Now I definitely believe that no child should die before their parents, but to save someone a full cloning is almost an absurdity in the first place.  The only things that a person would need a full body clone for would be if their entire body began to shut down, and if that happened we don’t have the technology to perform a trans-body surgery so it would be pointless.  Now, I have no clue what I would decide on in the moment; but, I do believe that creating a child for the sole purpose of exploiting them is ridiculous.

Would you be willing to be part of a genetic experiment that not only strengthened your muscles but prevented them from deteriorating with age?

This experiment would first off seem very sketchy, and no I would not participate in this experiment.  Due to the fact that it is an experiment I wouldn’t want to get anywhere near what they are sticking in those patients and volunteers.  Genetic engineering is an emerging field and with very little knowledge about how exactly the body does some things and what the body’s reasons are for not developing a certain way.  If this treatment became publicly available after significant testing and extreme scrutiny, I might just take a risk and go for it.  I feel that this kind of research should go to curing disease, not to becoming the next best steroid.  And if it becomes available or even possible I will bet that somewhere someone will be abusing it for personal gain, not personal repair.   If the world got to a point where our old folks no longer died of body break down related old age where would we keep everyone? Old folks homes would go out of business and people would live until their body spontaneously failed or slowly went insane until their body finally did spontaneously fail.  Living a life where your mind disintegrates before your body seems like one not worth living, but then again living with only your mind can be torture.  The only cure is pure immortality, but then how much humanity can one person see before life is no longer fulfilling? Immortality doesn’t seem like it would be to amazing if your mind could never escape from inevitable life.  This just seems painful and unnecessary, I would much rather take a sane death than an immortal one.

Is this kind of genetic selection ethical?

I have recently watched the movie Gattaca, it is an interesting movie and even though it wouldn't make my top choices (or even get recommended to a friend) it had a good message.  Gattaca portrays a world where genetic engineering is not only common, it is the norm, in fact the world has slipped so far into the treacherous and unknown waters of this field that when a person is born without genetic engineering they are considered "in-valid".  This and the combination of ethics make for an interesting topic.
     Genetic engineering, scientists are making progress in this field of research and its very controversial.  On one hand you have the fact that it can’t not only make lives better but can save lives before they ever need saving; on the other hand, the afflictions that may soon be cured have been the inspiration for many athletes, scientists, and politicians to accomplish great things.  Genetic engineering could be a great accomplishment for our society, possibly curing many diseases and much more.  But controlling how a baby matures and develops in life not only seem like cheating in a way but also remove the incentive for that person to try their hardest to succeed because everything would be easier for them to start off with.  Controlling fate, while I know this may make me seem old fashioned or "stuck in my ways", seems like it can too easily be transformed into controlling evolution and undermining natural things.  Because of the distinct things that could very well go too right with this science I feel that the research is not only unethical but unsafe.  Now there are those diseases that should be prevented or cured and genetic engineering is the only this that can get us to that point and striving for that does not seem unethical at all.  But, there has lately been an increase in the number of developed and developing genetically engineered pointless projects.  By this I mean things like making it so people cannot get fat, a perfume that is naturally secreted by the body, and other weird stuff like that.  This was one of the reasons Michael Crichton wrote his astounding book Jurassic Park, and also why genetic engineering is teetering into unknown and unethical territory.

Connections - 4

     In Michael Crichton’s novel, Jurassic Park, there are a few interesting philosophical rants throughout that run as Crichton’s voice through the characters.  Ian Malcolm is a chaotician, a type of mathematician specifically dealing with chaos theory.  After being mauled by a dinosaur Malcolm is put or some fairly large doses of Morphine, these allow him to speak very freely and much more philosophically.

     Malcolm begins to rant about how the Dino-Island will eventually collapse into chaos because you cannot properly control living creatures that you know almost nothing about.  Through these rants Malcolm points out some interesting ways to look at our recent scientific path to discovery.  He points out that throughout recent history scientists have not been very responsible.  Modern scientists obtain their research from other scientists, which means that they had to do nearly nothing to obtain the information.  Scientists then proceed to conduct tests and so on until they make their next big discovery.  Doing all of this helps our scientific development move much faster than an alternative, but there are also side effects.  Because scientists don’t have to do very much to obtain the research they don’t develop the necessary discipline to appropriately use the scientific power that they harness.  Crichton writes “…science can teach us how to build a nuclear reactor, but not if we should build it or not…”, and this makes sense because scientists often justify their ability to create dangerous yet spectacular things with the fact that if they shouldn’t then why do they know how to.  This lack of discipline is similar to inherited wealth; the heir often does not understand what it took to obtain the money and thus abuse their ability and power.  This lack of discipline in science can easily lead to massive catastrophe and dramatic disaster. Crichton poses a good argument we are becoming to free with our scientific power and really should put more ethical standards on research, even if it means not making man eating dinosaurs.

Sophie's World - 4

“If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.” ~ John Locke

In the novel “Sophie’s World” a whole chapter is devoted to Locke.  Locke was a 17th century philosopher who had both interesting and poor (in a personal opinion) views of many different topics.  The quote above I found to be very interesting; Locke points out how some people won’t do thinks because they can’t do them in a certain way, in this case flying versus walking.  There are unfortunately people who still behave like this today, more than three centuries later.  Usually it is something much simpler than flying but many people won’t “be able” to do something because they can’t get there, while this is often understandable it can also easily be resolved with a little added effort. 

But more specifically in this context Locke is talking about those who give up because their desired way or thinking doesn’t work.  Instead Locke suggests that we should morph our thought process to reflect what we know and can do, as opposed to disparaging over what may seem impossibly complex.

This quote really shows what the chapter tries to explain about Locke.  Locke’s view about the belief that one can never know everything, and therefore we must not believe anything that shows up on our radar is that this statement is entirely false, while you can’t know everything you can learn from experience to congeal as much information as possible.

Connections - 3

One of the 95 reason that Martin Luther, founder of the protestant sect of Christianity, decided to separate from mainstream Christianity was due to indulgences.  Indulgences are a way of, essentially, paying your way out of your sins, the purgatory shortcut.  I found this picture online while I was trying to find something that made fun of indulgences as a talking point for this post, instead I found this:

This is the actual cover of The Handbook of Indulgences, I found this because I thought it was a fake book.  No, it is the real church publishing of how to use money to get out of paying for your sins in purgatory.  I thought that when the first church was set up after Jesus' death it had been a rule not to accept bribes?  Unfortunately some Christians seem to have forgotten their roots!

Wouldn't it be considered a sin to pay your way into Heaven?  Because for every sin you payed off you would have to pay for improperly repenting your sin.  And anyway, paying a priest to repent your sins for you or having someone else try to repent for you after your dead sounds like trying to cheat God to me, and while Jesus could kinda cheat by walking on water and getting resurrected he did it for others, supposedly.  But God is notorious for not liking cheaters in the Bible. But apparently it was proven through logic that if you support the church more than normal you get bonus credits that counter sin.

But if all that isn't a very strong case we can add in some logic and math.  Well, we know that according to indulgences sins are equal to money, therefore:

sin = money

And since we know that "money is everything" we can put that in,

sin = everything

And we know that "a first impression is everything" so,

sin = first impressions

Then there is also the fact that "first impressions are lasting impressions" and lasting means forever or infinite time, but time is always just time whether its long or not, and "time is money" therefore,

sin =  impressions^2

Also impressions are important so,

sin = important^2

Then you have to include the fact that peace is what is important which means

sin = peace^2

Confusing but lets continue, peace is the root of love leading to

sin = love

Not making much sense but what the hell, i made 250 reasonable words a while ago anyway, so what if the church is love as many people adamantly believe? Than,

sin = (The Church)

So we know sin is evil ... so using similar logic to some people who try to justify indulgences....

The Church = Evil

Well that stinks so either you believe that or you cant pay your way out of purgatory or you cant have indulgences.

Guess that'll be a dilemma for some people.

I made the above proof as a play on what we had discussed earlier in the week while talking about the cosmological argument developed by Saint Aquinas, it wasn't intended to be offensive to anyone who believes in Christian indulgence. This was intended to be logical but ridiculous showing that because something technically can be true doesn't make it right in the slightest bit, its all a matter of opinion.  For instance this can be taken a step further by saying that because E.V.I.L stands for Every Villain Is Lemons (taken from Spongebob) you could say that, when combined with the fact that The Church is a body of people and if it is evil it would make it a villain,  The Church = Lemons.

Source Code

Spoiler Alert

Is the ending a new "movie reality" (for lack of a better term)?  Why or why not?  Is it possible that Stevens' determination somehow merged the alternate universe with the movie's original reality? 

     Through out the movie Source Code Captain Colter Stevens is sent back and forth through the source code many times.  In between these missions of varying success, we learn that the source code allows a person (Capt. Stevens) to relive the last eight minutes of someone else’s life (Sean Fentress).  We are also led to believe that the source code is like a video game, with amazing graphics of course.  The Source Code seems to be a computer program where you can have an infinite amount of detail in the last eight minutes of a person’s life, places they had not been and may never have been are clear as day, and only when you try to get out of the source code or try to change your “ending”, you will inevitably either die or the source code will break down.  The fact that Capt. Stevens is still alive as Sean Fentress after the source code is terminated (the end of eight minutes) and after his body and mind are taken off of life support and his body dies his new reality as a teacher continues, and possibly his consciousness is transferred to this alternate timeline.  If the source code were just a video game, with the greatest possible incentive for not dying you could possibly have (besides a metric ton of cash), Stevens would have been “terminated” with his body and the source code.  Now, if we look at what happens when Dr. Rutledge tries to explain the source code, he tries to avoid describing it in any real detail and tries to push it aside as “quantum mechanics” almost as if he more discovered it rather than invented it.  Because the source code is used so many times it very well could have made a new time stream through quantum mechanics, or there could be a me right now that actually got this in before class started, we may never really know.  But there seems to be a different time stream at the end of the film.  Captain Stevens “determinism”, that seemed mostly forced on him by our friendly neighborhood secret time reassignment bureau, may have caused enough turbulence in our time stream to make it branch off into an alternate reality. 

It seems that the source code is not so much time reassignment, so much as it is time stream manipulation.

Sophie's World - 3

In the book Sophie's World there are several points at which Sophie somehow obtains something that previously belonged to Hilde. At one point Sophie finds Hilde’s scarf, at another Hilde’s ten crowns, and at yet another point Sophie finds Hilde’s gold crucifix. There are many strange and mysterious things that circulate around these items, and this is only accented by the fact that Alberto, our mysterious philosopher, seems to know all the answers but won’t reveal anything concrete or straightforward.

In the section “History and Medicine” Sophie finds Hilde’s scarf under her bed in her room. This is very confusing but before the question of what does it resemble in the book came to mind there was the moderately prominent question of “how the heck did the scarf get there in the first place?” Latter in the novel Alberto explains that the reason the scarf is there is due to the fact “sometimes personal property gets mixed up. Especially at school…, and this is a philosophy school”, what does that mean? Well obviously he has to be full of something, whether you want to call it philosophy is for another time and place though. While this seems kind of a cute thing to say, it’s defiantly creepy, especially from an older man that uses a dog to deliver his philosophy lessons. A ways later in the book we learn that Alberto put the scarf under Sophie’s bed, which raises a question of not only how he got into her house but if that is too questionable thing for him to do if he does it in good intent. Later still in the novel we discover that the crucifix was “sent” to Sophie by Albert Knag through some unknown means. When Alberto discovers this he flips, being a little over dramatic. But it raises a point about why Alberto took it so drastically, it could be that when Albert exercised his power it made Alberto feel inferior or unprotected, which would make sense. But there is also a possibility of a connection to the fact that they have very similar names, Alberto Knox and Albert Knag. They could be some pair of feuding philosophical deities who are training young children for an all out philosophical cage match, or it could be that they are supposed to represent two drastically different views of philosophy, either past versus present or something like Cynics versus Stoics. But the connections are still forming and while defiantly confusing, they are getting clearer and more frustratingly difficult to logically connect. But then again what is logic but what most philosophy is based off of.

Sophie’s World – 2

     In the novel Sophie's World there is a chapter entitled "Two Cultures",  the chapter discuses the culture background of two major types of religions, Indo-European and Semitic.  Within this chapter there is a section entitled Jesus, of course this section talks about really just Jesus but it raises so me interesting points.  Such as the fact that Jesus was executed for appealing to peoples sens of reason in trying to have them change their ways and adopt unconditional love.  That didn't go to well for him.  But this seems to almost be a trend throughout history, just like the cyclical belief in some Indo-European religions, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to advocate unconditional love through peace and he was assassinated, the same thing happened to Gandhi when he tried to advocate equality.  Out apparent trend seems to be that someone stands up for what is peaceful, fair, just, or equal and is smothered, sometimes most brutally that others.  This battle between change and stability has circled around this controversial trend for most of recorded history, yet nothing has changed.  It seems so strange that a call of peace and equality is so often retaliated upon by violence and oppression.  But, it all seems to come back to that central idea against change and for change.  Unfortunately it seems some people, in my opinion, want only drastic change (or see things only in black and white where you can only have the drastic options) and others seem to want no change at all, which is absurd because if life doesn't change nothing can ever get better and the rest of the world will leave up behind.

Connections - 2

     Recently my science fiction class  finished the movie Gattaca,  it is an interesting movie and even though it wouldn't make my top choices (or even get recommended to a friend) it had a good message.  Gattaca portrays a world where genetic engineering is not only common, it is the norm, in fact the world has slipped so far into the treacherous and unknown waters of this field that when a person is born without genetic engineering they are considered "in-valid".  This and the combination of ethics make for an interesting topic.
     Genetic engineering, scientists are making progress in this field of research and its very controversial; on one hand you have the fact that it cant not only make lives better but can save lives before they ever need saving, on the other hand, the afflictions that may soon be cured have been the inspiration for many athletes, scientists, and politicians to accomplish great things.  Genetic engineering could be a great accomplishment for our society, possibly curing many diseases and much more.  But controlling how a baby matures and develops in life not only seem like cheating in a way but also remove the incentive for that person to try their hardest to succeed because everything would be easier for them to start off with.  Controlling fate, while i know this may make me seem old fashioned or "stuck in my ways", seems like it can too easily be transformed into controlling evolution and undermining natural things, to me being unethical.

Source Code

Spoiler Alert

Is the ending a new "movie reality" (for lack of a better term)?  Why or why not?  Is it possible that Stevens' determination somehow merged the alternate universe with the movie's original reality? 

     Through out the movie Source Code Captain Colter Stevens is sent back and forth through the source code many times.  In between these missions of varying success, we learn that the source code allows a person (Capt. Stevens) to relive the last eight minutes of someone else’s life (Sean Fentress).  We are also led to believe that the source code is like a video game, with amazing graphics of course.  The Source Code seems to be a computer program where you can have an infinite amount of detail in the last eight minutes of a person’s life, places they had not been and may never have been are clear as day, and only when you try to get out of the source code or try to change your “ending”, you will inevitably either die or the source code will break down.  The fact that Capt. Stevens is still alive as Sean Fentress after the source code is terminated (the end of eight minutes) and after his body and mind are taken off of life support and his body dies his new reality as a teacher continues, and possibly his consciousness is transferred to this alternate timeline.  If the source code were just a video game, with the greatest possible incentive for not dying you could possibly have (besides a metric ton of cash), Stevens would have been “terminated” with his body and the source code.  Now, if we look at what happens when Dr. Rutledge tries to explain the source code, he tries to avoid describing it in any real detail and tries to push it aside as “quantum mechanics” almost as if he more discovered it rather than invented it.  Because the source code is used so many times it very well could have made a new time stream through quantum mechanics, or there could be a me right now that actually got this in before class started, we may never really know.  But there seems to be a different time stream at the end of the film.  Captain Stevens “determinism”, that seemed mostly forced on him by our friendly neighborhood secret time reassignment bureau, may have caused enough turbulence in our time stream to make it branch off into an alternate reality. 

It seems that the source code is not so much time reassignment, so much as it is time stream manipulation.

Sophie’s World – 1

Origins~

In the book Sophie’s World, by Jostein Gaarder, the Philosopher posed several simple questions in his letters to Sophie.  One of these questions was "where did the world come from?".


Where did the world come from?  Well we know it didn't just come from nothing, Physics and Chemistry (and just about every other thing related to math and science) tell us that through laws of conservation of mass and energy.  So something must have created the universe; well, maybe it was an almighty power?  But then who created the almighty power?  An almighty power couldn't create itself before its own existence, that's just illogical.  


So something created the universe, and if the universe was created by some powerful event or being then something must have caused or created that too.  So the only logical thing to believe is that ergo something must have always have existed and the universe means everything that exists throughout space so therefore the universe has always existed.  If something has always existed and everything is caused by something, than the very first thing must have been set in motion by something that it created. This means that something either in history, in the future, or possibly a mad scientist or a star exploding right now created the entire universe that we live in at this very moment.  So, just imagine the implication of time travel, accidentally undo the creation of the universe,   but that's just a tangent.


So after musing all of this information and more, one has to believe that something created everything which in turn created that same something that created everything.


There is also the idea of a central "Big Bang", if the universe was shot out from one central point during the "Big Bang" the through basic Physics knowledge one can assume that the gravity of the rest of the universe would pull everything back to the center of everything.  This constant force of gravity pulling everything inwards would eventually wear down the force of the "Big Bang" and reverse the direction of the universe.  Could the point which all of the stars, planets, and life forms implode on a central location bee then end of the universe, and more important to us all, humanity?  


NO! This is because at the time this finally happens humanity will either be extinct due to being pulled into stars and other planets over time or we will have evolved into massless energy that floats around, in which case we might possibly be able to then experience the end of everything as we may eventually know it.  If this ever ends up happening could the universe destroy itself? 


Nope, otherwise our math and physics is utterly pointless and we are back to square one on discovering the universe.  But would the collapse of the universe be enough to rip through time and create the next "Big Bang"?  Well I guess we might never know but if some sentient space goo reads this in the distant future, I mean no disrespect, it would be much appreciated if they came to visit and brought pictures, or possibly a higher form of optical portrayal, and let us view our final Forth of July fireworks show...

Connections - 1

Today is September 11th 2011, the tenth anniversary of the plane crash that took out the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, as well as United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in a Pennsylvanian field with an unknown critical destination.

Forgiveness is an interesting philosophy.  While forgiveness is a two way street, you need only do your part to forgive or be forgiven, after that it is on the other's shoulders.  Many religions talk about forgiveness, Jesus Christ  is often quoted in the bible in saying that a person can not achieve happiness, or heaven, unless they are forgiven of their sins, and forgive others of sins done unto themselves.  In the Bible, Matthew 18:23-35, we learn the parable of the unforgiving servant (you can go here: http://www.bcbsr.com/survey/pbl14.html for reference), in this parable we learn that God forgives everyone of all their sins but, if you do not forgive others who ask for forgiveness you will go to Hell until your debt (sin) has been paid for in full.  Now while this may not be entirely serious word for word as it is a parable, like a story to show you how to behave, it still has an important message: forgive others or you will be tortured by your hate and be forced to live a pitiful life.  In Buddhism Buddha  is quoted as saying that "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned", stating that hatred only hurts the one harboring resentment.  The Qur'an states "The reward of the evil is the evil thereof, but whosoever forgives and makes amends, his reward is upon Allah" (Qur'an 42:40) these three examples from three different religions show that forgiveness is an important foundation to life, important enough that if you aren't religious you still have to recognize that forgiveness of others is important enough to have made it into the foundations of faith based ideas and has lasted for thousands of years making it more of a moral basis than a religious law.


With this out of the way I can now get to want i intended to discuss.  I went to my church today thinking there would be a silent memorial service for the victims of the 9/11 attack, instead I got a face full of philosophy.  During the sermon my pastor discussed several spiritual things that had happened and were in some way connected to the attack on the World Trade Center, such as the two ton Ground Zero Cross (more about that and the story behind it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_cross).  After a while and a couple of tangents we returned to today's gospel (or main reading from the bible) which happened to be the parable of the unforgiving servant.  My pastor asked the congregation this difficult, surprising, and philosophical question:

We are asked by God to forgive anyone who has committed a sin against us, but does that mean that we have to forgive terrorists?

Forgiving a terrorist...
Has anyone ever really forgiven a terrorist?  Well, why would you?  Terrorists are people who commit unspeakable acts against our loved ones, our friends, our countrymen, and our fellow human beings.  Wouldn't forgiving a terrorist let them win?

No, a terrorist can only win if they can instill terror and cause a shift in their enemy, in this case the West and America, towards the terrorists view, in a way to be either submissive or to cause the terrorists cause to strengthen.  Well, i that case, we have already lost; haven't we?  We strengthened their cause by terrorizing people we suspected to be terrorists and were not we only enforced the view that our country is, as the Afghans used to call us, the greater Satan.

But there's always the the second wave.
We still can purge our selves of our hatred,  as many of the ancient religious philosophers charged us to.  We may not be able to forgive a terrorists' cause but maybe we can start by forgiving those we blame.  Some people blame Islam, Islam has extremists just like Christianity and Judaism, as well as Atheists.  The only difference is that the fringe group Al Qaeda managed to make a huge impact; while the most recent Christian extremists were snuffed out before they managed to detonate a dirty nuke at a policeman's funeral, trying to kill hundreds of service men and women.  Islam and Christianity cannot be put to blame, neither can the Middle East or other areas, nor people descendant from any particular area.

To forgive we needn't open our arms to the next suicide bomber or freely let terrorists have control of a plane.  We only need to let go of our hatred for those who hate America, because holding a hot coal as a weapon only hurts those who hold onto it.  We should continue to protect ourselves from another attack, but our efforts should not be fueled by hatred for those who despise us, but we should fuel our efforts with hope that no one else will have to suffer anymore tragedy from the hatred of another person.

Who Am I?

Simon Trask        9/11/11

Who am I?  I am a 16 year old human being; going to Groves High School and taking a rigorous course set, including 3 APs and a course in Philosophy and Science Fiction.  I am a very aggressive person when it comes to getting things done, hence the slightly less enjoyable course load.  I pride myself in striving for the better outcome in manual labor and academic work.  I am the second youngest out of six, though my two older brothers and sisters are all half-brother and half-sisters.  I enjoy tinkering and problem solving, which makes my desired college major engineering.  In my sophomore and junior year I was on the wrestling team, my junior year season was cut short by a tragic season ending injury that would have still sidelined me into my senior year if I had continued.

I have always enjoyed Philosophy, even if my own attempts usually end up in a Philosophical argument.  The idea of thinking differently and mussing over the few questions that life inevitably comes back to (such as, ‘who am I?’, ‘where did the world come from?’, and ‘what is reality?’) has intrigued me for some time, I often wonder how to justify an answer to these questions and if it will ever even be possible to do so.

The political system around which our Country revolves has been misguided.  There has been a series of poor choices made by our representatives and leaders that have caused a serious down turn in not only the American society, but also in a large amount of peoples’ trust in the government.  With the rapid succession of wars there hasn’t been much time for peaceful rejuvenation of our American society.  The ridiculous frequency of filibusters and the support of corporate agenda and priority over the American populous have caused our very representative that we elect in good faith, to look like incompetent children who have too much power to responsibly deal with.

Religion has benefits and repercussions; often religion offers a good basis for moral beliefs and can be a cause for peace, at other moments religion can be a cause for hatred, prejudice, and even genocide.  Religion can be good; it can give people hope and joy as well as a special connection.  But there is unfortunately also a lack of acceptance towards change and tolerance of differing beliefs.  This unfortunate rejection has cause fringe extremists to commit mass genocide and horrific acts of terrorism; this shows that religion has an immense power to create enormous destruction, devastation, and demise of everything that we hold dear.  Therefore religion can only be helpful and beneficial if acceptance is an openly supported foundation of every decision.

Education has taken hit after hit and really has grown into a stunted, malformed, repressed, pitiful thing compared to where learning should be.  There are students across the country who are denied a proper education due to the fact that they either struggle to cope with the form of teaching available or proper support is withheld due to the less fortunate area in which they reside.  In order to get an exceptional education some students in some parts of New York City are force to travel very far to private schools or special public schools that give a great education to the few that they can manage to teach, leaving hundreds (in some cases more than one thousand) with nowhere to go except poorly supported public schools where the worst students force rules to be made that restrict everyone else’s growth and expansion. 

Education really does need reform; education should give the lowest scoring an exceptional education and the geniuses something that is more exceptional than an education that we can dream of right now.  Unfortunately everything needs reform, whether it is sweeping up a few crumbs or rebuilding the entire house.

The Japanese proverb “案ずるより産むが易し” (Anzuru yori umu ga yasashi) is an old saying used to inspire and teach those who are unwise in Japan; the proverb translates to something that used to be an American motto, remember: “attempt is sometimes easier than expected”