For centuries people have always asked themselves what is it to be human, and for centuries they have always been getting it wrong because of not having any good education in biology, so let's get out all the wrong definitions first.
Wrong
1. A human is a cell after fertilisation from human parents
Well, first of all, a human is not just made of solely cells, also present are various chemicals, as well as proteins, antibodies, water, and lots of many other components. Also when considering what a cell really is, what happens when a cell divides and reproduces 2 cells? Is each one a separate human? Or are they together considered one human? If we were to split up the two cells, they can become two humans can't they (identical twins)? How do we draw the line between one human or many humans? All these questions would perhaps never be answered, not because biology can't answer them, but because biology describes the process, but doesn't distinguish anything along the way.
2. A human is a being shaped like a human
Obviously this definition have a huge problem, not considering robots and all other fanciful things we can make up, in a life cycle of a person, the person takes on many different shapes and sizes. While on the other hand a person can die of permanent vegetative state, and we wouldn't want to call that human. No, a human must carry the essence of what it means to be alive.
3. A human is whatever has the potential to be a human
This is perhaps the most ridiculous definition that I have ever came across. First of which, almost anything has the potential to be human, including cells of any species of mammals, through a process of transplanting the nucleus. Perhaps the worst way to argue this is to say that a cell has the potential to become a great person, and so we can't kill it. Well, many other cells have that same potential and they die by the trillions, perhaps even magnitude more, each day. Anyway, doesn't all the cells have the same potential to be a, hmm, lion or tiger?
4. A human is a person capable of reproducing with a human
This is the standard biological/taxonomical definition of what a species is. To biologists, Homo sapient as a species is just a linage that have branched out from chimps and early Homo ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago and have the property to interbreed with one another, but not with other animals. One of the great drawbacks of this method is that any person have to first reach reproductive age and then attempt reproduction for the standard to be ascertained.
One thing that the above definitions all share is there is no standard to compare what a human is in the first place. They assume that there have never been a first human, in effect comparing humans with, well humans. For all purposes, the term human that we should use, should be one that can be practically put into use in game theory, that means discarding the notion of biological appearances and description, and work at a whole different level of biology.
Therefore, the new candidates for qualities of humans as far as I can come up with are:
1. Able to hold responsibility
Responsibility is perhaps one of the greatest contributing factor to living in society, a quality even chimps understand, but not foetuses. Any animal taking at least a minimal personal responsibility can be considered human, at that point in time. The title of human however is not permanent and can be easily lost any time.
2. Able to reciprocate to an action made by anyone else
Another property of a society is that individuals can have a certain developed way of depending on others, necessary for survival. A human must be able to have the intention of repaying or retaliating to either a friendly or hostile response made by, not just individuals in one's own species, but by any other thing.
So evolution have forced us to draw lines to judge what qualifies to be human, in the end all these lines are just arbitrary. In the eyes of nature, no divisions exist between any species of life, but due to the need for survival, the products of nature are required by the mechanical forces of nature, namely survival, to draw up the lines for themselves.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Martial dud
Ok, I'm feeling kind of lazy so I'm not creating any original work today.
I've always have been waiting for an article like this.
Read it before moving on.
Well, it certainly is quite idiotic for that person to willingly cut his own hand (in the video). I mean, by spitting salted water around in a circle around yourself you can enhance the tensile strength of your arm? That's plain crazy. One curious thing is that why do these kind of people keep on claiming that they have performed their magic many times before but whenever the camera comes along, their magic disappears? What's with a camera? It just captures reflected light, and maybe project an extremely weak electro-magnetic field if it runs on electricity, which is still weaker than the Earth's field. How does that in anyway affects us? We aren't magnetic as far as I can tell, and whatever small electricity running through our bodies are well insulated.
Anyway, I've been waiting for a scientific article like this to come up for quite some time (probably because I haven't been actively searching, accidentally stumbled upon this one). I was always a critic of martial arts, wu shu, if you like. It's a mystery why they included it as a school activity, there's nothing special about it that any other kinds of exercise can't do. And it certainly isn't very practical, at a time where guns is used in warfare and guided missiles for even further but still accurate warfare, what good will a sword and spear do? And have you noticed the amount of students falling asleep whenever they do a demonstration? At least sports don't trigger that kind of reflexes, not that I would attend sport events. Yes, I know that some people are amazed by people twirling swords and spears and who know what other fake weapons around arms and hands, and by people raising their legs quite high. Well then go do that in your own spare time, you don't see us being forced to watch a soccer match, do you?
To get people to teach and learn these kind of traditional things in the name of preserving culture is just asking for too much. Let me tell you a secret, if these things really work, they wouldn't be called traditional anymore, it would be mainstream. That goes the same for traditional medicine, and traditional practices, traditional explanations, traditional superstition, traditional astronomy even traditional clothing. Any tradition that wastes my time is one tradition too many.
Finally, stop believing in tradition, and stop believing that it works either. It might be sad (not for me, I'm happy) to lose some culture, but it's much better that way.
P.S. Things from the ancient world that works aren't called traditional, they're called classical.
And I'm shocked, that stupid martial artist instructor didn't know about evaporation/condensation! By his logic the outlet hose of my clothe dryer is strong in CHI because it radiates droplets of condensed water on tiles away from itself.
P.P.S. I hate that statue guy for killing Magellan, that man deeply wanted to go back to Europe to prove the world wrong that the world is flat, instead he was killed and most of his expedition was sunk.
I've always have been waiting for an article like this.
Read it before moving on.
Well, it certainly is quite idiotic for that person to willingly cut his own hand (in the video). I mean, by spitting salted water around in a circle around yourself you can enhance the tensile strength of your arm? That's plain crazy. One curious thing is that why do these kind of people keep on claiming that they have performed their magic many times before but whenever the camera comes along, their magic disappears? What's with a camera? It just captures reflected light, and maybe project an extremely weak electro-magnetic field if it runs on electricity, which is still weaker than the Earth's field. How does that in anyway affects us? We aren't magnetic as far as I can tell, and whatever small electricity running through our bodies are well insulated.
Anyway, I've been waiting for a scientific article like this to come up for quite some time (probably because I haven't been actively searching, accidentally stumbled upon this one). I was always a critic of martial arts, wu shu, if you like. It's a mystery why they included it as a school activity, there's nothing special about it that any other kinds of exercise can't do. And it certainly isn't very practical, at a time where guns is used in warfare and guided missiles for even further but still accurate warfare, what good will a sword and spear do? And have you noticed the amount of students falling asleep whenever they do a demonstration? At least sports don't trigger that kind of reflexes, not that I would attend sport events. Yes, I know that some people are amazed by people twirling swords and spears and who know what other fake weapons around arms and hands, and by people raising their legs quite high. Well then go do that in your own spare time, you don't see us being forced to watch a soccer match, do you?
To get people to teach and learn these kind of traditional things in the name of preserving culture is just asking for too much. Let me tell you a secret, if these things really work, they wouldn't be called traditional anymore, it would be mainstream. That goes the same for traditional medicine, and traditional practices, traditional explanations, traditional superstition, traditional astronomy even traditional clothing. Any tradition that wastes my time is one tradition too many.
Finally, stop believing in tradition, and stop believing that it works either. It might be sad (not for me, I'm happy) to lose some culture, but it's much better that way.
P.S. Things from the ancient world that works aren't called traditional, they're called classical.
And I'm shocked, that stupid martial artist instructor didn't know about evaporation/condensation! By his logic the outlet hose of my clothe dryer is strong in CHI because it radiates droplets of condensed water on tiles away from itself.
P.P.S. I hate that statue guy for killing Magellan, that man deeply wanted to go back to Europe to prove the world wrong that the world is flat, instead he was killed and most of his expedition was sunk.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
There is no line in life but the evolutionary imposed one
"Science care nothing of the way it is being used"
There's just one problem in the sentence above, what should be added is "...except when taking into consideration the Science of how evolution shapes us to think in terms of intentions (ie. morality) and categories." Yes, Science still doesn't feel anything about actions that we do, but it can tell how people will feel about it, how people will differentiate stuff, and how all these is related to evolution.
Hmm, it took me quite some time to research more about this topic and hence the delay in completing, so let's start from the top, that is the fundamental properties of DNA. As we all know, DNA is self replicating for billions of years, and what's more is that it replicates in an environment of limited resources. You don't do that for so many years and don't develop some properties of your own.
First property of DNA is of course the property to try to replicate more copies than rival DNAs. Obviously due to the limited resources, the slightest advantage any DNA has over its opponents would favour an exponential growth, while the other dies off. Property is then passed on to the next replication.
Second property of DNA is to try to not compete as much as possible with copies that are very similar to itself. Internal competition is always bad for survival, therefore DNA that are similar would try to gang up and compete with a more different strand. Again, the property is then passed on to the next replication.
Third property of DNA is that to be able to take advantage of other DNA as much as possible without being punished in any way. Not taking the advantage would lower survival, being punished will also lower survival. Again we see the property passed down to the next replication.
So what does all these means? Well first of all, it means that DNA are usually locked in a position with a low possibility of applying these three properties. For the first property, rivals will also try to out-replicate the DNA, and both are sort of stuck in the middle. In the second property rivals will also tend to gang up, again creating a stand-off situation. For the third property, with DNA taking advantage, other can either follow suit, or create defences to prevent the practice, again neutralising the treat in stability. The only occasion when the properties are shown is when a new innovative DNA strand appears produces some novel changes, which can be quite rare indeed.
So what of these three properties you ask, what has the DNA got to do with humans? Well, DNA express its effect physically on us humans. It might well be the 3rd property of DNA that makes us so resistant to change, while the 2nd property of DNA is a catalyst for sectarian problems.
It is because of the needs of the self replicating DNA molecules that we are programmed to have morality. A DNA molecule needs to be able to tell which other kinds of DNA can it trust, and which others that it cannot, according to the 3rd property. The effects seen in humans is of course the differentiation between good and bad actions. What good and bad in actual fact are is arbitrary categories that is in place to foster cooperation and punishment.
Of course what we put into those categories are also important, and some (many) stupid liberals put equality into the category of good. What we put in there is essential for the stability of social structure. Equality is one of the poorest choice because it is a reinforcement of the result of the 3rd property of DNA, that is being resistant to change at the individual level. A good defined as "equality" provides no differences on which DNA can act. On the other hand sectarian people define good as themselves and their practices, this is then a reinforcement of the result of the 2nd property of DNA (to gang up), again another set that is resistant to change, this time it is resistant to change of the will of the majority powers.
If you're wondering why the 1st property doesn't get mentioned, it is because advanced DNA had placed much less emphasis on the 1st property ever since they grouped up into multicellular organisms.
The key to all these is that we must learn that progress can only be brought through change. By taking into account that we cannot just draw a line to split up the good from the bad, and that again good and bad is evolutionary imposed on us through history, we must be careful in choosing what we want to categorise as good or bad.
All these time keeping in mind that Science doesn't care what we choose, but can tell us how people would care about the choices made, on which side of the evolutionary imposed line will the choices fall under, and what it takes to shift that freaking line.
There's just one problem in the sentence above, what should be added is "...except when taking into consideration the Science of how evolution shapes us to think in terms of intentions (ie. morality) and categories." Yes, Science still doesn't feel anything about actions that we do, but it can tell how people will feel about it, how people will differentiate stuff, and how all these is related to evolution.
Hmm, it took me quite some time to research more about this topic and hence the delay in completing, so let's start from the top, that is the fundamental properties of DNA. As we all know, DNA is self replicating for billions of years, and what's more is that it replicates in an environment of limited resources. You don't do that for so many years and don't develop some properties of your own.
First property of DNA is of course the property to try to replicate more copies than rival DNAs. Obviously due to the limited resources, the slightest advantage any DNA has over its opponents would favour an exponential growth, while the other dies off. Property is then passed on to the next replication.
Second property of DNA is to try to not compete as much as possible with copies that are very similar to itself. Internal competition is always bad for survival, therefore DNA that are similar would try to gang up and compete with a more different strand. Again, the property is then passed on to the next replication.
Third property of DNA is that to be able to take advantage of other DNA as much as possible without being punished in any way. Not taking the advantage would lower survival, being punished will also lower survival. Again we see the property passed down to the next replication.
So what does all these means? Well first of all, it means that DNA are usually locked in a position with a low possibility of applying these three properties. For the first property, rivals will also try to out-replicate the DNA, and both are sort of stuck in the middle. In the second property rivals will also tend to gang up, again creating a stand-off situation. For the third property, with DNA taking advantage, other can either follow suit, or create defences to prevent the practice, again neutralising the treat in stability. The only occasion when the properties are shown is when a new innovative DNA strand appears produces some novel changes, which can be quite rare indeed.
So what of these three properties you ask, what has the DNA got to do with humans? Well, DNA express its effect physically on us humans. It might well be the 3rd property of DNA that makes us so resistant to change, while the 2nd property of DNA is a catalyst for sectarian problems.
It is because of the needs of the self replicating DNA molecules that we are programmed to have morality. A DNA molecule needs to be able to tell which other kinds of DNA can it trust, and which others that it cannot, according to the 3rd property. The effects seen in humans is of course the differentiation between good and bad actions. What good and bad in actual fact are is arbitrary categories that is in place to foster cooperation and punishment.
Of course what we put into those categories are also important, and some (many) stupid liberals put equality into the category of good. What we put in there is essential for the stability of social structure. Equality is one of the poorest choice because it is a reinforcement of the result of the 3rd property of DNA, that is being resistant to change at the individual level. A good defined as "equality" provides no differences on which DNA can act. On the other hand sectarian people define good as themselves and their practices, this is then a reinforcement of the result of the 2nd property of DNA (to gang up), again another set that is resistant to change, this time it is resistant to change of the will of the majority powers.
If you're wondering why the 1st property doesn't get mentioned, it is because advanced DNA had placed much less emphasis on the 1st property ever since they grouped up into multicellular organisms.
The key to all these is that we must learn that progress can only be brought through change. By taking into account that we cannot just draw a line to split up the good from the bad, and that again good and bad is evolutionary imposed on us through history, we must be careful in choosing what we want to categorise as good or bad.
All these time keeping in mind that Science doesn't care what we choose, but can tell us how people would care about the choices made, on which side of the evolutionary imposed line will the choices fall under, and what it takes to shift that freaking line.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Signs of decline
This is out, churches are adopting video games, to lure unsuspecting teenagers. The reason behind this is simply, of course. With teenagers stuck at home playing video games, why not get stuck in churches playing video games instead? Of course this tactic is fairly common in religion, when rock music became popular, religion started making its own rock albums, when cartoons were what kids like to watch, religion also had to have their own cartoons. Unfortunately, we can't just help wondering that churches have really gone to an all time low, especially when the video games doesn't have the slightest bit to do with any gods. (Halo 3)
Of course religious video game don't fair very well, just look at Left Behind: Eternal Forces a game that requires the player to kill or convert every single person on the map to Christianity including the UN workers who are trying to "stop" the player. Naturally it would disgust anyone, but apparently not the game designers, they sent it to every soldier in Iraq, it is really no wonder why the Muslims there want to kill them so much.
As much as I would like to criticise popular culture, I would refrain from doing so and give some more examples in history. During the middle ages, whenever a good king arises, the church has no reservations about saying how fortunate that god had made him, but they will always distance themselves from poor kings, brainwashing sll the people along the way. One of the reasons why the English king founded the Anglican church is because the church stop giving into his demands and sing praises of him, and so he needed to make another so that people wouldn't turn against him. Of course the most popular example of this kind of holy favouritism comes in the form of Hitler. Being a charismatic anti-communist Catholic, the Vatican love to give him their full support in his rise to power. Even when he started invading Poland, the church was not willing to criticise him, thanks to him spreading Catholicism in Germany.
This is horribly outrageous, ideologies should be able to stand and fall based on themselves without requiring to lure people in by associating themselves with items of popular appeal, same goes with politics. The fact that they are turning to video games just show how desperate they are in trying to keep a hold on to their memberships. If this keeps up, in a few more years, churches will either have very low memberships, or divorce from religion all together and form a society for popular entertainment, or perhaps a mixture of both. Oh glorious technology, you have humiliated religion so much that pathetic houses of gods now need to pay homage to you!
With this I shall conclude with a message to religions from modern society, "Get secular or get lost! Just don't waste our time on any day of the week."
Of course religious video game don't fair very well, just look at Left Behind: Eternal Forces a game that requires the player to kill or convert every single person on the map to Christianity including the UN workers who are trying to "stop" the player. Naturally it would disgust anyone, but apparently not the game designers, they sent it to every soldier in Iraq, it is really no wonder why the Muslims there want to kill them so much.
As much as I would like to criticise popular culture, I would refrain from doing so and give some more examples in history. During the middle ages, whenever a good king arises, the church has no reservations about saying how fortunate that god had made him, but they will always distance themselves from poor kings, brainwashing sll the people along the way. One of the reasons why the English king founded the Anglican church is because the church stop giving into his demands and sing praises of him, and so he needed to make another so that people wouldn't turn against him. Of course the most popular example of this kind of holy favouritism comes in the form of Hitler. Being a charismatic anti-communist Catholic, the Vatican love to give him their full support in his rise to power. Even when he started invading Poland, the church was not willing to criticise him, thanks to him spreading Catholicism in Germany.
This is horribly outrageous, ideologies should be able to stand and fall based on themselves without requiring to lure people in by associating themselves with items of popular appeal, same goes with politics. The fact that they are turning to video games just show how desperate they are in trying to keep a hold on to their memberships. If this keeps up, in a few more years, churches will either have very low memberships, or divorce from religion all together and form a society for popular entertainment, or perhaps a mixture of both. Oh glorious technology, you have humiliated religion so much that pathetic houses of gods now need to pay homage to you!
With this I shall conclude with a message to religions from modern society, "Get secular or get lost! Just don't waste our time on any day of the week."
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
A race's afoot
The latest craze in Science is to solve 2 problem, the energy crisis and global warming. Usually in the domain of physics and chemistry, we now have a new contestant in the race - biology.
The physics head start on the race is obvious, it's position is that energy solves everything, although we agree on that, the question of where to get the energy keeps popping up. Knowing that uranium will deplete someday in the future, research is being done on a virtually unlimited fusion supply source, other methods also include harnessing more energy from the sun, but that's about it for energy supplies that last for at least 5 billion years.
Chemistry's slogan is prevention is better than cure, while physics sought to use energy to cure all these problems, chemistry seek to explore new substance to use that would reduce/eliminate the problem. Although this doesn't help much in the energy crisis, it is effective for combating, or rather preventing, global warming. Plastics have been replaced time and time again we new better materials, and greenhouse gases can be absorbed before they escape.
So what does biology have to contribute to solving these problems? Here comes the latest news. We are finally able to engineer artificial life. How this helps is that we can manipulate bacteria so that they can be able to eat greenhouse gases, and maybe transform the waste product into renewable sources of energy, which the waste originally came from. Raw resources will then be able to be replenished at speeds so fast that they become renewable.
Who will win the race? Only time will tell, or maybe it won't if we're all dead if problems are not solved. (I really hope it's the first one)
But the big question is, why is there a race in the first place? Yes, the planet is dying and all that, yadah, yadah... but then the race should be Science against time, and not among the components of Science.
Well, the whole reason is because there's a flaw in the way Science is funded. (As the cold war ended, interest in Science dropped, because of lack of Russian threat) Money is kept by universities unless research can be justified, and what other better way can it be justified than saving the entire human race. However that goes entirely against the ideals of free Science, Science shouldn't be just constrained by the government to practicality, Science should be able to practice freely, explore whatever it can explore just for the sake of discovery. By limiting science, governments are just dooming themselves to the chances of failure when something big crops out.
The whole idea of a race is due to the fact that whoever wins it will also receive prestige. There exist a competition between Sciences for the winning over of the public. If any one of them manages to save the world, the goodwill earned by it will be enormous. Goodwill then translate into more students and more funding. Of course if more resources was allocated to the Sciences, there would probably be no need for competition.
Science shouldn't be an enterprise, it should be something that can be done as freely as speaking, and not just subjected to allocated funding. Yes, research is expansive, but gone are the days where people can just sit at home and devise theories. Modern theories requiring extensive experiments to back them up, not just some thought experiment, if we want to get anymore new Einsteins, we will need to give promising people the chance to experiment freely. Just like how you can't get free lunches, you can't expect to get free theories to be ready whenever you need them. To limit scientists' pursuit of their dreams is in the end just self-defeating in the race against time.
The physics head start on the race is obvious, it's position is that energy solves everything, although we agree on that, the question of where to get the energy keeps popping up. Knowing that uranium will deplete someday in the future, research is being done on a virtually unlimited fusion supply source, other methods also include harnessing more energy from the sun, but that's about it for energy supplies that last for at least 5 billion years.
Chemistry's slogan is prevention is better than cure, while physics sought to use energy to cure all these problems, chemistry seek to explore new substance to use that would reduce/eliminate the problem. Although this doesn't help much in the energy crisis, it is effective for combating, or rather preventing, global warming. Plastics have been replaced time and time again we new better materials, and greenhouse gases can be absorbed before they escape.
So what does biology have to contribute to solving these problems? Here comes the latest news. We are finally able to engineer artificial life. How this helps is that we can manipulate bacteria so that they can be able to eat greenhouse gases, and maybe transform the waste product into renewable sources of energy, which the waste originally came from. Raw resources will then be able to be replenished at speeds so fast that they become renewable.
Who will win the race? Only time will tell, or maybe it won't if we're all dead if problems are not solved. (I really hope it's the first one)
But the big question is, why is there a race in the first place? Yes, the planet is dying and all that, yadah, yadah... but then the race should be Science against time, and not among the components of Science.
Well, the whole reason is because there's a flaw in the way Science is funded. (As the cold war ended, interest in Science dropped, because of lack of Russian threat) Money is kept by universities unless research can be justified, and what other better way can it be justified than saving the entire human race. However that goes entirely against the ideals of free Science, Science shouldn't be just constrained by the government to practicality, Science should be able to practice freely, explore whatever it can explore just for the sake of discovery. By limiting science, governments are just dooming themselves to the chances of failure when something big crops out.
The whole idea of a race is due to the fact that whoever wins it will also receive prestige. There exist a competition between Sciences for the winning over of the public. If any one of them manages to save the world, the goodwill earned by it will be enormous. Goodwill then translate into more students and more funding. Of course if more resources was allocated to the Sciences, there would probably be no need for competition.
Science shouldn't be an enterprise, it should be something that can be done as freely as speaking, and not just subjected to allocated funding. Yes, research is expansive, but gone are the days where people can just sit at home and devise theories. Modern theories requiring extensive experiments to back them up, not just some thought experiment, if we want to get anymore new Einsteins, we will need to give promising people the chance to experiment freely. Just like how you can't get free lunches, you can't expect to get free theories to be ready whenever you need them. To limit scientists' pursuit of their dreams is in the end just self-defeating in the race against time.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
All good things have no end
Mountains thrust up and then crumble, species evolves and get extinct, civilisation rise and fall, lives appears and are extinguished before your very eyes. It almost seems as if nature obeys the phrase "Everything that has a beginning, has an end" or should it be "Life is a cycle"? Or maybe it's just the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that in a closed system, disorder always increases.
What I'm going to do here is not to argue about what the definition of good is, I'm not that petty as certain philosophers that have nothing better to do. I'm going to introduce to you what might seem as a completely unrelated topic, determinism, the hypotheses that at any particular time, there is only one physically possible state of the universe.
Now just one thing to take note, Science does in no ways at all refute determinism, not even from neuroscience to quantum mechanics. A line, albeit a fine one to most people, separates the unpredictable from the random. Science has in no way discovered anything random, all that there has been is unpredictable till today's present technology. Even in quantum mechanics, what has once been unpredictable has become certain (velocity), using Schrödinger's equation.
What in Science supports determinism is reductionism, everything discovered be Science so far can be explain at a more fundamental level (except for the most fundamental one, which till today remains to be general relativity and quantum mechanics). Biology can be explained in terms of atom, although with lengthy explanations, but the main thing is that it can be explained. Why this supports determinism is because determinism predicts each event and interaction have the same root causes. The hypothesis has thus far never been proved wrong, making it probable that determinism is true.
What we must then wonder about is whether or not the universe has a fixed number of states, or an infinite number of states. Simply put, whether the universe is digital(with lots of parameters) or analogue. The point is that in a finite state universe, there is a 100% certainty that the universe would repeat itself again and again once stuck in a certain loop (and maybe we are already stuck in such a loop), while in an infinite state universe, it may or may not.
The difference lies here. If we are stuck in a loop, all things that happen will only perpetuate the loop, so all things have no end, duh! If we aren't stuck in a loop, all things that will affect future things that will happen although product of past things that have already happened. Therefore all things that happen would 'live' on in the future by the way it has influenced the future from the past. Either way, all things, whether good or bad, have no end.
What I'm going to do here is not to argue about what the definition of good is, I'm not that petty as certain philosophers that have nothing better to do. I'm going to introduce to you what might seem as a completely unrelated topic, determinism, the hypotheses that at any particular time, there is only one physically possible state of the universe.
Now just one thing to take note, Science does in no ways at all refute determinism, not even from neuroscience to quantum mechanics. A line, albeit a fine one to most people, separates the unpredictable from the random. Science has in no way discovered anything random, all that there has been is unpredictable till today's present technology. Even in quantum mechanics, what has once been unpredictable has become certain (velocity), using Schrödinger's equation.
What in Science supports determinism is reductionism, everything discovered be Science so far can be explain at a more fundamental level (except for the most fundamental one, which till today remains to be general relativity and quantum mechanics). Biology can be explained in terms of atom, although with lengthy explanations, but the main thing is that it can be explained. Why this supports determinism is because determinism predicts each event and interaction have the same root causes. The hypothesis has thus far never been proved wrong, making it probable that determinism is true.
What we must then wonder about is whether or not the universe has a fixed number of states, or an infinite number of states. Simply put, whether the universe is digital(with lots of parameters) or analogue. The point is that in a finite state universe, there is a 100% certainty that the universe would repeat itself again and again once stuck in a certain loop (and maybe we are already stuck in such a loop), while in an infinite state universe, it may or may not.
The difference lies here. If we are stuck in a loop, all things that happen will only perpetuate the loop, so all things have no end, duh! If we aren't stuck in a loop, all things that will affect future things that will happen although product of past things that have already happened. Therefore all things that happen would 'live' on in the future by the way it has influenced the future from the past. Either way, all things, whether good or bad, have no end.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Once again, eugenics is coming back
Many people don't know it, but eugenics is back.
So what is eugenics anyway? It is the policy of selectively reproducing so as to maintain a better standard in the gene pool. How this can be done is numerous, but how it had been done pragmatically have been few. One such example lay back in the 1930s, where America began restricting births between socially disadvantaged people (the poor, the homeless, the unemployed) in favour for the intelligent and wealthy. In practice, it can be no different from another form of birth control, seeking to prevent the spread of the disabled (mostly intellectually disabled) within the population.
Now, if you were to ask me why this works. It is because within all organisms lie what we would call genes. Different genes can express their effects as traits on humans, less noticeable are those that carry certain tendency and disposition to act in a certain manner.
Eugenics is of a statistical nature and would work where many people are concerned, as would be the case in any country. There's absolutely no point in arguing about eugenics in terms of mathematics, statistics fully support the claims made by eugenics. Statistics will even show you that if we were to give everyone equal chances of living, humanity will become degenerate someday. So let us see the pros and cons of implementing such a policy
Pros:
1. Humanity gets smarter
2. Dangerous inheritable diseases occur less frequently
3. A form of population control so that we would not run out of natural resources
4. Ensure the survival of the human species
Cons:
1. People arguing that it's not natural (but then again, electricity usage isn't more natural than evolution)
Hmm, that's about all I can think off.
Now, I'm sure a number of you are going to say "Hitler did it and is inhuman". Well first of all, Hitler mainly committed racial genocide when making his Nazi policy. There was nothing scientific with the way he killed people to get a "pure Aryan race". As for the times that he killed the handicapped, that is only one way to practice eugenics, a more subtle approach is simply to not let them breed.
Perhaps the best example I can give of eugenics being practised is in Isaac Asimov's Robots Series. In the story, all 50 colonial worlds practised eugenics and to a smaller extent Earth itself. How this is implemented is by allocating each couple only two children maximum. Only when a person proves to be highly accomplished can he apply for a third child. In addition, only in the colonies, the foetus will be subjected to genetic testing before even getting the chance to live. Since Earth adopted eugenics a little late, its population had exploded to over 15 billion, and everyone on Earth had to eat from yeast farms. (Apparently yeast grows quite fast) The colonies on the other hand lived in luxury.
Then you ask me, where in the world is eugenics back? Well look no further than to society. We are all now more open to homosexuals. How is the eugenics? Now homosexuals no longer need to adhere to the stupid traditional values that a successful person requires a family. They no longer have kids of their own, if they want, they adopt kids, which is an entirely different thing. The point is that you can't help practising eugenics in any free society, the two of them are quite inseparable, where there exist freedom, there exist a choice, genes tends to alters the choice of a person, and because of that, the gene which cause people to make the better choice survives and gets passed on.
And that my friends is eugenics in a nutshell, that it should be used when practising population control, and that it is always present in truly free societies.
So what is eugenics anyway? It is the policy of selectively reproducing so as to maintain a better standard in the gene pool. How this can be done is numerous, but how it had been done pragmatically have been few. One such example lay back in the 1930s, where America began restricting births between socially disadvantaged people (the poor, the homeless, the unemployed) in favour for the intelligent and wealthy. In practice, it can be no different from another form of birth control, seeking to prevent the spread of the disabled (mostly intellectually disabled) within the population.
Now, if you were to ask me why this works. It is because within all organisms lie what we would call genes. Different genes can express their effects as traits on humans, less noticeable are those that carry certain tendency and disposition to act in a certain manner.
Eugenics is of a statistical nature and would work where many people are concerned, as would be the case in any country. There's absolutely no point in arguing about eugenics in terms of mathematics, statistics fully support the claims made by eugenics. Statistics will even show you that if we were to give everyone equal chances of living, humanity will become degenerate someday. So let us see the pros and cons of implementing such a policy
Pros:
1. Humanity gets smarter
2. Dangerous inheritable diseases occur less frequently
3. A form of population control so that we would not run out of natural resources
4. Ensure the survival of the human species
Cons:
1. People arguing that it's not natural (but then again, electricity usage isn't more natural than evolution)
Hmm, that's about all I can think off.
Now, I'm sure a number of you are going to say "Hitler did it and is inhuman". Well first of all, Hitler mainly committed racial genocide when making his Nazi policy. There was nothing scientific with the way he killed people to get a "pure Aryan race". As for the times that he killed the handicapped, that is only one way to practice eugenics, a more subtle approach is simply to not let them breed.
Perhaps the best example I can give of eugenics being practised is in Isaac Asimov's Robots Series. In the story, all 50 colonial worlds practised eugenics and to a smaller extent Earth itself. How this is implemented is by allocating each couple only two children maximum. Only when a person proves to be highly accomplished can he apply for a third child. In addition, only in the colonies, the foetus will be subjected to genetic testing before even getting the chance to live. Since Earth adopted eugenics a little late, its population had exploded to over 15 billion, and everyone on Earth had to eat from yeast farms. (Apparently yeast grows quite fast) The colonies on the other hand lived in luxury.
Then you ask me, where in the world is eugenics back? Well look no further than to society. We are all now more open to homosexuals. How is the eugenics? Now homosexuals no longer need to adhere to the stupid traditional values that a successful person requires a family. They no longer have kids of their own, if they want, they adopt kids, which is an entirely different thing. The point is that you can't help practising eugenics in any free society, the two of them are quite inseparable, where there exist freedom, there exist a choice, genes tends to alters the choice of a person, and because of that, the gene which cause people to make the better choice survives and gets passed on.
And that my friends is eugenics in a nutshell, that it should be used when practising population control, and that it is always present in truly free societies.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Who needs to go to Iraq to see a war unfold?
For centuries battles have been fought. Over time the casualty tolls have risen to the billions. Ideas rose, spread and fell, one by one. Huge armies have been raised by both fanatics and the passionate alike. Ideologies have been carved and forged out of gigantic blocks of land. It is the epic struggle of humanity of all time.
It is now time for the latest report of the Intellectual War *da-da-da-dum*
(Ok, I didn't want to wind up starting from scratch so I decided to borrow the Earth. This map does not represent actual geographic locations, besides fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, which I specially catered for. You'll get a larger size with clearer details if you click it)
Now, I'm sure most of you will agree with me that there exist a huge conflict along the lines as shown by the map above. This question will then come to mind: What in the world do you call those two large factions?! Well, personally I had tried giving them different names such as coherence vs. non-coherence, as shown in the upper left portion in the map, but if I do that, it will only divide the world into two super blocks, only red and blue with nothing in between. I have also tried practical/non-practical with the same result. Therefore I ended up with naming them evidence before reason(blue)/reason before evidence(red), if you have any better suggestions, you can always tell me, though I'm not too keen on changing the map. If you're wondering why maths is being partially divided between the two, it's because evidence and reason are more or less the same thing for maths. No doubt most people should easily identify those yellow spheres of influence (fundamentalism). In addition the white coloured/uncoloured portions represent a wide variety of independents that doesn't fall into either side.
So how did the world get to be this way? Let us journey far back into history to the birth of civilisation. As we all know the earliest civilisation began in Mesopotamia (Babylon/Iraq) and spread to Egypt, but that's about where the similarities end. Soul psychology arise as a yellow blob in Mesopotamia, while Mathematics started off in Egypt as a blue blob because people needed to count stuff. (Remember, regions do not represent actually geographic locations, only pure coincidence.) As civilisation grow, Mathematics spread westward across the coast of the Mediterranean, unable to pass through the denser part within the Sahara, turning redder as it goes along as people just do mathematics for fun. Meanwhile, souls and religion spread upwards to Europe.
Now onwards to the classical ages. The ancient Greeks were one of the greatest explorers of their time who really turned the world red. From their islands in the Mediterranean they proposed a whole set of ideas about the mind, then they establish colonies in Africa, with Euclid compiling the largest book on mathematics in history at that time. Next they discovered Brazil by setting sail from Africa, and thus becoming one of the largest empire the world have ever seen, although getting almost all of it wrong. As we all know, Aristotle proposed an extremely poor four element system (Earth, Fire, Wood, Air), bad kinetics (Force is required to keep object in motion), and some other crazy stuff. Moving down South America, the Greeks discovered some natives who have already been using astronomy to do astrology. The Greeks assimilated them and began constructing an entire universe of circles. Although credit must be given to them for discovering the Earth was a sphere. Travelling further south, the Greeks discovered Antarctica and colonised it too, giving rise to a great many philosophers from that settlement, from Thales to Socrates, Plato to Epicurus. The Greeks also expanded towards governance within sociology in Asia, being the first to try out democracy and city states.
The Greeks however also made a few blue discoveries, one of them due to a dissident group of doctors not contented with the current path of medicine. They left on a voyage up north towards North America to settle in anatomy and medicine, and displacing the witchdoctor and clergy population found there, their results of their medical studies extended the lives of the average Greek, just look at all the old people they managed to bring about way down in the south. Another blue region carved out by the Greeks was in a section Physics (mechanics), made famous by Archimedes running down naked in the street during a bath. In addition, Archimedes constructed levers and pulleys, and various mechanisms to defeat the enemies of Greece, such as a Roman naval invasion. He burned down all the ships just by reflecting and concentrating sunlight.
The Romans were the inheritors to the Greek Empire, they used the Greeks exploration of Physics to develop a whole new system of Engineering, from complex architecture to ingenious war machine, turning the ancient world blue with envy. Unfortunately much was undone when Christianity was adopted as the religion in the once diverse Roman Empire, taking over literature (Bible) and art. The Greeks population within the Empire were persecuted. Christians burned down entire Greek schools of thought, philosophers died and were never replaced. The world entered a really yellow Dark Ages as the Christians could not hold onto the ancient knowledge, and the Empire collapsed upon itself, leaving yellow blobs all over.
The Arabs however took over some of the Roman-Greek holdings where the Romans retreated, such as the library of Alexandria. As well as preserving the Greek works, the develop astronomy from where the Greeks left of, naming over two-thirds of the stars known today, but still doing nothing to improve on the 'Earth is centre of universe' idea. In the 10th century, European scholars travelling to the Arab world managed to reacquire much of the knowledge lost in the Dark Ages, red as it is. Free trade spread, leading to exploration towards South Africa in business and capitalism. No long after, the Arabs turned from being an open society into fundamentalist and executing dissident scholars, spreading yellow blobs on all Arab knowledge, fortunately, Europe already owned a copy of them.
The renaissance finally saw a rise in blue discoveries again. Galileo is most remembered for the way he does his daring experiment, like the story that he drop cannon balls from the tower of Pisa (though it probably didn't happen) and of course his telescope. Word that the Earth revolve round the Sun started to spread all across Europe, leading to Galileo's house arrest. Bolder ideas that have been put forth even met the death penalty by the church. Towards the end, Physics turned from yellow (flat Earth, revolving Sun) to blue. The Enlightenment saw a rise in science literacy as well as exploration into the new world of chemistry, thanks to Antoine who discovered a few of the gases, and Humphrey Davy, who got laughing gas and some others. To the south, Newton revolutionised Physics and Astronomy into entirely blue domains, and kicked astrology out completely. Religion seeing itself lose so much ground so fast still kept a stronghold in the Americas in creation myths.
People seeing the Natural Science giving so much practical uses seek to do the same for other fields, and so born the social sciences, discovering the rest of Asia. Unfortunately it took less than a decade to have it all turn red. Social Sciences turned out to be entirely useless but for writing long manuscripts of theories that can't be tested like that Communist Manifesto by Marx. However, at that same time, an expedition was launched to chart the rest of Northwest America. Geography became the study of the Earth, and how natural features form. Then, within the rocks unexpected discoveries were made, fossils were found. With the help of radioactivity from Physics and anatomy in Biology, the fossils could be dated and ancestors traced. In a separate but closely related story, Englishman Darwin set sail for the Galapagos and wrote the theory of evolution. The yellow blob last stronghold in America was under assault.
With the invention of the microscope, the very small can now be explored, clearing new lands for physics, chemistry and biology. What they found astounded them, result in more modern fields such as Bacteriology, Virology and Neuroscience, computers only sped things up and pretty soon both evolution and neuroscience were entering the field of psychology, and philosophers armed with the new knowledge also travelled south to invade Antarctica. The red blob, having been pretty much preoccupied by internal dissent was shocked at the expansion of the blue region, try as they might all they could do was to play defensive, forming an alliance with fundamentalist by saying that the soul cannot be analysed. Except for some pathetic sting from the philosophy section that was largely destroyed before it had a chance to land on the Americas, the army of the blue, consisting of scientists to teachers, psychologists to doctors, marches on. As of today, land is still being ceded to the blue regions due to being practical and representative of reality. A scientific literate population within the humanities have also revolted to form a more coherent field of study.
As we look towards the future, only time can tell how long this war will last.
It is now time for the latest report of the Intellectual War *da-da-da-dum*
(Ok, I didn't want to wind up starting from scratch so I decided to borrow the Earth. This map does not represent actual geographic locations, besides fundamentalist Christianity and Islam, which I specially catered for. You'll get a larger size with clearer details if you click it)Now, I'm sure most of you will agree with me that there exist a huge conflict along the lines as shown by the map above. This question will then come to mind: What in the world do you call those two large factions?! Well, personally I had tried giving them different names such as coherence vs. non-coherence, as shown in the upper left portion in the map, but if I do that, it will only divide the world into two super blocks, only red and blue with nothing in between. I have also tried practical/non-practical with the same result. Therefore I ended up with naming them evidence before reason(blue)/reason before evidence(red), if you have any better suggestions, you can always tell me, though I'm not too keen on changing the map. If you're wondering why maths is being partially divided between the two, it's because evidence and reason are more or less the same thing for maths. No doubt most people should easily identify those yellow spheres of influence (fundamentalism). In addition the white coloured/uncoloured portions represent a wide variety of independents that doesn't fall into either side.
So how did the world get to be this way? Let us journey far back into history to the birth of civilisation. As we all know the earliest civilisation began in Mesopotamia (Babylon/Iraq) and spread to Egypt, but that's about where the similarities end. Soul psychology arise as a yellow blob in Mesopotamia, while Mathematics started off in Egypt as a blue blob because people needed to count stuff. (Remember, regions do not represent actually geographic locations, only pure coincidence.) As civilisation grow, Mathematics spread westward across the coast of the Mediterranean, unable to pass through the denser part within the Sahara, turning redder as it goes along as people just do mathematics for fun. Meanwhile, souls and religion spread upwards to Europe.
Now onwards to the classical ages. The ancient Greeks were one of the greatest explorers of their time who really turned the world red. From their islands in the Mediterranean they proposed a whole set of ideas about the mind, then they establish colonies in Africa, with Euclid compiling the largest book on mathematics in history at that time. Next they discovered Brazil by setting sail from Africa, and thus becoming one of the largest empire the world have ever seen, although getting almost all of it wrong. As we all know, Aristotle proposed an extremely poor four element system (Earth, Fire, Wood, Air), bad kinetics (Force is required to keep object in motion), and some other crazy stuff. Moving down South America, the Greeks discovered some natives who have already been using astronomy to do astrology. The Greeks assimilated them and began constructing an entire universe of circles. Although credit must be given to them for discovering the Earth was a sphere. Travelling further south, the Greeks discovered Antarctica and colonised it too, giving rise to a great many philosophers from that settlement, from Thales to Socrates, Plato to Epicurus. The Greeks also expanded towards governance within sociology in Asia, being the first to try out democracy and city states.
The Greeks however also made a few blue discoveries, one of them due to a dissident group of doctors not contented with the current path of medicine. They left on a voyage up north towards North America to settle in anatomy and medicine, and displacing the witchdoctor and clergy population found there, their results of their medical studies extended the lives of the average Greek, just look at all the old people they managed to bring about way down in the south. Another blue region carved out by the Greeks was in a section Physics (mechanics), made famous by Archimedes running down naked in the street during a bath. In addition, Archimedes constructed levers and pulleys, and various mechanisms to defeat the enemies of Greece, such as a Roman naval invasion. He burned down all the ships just by reflecting and concentrating sunlight.
The Romans were the inheritors to the Greek Empire, they used the Greeks exploration of Physics to develop a whole new system of Engineering, from complex architecture to ingenious war machine, turning the ancient world blue with envy. Unfortunately much was undone when Christianity was adopted as the religion in the once diverse Roman Empire, taking over literature (Bible) and art. The Greeks population within the Empire were persecuted. Christians burned down entire Greek schools of thought, philosophers died and were never replaced. The world entered a really yellow Dark Ages as the Christians could not hold onto the ancient knowledge, and the Empire collapsed upon itself, leaving yellow blobs all over.
The Arabs however took over some of the Roman-Greek holdings where the Romans retreated, such as the library of Alexandria. As well as preserving the Greek works, the develop astronomy from where the Greeks left of, naming over two-thirds of the stars known today, but still doing nothing to improve on the 'Earth is centre of universe' idea. In the 10th century, European scholars travelling to the Arab world managed to reacquire much of the knowledge lost in the Dark Ages, red as it is. Free trade spread, leading to exploration towards South Africa in business and capitalism. No long after, the Arabs turned from being an open society into fundamentalist and executing dissident scholars, spreading yellow blobs on all Arab knowledge, fortunately, Europe already owned a copy of them.
The renaissance finally saw a rise in blue discoveries again. Galileo is most remembered for the way he does his daring experiment, like the story that he drop cannon balls from the tower of Pisa (though it probably didn't happen) and of course his telescope. Word that the Earth revolve round the Sun started to spread all across Europe, leading to Galileo's house arrest. Bolder ideas that have been put forth even met the death penalty by the church. Towards the end, Physics turned from yellow (flat Earth, revolving Sun) to blue. The Enlightenment saw a rise in science literacy as well as exploration into the new world of chemistry, thanks to Antoine who discovered a few of the gases, and Humphrey Davy, who got laughing gas and some others. To the south, Newton revolutionised Physics and Astronomy into entirely blue domains, and kicked astrology out completely. Religion seeing itself lose so much ground so fast still kept a stronghold in the Americas in creation myths.
People seeing the Natural Science giving so much practical uses seek to do the same for other fields, and so born the social sciences, discovering the rest of Asia. Unfortunately it took less than a decade to have it all turn red. Social Sciences turned out to be entirely useless but for writing long manuscripts of theories that can't be tested like that Communist Manifesto by Marx. However, at that same time, an expedition was launched to chart the rest of Northwest America. Geography became the study of the Earth, and how natural features form. Then, within the rocks unexpected discoveries were made, fossils were found. With the help of radioactivity from Physics and anatomy in Biology, the fossils could be dated and ancestors traced. In a separate but closely related story, Englishman Darwin set sail for the Galapagos and wrote the theory of evolution. The yellow blob last stronghold in America was under assault.
With the invention of the microscope, the very small can now be explored, clearing new lands for physics, chemistry and biology. What they found astounded them, result in more modern fields such as Bacteriology, Virology and Neuroscience, computers only sped things up and pretty soon both evolution and neuroscience were entering the field of psychology, and philosophers armed with the new knowledge also travelled south to invade Antarctica. The red blob, having been pretty much preoccupied by internal dissent was shocked at the expansion of the blue region, try as they might all they could do was to play defensive, forming an alliance with fundamentalist by saying that the soul cannot be analysed. Except for some pathetic sting from the philosophy section that was largely destroyed before it had a chance to land on the Americas, the army of the blue, consisting of scientists to teachers, psychologists to doctors, marches on. As of today, land is still being ceded to the blue regions due to being practical and representative of reality. A scientific literate population within the humanities have also revolted to form a more coherent field of study.
As we look towards the future, only time can tell how long this war will last.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Work in Progress
Ok, I've been working on a couple of things after promotional exams ended, including a map using photoshop entitled "Intellectual Wars" to be used for a new post (go figure). Unfortunately it's still under construction, so I guess this is all I can show yet:
Stay tune for invasion tactics!
After this, expect a new entry every 2-3 days.
Stay tune for invasion tactics!
After this, expect a new entry every 2-3 days.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
It has been a cruel world
There's one thing that always bothers me, (Actually, there are a few, this is just one of them), and that's what is the meaning of being equal and being fair, and where and when did those concepts had arisen.
I'm quite sure that its history has stretched far beyond the Roman empire as the Greek philosopher Socrates had once asked his student how the student learnt the idea of being fair, while laws have been passed even further back that called on people to be equal, such as the code of Hammurabi.
The meaning of equal is quite easy to grasp, it is to treat someone the same way as you would treat anyone else, the word "equal" just says it all. But what about fair? It seems that what it means to be fair is not that simple. Some dictionaries does a splendid job at explaining it: Fair - being just, Just - treating each person in a fair way, while others relate it to being reasonably equal. I'm quite curious as to why no dictionary mention that one definition that is most obvious to everyone: "No Cheating". Maybe its because cheating is to break a law, and a law is suppose to be fair, which just repeats the loop again.
Whatever fair means, it's almost as if that our brains sort of know that being fair is something that should be strived for, making it quite humiliating to show someone that he/she is being unfair (and perhaps making the phrase "No Fair!" such a popular sign in a demostration). The strange thing is that there seems to be almost no middle ground between being fair and not being fair. An animal activist can tell you that it's unfair to kill animals for food, while everyone else can say that is fair, but there wouldn't be anyone who will say it's both fair and unfair. It's almost as if should one situation of the whole is unfair, then the whole is unfair too. There doesn't seem to be a case where we can say this judge is more fair than the other judge, if someone is less fair, it's is the analogous to being unfair, giving the other the title of just "fair". All this seems to make "fair" a standard that we can't improve on.
So just some interesting questions to ask:
Does being fair means being equal? Or is being equal being unfair?
Is nature equal, fair, both or neither?
Does it takes a human to be equal or fair?
If fair isn't equal, which should we choose?
Should a good society be fair or equal? Should a good law be fair or equal?
I've got to sleep so think about these questions for a while, be back tomorrow.
_____________________________________________________
4 Sep
Hmm, apparently tomorrow didn't mean the next day from the time of the post above.
Ok, now to answer the question I had written.
Being fair doesn't mean being equal nor vice versa. However, to give a more in-depth explanation, let's have a look at the standard view of these two concepts. First of all, to the layman, equal has a sense of being more objective than fair. After all, everyone knows what the meaning of the same is, and perceive human equality to be treating everyone the same. However this is quite wrong, both equal and fair are about the same in terms of objectivity, which is quite little. Equal can mean equal with respect to different conditions, equal living standards, equal salary, equal vote, equal treatment, equal benefits, ... Now the problem with creating and equal society is that the people inside the society aren't equal to begin with, to treat them all like equals is to do a huge injustice.
So what about fair? Like equal, it is also subjective, being fair in an argument is the idea that we must look at both sides of the story before coming to a conclusion (it's not merely enough to give each side equal time, and that's the worse way this is shown is in a debate). Being fair as an employer is to recognise the achievements of more productive workers. We don't say that these actions are equal for the reason that such actions are not equal at all. However, all hope of using the concept of fairness in society is not lost, there still happens to be some objective way of being fair. For example we can be fair according to ability, in which those who contribute/have the potential to contribute the most to the society will have a higher say in what decisions the society makes. But we can also be fair by letting the more well-informed people have a higher say in making decisions. In fact the number of possible ways of being fair is so vast that I couldn't possibly list them all out here. However, is there a right way of being fair? I believe there is, and it must take a lot of factors into account, and not turn up into a system where the scientists and teachers get less say in what to include in Science education than the parents (unless they're the same person).
The problem with democracy is that it is communism practised in voting. It treats everyone as equals, and not treat everyone fairly. Different issues concern different people, and different people have a different degree of awareness in different issues. I'm okay with putting issues to a vote, not an equal vote, but a fair vote. If such a political situation can be made possible, then all others would become obsolete for they have truly made the world a cruel place to be in. It is only in a fair system of government that there will truly be the fair say of the people.
Urgh, it's tiring to think, I'm going to leave the fairness of nature for another post.
I'm quite sure that its history has stretched far beyond the Roman empire as the Greek philosopher Socrates had once asked his student how the student learnt the idea of being fair, while laws have been passed even further back that called on people to be equal, such as the code of Hammurabi.
The meaning of equal is quite easy to grasp, it is to treat someone the same way as you would treat anyone else, the word "equal" just says it all. But what about fair? It seems that what it means to be fair is not that simple. Some dictionaries does a splendid job at explaining it: Fair - being just, Just - treating each person in a fair way, while others relate it to being reasonably equal. I'm quite curious as to why no dictionary mention that one definition that is most obvious to everyone: "No Cheating". Maybe its because cheating is to break a law, and a law is suppose to be fair, which just repeats the loop again.
Whatever fair means, it's almost as if that our brains sort of know that being fair is something that should be strived for, making it quite humiliating to show someone that he/she is being unfair (and perhaps making the phrase "No Fair!" such a popular sign in a demostration). The strange thing is that there seems to be almost no middle ground between being fair and not being fair. An animal activist can tell you that it's unfair to kill animals for food, while everyone else can say that is fair, but there wouldn't be anyone who will say it's both fair and unfair. It's almost as if should one situation of the whole is unfair, then the whole is unfair too. There doesn't seem to be a case where we can say this judge is more fair than the other judge, if someone is less fair, it's is the analogous to being unfair, giving the other the title of just "fair". All this seems to make "fair" a standard that we can't improve on.
So just some interesting questions to ask:
Does being fair means being equal? Or is being equal being unfair?
Is nature equal, fair, both or neither?
Does it takes a human to be equal or fair?
If fair isn't equal, which should we choose?
Should a good society be fair or equal? Should a good law be fair or equal?
I've got to sleep so think about these questions for a while, be back tomorrow.
_____________________________________________________
4 Sep
Hmm, apparently tomorrow didn't mean the next day from the time of the post above.
Ok, now to answer the question I had written.
Being fair doesn't mean being equal nor vice versa. However, to give a more in-depth explanation, let's have a look at the standard view of these two concepts. First of all, to the layman, equal has a sense of being more objective than fair. After all, everyone knows what the meaning of the same is, and perceive human equality to be treating everyone the same. However this is quite wrong, both equal and fair are about the same in terms of objectivity, which is quite little. Equal can mean equal with respect to different conditions, equal living standards, equal salary, equal vote, equal treatment, equal benefits, ... Now the problem with creating and equal society is that the people inside the society aren't equal to begin with, to treat them all like equals is to do a huge injustice.
So what about fair? Like equal, it is also subjective, being fair in an argument is the idea that we must look at both sides of the story before coming to a conclusion (it's not merely enough to give each side equal time, and that's the worse way this is shown is in a debate). Being fair as an employer is to recognise the achievements of more productive workers. We don't say that these actions are equal for the reason that such actions are not equal at all. However, all hope of using the concept of fairness in society is not lost, there still happens to be some objective way of being fair. For example we can be fair according to ability, in which those who contribute/have the potential to contribute the most to the society will have a higher say in what decisions the society makes. But we can also be fair by letting the more well-informed people have a higher say in making decisions. In fact the number of possible ways of being fair is so vast that I couldn't possibly list them all out here. However, is there a right way of being fair? I believe there is, and it must take a lot of factors into account, and not turn up into a system where the scientists and teachers get less say in what to include in Science education than the parents (unless they're the same person).
The problem with democracy is that it is communism practised in voting. It treats everyone as equals, and not treat everyone fairly. Different issues concern different people, and different people have a different degree of awareness in different issues. I'm okay with putting issues to a vote, not an equal vote, but a fair vote. If such a political situation can be made possible, then all others would become obsolete for they have truly made the world a cruel place to be in. It is only in a fair system of government that there will truly be the fair say of the people.
Urgh, it's tiring to think, I'm going to leave the fairness of nature for another post.
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