Week12

There are many conditions it is justified to break the law. one of the major reason would be if the law is unjust or immoral. There are many other conditions that can be justified for breaking the law. example - life and death situations or in case of self defense. example if some people are chasing you to hurt or even kill you and you try to get away by breaking into someone's car or break into someone house to hide maybe able to say justify. your intention are to save yourself, not to to harm the owner of the car or the owner of the house. These things rarely happen. what majorly happen are the unjust laws. in my opinion unjust laws are law that discriminated on a group of people, treat a group differently than the other and so on. there are many unjust laws in the United States that can have legitimate uses of civil disobedience. Example - there are 7 states in the US that do not allow atheists to run for public office. Just because they do not believe in super natural beings, they are treated lesser than others and treated unfairly. those kind of law can be define as unjust law and can be uses on civil disobedience. women in Saudi Arabia are not allow to drive. these are unjust law. I have to agree with St.Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all" because if it is unjust and not make it equal for everyone or not treating everyone equally, then what is the point of having that law?  

Week#11 M&M

Classical liberals like Mill usually argue that so long as you aren't being coerced or forced to do something by the state, then you are free. People sympathetic to Marx are likely to argue that freedom requires that we are protected from forms of coercion that stem from economic disparities, and that this perhaps requires some kind of active state intervention to make sure that we are free to make our own economic choices.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree with Mill or Marx? Or perhaps a little with  both?

it's a little bit of both and then some. as long as you are not the last person on earth, you are not really free. as long as you are with people, (at least one person) there will be set of rules you have to follow. so you need government (even if it is not physical one , there are set of rules you can consider as government). once there is some form of government, you are not really free. the question is if you want to govern a lot or govern less? in Mill's way he prefer to be govern less and in Marx's way it is somewhat more of government involvement than Mill's way. They both have their advantage and disadvantages. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do to be able to stabilize community and steady growth of community. example - Taxation. nobody want to pay tax but government must force people to pay tax because there are a lot of good things governments do for people that require money. Things like roads, bridges, school, defense and so on.. sometimes government will have to force people to do something for their own safety or safety of the others. example - if you live near a forest fire, and refuse to leave, the government will probably drag you out and if you gonna blame that the government violate the freedom, you should have left and burn in the fire. it is like those people in Sovereign citizen movement , they will do and think they are answerable only to their particular interpretation of the common law and are not subject to any government statutes or proceedings. that's just crazy to me. to me Mill's way are going to that SCM. In Marx way, the government have to provide and make sure the need of the citizen are fulfill. we all know it's not free. you have to pay for your share. government will control what you eat, what share you get. in hard time government will force you to work for the country in return for the supports you are getting, so it is not total freedom as well. basically it is like you lose some, you win some situation. also, if government is providing all the needs, the citizen will not work hard or not work at all and it will hurt the country badly. freedom really is a very complex subject. All the system has flaws, even in the fantasy stories like star trek, where the poverty is eliminated and everyone needs are taken care off, they are still bound by the rules and regulations because total freedom will bring chaos within a short time. so we kind of need both Mill and Marx ways and then some more to make sure that everyone get the needs for survival and also enough freedom without getting in each other way but i don't think we have find that system yet. 

Yes we can but no we won't

According to Buddhism, the main source of our suffering is our preoccupation with our own desires. can we live with Buddha teachings? yes we can but will we live like that? no we won't. it is mainly because of our society. Also it is mainly because people do not have deep understanding of Buddhism. first i would like to talk about deep understanding of Buddhism. Buddhism mainly focus on the mind of people over physical material. in fact, you are not even require to go to pagodas or temple like some other religions require to. Buddhism said Suffering is said to be caused by selfish cravings and desires. The way to enlightenment, for Buddhism, therefore involves detaching from our narrow concern with ourselves, escaping the prison of our own desires and illusions. it is easier said than done. even those who claim they are true Buddhist can not follow those teachings and get away from selfish cravings and desires. Our mind is always has greed, anger, jealousy, pride and so on... even the calmest like monks or priests still do have greed and anger. it is really hard to get rid of them unless you are enlightened. most Buddhists are not enlightened. they know the teachings but they can not follow. let me give you an example what i meant - say two mother try to buy really popular Halloween costume for their kids and only one left at store, they will probably argue for who grab it first and probably fight for it. it's anger. the loser will probably get jealous, the winner will probably gloat with pride..... if we break down to them step by step you can see both women suffered. even the winner who got the costume suffer. before she won it, she probably worry she might not get it, she also angry at her opponent, she's probably was also jealous of the rival. she did all for the love of her child and yet her mind suffered so many bad emotions. the losing side can be say same she will be angry, jealous, sad, disappointed and so on. so even doing something out of love can make you suffer. so to be really peaceful and really escape from suffering you will have to let go of a lot of thing even including the case of love ones. that's hard to do. there are some men i know who are tough as nail. you can smash their head with a brick and they wouldn't blink but those same men will break down to tears if they see their sons or daughter get hurt or suffering from illness or get accidents. they have desires for their children to get better they are really worry and it's burning inside them. so even if it is not selfish desires it still hurt and burn you. buddha taught and showed ways to escape form those suffering but in reality it is really hard to follow. he himself had to take the hard road before he found enlightenment. he was a crown prince and set to be king of kings (many kings served under his father) the day he left the palace was the day his son was born, he came to look at his son face and left the palace at midnight when no one would notice. would anyone be able to leave a king's life and new born baby to find inner peace? i doubt only a handful of people can do that. i know i wouldn't. i met some monks who try to follow Buddha's step. many are more peaceful than us and yet even they have some desire. ofc they suffer less than us because they can cut many more desire than us normal people. even entering monkshood is hard. you have to leave your family behind. that's something i or many people can not do.  so you really have to understand more and deeper to a point to even see things like love and bonds are also part of suffering. when i say love is suffering i do not meant Buddha taught not to love. Buddha taught to love everyone but not with selfish desire. example if you love your family it will be just your like "my mom, my son, my daughter" you would not be able to love a homeless person like your mom. it is simply because you are still selfish. Buddha want us to love everyone equally. if you can love your mom or someone on the street same, then you probably are free from selfishness and desire. that's really deep and hard to do. there are some who can do better than many. example - pope Francis, he washed feet of inmate on holy Thursday. he's probably one of the most influential person in the world. that doesn't effect him and he did it with love and kindness.  then there are some helping children in war zone with whatever they have. they gave up all they have in their comfortable lives and go to help anyone who need (doesn't matter what color of the skins) those people are more free from selfishness and desires than many of us because their inner are cleaner and more pure than us. Secondly our society won't help to live with the way Buddha taught. think about it. we live in very entitled society. always "me me me", always " my my my" and always "mine mine mine". our society support that kind of behaviors. look at the Kadashians. they are self centered with no talents what so ever and yet they have millions for fans who want to be like them. heck to be honest most of us can't live without our smart phone, twitter, facebook and instagram. things that actually make more selfish, and make us more self center. so can we live like Buddha teachings? yes some can (like the Amish ppl, who live very simple and minimum which basically is a step closer than most of us) but will we? no we won't cuz our mind won't let go of many things. we are too attach to many and we can't easily break away 

Philosophy Vs Religion

This week, we are focusing on the Cosmological argument and the Design argument and focus on how one can think about religion from a philosophical perspective. in my view philosophy are religion are in a way codependent of each other. forget the creator, forget the design argument, philosophy itself probably created a lot of religion. if you think about it, there is no proof that is god (or creator) no one has proof it and never done before but there is proofs that men those who found religions existed. (such as Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, Buddha... and so on). think of those founders as philosophers. they might have thought to create something to move the mass or unite the mass under one control. religion is one best way to unite or control a lot of people. those founders might have thought of creating a religion to make people working together. so you can probably argue that religion is part of philosophy. You can also say religion shape philosophy. The idea of human rights is base on religion. most religion teach followers to be good, to be kind to each other and to be fair to each other. Idea such as human rights came from thinking that were shape by religions, such as kindness and fairness. it is true philosophy is free thinking but religion still have a lot of effects on philosophy. even for a free thinkers, the way they brought up under a religion will effect on how they think. following same principle of a religion or going opposite of the religion will effect on the way people thinking. example - in the case of Martin Luther, he went the opposite way as Catholic church. he questions the wrong doings of the religion authorities and reform new church. if Catholic church wasn't doing anything wrong at that time there wouldn't have been protestant church today. so in a way, religion did shape philosophical prescriptive. Also philosophy can make people change religion convictions. Example - Once Buddha was passing by an atheist village. They asked him "Many has came and went and taught us their religion is the best and tell us to follow them. which religion do you think we should follow, who should we rely on? There was a long version of Buddha's answer but to make it short he answered "You are the one you should rely on, you shouldn't follow a religion because someone(including those who influences on you such as your parents) said so. you should listen to what they have to say and follow which you believe is right for you". in my point of view it is close answer to free thinking. so a philosopher would probably study more or listen to Buddha more because it is base on freethinking. so a free thinking atheist might convict because it free thinking. it can say same thing about Jesus. A philosopher might think "He is not afraid to die for his cause, there must be something he knew that i don't, maybe I should look into more about this Christianity." in some case freethinking followers might quit a religion because of some rules. example - if a religion that do not allow to read their teachings unless you are a true believer or follower. how can you believe first without reading about their teachings?. some religion forbid outsiders to enter their holy sites unless you are a believer or follower. free thinkers will think how can we follow you if we can't see what you offer inside? so yes in my view religion and philosophy are effecting on each other. if philosophy do not effects on religion or if religion do not effect on philosophy, there will be only one religion in the world because people will not question the religion they have and they will move on with one religion. 

WEEK 6 - human and computer

computers these days are very advance and some of them can even be able to adapt situation and try to act upon the situations. example in video games or games like chess, computer react on how their opponents play. most of reactions are because they were programmed to do that way. some of the advance program can even detected emotions and even to the point of feelings such as artificial hands with artificial nerve ends that receive electrical signal. in a way we can say computer are pushing the line between human and machines. Just like them, we are also programmed by our society. since we were young, our society has been programming our behaviors and we are programmed to react  in certain ways. for example - you are programmed not to laugh loudly in time of death or during funeral. the different between their programs and our program is that our programs has sense of individuality, sense of understanding and sense of evolution. if there are 5000 advance computers using same program and produced by same factory they will all be identical but in humans even twins who came from same mother are not the same even if they were programmed by same society. their individuality will set them apart. example - the twins can grew up in a football family and yet one of them can become a basketball fan, just because their individual preferences are different. Also sense of evolution set us apart from computers. say if we programmed robot army  to kill Klingons ( i will use them as a race, i don't want to use actual ethics ) they will keep doing till all Klingons are gone. if we teach that to human army, some of us will question why must we? some of us might want to make peace with them, some of us will question the program and try to walk away from doing the wrong thing. that is why we are able to abolish slavery, able to have civil rights moments. human can evolve and can able to see what is right and wrong. the biggest different between us and computer is that we have ability to ask why?. basically we have understanding and they don't. if you program a computer not to laugh loudly at a funeral, it will not laugh loudly but it will never understand why. if you teach a child not to laugh loudly at a funeral, he will probably ask why? and you can explain that it is disrespectful to the family in mourning and it might make them feel more hurt and they child will fully understand. yes computer are wonderful and very advance but they will never have what we have, which is the understanding of the programs. they and us both follow our programs and yet we understand our program because we are able to ask why?

week 5 - Dualism and Physicalism

The major difference between in Dualism and Physicalism that dualism believe that mind and body are separate and physicalism believe that everything is connect to physical beings such as our mind is connect to brain and so on... i tend to agree with Descartes dualism that mind and body are separate. It is true that it seem our mind is closely connected to our physical part such as brain or heart (in emotional level) but there are some phenomenon occurrence that totally separate mind and body. For example - Coma patients , some of their body is 100% recover and yet they are not able to comeback to conscious because their mind is not there. Also there is a saying mind over matter which somewhat prove to separate mind and body. One example would be - meditation to ease physical pain or if i should say separate from body pain. example some people experiment with meditation to ease their physical pain. according to the researches, that if you are focus or concentrate enough on meditation the physical reality start to separate from mind reality. I myself experienced a few, not that i have try on major pain or anything but this is what i found in my experiences - in meditation position if you sit long enough, because of the position the back or the knees will soar or hurt but if you concentrate enough and focus enough you will find that soon you will not feel those pain anymore. I also found that if you focus and concentrate enough you will not hear outside sounds, your physical body would still hear but you won't know cuz your mind is concentrate on one thing. Also in some religion teachings that they describe that there are dimension that exist with bodies only and there are some dimension that exist with minds only. in my opinion, the mind and body come a pair at the beginning but as we grow older the mind and body can be separable. that is why we are able to do organ transplant surgeries like heart transfer. if a heart that is from one body can transfer to another than i believe the mind and the body are separate because if the heart and mind are attached how can a heart be able to transfer to another mind and live on?

Week4

pragmatism in my understanding is logical way of doing things or thinking about problems based on dealing with situations instead of on ideas and theories. Basically it is seem like in slag term "go with the flow". i believe it is a good way to solve things and able to move depend on situation however to be able to do that you have to have basic knowledge and idea. so you can't really think of knowledge as detached because you have to have experiences or ideas how to solve depend on situations. even if it is a new situations you never face before you will have basic fundamental elements  such as accessing the situation, available tools, identifying the problems.... and so on. so you can not say knowledge as detached. feminist epistemology is knowledge base on how women point of view compare and different from the male point of view. even though man and women are different in physical built and there might be some different views in they way women and men see or think, the knowledge is universal. Even if the gender different between the knowledge can be share and experience together. Aside from physically impossible experiences such as child birth, most experiences can be share and taught to both men and women, even to the emotional level. we can have empathy for both gender. so the knowledge is not really separate because of gender differences.