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?