Live every day as though it were the first day of your life.
John had decided not to go back to art school. It had been his dream through all of those tortuously dull years of looking forward; looking forward. But now, here he was, and it just seemed silly. Besides, his hands hurt most of the time from Arthritis and holding a brush would be difficult.
What he had gotten was comfort. No worries about money, where to live, health, nothing. After all that having to be somewhere all the time and struggling and rushing and hard days and nights, it was great to just relax.
The grand kids were coming on Tuesday and he liked that. They were fun to watch: "all that energy".
He liked to sit and watch the news or shop for those things he'd always wanted.
The books he hadn't had time to read back then, or that video, "what was that video?".
He'd bought a guitar with some video lessons from some guy who sounded "pretty good!", but eventually gave it to one of the kids.
"Art School" was the last lay-away item to be abandoned. He'd always thought of himself as an artist. All those dull years, he had thought: "I'm really an artist." Now, he knew better, or was too tired to care.
All he wanted now was to be comfortable and rest after his long journey here.
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Worlds within worlds and suffering.
What is on the other side of consciousness, that is, what is it that we are conscious of, what can we be conscious of?
It seems that the more ways we have of seeing the world, the more of the world we see.If it is the sum of what is logically/mathematically, physically possible, then the more logics we have the more we'll see.If it is an imaginary world, then the more ways we can imagine, the more we'll see.If it is everything possible, then the more kinds of possibilities we understand,the more we'll see.It certainly isn't one way. Picasso's world lives along side Franco's.
The suffering of others is what stirs our moral consciousness. It gives purpose to all of our actions.It is the recognition of others and other things that places us in the world.Our notions of justice mean nothing if we don't answer the question that the suffering of others asks. If you don't know what the question is, then you don't see others as you see yourself.
Can we be moral without being (truly)educated?
If a law case is extremely complicated, what will the typical jury selection strategy be for the lawyer that wants to win at any cost?
Why are medical ethicists and ethicists in general people who know how to deal with complex circumstances. How "natural" should people's notion of cause and effect be to make the judgements of their generation? What effect did god or the devil as causes have on justice, lets say during the dark ages?
If as time goes by, we learn more ways of understanding the world, from superstition to geometry to algebra to calculus to topology to stochastic systems and on and on, when does simple cause and effect not create its own injustice?
Can you be fair to people if your explanation of things is god or the devil?Similarly, if you were taught that correlation doesn't mean causality and only believe it was true in math class and have since forgotten the fact and live as though it isn't true, aren't you likely to attribute cause to something merely correlated at some point, and isn't it likely that one of those times you will(accidentally) falsely accuse someone of something. If you know it is true, and ignore it, are you responsible for the harm? If you sincerely seek to be moral, do you not at some point say, okay, let me see if there are ways of looking at cause and effect differently than I do since, cause and effect plays a big role in moral judgement. Is there a time to say, "You should have learned this by now." -
If we use Bayesian approaches to diagnose things when we are supposed to care (at work),how is it tolerable for the world we share to be composed mainly of simple pairings, that is, the mistaken notion, a implies b, implies, b implies a. There is no cardinality except in the case of direct experience. Is it moral then for those who do see the world many ways, probabilistic, stochastic, dynamic, chaotic,as well as predicate calculus and description logics and modal logics and eastern and etc. to ignore the vast numbers of people still operating in the world of an eye for an eye? If for nothing other than our own survival, we should introduce everyone we can to more ways of looking at the world.Then the world would get larger and softer.If we want to "manage" the singularity, why are "we" not "managing" the the inevitable network effect of unattended growth in ignorance with respect to growth in complexity and interdependence in the world?
If the world is a system, why is it not run by systems scientists? We don't have hack lawyers running gas stations or brick kilns or nuclear reactors. We don't have scientific ignoramuses running science departments, but we do have scientific ignoramuses running weapons programs. Figuring stuff out is the easy part if you're smart, getting not-so-smart people to understand it is the hard part. Why are most intelligent people in the world dominated by minds that are still operating at the greed and me-first level. Why is Kasparov being questioned instead of Putin or Bush. These are criminals running the world. How can it be that the smartest people in the world are so co-opted by the corporate state that they can't figure out a way to move the world into something rational and humane and just and beautiful. I guess they're too busy grading papers or designing weapons or pricing derivatives.
Can democracy work when the "people" is a fool?
It seems that the more ways we have of seeing the world, the more of the world we see.If it is the sum of what is logically/mathematically, physically possible, then the more logics we have the more we'll see.If it is an imaginary world, then the more ways we can imagine, the more we'll see.If it is everything possible, then the more kinds of possibilities we understand,the more we'll see.It certainly isn't one way. Picasso's world lives along side Franco's.
The suffering of others is what stirs our moral consciousness. It gives purpose to all of our actions.It is the recognition of others and other things that places us in the world.Our notions of justice mean nothing if we don't answer the question that the suffering of others asks. If you don't know what the question is, then you don't see others as you see yourself.
Can we be moral without being (truly)educated?
If a law case is extremely complicated, what will the typical jury selection strategy be for the lawyer that wants to win at any cost?
Why are medical ethicists and ethicists in general people who know how to deal with complex circumstances. How "natural" should people's notion of cause and effect be to make the judgements of their generation? What effect did god or the devil as causes have on justice, lets say during the dark ages?
If as time goes by, we learn more ways of understanding the world, from superstition to geometry to algebra to calculus to topology to stochastic systems and on and on, when does simple cause and effect not create its own injustice?
Can you be fair to people if your explanation of things is god or the devil?Similarly, if you were taught that correlation doesn't mean causality and only believe it was true in math class and have since forgotten the fact and live as though it isn't true, aren't you likely to attribute cause to something merely correlated at some point, and isn't it likely that one of those times you will(accidentally) falsely accuse someone of something. If you know it is true, and ignore it, are you responsible for the harm? If you sincerely seek to be moral, do you not at some point say, okay, let me see if there are ways of looking at cause and effect differently than I do since, cause and effect plays a big role in moral judgement. Is there a time to say, "You should have learned this by now." -
If we use Bayesian approaches to diagnose things when we are supposed to care (at work),how is it tolerable for the world we share to be composed mainly of simple pairings, that is, the mistaken notion, a implies b, implies, b implies a. There is no cardinality except in the case of direct experience. Is it moral then for those who do see the world many ways, probabilistic, stochastic, dynamic, chaotic,as well as predicate calculus and description logics and modal logics and eastern and etc. to ignore the vast numbers of people still operating in the world of an eye for an eye? If for nothing other than our own survival, we should introduce everyone we can to more ways of looking at the world.Then the world would get larger and softer.If we want to "manage" the singularity, why are "we" not "managing" the the inevitable network effect of unattended growth in ignorance with respect to growth in complexity and interdependence in the world?
If the world is a system, why is it not run by systems scientists? We don't have hack lawyers running gas stations or brick kilns or nuclear reactors. We don't have scientific ignoramuses running science departments, but we do have scientific ignoramuses running weapons programs. Figuring stuff out is the easy part if you're smart, getting not-so-smart people to understand it is the hard part. Why are most intelligent people in the world dominated by minds that are still operating at the greed and me-first level. Why is Kasparov being questioned instead of Putin or Bush. These are criminals running the world. How can it be that the smartest people in the world are so co-opted by the corporate state that they can't figure out a way to move the world into something rational and humane and just and beautiful. I guess they're too busy grading papers or designing weapons or pricing derivatives.
Can democracy work when the "people" is a fool?
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