Is it fair and right the distribution of wealth we observe in this post-industrial era?

by: Luiz F. Lewis - November 14th, 2011   Filed under: Economics Matters and Problems, General Ethics and Moral Philosophy, Reflective Philosophy Add Comment

Is it fair and right for some people, the very few, the minority in population, have most of the world wealth and, on the other unbalanced side of the scale, most of the people have the smallest resources?

Who is the Owner of this Earth?

On a different, but connected, train of thought, the way we live our lives today are fair and right to the environment and as it comes back to everyone, everywhere, will it be fair and right to our children and grandchildren who will “inherit the Earth”?

All these variables are interconnected. Money, wealth, environment, health.

Sometimes having larger financial resources may lead the rich individual to use up more energy resources. The more enegy resources we use up, the more costly are our actions upon the environment.

For the time being, one fair and right solution – as we still need more time to develop higher technologies – is to side by the eco-developmentalist approach and “more natural” way of living.

The eco-developmentalism calls our attention to living a more moderate life in terms of energy consumption.

On Earth, we are all connected and we all have this responsability so that:

Our children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren, and as long as Providence will allow it to go on, may indeed inherit the Earth!

 

 

 

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Will John The-good-man, a kantian, accomplish the task the powerful being demands from him?

by: Luiz F. Lewis - November 12th, 2011   Filed under: General Ethics and Moral Philosophy, Reflective Philosophy Add Comment

Someone with enough power, perhaps an imaginable sci-fi extraterrestrial being, threatens John The-good-man with the following seemingly impossible to-obey order: “John The-good-man,”, says the being, “if you do not kill John The-bad-man, thy brother, by midnight, I will terminate every human being, on the whole Earth, who is 18 years old or above.”

This is not that far away from certain Hollywood movies, however the case, the important detail to observe is that:

 John The-good-man is a kantian.

As a complement, John The-good-man has to himself the certainty that killing another man is wrong, even if that other man is not “that good”, so to say. He conceives one certain exception for killing, i.e. defending himself, but that was not by any means the case.

The unavoidable question:

Will John The-good-man accomplish the task the powerful being demands from him?

On the previous post, the doctor had an impossible decision, knowing that his immediate and urgent dedication to save one patient’s life would let the other patient die. On this post, John The-good-man is kantian, so he must abide by his moral beliefs and principles – the one possible initiative to save billions of humans would be to annihilate the powerful being’s powers, for a kantian will almost certainly be against such an order indicated in the riddle above.

 

 

 

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One doctor, limited resources, two severe patients, time expiring, and one impossible decision to take

by: Luiz F. Lewis - November 10th, 2011   Filed under: General Ethics and Moral Philosophy, Humans on Earth, Reflective Philosophy Add Comment

A medical doctor receives two urgent severe patients arriving at the same time from two different ambulances into a Hospital’s Emergency Room.

  1. One of the patients is very bad, having very little chance of surviving, but as it yet exists, his chances are still standing.
  2. The other one is in a better condition and has a bigger chance of surviving, but time is against him or her if medical care is not taken immediately.

 One doctor, limited resources, two severe patients, time expiring, one “impossible” decision to take.

The unavoidable question:

Having limited resources, i.e. having enough resources to save one of them, and one only, to which of the two patients will the doctor proceed to life-save?

 

 

 

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Could we have any experience outside Time?

by: Luiz F. Lewis - November 9th, 2011   Filed under: Reflective Philosophy, Space and Time; Spacetime; LifeTime Add Comment

Well, I hope this is not going to be a Physics Relativity exposition. Somehow I’m wondering about whether we could experience something outside Time or not.

Biologically our organic systems do depend on time — for one very thing: we need to breath! Though we could hold respiration for a few minutes.

Could we be then, knowing we could stop for a little while our organic life-sustaining processes, have an outside-Time experience?

Supposing we could overtake even yet other limitations, getting into it, if we could, could we then come back? Wouldn’t we have just entered into “eternity”?

These ideas are perhaps mind boggling and under time we all will have our share of it and then pass away. Science may postpone it a bit perhaps, but Time, ours at least, must end one day.

Close to death, as we’ve just recognized above, if we are still conscious and knowing what’s right coming next, how would Time behave to us?

Nevertheless there resounds the image of some kind of element fall into a black hole. In Physics falling into a black hole is falling into a place where time is not supposed to exist — a singularity, physicists tell us. But just before entering, the object’s speed “fastly” approaches that of light and at those conditions:

Time tends to Eternity.

 

Let’s us have the best Time we can in this LifeTime!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matter, Energy, and… Spirit?

by: Luiz F. Lewis - November 8th, 2011   Filed under: Ancient Yogi Philosophy, Reflective Philosophy Add Comment

Of the three terms: Matter, Energy, and Spirit, the first two are manifestations of “one thing” so they are convertible one to the other. Matter is then commonly referred to as Energy condensed. Einstein’s equation:

E = mc2

Shows this relation between the two. A small amount of matter releases a huge amount of energy.

It’s okay to say that Science knows a good deal of it all and it continues to evolve for learning more and perfecting towards ever better levels of knowledge. For example, matter is now a minority component of the Universe and because of that Cosmological evidence, scientists are after new entities, so to say, such as dark matter and dark energy.

Another curiosity among all these new facts is that energy itself bends to a gravitational field. This is important for energy has no mass.

To further enhance this picture, a great debate between mind and brain was battled up and down and now, even life itself, is promised to be recreated in laboratories, as the renowned Genoma Project has bequeathed us.

To add to these viewpoints, the French word esprit, for example, still keeps both the meaning of “mind” and the meaning of “spirit”, so one imagines that they — francophone speakers — perhaps do not bother much whether one is really crossing a borderline between the two, if there were indeed to be such a borderline between mind and spirit.

***

However the cases, there is yet one interesting sideline of it al.

Much before Science got the idea that mass was a condensed form of energy, the millenia Yogi philosophy had already long been saying so, perhaps they used different terms, but somehow they already knew it.

Surprisingly as that may sound, they would even say it with one outbreakingly extra detail: whereas mass is condensed energy, so also is energy a condensed form of Spirit.

 

 

 

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Are we alone in the Universe?

by: Luiz F. Lewis - November 7th, 2011   Filed under: Humans on Earth, Intelligence in and out of Earth, Reflective Philosophy Add Comment

Are we alone in the Universe?

Well this question is capable of deriving itself onto multiple implications. For example:

  1. (One possibility) Are we, each one of us, alone even on Earth itself?
  2. (Another possibility) Are we alone in some particular way knowing that we are not alone for we are many members of a species?
  3. (Another possibility) Are we, human beings on Earth, alone as intelligent beings in the Universe?

Re-reciting these items a little bit:

  1. From Descartes it’s plausible that each man or woman can only assert his or her own existence.
  2. Even, non-descartesianly, if each one of us could assert his neighbour’s existence, could he or she feel yet alone in spirit?
  3. In the Universe as we best know it today, has no other civilization arisen so that it’s capable of communicating with us? (And, on the other hand, has no other civilization picked up the signals we have been sending out?)

***

Today we want to touch the third possibility of the subject title’s question for this indeed seems to be a very odd one.

The best we know of the Universe nowadays is that it is comprised by millions of galaxies and trillions of stars. This number is so big that it’s hard to grasp the magnificence of it all.

There is however an equation that has long been popularized by the TV Series Documentary by Carl Sagan made in 1970′s titled Cosmos.  This popularized equation is Drake’s equation.

Drake’s equation is just a multiplication of probabilities, nothing more, nothing less. So in principle, it calls for a very simple arithmetic calculation.

Let’s see what the Drake equation states:

N = R . F_p . N_e . F_e . F_i . F_c . L

Where, borrowing Wikipedia’s text :

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;

and

R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.[3]

 

For the sake of playing a bit with the equation, let’s borrow, also from the Wikipedia’s piece, one possible scenario:

  • R* = 10/year (10 stars formed per year, on the average over the life of the galaxy)
  • fp = 0.5 (half of all stars formed will have planets)
  • ne = 2 (stars with planets will have 2 planets capable of developing life)
  • fl = 1 (100% of these planets will develop life)
  • fi = 0.01 (1% of which will be intelligent life)
  • fc = 0.01 (1% of which will be able to communicate)
  • L = 10,000 years (which will last 10,000 years)

Drake’s values then give N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10,000 = 10.

***

So Drake’s Equation, with the support of these above simulating values, gives us this number of 10 civilizations in the Milky Way, the galaxy where our Solar System and we ourselves reside.

Let’s multiply this 10 with millions and millions of other galaxies, everything, in all directions, respecting only some appropriate elapsed time so that heavier chemical elements might have been given the chance to be formed. That is, our Universe is 13.7 billion years, but a few initial billion years must have had passed so that gigantic stars could have formed the heavier chemical elements that we now find on Earth and on which life as we know it depends.

If we were to continue that multiplication, this 10 would grow so big that mind would indeed reel, for it’s hard to think that millions of other civilizations may exist and yet no other single one of them has come into contact with us and conversely no other single one of them has apparently responded to our sent-out signals.

As we close today’s message, let’s wish one another “peace”.

Let us indeed have peace!

 

 

 

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Some Lessons in the Passage of the Adulterous Woman in the New Testament

by: Luiz F. Lewis - November 3rd, 2011   Filed under: New Testament Lessons Add Comment

One of great passages in the whole Bible, in my opinion, is the passage of the adulterous woman. (In most Bibles, it’s in John 7:53-8:11.)

 

But I ask myself: why do I like this passage?

 

I know there is one particular reinforcement that helps me like it, perhaps even a little bit more.

 

Let me uncover this particular detail.

 

The adulterous woman passage is found, in most versions of Bible, today, in John’s Gospel. In minor percentage, it’s found in Luke’s Gospel.

 

Well, here is that particular detail I mentioned above: this passage is not found in most of the manuscript witnesses.

 

These manuscript witnesses are those that have been copied, hand in hand, in time and space, both to spread the Word and also to save it from forgetfulness, from it falling out of colective registered human-societal memories, so to say.

 

Anyway the passage was rescued and put back on place, but its correct place inside the New Testament (either John’s or Luke’s) cannot be precisely determined anymore, for the very same fact that it has already been placed in either of the two.

 

But why? Why do most manuscripts lack it?

 

Is this passage false? Has Jesus not been there? Has he not shouted to the crowd: cast the first stone the one who has no sin? Were the copying scribers biased by prejudice? So why do these witnesses miss the adulteress passage?

 

Well, the whole passage, it’s the spirit of Jesus himself, isn’t it?

 

Whatever the case, Jesus for sure did not approve of adultery. Jesus saw ahead of his time for he did both: he showed us that adultery was what it was as the elders and the commandments have already long been saying what it was, ie, “thou shalt not commit adultery”, and, differently from those same elders and the dead word of the law, he showed us it’s not for the sinful ones to stone another sinful one to death. Logically, if that were to rule the world, though not funny, that might even lead everyone having to kill everyone else.

 

But the sinless one, could he cast the first stone? I’m afraid if the sinless one — whether this creature could ever exist on Earth — did it, he or she would, at that very moment, become sinful and then a logical deadlock might come around.

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But beyond the veil, will man see?

by: Luiz F. Lewis - November 2nd, 2011   Filed under: Humans on Earth, Reflective Philosophy Add Comment

Whenever man has lived, wherever he (*) has seen societies, people gathered together, be they modern, be they primitive, whatsoever political system that be, be it capitalism, be it whatever name of socialism one will give it; man has witnessed material poverty.

(*) Important Notice on the use of the terms “man” and “he”. Here they mean human being. Put another way, “man” means man or woman and “he” means he or she.

Could we ask of spiritual poverty as well? Well perhaps that’s more difficult, for it’s not that difficult to gaze the rich commit their whatever-that-be sacrileges.

So this is our fate, this is our plight — we are wanderers on this Earth, learners, sometimes wise, sometimes foolish.

We crave to know something just to end up knowing, as Socrates, that we still have to learn more… because the more we know, the more we understand we don’t know enough.

Man, the individual, man, the society, man the biological. Man that may be controlled by his passions at youth and later, if he is lucky enough to grow old alive, man that must set himself upon a reflection of his past, to master his vices, to better himself, to pay his debts.

But beyond the veil, will man see?

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