For the students out there...

I know exams are just about over, but if you have any more, then pay heed to what I am to tell you. If you are not taking exams now, but will be this time next year, or at around Christmas, you may also do well to pay attention.

This piece of information is critical in coming to a succint answer to any questions, solving an equation or, realisticaly solving any problem.

It was "created" by a stupendous fellow by the name of Richard Feynman a phenominal mathematician and world renouned physicist.

His problem solving algorithm goes a little like this:




The "Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm"

1. write down the problem;
2. think very hard;
3. write down the answer.

I hope this has helped.

Bush hid the facts

This is quite odd. Quite odd indeed.

Go into notepad, y'know, the free windows typing thing you can find in the acessories folder in the Programs section of your start menu.

Ok, so it's open. Type "Bush hid the facts" (without the quotes).

Save the document as whatever you want to call it.

Close it.

Open it again.

For some people the sentence is replaced with little rectangles, for me it was replaced with Japanese kanji.

Blimey.

Rigmarole and laxity

Revision, eh? Can't live with it, quite certainly can live without it. Oh, the things I endure to get the grades I need. Well, you can see the things I endure to get the grades I need. Yes sirree, by golly.

There isn't too much happening, as usual. I'm starting to really get into IndieFeed's podcasts of late; having a long time (free) subscription and no real time to listen to the astounding back catalogue of extraordinary music that's built up. Actually, some of it's REALLY good!

Try the Rewinds, The Happy Bullets, and The Tah-Dahs for a start and then move on to whatever you like. I can heartily recommend some of the folk stuff actually. I mean, I'm not usually much of a folk fan, but the stuff at Indiefeed is SO good!

In other news: Grace makes shit-hot cookies. I mean, my goodness, they're just so scrummy, with all their cat-nipples. But, saying that, they weren't cat-nipple cookies, they were chocolate chip. I'm not very sure how they came into contact with cat-nipples, but it made them all the scrummier.

Also, please note: do not drink vodka and Fanta Fruit Twist™, it really fucks you up.

Just War Theory

Just War Theory

• Just war theory was first collated by St. Thomas Aquinas, but pioneered by the classical Greek philosophers, Aristotle, Cicero and Augustine.
  
• Just war theory is the middle ground between 3 other war theories: realism, pacifism and militarism.
  
• Realism is a stance adopted by most governments and states; simply that governments should go to war when it is in their best interests to do so. It is a largely amoral stance and does not concern itself with the more personal, human side of warfare.
  
• Pacifism is a prevalent view in modern times, with many famous faces to it’s name, such as Martin Luther King, Mohandas Ghandi and even Jesus Christ himself.
  
• I do not like pacifism much; its doctrine states that all violence is wrong, even if it involves defending the weak and helpless.
  
• Edmund Burke once said that for evil to prevail, all is needed is for good men to do nothing.
  

 

• Militarism is a form of political bloodlust, where atrocities occur on grand scales! The wholesale massacre of the Jews in Germany and Indians during the British conquest were militaristic acts.
  
• Hallmarks of militarism involve the blind faith of the populace, a hierarchical system where obedience and violence are rewarded, as well as the suppression of emotion.
  

 

• Just war theory accepts that, while pacifism and peace are a preferable state, there are more morally acceptable methods of waging war.
  
• It is a pseudo-religious doctrine, not unlike the Muslim “Jihad”, meaning “struggle”. However, it would be wrong to say that a Jihad is a “holy war”, similar to those justified by the Christian “Just War”, as a Jihad can be more of an internal struggle than an external one.
  

 

• There are three states of just war:
  
• “Jus ad bellum”, the only reasons adequate for starting war, including these set by Aquinas:
  
• Just Cause – where force should be used to rectify a grave public evil.
  
• St. Augustine categorised “just cause” into 3 subsets:
  
• Defending against an external attack.
  
• Recapturing things taken.
  
• Punishing people who have done wrong.
  
• Legitimate Authority – only the correct authorities have the power to enter a state of war.
  
• Right Intention – a war must be considered “just” or “virtuous”, after a sense, so war can be used to rectify a wrong, but not for material gain.
  
• These were later added to, to include:
  
• Comparative Justice – where what damage you are dealt, try and deal back (or preferably deal back less).
  
• Probability of Success – war should only be waged if you think you’re gonna win! It’s not about the taking part, it’s about the kicking of the ass.
  
• Last Resort – war should only be resorted to when all viable peaceful alternatives have been exhausted.
  

 

• There is also “jus in bello”, or during war conduct:
  
• Discrimination – acts of war should be conducted towards participants, not civilians.
  
• Proportionality – violence against the opposition must be proportional to the wrong done, however, rather contradictingly, there is also:
  
• Minimum force – where aggression is kept to a minimum.
  

 

• The third part of a complete just war was formulated fairly recently by theorists such as Gary Bass and Brian Orend. They are:
  
• Just cause for termination – you’d better have a jolly good reason to stop!
  
• Right intention – just like before, one should not stop for material gain, but only if the wrong has been righted.
  
• Right authority – the war must be ended by a legitimate authority
  
• Discrimination
  
• Proportionality
  

Some Challenges

• “Revolution and Civil War - Just War Theory states that a just war must have just authority. To the extent that this is interpreted as a legitimate government this leaves little room for revolutionary war or civil war, in which an illegitimate entity may declare war for reasons that fit the remaining criteria of Just War Theory. This is not a problem if the "just authority" is interpeted more widely such as "the will of the people" or similar. Certain types of civil war are specifically mentioned in Article 1. Paragraph 4 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as covered by the international provisions of the Geneva Conventions namely those ... in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes ..., this gives those fighting against such states the same status under international law and "just authority" as a legitimate government.”
  

 

• “"Just" Wars that violate Just Wars principles. Many ideologies agree with the tradition that war should be fought only if done for a just cause but reject most if not all of the other criteria of the tradition. The Marxist tradition can be seen as part of this category. For Marxists the only criteria is whether a war is "progressive" (ie just within their terms) and it is irrelevant how costly the war may be. Husayn bin Ali is celebrated for his pursuit of his "just" claim to the caliphate despite the fact his rebellion was doomed to failure. However Husayn's rebellion was an unjust war by the criteria of the Just War tradition because it violated the principle that there must be a reasonable chance of success.”
  

 

• “Absolutism - Absolutism holds that there are various ethical rules that are, as the name implies, absolute. Breaking such moral rules is never legitimate and therefore is always unjustifiable. The philosopher Thomas Nagel is a well known supporter of this view, having defended it in his essay War and Massacre.”
  

 

In a state of Total War it is almost impossible to distinguish between civilian and combatant! Total war, for reference, is one in which a country devotes all of its resources to wiping out another country. Saucy.

The Conscience

Conscience

• This topic (handily or detrimentally, depending on how you feel about it) can be summarised by quoting a lot of philosophers, as, realistically, the study of the human conscience has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with opinion. Here I will simply list quotes, perhaps analysing them a little along the way.
  

The Dictionary

• As quoted from the dictionary, conscience is:
  
• “…a moral sense of right and wrong, especially as felt by a person and effecting behaviour or an inner feeling as to the goodness or otherwise of one’s behaviour.”
  
• And this is a good point to argue from and come back to in relation to various other points.
  

Judaism

• Judaism, according to “Heinemann Advanced Religious Studies Ethics and Religion,” by Joe Jenkins says:
  
• “Conscience causes humans to think about their actions as they seek approval from their own hearts.”
  
• This, aside from sounding like a corny line from an animé, seems to imply that the conscience acts as a separate kind of conscious which attempts to exert a certain amount of control through guilt.
  
• It also aims to illustrate that the conscience is an absolute source of moral righteousness.
  

Aquinas

• THE major player in all of this.
  
• He felt that the conscience was “reason making right decisions”, which implies a kind of moral process rather than an intuitive affair. “Deduction” is a fine word to use here.
  
• “Synderesis” is the moral understanding of good and evil!
  
• He also claims conscience is
  
• “… the natural ability of a rational human being to understand the difference between right and wrong…”
  
• This shows that the conscience may be something which can be clouded by that which causes irrationality.
  
• Also shows that it is only the ability to understand, not to do (which opens up lots of consequentialist/deontologist avenues)
  
• Can be clouded by “passions, or by ignorance, or by long-established habits”
  
• Admits people are flawed in saying that the conscience decides to the best of ones ability.
  

Butler

• Conscience is innate +_ from God, a “natural guide” given by Him.
  
• Says humans are self-loving and move to benevolence in following your conscience.
  

MacQuarrie

• Conscience is a way of justifying who we are.
  
• “What we seek to do in any particular situation depends on what we seek to be.”
  
• People spoke out against slavery, even though it was considered right. Ergo: conscience cannot be a moral compass in any absolute, timeless sense.
  

Michael Montaigne

• “Laws of conscience, which we say are born of nature, are born of custom.”
  
• A socialist view.
  

Henry David Thoreau

• “The conscience really does not, and ought not to monopolise the whole of our lives, any more than the heart or head. It is as liable to disease as any other part.”
  
• It is another faculty that we must control and nurture?
  

Jean Jacques Rousseau

• “I need only consult myself with regard to what I wish to do.”
  
• Is conscience, thus, a handy method of knowing what is right without external reference, or just a method of adding weight to your statements?
  

Kant

• “Conscience is not a thing to be acquired.”
  
• And is thus innate.
  
• “The duty here is only to cultivate our conscience.”
  
• So, we all start the same in our consciential faculties (like seeds, planted in soil) and it grows into something shaped by the world.
  

Nietzsche

• Conscience is a trapping of the church; a will to power used to subvert and weaken the minds of men.
  
• The conscience, thus, is a thing of evil, the “bad conscience” especially so; something to overcome.
  
• Listen to our inner voice in a positive light only, for personal betterment, not to feel bad for things which are socially “wrong” but still better us.
  
• Altruism is a religious “sickness”.
  

Blaise Pascal

• “Men never do evil so fully and so happily as when they do it for conscience sake.”

Environmental Ethics

Environmental Ethics

• Environmental ethics is a branch of “environmental philosophy”, and was given birth to in around the 1970s in the wake of the first “Earth Day”. It aims to assess the nature of environmental damage, the nature of human beings in respect to this, and the views of the people involved.
  
• It is important, before we start, to mark a difference between the intrinsic and instrumental values of things:
  
• Instrumental value is something that we assign to an object depending on its worth to us. This is subject to change from species to species and from person to person. For example: a humid atmosphere has a high intrinsic value for snails, as it makes their lives more comfortable; for us, however, it has a lesser intrinsic value as it makes us quite emphatically uncomfortable.
  
• Intrinsic value is the value of something within itself; in a Kantian sense, as an “end in itself”, rather than as any means to an end.
  
• Equal Intrinsic Value (or species egalitarianism) states that every creature has equal value in itself and thus, killing an ant is the same as killing a human being. This means we should only really intervene with things “at vital need”, rather than based on selfish desire (although, philosophers seem to overlook that we tend not to interfere with other human beings “at vital need”, but rather, whenever we feel like it).
  
• It is commonly argued that humans have a prima facie duty toward (or a primary duty toward) something which has intrinsic value, and our duty is to protect that thing.
  

Anthropocentrism

• This is a “human centred” view. This view was originated, in the most part, by the industrial revolution, where the environment suffered incredibly in the pursuit of knowledge, and, as Francis Bacon said, “knowledge is power”. The race to power was a dire time for the world. Poor world.
  
• Anthropocentrism is perpetuated by the empiricist capitalist view of modern times.
  
• A lot of theologians argue that Anthropocentrism comes from a misinterpretation of the idea of Stewardship perpetuated in Genesis. People believe that God put everything upon the Earth for the sake of Human beings. Genesis 1:26,28 tells us
  
• “Then God said, “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds and all the animals, domestic and wild, large and small”… He blessed them, and said, “Have many children, so that your descendants will love over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals.”
  
• Thus, our abuse of the environment is deemed ethical. This shows that we are the only creatures that possess intrinsic value, or that, perhaps, we possess greater intrinsic value than any other animal.
  
• St. Thomas Aquinas said that “through being cruel to animals one becomes cruel to human beings… injury to an animal leads to the temporal hurt of man.”
  
• Kant in “Duties to Animals and Spirits” that “cruelty towards a dog might encourage a person to develop a character that would be desensitized to cruelty towards humans.”
  
• A lot of people argue that as other people are harsh to the environment, they too ought to be.
  
• This is famously criticised by David Hume, in saying that what is and what ought to be are two completely separate things and should never be used in order to reach personal conclusions, as embodied by the age old reprisal quoted by all parents: “If everyone else went and jumped off a bridge, would you?”
  
• This can, of course, be twisted to say that, if pollution harms the environment, we ought not to pollute, and say that this is a conclusion that we should not follow, as it was dubiously reached. However, the is/ought argument cannot cast doubt on this, as the imperative outlined appears just, but the methods of getting to it are merely ones frowned upon.
  

Stewardship

• This is the idea that we cannot act irresponsibly to the world, as we are it’s “stewards”, carers, custodian or whatever you want to call it. In the same way that a farmer cares for his land, his crops and his livestock (y’know, if you ignore the fact that they will be slaughtered and sold… heh [didn’t think this one through did I]) we should care for the whole planet.
  
• We are often told that this is to preserve the earth for future generations.
  
• This is a popular religious stance, especially amongst Christians, Jews and people of the Islamic faith.
  
• Leviticus tells us:
  
• “Your land must not be sold on a permanent basis, because you do not own it; it belongs to God, and you are like foreigners who are allowed to make use of it.”
  
• And Job tells us:
  
• “Even birds and animals have much they could teach you; ask the creatures of earth and sea for their wisdom. All of them know that the Lord’s hand made them. It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone’s life is in his power.”
  

• Aside from the anthropocentric view, we have the Non-human rights view (or the “Libertarian Extension”) and the Ecocentric (or “Ecological Extension”) view.
  

The Libertarian Extension

• “Marshall’s Libertarian extension encompasses those theories that extend human rights to non-human animals and possibly even the inanimate. Michael Smith classified the extension of rights to non-human animals a biocentric ethic, since it focuses on the rights of biotic entities. Andrew Brenmann however was an advocate of ecologic humanism (eco-humanism), the argument that all ontological (existing) entities, animate and in-animate, can be given ethical worth purely on the basis that they exist.”
  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_ethics#_ref-5

• Peter Singer argues that utility does not argue simply for human beings, but the greatest good for the greatest number, regardless of species.
  
• “If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with like suffering.”
  
• Singer argues that many people suffer from “specieism”, a prejudicial preference for ones own species over another!
  
• Tom Regan argues that all beings have a personal, “inherent” value, that there life is of value to them. This value has no varying degrees, as something either exists and has life, or it does not and cannot.
  
• “The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for us – to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money. Once we accept this view of animals as our resources, the rest is as predictable as it is regrettable.”
  
• Paul Taylor uses Kantian ethics in his book “Respect for Nature” and comes to similar conclusions. A respect for nature forces us to adopt the attitude of perceiving non-human nature as having “good of their own”, or in being ends in their own right. This predicates that we have a moral responsibility toward them in the similar way that we must act as though they and we were part of a “kingdom of ends”.
  

The Ecological Extension

• This examines the environment as a whole, not as a sum of individual parts!
  
• Aldo Leopold’s “The Land Ethic” claimed (in 1949) that we were on the cusp of a new moral advancement, one which regulates the conduct between man and nature, and one which he dubbed “the land ethic”.
  
• “the land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.”
  
• This forces us to see ourselves not as hierarchical noblemen of the world, but members of an equally righteous community, a community in which were are members in just as great a part as “the land” is.
  
• “Leopold argues that all species deserve consideration “as a matter of biotic right”, and offers a principle that brings into focus the broader ethical concerns of the environment:”
  
• “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability , and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
  

Gaia Hypothesis

• This is pioneered for the most part by a fella by the names of James Lovelock, a technician who worked with NASA on the mars project. This is a theory that argues for interdependence between the living and “non-living” on Earth.
  
• His theory was developed from the ideas of Lynn Margulis, a microbiologist, at the time, at Boston University.
  
• This idea hinges on the idea that complex cells were originally developed by “endosymbiotic cell capture”, wherein, over time, cells capture other cells in order to create a very complex cell indeed! Originally, it is argued, cells just sat around. They went on to “steal” mitochondria, chloroplasts and other complex organelles. This is apparent in the idea that a lot of organelles contain separate DNA to the nucleus of a cell, and this DNA happens to be “ring-like”, like most bacterial DNA.
  
• This appears analogous to the idea that the earth is, like a complex cell, something composed of a lot of interdependent items. However, rather than simply claiming that, like in a complex cell, the organic pieces appear to be interdependent, he claims all life on earth to be as such.
  
• James Lovelock’s idea, in fairness, was not that revolutionary. People had been arguing for the interdependence of life for a long while. However, Lovelock made the quite profound statement that, if we are interdependent and could consider the earth itself to be a living organism in it’s own right, then who is to say that it really wants us to be here at all?
  
• If the earth could be considered to just be another life form, then one could suppose that it may be just as selfish as any other life form, and one which considers its own interests and simply happens to sustain other areas of an ecosystem by accident. This “ruthlessly self-regulating” entity is one which, considering this, may not be one concerned with keeping us here at all! If we are being detrimental to the health of the planet, we could very well be ousted from the gene pool! Therefore, it may be in our best interests to be nice to the planet in an attempt to live on it as long as possible.
  
• However, this view has come under a little bit of criticism. This view indicates a sort of creator and supports the teleological existence of God. However, without any God in sight, can we say it was created by him, or can it purely be used to further prove him?
  
• As well as this, this theory is in contrast with current scientific ideals which state that life is just a miraculous chance.
  

• Richard Dawkins, author of “The Selfish Gene” argues that, if the planet were truly an organism, it would do nothing to propagate other life on the planet, but would rather be concerned with its own fight for survival. It could be purely coincidence that it provides, in doing this, good conditions for other life, and this should be considered.
  
• He claims that the Gaia theory implies, however, a “clubbing together” of life in order to create good conditions for life and to keep the planet healthy, something which seems somewhat counter intuitive.
  
• He also claims that this theory implies a sort of intelligent control behind the maintenance of the planet. Without this, there could be no real foresight or planning, things necessary to propagate life so intricately on such a scale.
  

Deep Ecology

• Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer coined the phrase “deep ecology” in order to describe deep ecological awareness. This does not separate humans from the world around them and sets us all an equal intrinsic value. It views us, like Gaia theory, as being part of the interdependent set of phenomena which govern existence.
  
• In contrast, there exists “shallow ecology”, which is in accord with anthropocentrism and the idea of instrumental value.
  
• This “deep ecology”, in cahoots with Gaia theory, when considering the idea of the human spirit and the will, we can see that, possibly, we are spiritually connected with the whole universe. This idea is mirrored in the Latin roots of the very word “religion”: religare (to bind strongly), as well as the Sanskrit yoga, which means “union”.

Well, if it's a punchin' ye be a-wantin'-!

I feel like shit.

When I say shit I don't mean "oh lord, I appear to be failing to maintain my existence!" but more the general melais that leads you to believe that you have no reason to live, people deserve a good molestin' and is embodied by the angsty, well screamed phrase "THEREISNEVERANTYHINGFUCKINGONTV."

Actually, wait... anger... subsiding... fading... RISING!... fading... dinner... RISING!... no... lying.

It still warrants a rant on the fact that dinner was terrible though.

I am the only vegetarian in my family. I also like croissants. Tonight, my family thought it would be nice to have a barbeque with some tasty hunks of Vegetable-Matter-On-A-Stick™ for me, and various processed nibbles for all.

We get to chowin'-down and when my mum comes 'round with the vegetable kebabs (of which there are only two), I go for one and my sister goes for one.

My dinner is effectively halved.

Not 3 minutes later she announces that she does not like it and asks if anyone else wants any. I think my head might have actually slept from it's resting place on my hand, propelling my face into my bare plate.

Recovering, I managed to drown everything in French Dressing. And, y'know, I don't mean that figuratively. Literally, plate covered in the stuff. My parents asked if i'd like some help removing it, whereby they took my plate and poured some of it all over their salad.

After staring at a patch of air that occupied a space 2 feet from my mother's left ear with unfocussed eyes for the rest of the meal, it was established that something was wrong with me.

My sister proceeded to get pissy, for some reason, and failed, as usual, to string any two insulting words of any impact together.

You don't do that to Joe's. They hit back, and hit back hard.

Insults, they fly left and right, people die, explosions, goat herders everywhere!

And that story was so dull it hurt.

--

I might be posting some vital equations up on here, for my revisional needs, and anyone else who wants 'em!

ohlordohlordohlord

I've been messing around with the HTML for my damn blog template for about 2 hours, only to find that the things I've slapped in do not work.

Hum-fucking-bug.

As well as this, the only major changes that have been made to the blog are the removal of my Sloganizer.net slice of coding, the addiction of a Skype chicklet that is meant to show you if I'm offline in Skype and allows you to call me if you have it and i'm on, and.... well, no. That's it. Two things.

I need a long drink and a lie down.