Having watched “Bicentennial Man” yet another time last week I found Stephen Law’s article, “Could a Machine Think?”, really apt for my mood. The article obviously delves on the complex issue that has become more and more relevant with the advances in technology. The day when robots with super advanced artificial intelligence becomes a reality is no longer something that we can consider to be far-fetched. These are days when things from science fictions are becoming a reality. And as that day approaches we know that the day when a dilemma of titanic proportions is also drawing near. Will robots become advanced enough to achieve self-awareness? If so, what do we do then? What will be the right moral standpoint? How will we accept it and how will the AIs react to how we receive them?

These questions are all discussed in a very engaging manner in Stephen Law’s “Could a Machine Think.” This article is written in a script style showing the discussion between a machine, Emit, and its owner, Geena. This article is a great read whether or not you are interested in philosophy because it reads like a story. However, the questions posed are ones that will really make you think and the points raised shows sophistication in philosophical argument.

The “Could a Machine Think” is just one of the articles available in “Think”, a philosophy journal published for the Royal Institute of Philosophy. What makes “Think” really great is that the journal is aimed at a wide audience making the articles both interesting and readable for everyone from philosophers to laymen. Free online articles can be found at the Cambridge Journals website. For full access to “Think” journals you will need to subscribe.

We all know about copyright and the laws governing them but do you know about the copyleft?

According to the GNU website, “Copyleft is a general method for making a program or other work free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.” The main difference of a product/program that is is “copyleft” from one that is simply not copyrighted or made available to anyone freely is that it ensures that all other programs and products arising from the original one remains free as well because “Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it.”

Now with such a nice spirit of sharing why isn’t everyone adopting this new way of thinking and “copylefting” their works? The answer isn’t always just plain economics since you can sell copylefted products thus allowing for a profit. What CANNOT be done is simply disallowing anyone else to your software in whatever way they want to. However, you have to acknowledge that the “copyleft” makes for minimal profit since the creator’s “power to control” his creation is limited to simply saying that others need to also share. No more decades of getting royalty from outdated but important works that were the basis of other works.

What’s interesting is that what many people don’t realize is that there are other ways out there to “copyright” [or not] your works. In this digital age knowing how to protect your rights/wishes or at least the rights of your users is a must if you really wish to attain your goals.

I have tried yoga but like most people these days that do yoga I don’t really practice the philosophy of yoga. Nowadays, yoga has become an exercise fad. What many don’t realize though is that the breathing and postures practiced in gyms worldwide are but two of the eights limbs (aspects) of the Yoga philosophy. What this means is that because you know some poses doesn’t mean that you can claim to really know yoga. If you want to really do yoga you have to first understand all the eight limbs of yoga, which are the:

1. Yama: Self-control or restraint from violence, lying, excessiveness, stealing, and coveting
2. Niyama: Stresses things one should do—purity, contentment, austerity, study of the sacred texts, living with awareness of the divine
3. Asana: Physical exercises, postures
4. Pranayama: Breathing exercises
5. Pratyahara: Drawing inward
6. Dharana: Concentration
7. Dhyana: Meditation
8. Samadhi: Realization

Obviously the part of yoga that most people know about is the Asana and the Pranayama but if you wish to stay true to yoga’s philosophy, which is to seek universal truth and achieve equanimity in the process, one has to practice the other aspects of yoga as well. In the end, practicing yoga should result not just in a healthy body but a healthy mind as well.

When I was younger my family for me was simply my dad, my mom, and my siblings. Things were much simpler then. I didn’t even question the role of the family, never though about. A family just was and no one can make it any different. Then I started growing up. I had my first classmate in 4th grade whose parents were divorced. I heard from my older sister how one of her friends was the 2nd family of their dad. My concept of family was shaken and a philosophical debate raged in my head, the process of which I wasn’t aware of. I realized then some families just wasn’t – JUST WAS. I didn’t know what to make of that.

Then I went to high school and things got even crazier. I met a friend who shared to me one time during a quiet night how her own uncle used to rape her when they visited his house. Now this totally flipped my world around. I got really mad and kept on pushing my mom asking her how bad things like these can’t happen. I never told her what the real case was though. I learned then that not family members fulfill their roles and some family you can end up hating. I also learned that even when you are the child sometimes you have to be the one to shield your parents from the truth. That was when I started growing up.

Now, I have my own family and each day I am re-learning the beauty of family. Things don’t always go the way they should but we just have to sort things out in our mind. I sometimes wish things would be black and white and the horrible side of some families can be wiped clean but then again my definition of family has changed. It’s not family is just is, it’s not just the family you are born in, it’s who we choose to bring in our lives and chooses to bring ours in theirs. It’s the good with the bad and hopefully more good than bad.

Till now there are days when I keep turning the concept of family over and over in my head but what I have learned is that more important than the concept is simply being there with and for our family. And THAT is my family philosophy.

Many a soul on this earth, have gone through life without meaning. Some say that Philosophy is one’s search of meaning in one’s life and others say who cares. But one should always have a purpose for every second, minute, hour, day, month and year of life. Life is short though it may last a couple of decades, tis’ still short a time. Considering that the earth has been around for a couple of billion years, life truly is short.

What is life on this earth without purpose? A waste of borrowed time, for life without meaning is nothing and if it is nothing… then why live at all. We all have a purpose on this earth whether we like it or not. Some feel damned and some don’t, some are endowed and others are average whatever place you may have in the measures set by man on his fellow man you are unique. Unique, in a way that whatever you may think is important even if others don’t pay attention or don’t mind.

It doesn’t matter what others say about your purpose or destiny, that’s their view and their’s alone. Listen deep within and understand what is inside and not what others say, life is meaningless without purpose. What is happiness without sadness, triumph without defeat and so on and so forth. He had a way of assuring that we get both sides of the picture so we’d cherish them side by side.

Go simple, “ Do your ordinary duties, EXTRA ORDINARILY WELL”. Sounds nice doesn’t it? Feels even better…..

We usually hear about them and discuss them during our educational lives but while other just goes through the motions of having to be aware of them, there are also people who want to extend their line of knowledge by simply looking for related work. Much of this has been helped by the optimization practices as offered by Los Angeles SEO when they offer affordable search engine optimization today.

There are over a dozen philosophers we have known throughout the years and most of them own different proverbs and studies of interest to people who are fully aware of what is going on today. Indeed, they have given logical acclamations something to think of.

Much of what we believe in today when it comes to principles and the like are sure to be something that many of us would agree to be one and true. It would be truly amazing to note and depict what they are other less heralded points have to deliver.

The BBC released an article some time ago regarding the comparison between the satirical cartoon The Simpson’s by FOX Broadcasting, as a philosophical embodiment of human nature. I happened to come upon the article and the study they conducted and found it to be quite enlightening regarding the relationship between the philosophy of man and the said TV show.

Many of us can remember the said TV series with the wisecracking and always smart-alecky remaking Homer who has made history. All of the family members have gone through the necessary life’s phases, which were done in a most human representation as possible. For that, we commend the creators and writers who continue to provide us with a rather unorthodox view of life even though the characters are cartoons.

Cartoons have gone a long way when cartoons were mere short stories in newspapers. Today, cartoons can be found on any part of the globe that tackle all issues and subject matter. They are a way of trying to get a message out to people that a sense of humor is still the best human thing that is free and can be shared to all. Indeed, cartoons have become part of human culture so much as they have become parts of our lives. All of us have watched and seen them (whether you like to admit it or not) and they have had an impact on how we view the world. This impact can be seen in the appeal of these programs to our kids and even the not so young who still continue to watch and adore them as a daily routine making life a little less cumbersome.

All around the world, people are wondering what tomorrow may hold for them. For the little who do prosper, a million continue to suffer. This has been a trend seen by many for many years. Go to the most secluded areas on the planet and ask anybody of what they are thinking of and they’ll say that tomorrow will tell me that. As the saying goes, “ Today I am pondering about yesterday, and by tomorrow I’ll be ready for today”.

We humans have a way of finding definition on our terms whatever experts tell us. True to this, lawyers can prove something terribly wrong to be righteously correct, politicians tell us that war is needed to keep the peace while peace does not exist within. People act as if they know what is happening and why it is happening even if they do not understand the reasons. A person acts blindly based on his own interpretation of the events around him. To some America is the culprit and to some the Communist’s are, both should be noted have played key parts in the development of the world as it is today. Capitalism and democracy might not be for everyone but it is surely longed for many. The basic right to freedom and the ability to express it is still void in many states. Many people suffer without voices and many more will suffer without anybody knowing about it.

Turn on the Television, radio and read the newspaper and we see in bold letters all the worst things that are happening around the world. What about the good things that have happened in the past 24 hours like news about the many children who have learned to read and write, what about the child who got his sight for the first time since birth? These are news that are considered not to be significant due to their lack of commercial importance, commercial importance that means people will not get anything for telling these types of headlines. Scholars argue about their beliefs over the internet claiming rights to works they publish on blogs, Author’s publishing works and claiming royalty and crying piracy and a violations of their intellectual rights. Hello people, isn’t that what the so-called .NET was supposed to be for. The .NET framework is a social network which means everybody has the right to say whatever they may choose to and use material they get to aid in their study or in their aims to get a better understanding of the world around them. Want intellectual right’s protection, publish your work in print and not online. Social networks are there to promote the ideals of freedom to do and say whatever you may wish. The stand of many people are contradictory, they move to the net (on the social network) as a way to reach more people but want their work to be exclusive which is at the same time against the basic principle of a social network, which is which.

Make up your mind people for the world is truly opening up and you need to stand up for something or nothing at all.

I came upon another blog that referred to a group of segments of the BBC News Agency in one of it’s programs/special reports about democracy and it’s implications on world society as a whole. The discussion on Philosophy News was a true and timely battle of the minds that asked, “Can democracy work for the whole world?” This is a very challenging question which was showed in the programs many discussions on what it means to people from all walks of life from all corners of the globe.

For those who have been enjoying democracy, they should be thankful to their forefathers for the great job that they have done in establishing and propagating the idea of democracy. For those who are now only getting a taste of what it is and what it can do, well that’s not a very simple matter to contend with. Most of the former communist countries, who have started to embrace Western culture and some form of democracy it is a very scary story indeed. A society that has evolved to be a workforce that does all the leaders of their countries tell them to can be intimidated by the prospect of having to choose whatever and whoever they wish to become. Like the children in China who are now being taught in school of the concept of democracy who were dumbfounded by the ideals and differences that it had to their own society.

For now, the world is evolving as well as human society. The financial crisis of times past and the many natural disasters that have plagued us ever more frequently have opened many doors for people who have usually been left in the dark about the rest of the world. True to this, to ask the question of “Why Democracy?” is not only a very difficult one but quite sensitive for many a wealthy nations are still run under rule of a monarchial government. Some still follow time honored traditions that were reminiscent of the medieval ages when we had kings and queens and that succession was a right rather than a voted upon right.

Democracy might not be for everyone but it may be time that all of us embrace it for it allows us the freedom not only of society but of the global scene and the part that we can play in it if we were all allowed to participate. No society is ever self-sufficient for all those that have tried have miserably failed. We humans have a built-in drive to do what we want, when we want it and where ever we want it to be. Many say that there is no such thing as a democracy but we must always remember that democracy is a form of government that can be defined on paper and is subject to personal interpretation. So for now, democracy has still offered the best tools for the growth of countries around the world. The famous philosopher Kant predicted 200 years ago that democracies don’t go to war with each other but with those who do not embrace it and promote it. In a way this might sound true but a discussion on that must be left to another day. So till then enjoy life and embrace it for all the good and bad. It’s not about the trip, but about the journey that has passed and we currently are on….

I came upon an article on the EPhilosopher news regarding the Metaphysics of Ceteris Paribus Laws that made quite a lot of sense and was nice to ponder. The term Ceteris Paribus is Latin for all other things being equal stating the generalizations that science in all it’s history has placed upon certain aspects of science as a whole. But pondering the said term and it’s literal meaning it comes under great fire for many matters on this earth and even the sciences that aims to quantify it has evolved into a science of exceptions meaning that the rule doesn’t apply because….
This might be so for science is never constant as time is and that everything is evolving into something that we don’t know yet. Science has blessed us with many a wonder yet science itself seems to always re-define what it has already termed as known or defined. We humans have a never-ending quest for discovery and re-discovery and something that seems impossible should never be termed as so, someone just hasn’t figured out a way of doing it……
So the term Ceteris Paribus is a fundamental foundation for something that is termed to be an analytic truth which in science terms if definite, defined, final. Or is it???? Thanks to the people who continuously form, challenge and subsequently change the definitions of everything else for in the process we gain a little more understanding of our purpose on this earth which as scientists say is just one of millions if not billions of possible inhabited planets in our solar system alone(Let us just hope that the beings on those other worlds are thinking of the same stuff we are).