Showing posts with label definition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label definition. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Of Karma and Justice

First of all, it is important to agree that Justice involves interactions within a group, in a world of 1 justice makes little sense. This would suggest a definition of Justice along the lines of:
Justice is achieved through the optimization of individual well-being throughout the group, i.e. maintaining each individual's well being near the mean of the group.

Game theory, would suggest that in a changing dynamic world, with limited, yet growing resources; the reality of Justice as a virtue allows the group (a species) to profit from behavior such as empathy, and self-sacrifice; which would explain how said emotions have become embedded within many species throughout evolutionary time.

Karma expresses the flow of well-being towards achieving Justice as it relates our evolved emotional responses to events and our actions. It is similar to keeping count of standard deviations from the mean.

Many ways of achieving justice have bean thought out; most religions deal extensively on the subject as do all political systems. In the end; justice as something more complex than even the simplest cooperative games is NP - complete and we will continue forever changing and optimizing our laws and beliefs regarding our communal well-being to our current situations.

As sentient being, I agree the pursuit of justice is a responsibility we hold to ourselves, it is crucial to our survival.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Definition - Balance

Balance: Of equality, or equilibrium between two contrary entities or forces.

Balance is a special case of equilibrium, which is a word used to describe more objects. Most people seek balance or equilibrium amongst the competing interests of their lives; it is regarded as the search for a state of inner peace and complete belonging.

Usually, people seem to feel they are under constant pressure away from balance, that their work/lives are regularly summited to events, accidents, duties that require them to stray from the center of certain personal balancing acts, this particular issue draws a physical analogy:
All, dynamic system, juggles and quickly strays from equilibrium. Although thermodynamics, states equilibrium is eventually inevitable, this juggling between inclinations is what permits actual work within the system.
So, actually, what moves individuals, societies, and life in general is the assurance or ability to do work between a useless chaos and a useless equilibrium.

With all this said; I would add it as an argument as to why the world has not flocked to be Tibetan Monks of harmony and equilibrium. Progress does not lie in pure chaos, nor in full equilibrium. It is found in optimizing our efficiency; because of this, we must never stop trying to obtain balance; and yet, obtaining it would be to our disadvantage.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Definition - Aloneness

Aloneness: of being alone; unaccompanied.

A feeling of being unconnected. Many times felt even while surrounded, arising from some misunderstanding, or incomprehension.

Curiously enough aloneness is a chosen sentiment; in a planet with billions of people, animals and plant life; feeling alone can only come from an individuals miss-adjustment to a surrounding he cannot / dare not change.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Definition - Contradiction

Interesting Word.
Its fun thinking: "uhm, what can I say about this word..." and then start having ideas bubble in ones brain! :D Mathematics has a way of molding your world view, and apparently, for me, this word has been completely taken over! hehe...

Contradiction: Self-negating; An argument or expression which concludes falsifying itself.

Contradictions are invaluable in the discovery of new truths; many famous contradictions are a critical part in the growth of knowledge and our understanding. In logic (mathematics) demonstration through contradiction is indeed one of the most powerful forms of proof! For example; a fables narates how a Greek named Hippasus drowned over a "proof through contradiction": most Pythagoreans thought there was no such thing as irrational numbers (as it went against their beliefs on the beauty of nature); so like all other numbers must indead be rational... except that this leads to a contradiction. As the story states, Hippasus must have noted this, apparently sharing the demonstration just before being told to go drown somewhere.

Contradictions are not paradoxes, and are neither undecidable nor incomplete; this is why philosopher's and mathematitians have found salvation and beauty in carrying out proofs through contradiction. The weight of this perspective can be condensed in the following quote by Ayn Rand: "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." Thats exactly how we can demonstrate irrational numbers exist. Because of this; it was once assumed that mathematics was a self healing body of absolute knowledge we simply pearing into; Galileo stated: "Mathematics is the language through which God has written the universe".

So: contradictory as it seems, contradictions have been the source of truth, new realizations and a more secure untainted view of our reality.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Definition - Duality

It was fun thinking about this word; it kinda triggered thoughts about Batman, the quest for the Grand Unification Theory, and super moms!

Duality: Ability to fit two models.

To be both rational & spiritual; mother & lawyer, duality implies in these cases individuals capable of two seemingly disparate roles.

Another famous duality is that of light; in which it was found to behave as both a particle and a wave depending on how the experiment is setup (this duality is then beautifully enclosed in Schrödinger's wave function).

Duality is a basic form of versatility, although dual personalities are frowned upon; and "two faced" is not a nice thing to call someone. The problem appears in so far as the individual's versatility arrives in detriment to the rest of society.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Definition - Exception

This second word was picked because it sounded nice and was a central part of the movie: 'He's just not that into you'; oh joy!

Exception: a statistically improbable outcome.

The film (which is, by the way, lackluster and mind-numbing) uses it in reference to our psychological inability to work with extreme odds, a 5% chance never seems that much worse than a 15 or 10 percent odd of success, let alone our attempt to compare 1 in a million with 1 in a thousand.

Our simple minds, seem to keep things in more robust comparison buckets like: very rare, rare, infrequent, etc. If two events fall into the same category, we don't really care that much...

So hey, we're the exception, now kiss me you fool!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Definition - Maturity

I'm planning on starting a series of posts in which I'll simply write my personal definition for some words.. followed by some sort of quip.

Maybe this will be fun, lighthearted and profound?.. :D Any words requests you might have, or want to know what thoughts they trigger for me?

First experimental word:

Maturity: A complex landscape of peaks and valleys over the surface of social interaction. Said landscape is a function of net utility rendered to self and society over the area of all possible interaction scenarios.

Personality, foresight and past experience in general allow us to maximize said utility. The perceived mean height of this graph is more commonly used to call a person either mature or immature.

How is maturity related to play?!

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