Philosophy & Ethics

Let us take an Observer (Ob), who, for simplicity’s sake, goes through four events, in his mind, within the Time Frame (tf) of 0-20 seconds. Let us say that the four events that our Observer (Ob) experiences are the following: he sees a table in front of him; he feels an emotion; he remembers a memory and lastly, he thinks of a thought. Again, for simplicity’s sake, let us say that each of these happenings in the mind of our (Ob) are far from being emotional-filled or disturbing. Thus, they are neither (+) not (-) events and we can say they are all neutral (o). Thus, we can write:  …

  Why We Must Abandon The  Concept That There Exists A ‘One Real Image’ Of Any Observed Object.     Ayad bin Izzet   January 20, 2010 – Damascus, Syria         Throughout the articles I have been writing, I have been trying to get a closer ‘look’ at what exactly ‘Reality’ is. Where are we now? I have argued that the individual, indefinable, unrecognizable ‘constituents’ of any image before is entirely composed of images of voids, or nothing. In other words, however much you may stare and look and try to understand/relate to any point on the…

  Why We Must Abandon The  Concept That There Exists A ‘One Real Image’ Of Any Observed Object.     Ayad bin Izzet   January 20, 2010 – Damascus, Syria         Throughout the articles I have been writing, I have been trying to get a closer ‘look’ at what exactly ‘Reality’ is. Where are we now? I have argued that the individual, indefinable, unrecognizable ‘constituents’ of any image before is entirely composed of images of voids, or nothing. In other words, however much you may stare and look and try to understand/relate to any point on the…

    IS THERE A LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR IN HUMAN BEHAVIOUR?     Ayad Gharbawi   January 18, 2010 – Damascus, Syria       When we look at people anywhere and everywhere, we see people of all ages, physical appearances, colours, shades, emotions and a million other attributes. People seem to be so different and so varied in their physical and emotional appearances. Often, it happens, that people may be bewildered by these extreme variances between person and another person; between brother and his brother! But is there something that we humans, have…

This essay is continued from "Shame Theory" Part I which is available here.     Now let's return to our opening ideas, “The Message.” and “The Phenomenon.” How is it that, in particular, Western Culture wants us to “be ashamed of ourselves,” now, more than ever? How is this different than having “the Message” be one of guilt? What is the likely result of such a manipulation? The manifestations of “The Message” actually need little explanation, we need only accept them as realities to see their relevance. They are as obvious as the info-mercial. “You flip... and they flop.” (You…

    “Humans should be ashamed of themselves.” This will be a predominant message of 2010. I know this is an accurate prediction because I'm one of the people who is going to be spreading the message. There seems to be a controlled shift in popular Western culture to move past Guilt and go directly to Shame. I believe these ends are achieved purposefully and professionally by many different sources but all seem to be cashing in on the following idea, which this essay will examine in detail: Due to the much stronger emotional response to shame stimuli than to guilt, either…

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Mailspam, Webspam, and Freedom of Speech. "given that the e-mail system has gone largely unchanged since 1965,perhaps we should be grateful that it works at all. " -  David A. KarpPCmag.com Spam is the biggest single threat to the continued operation of the entire internet.  I'll explain shortly why I think it's such a big threat, but first, I'll explain what I mean by the term 'spam'. What Is Spam?To my way of thinking, spam is just another variant of malware.  Even though most spam emails don't fire up software, they fit the simplest definition of malware. Malware: any…

 People's tendency to match their risk perceptions about policy issues with their cultural values may explain the intense disagreement over proposals to vaccinate young girls against human-papillomavirus (HPV), according to a new study in Law and Human Behavior. The study also indicates people's values shape their perceptions of expert opinion on the vaccine. An online experiment involving more than 1,500 U.S. adults revealed that individuals who have cultural values that favor authority and individualism perceive the vaccine as risky, in part because they believe it will lead girls to…

Concern Who It May When should one use 'who', and when 'whom'?  A simple enough question on the face of it, but in practice a path through a quagmire. Generally, making a choice between 'who' and 'whom' in constructs does not lead to a significant change in meaning.  But it may.  Consider the stock phrase "to whom it may concern."  Here, the term 'concern' means 'be of interest'.   By way of contrast, in the phrase "concern who it may", 'concern' may mean 'trouble', 'worry', or 'annoy'.  Annoy who it may! There are rules of grammar which people are fond of…