Moral Responsibility

Sartre believes that we are responsible for all of our actions, and I agree with this notion to an extent. I don't think that any individual has the full capacity to comprehend or formulate all of the possible outcomes of their actions, but I still feel as though we must understand that those actions would not have taken place without us. It may seem strange, but everything we do does have some impact on the world in some way.

How free are we in Sartre's eyes?

Sartre writes that people exist first and they the shape themselves based on the choices they make and the actions they take. While I do agree that we are in control of who we are and our decisions, I wonder exactly how free we are in making choices. For example, most people identify as either male or female. It is very rare, if at all, that someone decides they are neither male nor female but a new gender, for which they create a new name. So do we really have unlimited freedom? Sartre goes on to say that when creating ourselves, we are acting for all of humanity. So, Sartre might answer my question by saying that those who first divided gender into male and female simply laid a path for everyone to follow.

Loss of Self in Buddhism

I believe that there is something beneficial in the Buddhist teaching that in removing fear of death (or non-being) that humans can then be free to attain ultimate happiness.  I also understand the idea of removing conventional, distracting perceptions that only hinder this path towards happiness.  However to me it kind of seems like in believing one's self just another object in eternalism (or the wave-like cycle of birth and death or manifestation) one loses a sense of SELF.  Why then act with any moral principles?  In the deepest life of mediation why do people feel compelled to love others as beings if they are merely temporary manifestations of life?

Devil's Advocate here

Looking at Voltaire's "The Good Brhamin". Why not be a pig satisfied rather than a man dissatisfied? Some would say because of the greater capacity, the greater quality of the human. But then why, again? What of this capacity? I believe it is true that a human being has a higher quality, a greater capacity for, um, stuff (read experience, consciousness, being, living). Truth be told, we don't really know because we can't have direct knowledge, direct experience of a pig's. We can infer what it must be like, but we don't really know. However what the Brahmin is saying is this higher capacity which comes with dissatisfaction outweighs the lower capacity which is filled with satisfaction. One final thing. What if the satisfaction in the pig were of the greatest kind possible to the pig and the dissatisfaction in the man was also to the highest degree, in all respects?

Meaning applied to Moral Principles

In Frankls reading, we noted that the conception of meaning is in a different arena from moral theory. It is an entirely different line of inquiry. Whereas as moral principles dictate certain intentions and actions one should take in relation to self and society, the quest for meaning transcends the whole debate and purely focuses on the more subjective dimension of self inquiry. More simply, we can quibble about moral theory all day, but, when it comes to the search for meaning, a man must define such matters for himself and, relative to moral theory, such definitions are less easily judged. So, looking at Frankl's stuff on camp life, we find that some people looking to the future for meaning(consequences), others look to virtuous behavior or their duty to their fellow man, while still others just hang out and think about how they'd like some cake(that's me).

 Thank you very much, I'd like to dedicate this writing to Michelle Branch and her song All You Wanted for helping me write yet another blog about depressing stuff.

How Do We Make Our Own Meaning?

In class today, well yesterday, Dr. Thomas posed the question: "What conditions are necessary to make a meaningful life?" And I've come to the conclusion that there are at least two conditions that are necessary: First, we as individuals, must be rational or clear-thinking individuals and second, we must not only possess knowledge about ourselves, but nature and the external world itself. So, the ability to think and the ability to have understanding are necessary to make our own meaning of life.

What Encompases Morality

In class Thursday we embarked on a very heated discussion about what would be the conditions that would support or undermine morality. As the conversation progressed, many opinions and views were thrown around in regards to individual moral actions and collective moral actions. Now I have pondered the different components of this discussion since then and have come to the conclusion that an action can be deemed moral or immoral depending upon whether or not an individual's life can be positively promoted in any aspect. For example, why would lying be amoral? In regards to the context I just specified, it would be amoral because the individual who is being lied to has been "compromised." At some point when the truth is revealed, the individual that was lied to will be forced to think about that situation and ponder the effects that the lie caused. Now some people may believe that lying may promote positive results by either protecting the person from the truth or keeping them from some form of harm, i.e. psychological or emotional. However, we can all admit that whenever we finally encounter the truth about a situation, we immediately wonder "what if." This "what if" that we begin to contemplate only hurts us because it distracts us from focusing on the present and future. The past is the past, and what happened during it cannot be changed. But when people reflect on the past, we must all admit that it hinders our future. Therefore, lying should be deemed as immoral.

In regards to the "trolling" example that was discussed, I firmly believe that trolling is immoral because it does not positively promote someone's life. Choosing to partake in actions that promote anger or frustration from an individual is wrong. Why should someone feel as though it is acceptable to control the emotions of another simply because "they wanted to?" Being angry has never made the angry individual happy. Harboring anger for an extended amount of time, or for even a few minutes diminishes a person's morality and mental psyche because a person's rationale is always compromised when emotions become involved. For those people who think that trolling is simply a harmless action, I'm sure I'll meet opposition, and I'm sure that I will become a victim of trolling. But for those against trolling I hope that my position on morality is plausible.

The Last Question about Absurdism

Below is Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question."  Reading Camus' piece regarding absurdism and man giving meaning to his own life without any external meaning made me think of this piece.  Is it possible that man may give so much meaning to himself that others can feel that meaning as well?  Can one man give meaning to others?  Is it possible for one to conceive of something and then create it as a powerful external entity, more powerful than the creator of the idea?  It is comforting to believe there is a higher power above whether there truly is one or not; it is conceivable, through constant struggle and innovation, to advance technologically to such a level as to either become gods or to create a god.  Even if we live in an absurd universe, is it possible to create a meaning for ourselves so great that it changes the universe from an unfeeling uncaring emptiness to a cognitive, all powerful, and loving God?



 The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

     Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
     Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough. So Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share in the glory that was Multivac's.
     For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.
     But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.
     The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.
     Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public functions, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
     They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.
     "It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."
     Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.
     "Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."
     "That's not forever."
     "All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Ten billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"
     Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Ten billion years isn't forever."
     "Well, it will last our time, won't it?"
     "So would the coal and uranium."
     "All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do that on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me.
     "I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."
     "Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right."
     "Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for ten billion years, but then what?" Lupow pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."
     There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.
     Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"
     "I'm not thinking."
     "Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."
     "I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."
     "Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."
     "I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.
     "The hell you do."
     "I know as much as you do."
     "Then you know everything's got to run down someday."
     "All right. Who says they won't?"
     "You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'
     It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.
     "Never."
     "Why not? Someday."
     "Never."
     "Ask Multivac."
     "You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."
     Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?
     Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
     Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
     Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
     "No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
     By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the incident.

---

     Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright shining disk, the size of a marble, centered on the viewing-screen.
     "That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.
     The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of insideoutness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've --"
     "Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"
     "What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.
     Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspatial jumps.
     Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship. Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for ''automatic computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.
     Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."
     "Why, for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great-grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded." Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."
     "I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.
     Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."
     "I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
     It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors, had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
     Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetarv AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.
     "So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."
     "Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.
     "What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.
     "Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"
     "Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"
     "The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."
     Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."
     "Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.
     "How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back,
     "Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."
     "Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
     Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."
     He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."
     Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."
     Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."
     Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
     He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

---

     VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder in being so concerned about the matter?"
     MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."
     Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.
     "Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."
     "I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."
     VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."
     "A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --
     VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."
     "Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problem of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."
     "Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."
     "Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"
     "Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"
     "I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this GaIaxy is filled, we'll have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known universe. Then what?"
     VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."
     "A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."
     "Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."
     "Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in a geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."
     "We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."
     "Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.
     "There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."
     VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
     "I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."
     He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.
     MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of submesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
     MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"
     VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."
     "Why not?"
     "We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."
     "Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.
     The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
     VJ-23X said, "See!"
     The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

---

     Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity. --But a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.
     Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.
     Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
     "I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"
     "I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"
     "We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"
     "We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"
     "True. Since all Galaxies are the same."
     "Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."
     Zee Prime said, "On which one?"
     "I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."
     "Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."
     Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.
     Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"
     The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.
     Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.
     "But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.
     "Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."
     Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.
     The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.
     A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."
     But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment.
     Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"
     The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF"
     "Did the men upon it die?" asked Lee Prime, startled and without thinking.
     The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME."
     "Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.
     Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"
     "The stars are dying. The original star is dead."
     "They must all die. Why not?"
     "But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."
     "It will take billions of years."
     "I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"
     Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."
     And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
     Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a Galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.
     Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

---

     Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.
     Man said, "The Universe is dying."
     Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
     New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.
     Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."
     "But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase forever to the maximum."
     Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."
     The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer had meaning in any terms that Man could comprehend.
     "Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?"
     The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
     Man said, "Collect additional data."
     The Cosmic AC said, 'I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.
     "Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"
     The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."
     Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"
     The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
     "Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.
     The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."
     Man said, "We shall wait."

---

     The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
     One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.
     Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.
     Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"
     AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
     Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.

---

     Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer [technician] ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
     All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
     All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
     But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
     A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
     And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
     But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.
     For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
     The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
     And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
     And there was light --

Modified Ethical Egoism

After reading Ayn Rand's "In Defense of Ethical Egoism" it became clear to me that although she does make a fairly compelling argument, in order to truly achieve happiness and flourishing one would have to make some alterations to her style of egoism. I agree with Rand that too often we deny ourselves what would give us pleasure because we believe that what is the correct moral action is doing whatever everyone else wants instead of considering our own wishes. I also agree with Rand that "By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man-every man-is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose" (535). However, with this statement, Rand sets up a contradiction. If everyone acts merely in their own interests, then not everyone truly be an end in themselves because others will exploit them and use them as a means to an end in order to further their own interests. Essentially egoism, at least the way that she is describing it here, would fall apart if everyone were to practice it in such a manner because it is more of an individualized philosophy than she is making it out to be. Not everyone can be an egoist or else the philosophy falls apart, due to the fact that if everyone is only concerned with what benefits them, then no one will be able to achieve what they want to achieve to the extent that they will be ultimately fulfilled. I also find it problematic that we are supposed to, in this philosophy, completely disregard other people and only focus on what will further our own interests. I think that ultimately not considering other people would cause us to lead a more solitary and unhappy life than one in which we take into account the other people surrounding us. I think instead of taking such a radical stance as Rand suggests, we should instead act with our happiness in view and include it as a deciding factor in our moral code, but not without considering how our actions will affect others as well.

Making Connections

After looking at the definitions and positions of the different types of ethical positions, I decided to try to make some connections.  Before moving on to support or critique of ethical egoism, I tried to figure out where it could possibly fit into what we've looked at thus far.  I see similarities between ethical egoism and deontology.  As we learned, deontology requires one to judge morality based on the intrinsic quality of the act itself NOT the consequences.  In other words one must perform an action come whatever may.  I see the same type of mentality for ethical egoism.  One acts in their own interests (or those more seriously than the interests of others) and result is good for the public.  The action is not based in the idea that it will necessarily bring good to others, but the moral one will.  I also see a slight similarity between Kant's categorical imperative.  Once again we learned that the categorical imperative states that the moral status of an act is that it would be willed as a maxim of universal law of nature.  The way I interpreted ethical egoism is that all people act in their own interests and would expect universally that all others would do the same.

Ayn Rand's Defense of Ethical Egoism

In her piece, "In Defense of Ethical Egoism," Ayn Rand says that what most people have been told growing up is that morality involves limiting the self, demoting the self to better serve the needs of others or to serve God. For she says, "...the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors." Rand says that both of these views "demand the surrender of your self-interest and of your mind," as morality opposes both practicality and reason. Rand then proceeds to argue that in reality, morality stems from the need to preserve the self, for in not preserving the self, a human being cannot live to his or her full potential. By limiting the self and dismissing the needs of the self for the "good" of others, one cannot flourish and in line with Aristotle's views, a person who is not flourishing is not being in a state of full moral integrity; he or she is lacking in some way and as a consequence, will not be able to act in the world with the fullest sense of morality.

While I agree with Ayn Rand that the self should be considered in matters of morality, I disagree with her emphasis on putting the self before others, especially in claiming that "pride is the sum of all virtues." For if we fully place our needs before the needs of others, how can we as individuals flourish? In order to flourish, don't we need others to accomplish this feat, and if so, don't we need to be sensitive to others' needs? Are we not meant to share our abilities with others and be in constant dialogue with them to build up our own characters, our own sense of morality? Perhaps there should be a balance between meeting the needs of the self and the needs of others---a type of middle ground between the views of Rand and the "traditional" view of morality that Rand presents.

Riffing off of Mill

This is a return to Mill and the refinement of utilitarianism. Mill refines utilitarianism by introducing the quality of pleasures to the quantity of pleasures. He says that given two pleasures, the more valuable pleasure in terms of quality gets its qualitative value from the preference of it over any number of another pleasure, even if the qualitative pleasure comes with a greater amount of discontent. However I believe that this distinction is more blurry than when first apprehended. I think quality and quantity are not entirely separable concepts/terms and there is an interdependent relationship between the two. For example, take the most purely quantitative thing there is, say the number 23. The number 23 is an abstraction of 23 somethings, or 23 qualities. There could be 23 baseballs, cars, pies, whatever. Each one is a capacity, a quality. Now lets look at the quantity within quality. Take the color purple. The color could not exist without the right frequency of wavelengths of light. In addition, simply observe their linguistic structure. They both start with "qua". I also think there's evidence that Mill is implicitly aware of this relationship. On pg. 229-230, he says "Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decide preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it....". In actually making the distinction, he says "placed so far above it", implying a single spectrum of value, corresponding to one concept.

An Organization of All This Stuff

We have encountered many ethical theories up to this point and, in order to remember all this stuff(as well as trace relationships and overlaps), I feel an organization of this stuff is really helping me out. Some housekeeping for the mind is required. I, personally, have organized my theories from the order of most related to material things on bottom(like utilitarianism), to the most immaterial things on the top(like virtue ethics). There are some curve-balls thrown in there like ethical egoism and moral luck. But, overall, there is a general ranking between these philosophies. Consequential-ism seems to underlie many of these disciplines so I kinda just threw it under everything.

Ethics and Egoism

Imagine, for a moment, a world in which all people act only out our pure self interests.  What do you think would happen?  I would suspect that there would be more violence and less compromise over various issues.  I do not know if anything fruitful would come out of this way of living.  Acting out of self interest forgets the "other", yet the other still plays a part in one's action.  Are we ever free from the "others"?  By deciding to take an action that you think is in your own self interest, is it not an interest possibly related to and stemming from the society or culture you are in; therefore, is it not "others" who govern our actions, rather somewhat indirectly?  Everything may indeed be outside of us and not from us.  Can things be truly from us?  What do you think?

Problems with the critique of Ethical Egoism

The critique that ethical egoism is an oxymoron if all moral action is "other directed." The issue I have with this is that it assumes ALL moral action is "other directed." This premise assumes that one can, therefore, be neither moral or immoral to themselves. This is problematic because I would venture to say, that if someone never eats so that others can eat and then this person dies from starvation, that person has acted immorally toward themselves. In summary I have issue with the statement that all moral action must be other directed.

What to do with the Ring of Gyges

Plato's story about the Ring of Gyges is an extreme hypothetical but it does serve a valid purpose in fleshing out whether appearances matter more than truths.  I would agree that it is far better to be moral than to merely seem moral, as there is damage to one's soul which impairs the ability to experience true happiness, but the situation he presents is even more dire.  The soul is indeed more important than the body and Plato explains this view well.
Rather than simply comparing appearance versus actuality, he states that a man who seems moral but is actually evil is worse off than a man who seems evil but is really a saint.  This is a harder concept to swallow because both men are in bad situations.  A man who is full of vices, even if he can hide them well and receive honor, still will never have true happiness.  There are countless examples of addicts and hedonists who search for means to happiness through carnal pleasures but never receive a respite from their search, so the appearance is less important than the actuality of being moral.  The man who is moral but seems immoral is in a bad situation not just because he receives no honor and is disliked by the city, but he is likely to appear like a pariah and may receive physical harm due to the society's perceptions.  Society can often get morality wrong and there are many examples of innocent men suffering because of misconceptions (Jesus often springs to mind) so it is not outside of the realm of possibility that a man who is truly good could seem bad because he goes against a corrupt nation's laws.
As the 1930s and 40s have a perfect example of evil, I feel it is appropriate to draw from that.  This hypothetical could be fleshed out to mean is it better to be a Nazi or a Rabbi in Hitler's Germany?  Obviously both situations are bad (one for the soul and one for the body) but which is truly worse?  When speaking of this we mean a fervent Nazi and a devout Rabbi (this is to prevent muddling the argument with examples of soldiers who helped smuggle Jews out and also prevents the atrocities some Jews did to others in the concentration camps from confusing this issue).  I'd like to say that the Rabbi is better off, but enduring the hardships one faced within concentration camps (which can parallel a good man being thrown in prison for appearing to be guilty of crimes in the Platonic example) caused irreparable harm to many Jews who went there and one can assume that there would be harm to the souls of the good men in the misguided city.  There were some people who came out of the camps and were unable to tame their inner demons (or the various bestial elements of a man's soul for Plato).