Every year, there are the same halloween traditions. Trick or treats, wearing costume, pumpkin carving, and firewall. My company have a pumpkin carving contest for halloween. I didn’t play but there are some very creative art work. I like the iPumpkin most, probably because I am an engineer. Tonight I played firework with Pat and Charlie is dressing up as an angel. So here it comes the real Charlie’s angel. Too bad that I have to spend time prepare class on thursday, or I could have more fun tonight. Instead of being long winded, I would just share some pictures with you all
Here is an abrigded version of my speech for tomorrow’s toastmaster on folktale story telling. This is a story from Plato’s Symposium about the nature of love. Once upon a time, human has very different nature from what we are today. People’s body are in sphere shape. Each person has 4 legs, 4 arms, two faces on a round neck facing the opposite direction on one head, 4 eyes, 4 ears and so on. People were strong in physical strength and will. They are full of ambitious, dare to attack the gods, trying to force their ascend into heaven. Zeus, gather all the gods in Mt. Olyumpus to dicuss the appriopiate action. They don’t want to eliminate humans like the gaints, as it would also eliminate the honours and scarfice human offer to the gods. At the end of a lengthy dicussion, they come up with a cunning plan. The will split human into two halves. Each half would be much weaker and this plan also profitable to the gods, since it will double the number of people. Zeus slice the mortals into two like cutting an apple or boiled egg. He ordered Apollo to rotate the face of the new persson facing the wound, so they will remember not to rebel against gods in the future. He ordered Venus to heal the open wound. She tied the edge of the wounds together and that becomes our belly button. Now, each person is only half of a whole man. We will constantly seeking out for our missing half. Once we find the other half, we will melt together like one and never seperate again. The desire and pursuit to beomce a complete person is the true nature of love.
This weekend is very relaxing and stressful to me at the same time.? I stay home for most of the weekend, except last night I attend a birthday party.? We had fun playing pokers.? I must admit that my poker skill is really rusty from lack of playing.? As a result, I am the loser in the game.? I have two logical options: 1.) admit I sucks in poker and give up the game all together or 2.) pratice more to improve my poker skill.? I havn’t make up my mind what I should do with poker.? Today I stays at Pat’s place for the whole day.? Pat cooked lunch and dinner for me at home.? It is quite relaxing for not having to go out.? I spent the whole day catching up with some over dued tasks, which are very stressful.? I watched lots of TV during my long breaks between works too.? I havn’t watch that much chinese TV for a while.? I wish I could be more focus on my tasks and finish them earlier.? However I find it hard to concentrate for longer than an hour.? After I accomplished some milestones, I have to take a break to refresh my mind.? I guess there is a theorical limit of workload a brain can handle.? If the brain is running for a long period of time, it will become overheat like a CPU.? Then you have to let it cool down a bit before resuming your tasks.
Ok. I must admit that I blew my friend’s surprise birthday party again this year. Last year, I asked him an innocent question that where are we going to have dinner on his birthday. This year I asked the same innocent question again in front of him. The organizer of the surprise party use evite to organize the event. He forgot to state clearly it is a surprise party and we have to keep it secret from him. How would I know this one is a surprise party when the host is informed in most of our other birthday parties. The most logical conclusion it is not a surprise party unless stated otherwise. Moreover, why would anyone want a surprise party? What if the person is not free on that day? Should it better always know the plan ahead of time so you can prepare? Anyways, I am the one blew it away. So I have to apologize for spoiling his party and the organizer effort trying hard to keep it secret. On a second thought, the total amount of happiness he experience should be increased. He would be sad and worrying for the rest of the week wondering where are his friends for his birthday party. Now he gained two more days of happiness knowing his friends are being so thoughtful.
I have been asked the question about ethics twice in a week. It all started with I brough a brochure of books about ethics from a philosophy conference to work. Somone saw the front page of the brochure without reading into it asked me am I very ethical after reading those ethics books. Then I couldn’t help myself explaining the three levels of ethics to them. His question is merely asking the most mundane level of ethics, descriptive ethics, which judge whether ones actions or thoughts agree with a set of preassumed ethical rules or framework. It is kinda like asking whether buring the flag is illegal based on the consitiution. The more interesting kind of ethics is normative ethics, which determine which set of ethic framework we should subscribe to. It is kinda like asking whether we should adopt the common law, civil law or sharia law. The last level is ethical theory, a quest for pure knowledge. What is the word “ethics” means, where ethics comes from. It is kinda like asking what is “laws”, why do we need laws. There are four main ethical theories, John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, Immanuel Kant’s duty ethics, John Locke’s rights ethics and Aristotle’s virtue ethics. I think there should be a fifth kind of ethical theory, Charles Darwin’s efficient ethics. That would be a very interesting philosophy research topics.