Here is a small reflection about an extract of Romeo and Juliet that raises the question of ethics. When Friar Laurence decided to secretly marry Romeo and Juliet, he expected this action to put an end to the poisonous rivalry between the Montagues and the Capulets. However, even if this goal was eventually reached, given that it led to the death of the two lovers, the question is: was Friar Laurence action right or wrong?
The problem is: how can we stipulate that a given action is inherently right or wrong? This ethics issue is all the more so complex as there is no longer absolute moral rules in our modern society. For lack of anything better, we can try to use the ethics rules proposed by Margaret Sommerville, namely the respect of all life, especially human life, and the protection of the human spirit.
Given the eventual deaths of Romeo and Juliet, we could hastily claim that Friar Laurence’s decision did not respect human life and conclude that his action was wrong. However this conclusion do not take into account that the other possible decision – not marrying Romeo and Juliet – could have led to a greater human toll because of the ongoing war between the two families. In order to take this fact into account, we could simply decide to measure the death toll resulting from the other decision and claim that the right decision is the one which minimize this toll. The problem is that once the decision is made, the resulting toll will be known but we will never know the toll resulting from the opposite decision. To solve our problem, we have thus no other choice than adopting a kind of ex ante actuarial approach, which means estimating the expected outcomes of the different possible decisions just before the decision is made. The decision minimizing the expected toll will then be defined as the right one.
This rule is however not that satisfactory. Imagine a fictitious decision resulting, if taken, in 2 deaths with 100% chance, but, if not taken, in no deaths with 98% but 100 deaths with 2% chance. The expected toll is in either case equal to 2. The previous rule claims that the two possibilities are equivalent. But is that realistic? Will you risk the lives of 100 people with the hope to save 2 of them? The answer is not obvious and depends on your own risk aversion, a concept well known to financial practitioners. If you are risk averse (meaning you do not like risk), you will secure the outcome by taking the decision. On the contrary, if you are seeking risk, you will take the risk not to take the decision. This behaviour toward risk can be properly represented through the concept of utility (which is basically a function measuring satisfaction from our objective variables), and our rule can be updated from the minimization of the expected toll to the minimization of the expected utility of the toll. This is a concept hugely used in portfolio theory for instance.
Of course, the drawbacks are numerous: how can we estimate the outcomes and their probabilities? How to measure risk aversion? What is the shape of a typical utility function?
There exists tools to provide solutions to these questions, but it would go far too far. This post will remain a simplified introduction to the improbable ideas resulting from the still more improbable combination of Romeo and Juliet, ethics and financial tools. I however do think it provides a sound framework to fairly assess Friar Laurence’s action.
mercredi 28 janvier 2009
samedi 10 janvier 2009
Memes are anywhere !
One of my Christmas gift this year is a role-play game master book. It describes a post-apocalyptic world and is entitled Cyberpunk. I read the beginning and I was very surprised to discover an entire chapter about memes !
The definition given was quite the same our professor gave us last year. So, if I remember well, the meme of meme live in me...and you now !
Remember that memes are a kind of ideas, living in our brain and they are transmitted by our expression. A good example is a song whistled by someone. It enters your head and you can't stop thinking of it. This song is a meme you have.
You want to know more about ? go to our professor's blog !
Ok, now you know as good as us what memes are. What do you think about them ?
The definition given was quite the same our professor gave us last year. So, if I remember well, the meme of meme live in me...and you now !
Remember that memes are a kind of ideas, living in our brain and they are transmitted by our expression. A good example is a song whistled by someone. It enters your head and you can't stop thinking of it. This song is a meme you have.
You want to know more about ? go to our professor's blog !
Ok, now you know as good as us what memes are. What do you think about them ?
mardi 18 novembre 2008
Conference about ethics and science
November, the 13th we attended a conference about science and ethic. Here is the plan.
The first part of this conference focused on the issue and importance of looking after scientists claims. Mr Vèrges started by presenting some issues, where scientists has done a fraud.
Why are these examples relevant ?
Because they shown a lack in our society. Scientists have to follow some principles. There are three main reasons :
To conclude briefly, all is to be done in university ! What do you think about ethics and science ?
The first part of this conference focused on the issue and importance of looking after scientists claims. Mr Vèrges started by presenting some issues, where scientists has done a fraud.
Why are these examples relevant ?
Because they shown a lack in our society. Scientists have to follow some principles. There are three main reasons :
- the law lacks of precision for such a case,
- the scientist environment can't obey formal rules, but principles,
- rules and principles are created in a 'bottom up' way, which is not the case of the law.
- to keep the integrity of the scientific community,
- to make people well accept science,
- to harmonize ways of researches with a common basis.
To conclude briefly, all is to be done in university ! What do you think about ethics and science ?
mercredi 15 octobre 2008
What is this blog for !?
First, hello everybody and welcome on this blog ! This blog was created by some students to speak more about some subjects seen in English courses.
Where the idea comes from ?
This idea comes from Mr Ray Genet himself. The subjects seen in English courses with him refers often of our perception, sensitivity or philosophy. In such subjects, there are always more than one point of view. Some students often disagree with our professor. A day, he says to a student who often disagrees with him that he can create a blog to explain his disapproval. So, here we are :)
What can I find here ?
The main purpose of this blog is to share opinions about the subjects you want, mainly about what we saw in class. The blog allows us to practice our written English and share freely our opinion without the time constraint. You can find some student's point of view. In general, an article will introduce a subject and anyone can add his point of view through the comments.
What are the rules ?
It is a blog inspired by our English professor and his 'official' blog : nature-art-language.blogspot.com
Feel free to leave us our comments but:
Where the idea comes from ?
This idea comes from Mr Ray Genet himself. The subjects seen in English courses with him refers often of our perception, sensitivity or philosophy. In such subjects, there are always more than one point of view. Some students often disagree with our professor. A day, he says to a student who often disagrees with him that he can create a blog to explain his disapproval. So, here we are :)
What can I find here ?
The main purpose of this blog is to share opinions about the subjects you want, mainly about what we saw in class. The blog allows us to practice our written English and share freely our opinion without the time constraint. You can find some student's point of view. In general, an article will introduce a subject and anyone can add his point of view through the comments.
What are the rules ?
It is a blog inspired by our English professor and his 'official' blog : nature-art-language.blogspot.com
Feel free to leave us our comments but:
- Try to avoid mistakes and abbreviations when you write
- Don't hesitate to leave your name on commenting
- Keep in mind that the purpose of this blog is to share opinion about subjects. Please, be respectful
- The admin keep the right to edit, delete comments which are not matching these rules
- Mr. Genet can ask the admin to edit or delete posts -even this blog- if he feels them unsuitable
mardi 14 octobre 2008
Tales of an epic battle
This is not a pooh
Today is a good day ! As we came today close to the end of the presentations concerning the highly controversial book The Tao of Pooh, a very animated and pasionnate debate took place between Mr Genet and a team of joyful and merry fellows, including myself, concerning the value of the taoist message driven by the book and the way it is presented to us. Let's come back on the main points that, I think, shall retain our attention.
VinegarTaster drew first blood
The Tao of Pooh is presented as a set of taoist guiding principles, aiming to help people finding tranquillity and maybe hapiness in their too complex and obscured lives, made inextricable by to much thinking and business. You may say "What a noble goal, this book must be highly exciting !" (I mean, if you're really naive or just kidding). But in practice ... errrr ... Suffice it to say that not the whole group was convinced by the correctness of the opinions exposed it the volume. As a member of this blog and Ray's biggest fan, I can't resist the temptation to share here my point of view on the question. Let me share with you the three main points that I will remember from pooh.
Philosophy lesson : The engie who wanted to be a real little boy
Let's face it : As future engies, we're probably bound to be what the Tao of Pooh describes as Bisy Backsons, that is people emprisonned in complex thinkings, unable to see the simple and little things of life, well ... you got the point, unless you slept for three weeks in english course. So this is it, we should just drop what we're doing, forget the things we learned as they are only meant to confuse us, and wander joyfully in the forest eating honey thinking of nothing and waiting until a fantastic inspiration will come to us. And in the case we got an extraordinary idea, we should throw it away quickly and forget it, just to be sure that not two of them are stored at the same time in our brain (they could try to confuse us ... booh !). And above all, we must stay as savage, brutal, illetrate and ignorant as possible. In one word, remain at the animal state. That's the Uncarved Block principle you see, if we get educated then we're lost, we'll never be clean- and open-minded. There's nothing such as a good rabbit-hunt, running naked in the bushes, to have a clear mind and to develop observation.
OK, I'm kidding. Let be honest : actually, keeping a clear mind is indeed necessary when creativity is needed. The ground theory, although maybe a little simple, could be really valuable I think, and if you get right down to it, the basis upon which this Tao of Pooh is built is not bad, and I do apply most of these principles every day myself ... but this book according to me goes light-years too far. It presents the simplicity principle, but simplicity alone without some rigor is like a human body without bones : It can't stand. Actually, the tao of Pooh for this reason looks to me like the most outrageous and stupid eulogy of mediocrity. According to it, laziness, indolence and ignorance would be three of the highest virtues we should pursue. What kind of society and life do you build on these ?
Logic lesson : Assuming that the conclusion is true ...
There's also a point that I wanted to speak about, and I tried to do it in class, but according to our teacher's reaction and given the fact that we couldn't exchange one simple sentence on the subject, it might be that I wasn't clear enough. Therefore I will explain it again in the following lines.
I was accused of rejecting the book's theories because the examples were built using the characters of pooh and his friends. If I well understood the reproach that was adressed to me, I would be full of misplaced despise for that, because I would have lost my childish dreams or what ... I don't think I never said or suggested anything like that. But maybe this was an attempt to convince me that ideas indeed come from nothing ? Actually that was a very convincing and clever example, as I really don't know where the heck this one came from.
The point that I was to defend was totally different. My problem with the book, appart from the in-depth ideas problems discussed above, was the form. The author used an original formal system to prove his assertions. The concept is quite simple : You have a knowledge of the world, and a property you want to prove. The process is split into two steps : First, you assume that the conclusion is true. Then, you deduce from the first point that the conlusion is true, and that's it ! Simple isn't ? All examples are made this way : The author present us on-demand characters, tuned to behave as good taosits example, and guess what ? It works ... Bloody brilliant, that's a totally taoist approach of logic ! Forget everything. Don't care. I should consider to use this formalism to write my future articles, this would help me to save a lot of redaction efforts.
Goodbye Winnie
As Winnie will leave us soon, I shall adress sincere thanks to Mr Ray Genet for giving us the chance to know this book. This gave me a lot of things to think about, and since I'm not a perfect taoist I will try to learn from this episode. But what d'you want ? Nobody's perfect ...
Today is a good day ! As we came today close to the end of the presentations concerning the highly controversial book The Tao of Pooh, a very animated and pasionnate debate took place between Mr Genet and a team of joyful and merry fellows, including myself, concerning the value of the taoist message driven by the book and the way it is presented to us. Let's come back on the main points that, I think, shall retain our attention.
VinegarTaster drew first blood
The Tao of Pooh is presented as a set of taoist guiding principles, aiming to help people finding tranquillity and maybe hapiness in their too complex and obscured lives, made inextricable by to much thinking and business. You may say "What a noble goal, this book must be highly exciting !" (I mean, if you're really naive or just kidding). But in practice ... errrr ... Suffice it to say that not the whole group was convinced by the correctness of the opinions exposed it the volume. As a member of this blog and Ray's biggest fan, I can't resist the temptation to share here my point of view on the question. Let me share with you the three main points that I will remember from pooh.
Philosophy lesson : The engie who wanted to be a real little boy
Let's face it : As future engies, we're probably bound to be what the Tao of Pooh describes as Bisy Backsons, that is people emprisonned in complex thinkings, unable to see the simple and little things of life, well ... you got the point, unless you slept for three weeks in english course. So this is it, we should just drop what we're doing, forget the things we learned as they are only meant to confuse us, and wander joyfully in the forest eating honey thinking of nothing and waiting until a fantastic inspiration will come to us. And in the case we got an extraordinary idea, we should throw it away quickly and forget it, just to be sure that not two of them are stored at the same time in our brain (they could try to confuse us ... booh !). And above all, we must stay as savage, brutal, illetrate and ignorant as possible. In one word, remain at the animal state. That's the Uncarved Block principle you see, if we get educated then we're lost, we'll never be clean- and open-minded. There's nothing such as a good rabbit-hunt, running naked in the bushes, to have a clear mind and to develop observation.
OK, I'm kidding. Let be honest : actually, keeping a clear mind is indeed necessary when creativity is needed. The ground theory, although maybe a little simple, could be really valuable I think, and if you get right down to it, the basis upon which this Tao of Pooh is built is not bad, and I do apply most of these principles every day myself ... but this book according to me goes light-years too far. It presents the simplicity principle, but simplicity alone without some rigor is like a human body without bones : It can't stand. Actually, the tao of Pooh for this reason looks to me like the most outrageous and stupid eulogy of mediocrity. According to it, laziness, indolence and ignorance would be three of the highest virtues we should pursue. What kind of society and life do you build on these ?
Logic lesson : Assuming that the conclusion is true ...
There's also a point that I wanted to speak about, and I tried to do it in class, but according to our teacher's reaction and given the fact that we couldn't exchange one simple sentence on the subject, it might be that I wasn't clear enough. Therefore I will explain it again in the following lines.
I was accused of rejecting the book's theories because the examples were built using the characters of pooh and his friends. If I well understood the reproach that was adressed to me, I would be full of misplaced despise for that, because I would have lost my childish dreams or what ... I don't think I never said or suggested anything like that. But maybe this was an attempt to convince me that ideas indeed come from nothing ? Actually that was a very convincing and clever example, as I really don't know where the heck this one came from.
The point that I was to defend was totally different. My problem with the book, appart from the in-depth ideas problems discussed above, was the form. The author used an original formal system to prove his assertions. The concept is quite simple : You have a knowledge of the world, and a property you want to prove. The process is split into two steps : First, you assume that the conclusion is true. Then, you deduce from the first point that the conlusion is true, and that's it ! Simple isn't ? All examples are made this way : The author present us on-demand characters, tuned to behave as good taosits example, and guess what ? It works ... Bloody brilliant, that's a totally taoist approach of logic ! Forget everything. Don't care. I should consider to use this formalism to write my future articles, this would help me to save a lot of redaction efforts.
Goodbye Winnie
As Winnie will leave us soon, I shall adress sincere thanks to Mr Ray Genet for giving us the chance to know this book. This gave me a lot of things to think about, and since I'm not a perfect taoist I will try to learn from this episode. But what d'you want ? Nobody's perfect ...
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