16 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2019
    1. UTILITARIANISM

      Via Stanford Encyclopedia - History of Utilitarianism: "Though there are many varieties of the view discussed, utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. There are many ways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is that the theory is a form of consequentialism: the right action is understood entirely in terms of consequences produced. What distinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the scope of the relevant consequences. On the utilitarian view one ought to maximize the overall good — that is, consider the good of others as well as one's own good."

  2. www.poetryfoundation.org www.poetryfoundation.org
    1. Archilochus

      Archilocus employs the motif of the abandoned shield in his poems. "In one famous poem, Archilochus tells, without embarrassment or regret, of throwing his shield away in battle. ('I saved my life. What do I care about my shield? The hell with it! I’ll buy another just as good.') The motif of the abandoned shield appears again in the lyric poems of Alcaeus and Anacreon, in a parody by Aristophanes (Peace), and in a learned variation by the Latin poet Horace (Carmina)." Here is an example in Greek: Ἀσπίδι μὲν Σαΐων τις ἀγάλλεται, ἥν παρὰ θάμνῳ ἔντος ἀμώμητον κάλλιπον οὐκ ἐθέλων· αὐτὸν δ' ἔκ μ' ἐσάωσα· τί μοι μέλει ἀσπὶς ἐκείνη; Ἐρρέτω· ἐξαῦτις κτήσομαι οὐ κακίω. Translation: Some Saian (Thracian tribe) is glorying over my shield, an impeccable itemOf gear that I had to leave under a bush.But I got out alive, who gives a fig for that shield?Let it go to hell. I’ll buy a new one, no worse.

    1. Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. [ Urbigenous Library ]

      On page 63 of Paul J. Nahin's book "Holy Sci-Fi!: Where Science Fiction and Religion Intersect" written on the chapter with the heading "Time, Space, God's Omniscience and Free Will"; he writes about the required timing for the stars to go out at just the exact time: "The required omniscience of God's part is, of course, due to the finite speed of light. Many (if not nearly all) of those stars must have been extinguished by God long ago, long before King Tut was born (and certainly before the priests even began their work three centuries before), in order for their synchronous vanishing to appear on Earth just as the Mark V finishes its job and when George and Chuck look towards the heavens"

    2. “Well, they believe that when they have listed all His names — and they reckon that there are about nine billion of them — God’s purpose will be achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won’t be any point in carrying on. Indeed, the very idea is something like blasphemy.”

      Sci-Fi Stack Exchange has a good thread on what this story signified https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/102956/what-does-the-end-of-nine-billion-names-of-god-signify

    3. “I see. You’ve been starting at AAAAAAA... and working up to ZZZZZZZZ....” “Exactly — though we use a special alphabet of our own. Modifying the electromatic typewriters to deal with this is, of course, trivial. A rather more interesting problem is that of devising suitable circuits to eliminate ridiculous combinations. For example, no letter must occur more than three times in succession.” “Three? Surely you mean two.” “Three is correct: I am afraid it would take too long to explain why, even if you understood our language.”

      Andrew Oakley actually wrote a Javascript program to do exactly what the monk was asking Dr. Wagner on the day that Arthur C. Clarke died (March 19, 2008). The site of course has a disclaimer if you decide to run the program to completion: "USE OF THIS PROGRAM IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY LIABILITY FOR THE CONSEQUENCES SHOULD YOU ALLOW THIS PROGRAM TO RUN TO COMPLETION." See: http://www.aoakley.com/articles/2008-03-19.php