Excellent Finals!

As I graded your finals, I could only think how wonderful your TOK papers will be. If you write your papers half as well as you wrote this final, you will be in excellent shape. I could not believe how thorough and in-depth your writing was on an extemporaneous essay!

Have a great break!

In our recent discussions, we have talked about finding an equation to model everything in our universe, everything from the micro to the macro, the tangible to the intangible. I find this task to be taking on too much. I believe that capabilities such as finding the universal equation cannot be achieved because some things are not meant to be discovered. I don't mean this as in the moment that a person finds this equation that Zeus will strike them with a lightning bolt, but this desire to know everything has an uncomfortable feeling with me.

Heisenberg and other physicists in the first half of the 20th Century had researched to develop an equation to map the formulation of quantum physics. All though their main goal had been too find this equation, Heisenberg was constantly troubled by the variables. His primary concern to solve was that uncertainty is actually a property of the world. And in this it was physically impossible to measure specific momentum and particle positions to a degree that would able him to model an equation to quantum mechanics.

Physicists have come up with formulas such as the Schrödinger equation, and Heisenberg's matrix model, but how do these improve our society? Sure, physics and science play a key role and our advancement is dependent upon critical thought. But maybe the Schrödinger equation, and Heisenberg's matrix model are a little too much? Sorry about the location of the equation above, but I am happy living my life without worrying what that even means.

Asimo

I apologize that this is extremely unrelated to the current topics at hand, but I saw this video and needed to share. It appears that robots (or at least this one specifically) are learning to embrace abstraction, an ability supposedly characteristic of humans. Here is the video for those interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18wSJs6LIc0

If you don't wish to watch the video: Asimo is presented with an object "Chair." He looks at its properties and can identify it as a Chair. He is then is presented with an office stool which he recognizes as another type of Chair. And then he is presented with a small table, which he recognizes as not a type of Chair.

Main point: we should warn Will Smith.
(An awful IRobot reference)

Hunger Articles

Of all the information present in the articles on hunger, what I found most interesting was the statement made that hunger kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. Diseases such as AIDS have no known cure; a diagnoses is certain death. However, hunger is not incurable. In fact, the resources used to cure hunger (food, obviously) is so overwhelmingly present in my life that I often throw food away without a second thought. When I was a child my grandmother always told me to eat all my food because there were children starving all over the world. While that argument seems stupid to me now (really, how is my food going to help them?), it has become obvious that food distribution, not food availability is the factor killing people in poverty. Everyday I hear of scientific studies to find cures for AIDS, cancer, and other diseases that are currently fatal. Hunger is fatal as well, but there is a known cure. Why then, do I not hear of scientists studies to discover ways to distribute the food that is already produced. The task seems much easier than curing AIDS, and the problem is much more widespread. I think the answer has something to do with the state of American poverty. Poverty in the United States is much less a result of food distribution than poverty in other countries. With all the cheap food available at WalMart and McDonald's we find it hard to conceptualize that food just doesn't exist in the abundance and cheapness in other countries as it does in the United States. Therefore many Americans, including myself, will donate food to homeless shelters or money to humanitarian groups. However, very few are able to recognize the need to research a way to eliminate this problem rather than merely donate. In effect, it is a problem of knowledge. Most of us only know about foreign poverty through articles and tv reports, very few have been able to see it or experience it. This knowledge is too removed, and doesn't allow us to realize the correct way to cure the problem of foreign hunger.

1 life + 1 computer + 10 minutes = -100 lives

To be honest none of the information in these articles surprised me. I've seen similar facts and figures year after year but the numbers merely build. Even though I know I've seen it all before, I'm still shocked by what the articles have to say. I don't think it's the numbers and figures are what makes my jaw drop: it's because of the lack of help being done to prevent the rise in these figures. The articles focus on world hunger and especially, child hunger. What I don't understand is that so much focus has been put on world hunger that less attention is being put on our own country's problems with hunger. It may sound selfish but it's true. We need to learn how to balance between help in other countries and our own. In the U.S. Declaration of Independence, it promotes the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Isn't a part of life, food and water? If we don't eat or drink we die. It's as simple as that. We should have more than enough resources for everyone to have what they need; and we do. The problem is people are consuming what they want, exceeding what they need. In the first article (Blake), it said "everytime an American bites down on a steak or hamburger, they're contributing to global hunger." This is because this burger (probably soaked in grease, topped with too much bacon, and more than one stacked patty) is excess at its finest. You always hear the expression "Less is more," it's because less is enough. Less is the minimum and I don't mean minimum like minimum wage. I mean the minimum that you can survive well; you are fit, happy, and healthy.

The one aspect that also moved me emotionally about the articles was the mothers having to choose which child lives. They don't know the future of their child: what they will amount to, what they will acheive. However, the mothers have the power to end this one life by denying their child a basic right to life. It doesn't make sense that many individuals today are pro-life when it comes to abortion yet when it comes to hunger they fall short. During the election I heard so many campaigns about being pro-life or pro-choice but I didn't hear a mention of tackling hunger [national or world-wide]. I just don't understand how this inconsistency in support can be tolerated when I can't even begin to think about how many children have died in the time that I have typed this entry on the blog.