Of Karma and Justice

First of all, it is important to agree that Justice involves interactions within a group, in a world of 1 justice makes little sense. This would suggest a definition of Justice along the lines of:

Justice is achieved through the optimization of individual well-being throughout the group, i.e. maintaining each individual's well being near the mean of the group.

Game theory, would suggest that in a changing dynamic world, with limited, yet growing resources; the reality of Justice as a virtue allows the group (a species) to profit from behavior such as empathy, and self-sacrifice; which would explain how said emotions have become embedded within many species throughout evolutionary time.

Karma expresses the flow of well-being towards achieving Justice as it relates our evolved emotional responses to events and our actions. It is similar to keeping count of standard deviations from the mean.

Many ways of achieving justice have bean thought out; most religions deal extensively on the subject as do all political systems. In the end; justice as something more complex than even the simplest cooperative games is NP - complete and we will continue forever changing and optimizing our laws and beliefs regarding our communal well-being to our current situations.

As sentient being, I agree the pursuit of justice is a responsibility we hold to ourselves, it is crucial to our survival.

Heart Broken

I remember telling someone, on her porch one afternoon: "That's because you have never really had your heart broken, and I will do my best so it never is."

Although I consider the promise was kept, it's easy to falter and maybe believe an impeccable heart to be an unwanted gift. There is a story of an old man whose' wounded, grieving heart he would not trade for that of a boy. A beautifully intact heart which was so naively boasted through the town; the story ends with the boy giving the old man a piece of the suddenly incomplete organ, and is an analogy of giving one's self in love.

In that boys eyes, and specially in these times, Love is a sentiment too often confused with desire, and self-adorement (narcissism), so the phrase: 'you must loose something to understand its real worth' urges one to believe a heart must be broken / given before one can understand its value, yet I believe in empathy. Time has bestowed upon life an infinitely powerful tool of comprehension, of understanding reality not only though our own eyes, but from those around us, of allowing us to share the responsibility of a better world.

It could be argued, that empathy is the root emotion behind the search for Justice (in another post, I quote a French philosopher who state Justice is an invention of man, and as such a responsibility of man unto himself.) So, if Love is a sentiment to be put to good use it must be born though Empathy, Comprehension, Dedication, Patience and Understanding, it must be a sentiment of Sharing, of reciprocal Trust and Cooperative Growth.

I recently heard a song: "What is love without lust" (La Roux - In For The Kill) and its something little short of coming from the black bible and a willingness to over-weigh self-adulation, self-fulfillment above all other things.

In that sense, and living through heart-breaks myself, there will always be choices in life. Choosing to be heart broken, is just as selfish as choosing lust. Evolution has seen to it so that our empathy, and sense of justice, prohibit us from attaining happiness if not through what we have identified as the virtues of life.

Some references:

• LifeScience - Study: People Literally Feel Pain of Others
• Roots of Empathy
• BBC News - Monkeys show sense of justice
• Shareable - Birds do It. Bats do It.
• Love of All Wisdom - Can justice make you happy?
• Suite101 - The Psychopath Antisocial
• Wikipedia - Psycopathy

I just can't keep it to myself

My mom, like the guy in this story has decided to invade my personal choices with her own opinion. She has started a campaign of sprinkling holy water on me now...

Its fun seeing her give me gods blessing and drawing the cross on my forehead; often times I struggle against the urge of playing some prank on her, like yelling: It Burns, It Burns!. I strongly suspect she'd fall to the floor and pray, my lord forgive him, my lord save him. Or something less dramatical, like fake a small wince, and have her spray a little more, and hug me. and then play around with that; but hey, I choose not to, specially since God would punish me if I did.

As a closing argument; an 18 year old boy speaks on why he has chosen to ignore faith: MilenaC

My new phone

0.9999... == 1

How can 0.9999... be equal to one? Won't a little always be missing? "Embrace the power of infinity"...

A daimond in the rough

Just as bad seeds grow in beautiful gardens, you can sometimes find a gorgeous soul amongst corrupted minds. Variety such a beautiful burden... Synonymous to existance...