Politics

Although I am neither a politician nor a philosopher, I do have a political stance. I can classify myself as a libertarian socialist. I like Noam Chomsky's political views. I found a few nice videos of his talks and interviews on Google Video.

Fucking Åmål

This is the best movie I have seen in the last few months. Highly recommended.

Theory vs. Practice

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
--Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut

How far are you willing to go to pass the buck?

Can you see the similarity between Binding of Isaac and Milgram experiment?

Movie on campus

I saw The Fountain in the movie theatre on campus today. It was not as good as I expected

Nevertheless it reminded me of the saying Every fear is fear of death. But after a little thought I found a counterexample: suicide.

Are you afraid of death?

Natural Language

Natural language is a fascinating thing. Some ancient philosophers defined humans as talking animals. It is a means of communication that enables humans to use each others experiences and do things that no individual can do.

Yet it is interesting that there are so many different languages in the world (Maybe in the future there will be only one). Natural language is misleading in many occasions as it is not possible to perfectly share feelings with words.

Also the language is dependent on our perception of the world and on our physical body. For example I have no idea how a color blind interprets this sentence Her face turned red.

We do not dream in any language. We just feel the situations in our dreams. I wonder if natural language with all it's deficiencies can be blamed for the problems of mankind....

To work or not to work?

When I have nothing to do I always look forward for work. When I have actually some work to do I always postpone it until the last moment. Is this natural?

The birth of every new child

...tells us that humans are not yet desperate of themselves.

The question is...

The ends justify the means. (I am not sure but let's assume that it is true). The question is what justifies the ends?

Draw me a sheep!

The Little Prince is my favourite book.

There is a Persian translation and audio adaption of this book by Ahmad Shamlou (Persian: احمد شاملو).

Most Underreported Story of 2006

See this YouTube video.

A comment reads: It's not that the good guys win, it's that the winners are the good guys.

Strong AI

I personally believe that we will be able to create Turing test passing strong AI in the next 50 years (That is in my expected life span). Pretty much anything one can dream of in todays sci-fic.

But I have an ethical problem. I will never create something that can suffer. See: Why I will never have a child.