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Erin's picture

Afterthoughs

 

Last week’s discussion is really interesting addressed the topics about moral lives of babies and book of Logicomix. There are several interesting points I want to point out.

1.       I am really fascinated bout the idea about the formal system. I am surprised to find that the term of everything which I use every day does not exist. No matter how big the scale of everything is, there is always something bigger. Notably, the ideal model of formal system which Russell spent most of his life to establish doesn’t exist. Because the fundamental way to establish it determined that such system can be the ultimate solution to solve all the conflicts in the world. The completeness and consistence can be satisfied at the same time. Some people may consider that Russell’s entire life as a tragedy because he “wasted” his life on something can be done. However, I think he has been passionate about his career and never stop explore the boundaries of human’s logic field. I think the process of pushing himself to the limits of the humankind has been a great reward for himself. Nevertheless, the work his has achieved has laid the solid for many modern science and played undeniable roles in our today’s lives. Sometimes, you can’t anticipate the outcome, as long as you are doing better than yesterday. I consider the process as progress and success.

2.       The interesting research about babies drives my attention too. I think this also related to the topic we had last week: born with evil? This two research paper supported my opinion about babies before. However, babies are better than I expected. I always believed that babies are like sheets of blank paper. Everybody around them, everything happened around him has an inevitable impact on the growth of babies. A baby raise in a good family is more likely to behave well. However, this two study show babies have the initial psychological development already. I am wondering if the level of morality of every baby is more associated with the genetic information of the affections and contacts they have before they were born. Babies are amazing, but I am sad to the diminishing potential in babies. I hope we can figure out a way to keep the period of high capacity to learn longer.

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