Blogs

Presentation to The Philosophy Forum September 4, 2011

Presentation to the Melbourne Philosophy Forum, August 7th, 2011

1. Typical Definitions of Happiness
1.1 the quality or state of being happy, good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy. (e.g., from Collins English Dictionary)
1.2 Origin (hap + y) 1150–1200; Middle English 1.3 Perspectives of "happiness" can come from religious, philosophical, psychological and economic viewpoints - plus a fairly unique revealed here.

Presentation to the Melbourne Existentialist Society, August 2nd, 2011

It is not uncommon for advocates to argue that the production of an sufficiently large expert rules based system will provide the sufficient and necessary requirements for 'strong' artificial intelligence. In recent days, attempts in this direction were made not by inorganic computational capacity, but rather with the development of a neural network using DNA.

Service at the Melbourne Unitarian Church, July 1st, 2011

Nota bene: These are the opening words, reading and closing words that I selected for a speaker on the topic above. As it turned out they were given by another members as the speaker did not attend and I gave an address on the Rejection of Imposed Authority, Divine or Human

Opening Words

2006 Statement of Conscience from the Unitarian-Universalist Association on the Threat of Global Warming/Climate Change

Address at the Melbourne Unitarian Church, June 26, 2011

Nature is a gift of Providence and, as a result, one which we all have an equal right to. But this also means responsibility, that we must pay for whatever damage that is done to nature, and those who are responsible should carry that cost. Where that cost is not applied in accordance to responsibility a social cost arises, and indeed, is encouraged.

Address to the Melbourne Unitarian Church, Sunday May 22, 2011

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a disease which has been the subject of much commentary by religious-minded people since its discovery in 1981, many of whom sought to blame those infected. This was primarily due the discovery of the disease among gay men and injecting drug users, especially through the irregular increase of cases of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and a previously-rare skin cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma. Tabloid media, displaying the usual sensitivity and accuracy, called this the "Gay Plague".

The Kardashev Scale, created by Nikolai Kardashev in 1964, is a theory of advanced energy consumption. There are four types - and Earth isn't even one of them. We are currently below the scale because we can not yet make use of all available Earthly energy. The next few steps involve using an entire planet's energy, then expanding to other planets, then to galaxies, then the universe. There might be something beyond that, but let's not get too far into theory.