Cosmology Notes

Here are a set of Cosmology notes aimed at final year undergraduates.

http://astro.imperial.ac.uk/~jaffe/teaching/Cosmology2010/Cosmology.pdf

Hope this helps.

Music and Life

I've found a video which represents my sentiments rather accurately.

Experiences of Sympathy: Are Humans Condemned to be Selfish?

Are we all selfish? I am currently choosing between the following essay titles "Does it make sense to claim that human nature is always self-interested?" and "Does society civilize us or corrupt us?". Giving some thought on the former I have found that many people have a rather cynical view of human nature and agree that humans are always selfish beings.

I sat in a lecture yesterday on Utilitarianism which can be crudely summarised as: the act which is morally right is that which provides the greatest happiness.

During the lecture we looked at David Hume who thought human nature was not self interested due to empirical evidence. It was the existence of sympathy which manifests when we cry during a film, feel hatred for a fictional villain, do not step on the feet of injured men etc. He argued that there are a great number of instances where our actions cannot be accounted for by self interest. 

The power of the argument didn't really hit me until I had my next encounter with sympathy. My friend had electrically burnt his thumb by accident. When he displayed the wound I involuntarily repulsed and was swept with an emotional state of displeasure to witness his suffering. The suffering of another brought about displeasure in my self. Surely this demonstrates that at least my human nature is not one of naive self interest.

If one were to accept the utilitarian criterion then deriving the greatest happiness entails minimising the suffering of others and maximising their pleasure also. This is because we are sympathetic creatures.

Some would argue that by helping others we are just inducing pleasure or minimising displeasure in ourselves. Thus still behaving selfishly. I believe this is a fallacy and will expose this in a future entry.

I'd be interested in hearing about other stories of sympathy so please comment!

A Sketch of the Future: Rousseau and a Critique of Fast Paced Modern Living

I would like to sketch out here a few ideas which I will be discussing in future entries. I have been studying Rousseau as of late and have been inspired with some of the insights he describes in the Discourse on Inequality. I would like to relate Rousseau to another critique of modern living.

In future entries I will attempt to elaborate on the criticism that modern living forces many of us to become overly future oriented and to neglect experiences of the present moment. We live in a highly meritocratic society where we are encouraged to give the majority of our time to achieve future goals. From our infancy to teen years we are examined and tested regularly. The incentive for doing well is to have a better choice of schooling to then be examined further. We achieve the grades to then enter a university to attain a degree to get a good job. Then with that job we want career progression and must achieve certain goals to reach the next stage.

Our minds constantly engaged in the future we strive to attain happiness through the achievement of an end goal. The problem with this is that we forget to appreciate and live life in each moment. I do not think the achievement of goals could ever give us a lasting sense of happiness. I think a greater emphasis needs to be placed on finding contentment in the process of doing something as opposed to striving to find happiness in the achievement of any particular goal.

I am not saying we should not think about the future or plan ahead. What I am saying is that we should not forget  to live in the moment and take time to appreciate the now. In becoming absorbed with the future we forget to live. Days, months and maybe years may pass until we realise that in the time of achieving that goal (say a degree) that we have forgotten to actually live.

I hope to formulate these thoughts far more concisely and with much more clarity in a future entry. I would also then love to give a Rousseau-lian input to this topic.

Understanding in Maths and Physics

I would like to pose a question to anyone who studies a highly mathematical science. What do we mean when we say we "understand" a particular concept?

I can write an equation on a board and recite what each symbol stands for. This does not, however, constitute understanding. It simply means we can recall what word is associated with which symbol. Ultimately it seems to me that to have an "understanding" of a concept simply means we can manipulate a set of symbols according to a particular set of rules to achieve what is considered the "correct" answer.

However, when undergoing new research this cannot be the case as the generation of new ideas precedes mere symbol manipulation (or does it...?).

At the level of undergraduate teaching, however, it seems almost that being able to associate particular symbols with particular words and being able to manipulate them constitutes an "understanding" of the underlying concepts. Is this really understanding or just a sign that understanding can be easily feigned?