Monday, April 26, 2010

The value of a human life

What am I busy with lately? Well I chanced upon a wonderful site. It is the most popular course in Harvard. A lesson on political philosophy, Justice with Michael Sandel. And it is available online. It was a wonderful opportunity to think about this topic from the very best. In the very first lesson on the morality of murder, I recalled an important scene in the Korean drama 善德女王 in the 22nd episode. Bidam needed some medicine to save about 200 dying sick people. And one way is to sacrifice Deokman to some evil people (Seolwon) who wanted to catch her. Munno is Bidam's teacher. This is the scene.

德曼:你拿到药材,一定要救活那200个人。
薛原公带来很多细辛,然后毗昙把德曼转交给他们。
毗昙拿走药材,走了,但是样子很犹豫。
文努得知毗昙卖了德曼,换了药材,很生气。
毗昙:能救200人不是比1个人,当然要换不是吗?他们不会杀了她,而且她还谢谢我呢。
文努:她为什么谢你?
毗昙想起了德曼的话,跟文努说对不起。然后去找德曼。
毗昙出现:药材是拿走了,不过怎么想都绝对不对,我以后一定还你药材钱,我要带走她。
疯了?你知道这里是什么地方,给我滚开。
德曼:怎么回来了,不是要救200个吗?
毗昙:能用数字来代替人命吗?唉,又要挨骂了。

Deokman: When you get the medicine, you must save 200 lives.
Seolwon brought the medicine, and Bidam handed over Deokman to him.
Bidam took the medicine away but he was troubled.
Munno knew about the exchange and he was furious.
Bidam: If I can exchange 200 lives for 1 life, of course I would do it, isn't it?
Munno: Can human lives be a numerical game?
Bidam left to save Deokman.

This scene was very memorable to me because it did asked an important question, as Prof Michael Sandel asked: What is the right thing to do? Can we exchange 1 life for the lives of 200? In the end, I agree with the answer from the character Munno. No, we do not have that right. Simply because human lives is not a numerical game. There isn't a way to calculate the equation.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Jewish view of the Afterlife

According to Judaism 101, they can choose from a huge variety of opinions on the afterlife. One of my Orthodox Jewish friend believes in this:

"When a person dies basically a couple of things happen. We believe that each person's soul before coming into the world sees the life it will lead and agrees to come into the world with certain things it will try to do (which it then forgets). If it did what it meant to do, it waits for the next world which will keep the good things of this world and build on them. If the soul did not complete its task, then it can try again as another person if it wants.Souls that did just horrible things (evil people with no redeeming aspects to their lives, which are rare) are just re-absorbed into G-d so that they no long have the illusion of a separate existence. The rest basically re-enter the world when the next world comes-- which will be a physical world like this one but somehow different."

It is apparently not uncommon among the orthodox Jews. If you want stories, I found this interesting site on Jewish reincarnation stories.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Review: Piano no Mori (The Piano Forest)

I am a fan of Anime feature movies, and the way I do my selection is via the award winners like Animation of the Year for the Japan Academy Prize. After I found out that the Piano Forest was one of the nominees for 2008, I bought it when it was on offer.

The story is about 2 boys with two different approaches to piano playing. One plays for fun, one plays with discipline. Like Sense and sensibility, eventually both learns the value in each other.

Teacher: Congratulations on qualifying. You rarely hear such highly accomplished piano playing.
Amamiya: Thank you very much. Do you think I could play the piano and move people like Kai-kun does? Will I be able to play like that some day?
Teacher: You need to learn to love your own piano-playing more.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Past, Present, Future

Everybody knows about the relativity of time. How sometimes time just sped by. How sometimes time slows to an intolerable crawl. I had a sermon just talking about time in respect to Jesus. I recently discovered that the best place that exemplify this wierd construct of time is in the world of webcomics.

In the world of webcomics, a slice of time is given in a page of comics. For some comics, time stood still. The characters like Charlie Brown are forever young. For others, they age with time, like Baby Blues. Even within a page, a story could be completed, or it could be a tiny fragment of a huge story.

I am currently reading Gunnerkrigg Court. It comes highly recommended, and it indeed lives up to its reputation. I sped through its archives within a sitting, and there is never a dull moment. It is a highly imaginative world that blends mythology, science and interesting characters. Yet, when I caught up to the present, I'm forced to wait patiently for the 3 times a week updates. The comic now moves at an unbearable pace. That seems to be so reflective of life. The past is less than a flicker, the present plodding slowly and the future totally unseen. If I have a remote control on life, would I want to fast forward? Would you?

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Learning History with a Twist

This is my latest daily project. I've always loved to know more about history. But it is difficult to do it in a fun way. Luckily, I came across this webcomic Hark! A Vagrant. It's a comic by Kate Beaton and the main topic is on mocking history. So what I did was to read this comic and if the topic is of interest to me, I'll read up the history on wikipedia.

The latest entry is on the rivalry between Tesla, Edison and Marconi. Because of this introduction by Hark! A Vagrant, I was able to learn about the differences between Tesla and Edison on AC/DC and Tesla and Marconi on the invention of radio. I even learn something about patents and how they are awarded. It's fun for me to learn history this way.