Monthly Archives: December 2011

What would Jesus say?

Peace on earth.

There is a sense in which Jesus is a model for human beings to follow. He was a man of his time who held the assumptions and beliefs of his era. He is portrayed as a charismatic man who lived with intense purpose and drive, who had an existential thrust to his life, who cared deeply about human beings, and who wrestled with profound questions of ethics. The stories that grew up around him have affected the world for two thousand years and have touched the deepest parts of our humanity with their simplicity of image and their promise of “salvation”.

-from READING THE BIBLE: Intention, Text, Interpretation

Reasoner

The latest issue of The Reasoner is now freely available for download in pdf format at http://www.thereasoner.org/

Editorial – Elpida Tzafestas

Interview with Jacques Pitrat and Aaron Sloman – Elpida Tzafestas

Frege’s Puzzle from a Model-Based Point of View – Karlis Podnieks

Games and the Reason-Knowledge Principle – Brian Weatherson

History and Philosophy of Computing, 7–10 November – Liesbeth de Mol & Giuseppe Primiero

Workshop on Semantics, Pragmatics and Rhetoric, 9–11 November – Maria Ponte

Explanation, Causality, and Unification, 11–12 November – Gerhard Schurz & Alexander Gebharter

Workshop in Social Epistemology, 8–9 December – Frank Zenker

Uncertain Reasoning – Hykel Hosni

Pigeons, sets, and humility

In The Descent of Man, Darwin reflected:

The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, is certainly one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.”

(See also: Darwin’s Camera.)

image

Pigeons can learn abstract numerical rules, a skill that scientists had believed only primates possessed. 

Euthanasia [updated]

 How doctors die - here.

Active & Passive Euthanasia – Is there a moral distinction?  here.

Euthanasia: the debate continues – here.

BC woman fighting for right to die – here.

The fight to legalize assisted suicide – here.

ProCon.org – here.

Globe and Mail – here.

BC Civil Liberties – here.

The BCCLA believes that every Canadian should have the choice to have what they consider to be a good death, including the option of a medically-assisted death for seriously and incurably ill, mentally competent adults. Without a change in the law, seriously ill individuals will continue to suffer against their wishes at the end of life, without the choice and dignity that they deserve.