The source of morality is LOVE

Rationality, laws, institutions, decrees, rules, hierarchies, and meta-narratives are all tossed about and thrown against the rocks of the stormy grey sea that the world is. None of these will teach morality, for they all have one thing in common: they are made by humans, whispered or decreed, recommended or demanded, but all have the flaw of not acknowledging their subjectivity. Instead, they pretend to be the truth, objective and right. Morality cannot surge from such a cold, rational and pretentious place. Instead it must surge from a place which acknowledges the flaws, divides and subjectivity in humans. A place which breaths compassion and mercy, understanding and warmth, to be able to not objectively do what is right, but to feel the needs of the other, and act upon them. In other words, morality comes from love.

Humans are not ultimately bad, but they are not ultimately good either. They should not need structures, laws or decrees to guide them along the right path, but feeling for the neighbor, and an acknowledgement of the complexity of relationships. Some argue that if there were no laws or institutions created for the greater good of humanity, we as a human race would not feel compelled to stay in order, we would follow our own greedy personal wants, and would fight wars and hate and violence would escalate. I think that laws and instituions are just an excuse for a few to benefit over the many, while looking like they are doing the right thing, the good thing, because they work within the "legal" spectrum of things. We fool ourselves. Legality is the mask that greed hides behind, the towel we cover our heads with.  Laws are not a substitute for conscience. When there are laws, people are more interested in following them than in helping and accompanying people with love. Furthermore, the argument that without laws and institutions we would live in a world ridden with violence and degradation is false. "Well look buddy, its too late. We already live in a world with violence and hate. Look at Hiroshima. Look at the World Wars. Look at the capitalists who earn millions by exploiting nature, while 98% of the world is underprivileged. It would almost look like this suffering, hate and violence is caused by institutions and laws." We have to admit it. We can hardly get any worse. Laws and institutions decreed by man, varying all the way from orthodox religion to reasoning boxes we close ourselves into, to laws and politics, have done nothing. Morality can only come from feeling for others, from love. From communities which acknowledge the complexity of relationships, try to develop these, and are guided by no institution, law, or rational decree, but something as simple and great as love.

Terrorism as but a small piece in the cycle of Violence?

Is terrorism caused only by the malice and hate of a few demented people? or are there more factors in their existence than just their bad ideals and actions?
Terrorism exists as a reaction, not as a first hand action. Yes, it is wrong that civillians die, that innocents are killed, that there is reckless hate for an ideal. But I do not think terrorism would exist if it werent for the bad actions to cause reactions. For example the situation of Al Qaeda. They have terrible effect on society all around the world from blowing up buildings all around the world, to oppressing whole cultures into living in fear. I am not justifying their terrible actions, but I am stating that they are not the only ones doing wrong. I think that they are only motivated into existence by US invasion of what hey consider their land. There are many documentaries which show US's disregard for innocent people in the wars in the middle east, for example the real footage documentary Restrepo. Al Qaeda are pushed into existence by previous injustices, not entirely up to them, which they choose to respond to violently.

Al Qaeda would probably not exist if they had nothing to respond to, no previous deaths and violence inflicted upon their own people to avenge. They are terrible, violent, and cause huge amounts of harm and terror, no matter how much they may argue that they are freedom fighters. However, they are not the start of violence, they are just part of a continuing cycle of violence. That is why the situation in the middle east is very ironic: the USA is fighting a war in Afghanistan to "end terrorism", when probably the best thing to end terrorism is to not face and escalate the conflict, but pull the troops OUT. Peace would partially solve the problem the US is failing dramatically to solve with violence. By pulling the troops out, al Qaeda would have less to respond to, less to react to, and less of a base/founding ideology to push them in their terrible and violent resolve. Peace would destroy a large part of the base of this terrorist organization, leaving it weaker than even violence and war could.

is knowledge in math similar to history?

The way that you gain knowledge in math is not very similar to knowledge gained in history. In history one is given many sources, perspectives, views, and side to evaluate. there is one one ovewrrriding truth presented to you, while in math you are givenm a set of assumtions which have to be true for the math to work. There is no questioning of validity, of truth, of quality. math is just there, said to be true, "you do things this way, and if you want this way, but outside of this the global complexity of relationships and values is totally ignored." A truth is a truth, and one cannot question it, while in history there is no one way of looking at things, and there is no overriding truth. there is an open-ended and almost perpetual questionmark.

Is Mathematics discovered or invented?

Mathematics is invented. It is a human concept created (not found) for the exclusive use of humans. It is a box which we have made for ourselves, to categorize, explain and understand. It allows for no controversie within it, and has strict rules, so in other words it is a truth, one of the largest metanarratives that exist. However, in my opinion, there is no such thing as truth, therefore math, an overriding "truth" is not found, but invented. Take Pi as an example: Pi is a perfect circle. There is no such thing as a perfect circle in nature, because it does not fulfill completely the concept of Pi. Therefore Pi is invented, created, to categorize something that does not exist. It is the way humans are: proud and arrogant of categorizing something that is not even real, because, in my opinion, nothing is real no matter how hard math tries to prove it otherwise. Many mathematicians, and non mathematicians as well, claim that nature is math. This is a ridiculouse claim, seeing as math is invented by humans as a form of explaining nature, not nature invented by humans to explain math. Math in invented by humans, is not a metanarrative, and we fool our arrogant selves thinking math can give answers, when there is not answer, or this is an infinity of them.

Mini ToK Essay

2.  Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of reason as a way of knowing.
KI: To what extent is the ability to reason the same as the ability to know?
To what extent does knowledge reflect what we reason?

Main Points: Is reason alone enough to know?
Knowledge does not need to be rational or sorted.

Argument: I can know so many irrational things, and just because they are irrational doesnt mean they are not part of my knowledge.
The Irrational many times leads to creativity, to art, to thinking out of the box, and this type of knowledge is sometimes the most sought after.

Knowledge Issues

Knowledge Issues practice table 

	1	2	3	4
Good	To what extent do paranormal claims affect daily life and is this reasonable?	Is the clear reasoning of the pop. affected by the perception of swine flu more that it should?	Is wearing blue jeans in school reasonable for other reasons than perception an aesthetics? In other words, does color affect a mood?	Does emotion overpower reason while humans knowingly jeopardize nature for comfort?
Intermediate	Should we believe paranormal claims?	What can histories example on epidemics teach us about swine flu?	What is the effect of blue jeans in school that other color jeans don’t have?	Are humans the cause of the destruction of the environment directly or indirectly?
Poor	Does the Paranormal Exist?	Is swine flu likely to kill millions?	Is wearing black jeans, as opposed to blue jeans, appropriate?	Is Co2 the main cause of global warming?
Not a KI	What is the sex sence?	What do we mean by epidemic?	Wearing Jeans in school	A red flag warning article circulating the internet.
Real Life	A film on haunting	A news report on a new swine flu	An interview with Ms Anne	Co2 excess causes global warming

food as language

If language is any form of communication, is food language? if food communicates, who is the message sendor, and are we the receptors? what does food communicate? does food communicate happyness, is it food a communication with only oneself? can humans communicate through the emotions food creates?

Almost every social event is based around FOOD! "Would you like to come to dinner?" "Lets go out to eat." And its not really about the food, but food is creating a pretext for interaction within society.
When i see something I like, i get rather happy. My brain tells me that no matter my situation, if that food is in front of me, i can at least partially enjoy it. If i am hungry and i see food,  my mouth waters. This perspective, this method of recieving, is a strange form of language, but it is some sort of language, because a message is being received. That the food is totally inanimate doest mean much. Sometimes, what i eat used to be walking anyway. Emotions arise when eating, when recieving, lets say, a box of cookies, or a box of crackers. Food is a way of communication which humans use so often they forget about how much it helps to express oneself or be understood. As you will see, the language of food is just as subjective as any other form of communication, if not more.

Now look at these pictures, and decide if food is a language for yourself.

http://www.frigginrandom.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/bachelor-foods-grilled-cheese.jpg

http://0.tqn.com/d/mideastfood/1/0/1/0/-/-/sigaraedwardkaraa.jpg

http://www.oliverbonacini.com/OliverBonacini/media/images/blog/0729010_002.jpg

http://aht.seriouseats.com/images/20090625-burgerjointsf-burger.jpg

http://i3.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/-1/lens2100175_1246236977angelfoodcake.jpg

http://www.urbancoffeelounge.com/images/foodgallery/food5.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1180/761514700_9cee2ab62b.jpg

You get the picture.