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Socrates and His Views About the Relationship Between Philosophy and Death

 Socrates is one of the most important philosophers of all time, if not the most important. His ideas have been passed through generations of philosophers over thousands of years. The ideas he presents in Plato's dialog "Phaedo" just before his death that regard death are very interesting. Socrates views death as the separation of the body and the soul. He believes that once your soul leaves your body that you will be able to gain a tremendous amount of knowledge that you are not able to have in your human form. To him, the human body holds you back from gaining this knowledge due to human desires such as love, food, drink, wealth, and power. These things are distractions in a way and he believes that once your soul separates from your body these desires will no longer hinder your ability to access infinite knowledge. Socrates says that the wise are not afraid of death and the people that are obsessed with the desires previously talked about are very afraid to die.  I som...
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Reparations and Racial Inequality

     In the article "Reparations and Racial Inequality" written by Derrick Darby arguments were made about racial reparations and how they should be made. Darby argues that reparations should not be made from a causal view, meaning that the people that caused slavery do not have to pay reparations for their harms. In previous work I stated that it would be very difficult to make monetary reparations and I still agree with that. In Darby's writing he brought up other ways to make reparations.      Some of these reparations included building statues, museums, monuments, and showing support regarding the history of slavery. I agree, these things should be done and they would be a huge step forward for the American people. Darby also talked about correcting the "inequality gaps", these gaps are gaps in  education, wealth, health, housing, and crime. I agree these things need to be fixed if they are there. It would be very difficult to fix problem...
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Reparations

 Simon Caney's arguments in " Environmental Degradation, Reparations, and the Moral Significance of History " are based on environmental climate change and if reparations to "injured" parties should be made. This is closely related to the issue regarding reparations for slavery. Who should be responsible for paying these reparations? Caney talked about the reparations for climate change and focused on a few different parties. The Casual party is made up of the people that literally caused the damage. In regards to climate change the people who caused it could be corporations, governments, or even individuals over one hundred years ago. This relates to slavery because the people that caused slavery were all slave owners and slave traders. The biggest problem with this is that these corporations are no longer around, the governments might not be in power anymore, and these individuals have all passed. Caney also talked about the beneficiary party paying for the re...
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Seconds and Standardized Clocks

I never really thought about the definition of a second until now. I always thought of a second as a measurement of time but nothing deeper than that. A minute is 60 seconds and that is all I ever thought about seconds. In Eran Hal's article " Making Time: A Study in the Epistemology of Measurement" a second is defined as "the duration of exactly 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to a hyperfine transition of caesium-133 in the ground state (BIPM [2006], p. 113)." This is the first time I realized how much science and math go into things like seconds and time. A common misunderstanding is that clocks measure time, this is incorrect they measure a passage of time. Standard clocks measure more than just a passage of time. Standard clocks measure frequencies that correlate to atomic transitions. These clocks are standardized by coordinated universal time or UTC. 
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Relativity of Simultaneity

 Relativity of Simultaneity depends on the observers. The concept is that two events that are distant from each other happen at the exact same time. There is no guarantee that they happened at the same time according to the concept of Relativity of Simultaneity. Relativity of Simultaneity is not when lighting strikes and the sound of the thunder comes after, that is referred to as appearance simultaneity. If you are right under the lightning strike you will hear the thunder at the same time you see the lighting but if you are far from the lightning you will see the lightning then hear the thunder after. Time is unreal in Special Relativity. Time is subjective and not the same everywhere. Since Special Relativity shows that time will change due to relative motion like the clock in motion ticking slower than a clock that is stationary this means that time is subjective to everyone. 
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Is Time Real?

 My previous perception of time is that it was made up to add a structure to our lives so we would have a basis to when we need to meet deadlines. I also believe that there is a past, present and future but I do not believe the future is really a thing because any slight movement could change it. Such as, if I decide to skip class one day instead of going I might fail the next test but if I went I would have passed. This is something I have control over so I believe it is very easy to change the future.  In the article The Unreality of Time written by J. Ellis McTaggart there are many arguments against the idea of time. I personally do not see my own view of time in any of McTaggart's arguments. To me the "unreality of time" means that it is made up and that is it. I think to McTaggart the "unreality of time" means much more. I believe that McTaggart does not think time exists at all and that events are just always happening whether you are at that point or not....
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Are "We" Responsible for Protecting Future People from Climate Change?

 In the article "Cosmopolitan Justice, Responsibility, and Global Climate Change" Simon Caney discusses climate change and the difficulties we face with how to prevent it and who has to pay for it. I believe that this is a very difficult problem that has to be solved sooner rather than later. But how do we do it and who is responsible for doing it? Caney talks about a couple ways to make people pay for polluting and the first is the "Polluter Pays Principle" and the second is "Beneficiary Pays Principle." These two principles are ways to make people pay for the pollution that happens. The "Polluter Pays Principle" is exactly how it sounds, if you pollute you pay for the damages caused by the pollution on the other hand the "Beneficiary Pays Principle" refers to pollution from past generations needs to be payed for by the current generation that benefited from the rewards that caused the damage. These principles are very simple and I agr...
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