I just had to share this amazing, unique artist, Brian Lai. He draws in negative…

I can barely draw in not negative.

Morals are an interesting topic that we all consider, but is a very difficult idea to define. Even a simple scenario can make you really think about how morals work. If you were on a rampart train and had to make a choice between a path with one person or another path with five people, most people would choose the one person over the five. However, if you were given the choice to sacrifice one person who was going to die (by donating his organs and what not) to save the lives of five other people in need, most people would choose not to give up one man’s life for the sake of five others.

Clearly, there is some moral boundary that separates these two similar, but different cases. But what exactly determines these boundaries? This is a question I always ask myself, but I can’t really get myself to answer it.

Here is a case relating to philosophy that I found to be humorous:

On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.

On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphans’ bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent the pop-top can.

If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, “Leftie” and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, “Leftie” will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of “Leftie’s” act would be that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by “Leftie” are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and “Leftie” are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available, however the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.

Assume that the brain’s choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.

QUESTION: What should the brain do?

(http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/Tissues.htm)

Since we will be seeing opera this Friday, I thought it would be fitting to share a video I saw a while back.

I have never been to an opera before, so I probably can’t judge. However, this was just incomprehensible to my ears, and I just felt that I had to share this with everybody. Hopefully, if anything, it’ll make Two Boys better in comparison.

Beware those of you using earphones; I apologize in advance.

And while we’re in the musical mood,

Enjoy!