Does the idea of equal opportunity demand or prohibit cultural and Essay

Does the idea of equal opportunity demand or prohibit cultural and religious exemptions in the multicultural society - Essay Example On the other hand, it should be noticed that in most countries around the world the development of various legal and social ethics is based on certain principles the most important of which is equality; the specific principle is often used by governments internationally in order to justify their decisions on a variety of issues related with people’s daily life. The principle of equality is further divided into sub-principles like the equal opportunity one. Generally, it could be stated equal opportunity should prohibit the exemptions related with culture and decision within modern societies; of course, there are cases where such exemptions should apply – when the criteria for the development of these exemptions cannot be related with the principle of equal opportunity (e.g. specific religious exemptions based on the existed religious rules of a particular region). In order to evaluate whether the principle of equal opportunity can be used in order to impose or prohibit cultural and religious exemptions in modern society it is necessary to refer primarily to the general framework of equal opportunity – as developed in modern states influenced by the relevant theoretical and empirical studies on this field. Other issues, like the relationship between the state and the church and the involvement of culture in the development of specific social principles could be also examined. In order to understand the importance of equal of opportunity within the modern society and its interaction with various social and cultural principles and ethics, it is necessary primarily to refer to its meaning and its characteristics. In accordance with a definition published by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2002, online version) equality of opportunity is a political ideal that is opposed to caste hierarchy but not to hierarchy per se; the background assumption is that a society contains a hierarchy of more and less desirable, superior and inferior positions’. The

The viscosity of syrup Essay Example for Free

The viscosity of syrup Essay C intervals. The results are shown below in table and graph form. Time (s) Temperature (m) Speed (m/s) As I expected, the jar rolled faster at higher temperatures and slower at lower temperatures. At 0i C, the syrup was solid across one side of the jar. At this point the jar would not roll at all (this result is not shown on the graph so as not to effect the line of best fit). This was again because of the centre of gravity and the affect it has on the turning force. As the syrup cannot flow the centre of gravity settles directly above the contact point of the slope and the jar and will not move. The quicker the mass changes from one side of the jar to another the quicker the jar will role down the slope. This is shown in the diagram below. The Boltzmann Factor: The Boltzmann factor explains why the syrup flows quicker when warmer. It tells us that if a molecule is given enough energy (in this case by the heat energy) then it can break free from its surrounding molecules and flow. The more energy the flame gives the molecules the quicker they can flow into new positions. The formula for this is E/kT where E is the activation energy required to break the bonds between two molecules and kT is a constant (k)(depending on the liquid) and T the temperature in Kelvins. The formula shows that if kT is greater than E then the liquid will flow. As we do not know the constant we cannot work out the activation energy. Despite this the results still show that this is what is happening. This is relevant to this experiment as the higher the temperature the more energy the molecules will flow, so the syrup will flow easier. Anomalies: There were many places in my experiment where errors could have occurred. For example, when measuring the temperature of the syrup I removed some that was stuck to the thermometer. I scraped of as much as possible, but still some remained on the thermometer. Because of this I think my results are accurate to the nearest gram of syrup. The two most obvious places where inaccuracies could have occurred were, the constantly changing temperature and timing using my reactions. I think that these inaccuracies are minor and did not affect the results of the experiment in an important way. The results that I feel show this are the 64 and 66i C results where the jar appears to go faster as the temperature decreases. Because of this I have decided to ignore these results. Another major inaccuracy is in the grains of the slope, as it was not perfectly smooth. I think that although the grains may have slowed the jar down at some points, the jar then accelerated rapidly after this, so the average speed was about the same. However I cannot prove this so I will repeat some of the experiment on a metallic surface to see if I get the same results. Repeat: To repeat the experiment I shall use a metallic runway to stop friction from the slope affecting my results. Having one some preliminary rolls, I realised that the slope I was using, which was thinner than the other slope, meant that the jar repeatedly got jammed against the edges. I therefore decided to roll the jar 20cm, and use average velocities to compare my original results with my new results. I also decided to only repeat the experiment between 30-50i C, as these seemed a particular place of interest in the experiment. My results from the repeats are shown below. Conclusion: Despite these errors I still feel my results are/Are not accurate (I will repeat exp. Using metallic surface. The points between 30-50i C Show a clear change from a low velocity to a high velocity. I therefore concluded that this is comparable to activation energy. Activation energy is where a molecule has enough energy to perform a reaction. In this case the molecules have enough energy to change state from a very viscous liquid to a much less viscous liquid.

Gray-Hat Hacking Essay -- Computers Technology Hackers Essays Research

Gray-Hat Hacking Overview Computer security is a growing concern with the onset of always-on connections in the home and the emerging global network. More and more people become connected everyday. The reliance on computers in our daily lives has increased the need for security and has shifted the ethical line for hackers and hacking. â€Å"A hacker is someone with deep knowledge of and great interest in a system. A hacker is someone who likes to delve into the inner workings of a system to find out how it works.†2 The definition of a hacker has been skewed in recent years by the press to connotate people who break into computer systems. The term has also evolved to represent people who protect computer systems and those that break into them. These newly termed hackers can be classified into three categories white-hat, black-hat, and gray-hat hackers. White-hat hackers are employed by corporations and work on the good side to secure computer systems without breaking into them. Black-hat hackers work on the bad side and attempt to compromise systems in illegal ways. Gray-hat hackers occupy the gray space of hacking and break into systems to learn and expose flaws, often as a service to the computer community. The ethical line dividing white-hat hackers and black-hat hackers is clear. However, the line that separates gray-hat hackers from black-hat hackers is constantly shifting in the new global network. Hacking that may have been considered ethical yesterday may not be true today due to the impact on global systems in the form of dollars loss and downtime. Hacking has evolved from simply having knowledge of systems by harmlessly breaking into them to an issue of security and computer crimes (cybercrimes). Hacking attac... ...um Copyright Act, 1998, http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf 5 Deborah Radcliff, Playing by Europe’s rule, 2001, http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,62057,00.html 6 US Department of Justice, Federal Computer Intrusion Laws, http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/cclaws.html 7 Council of Europe, Convention on Cybercrime CETS No.:185, 2001, http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/cadreprincipal.htm 8 CSI / FBI, Computer Crime and Security Survey, 2003, http://i.cmpnet.com/gocsi/db_area/pdfs/fbi/FBI2003.pdf 9 George W. Bush, President’s Message to the Senate on the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, 2003, http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/senateCoe.pdf 10 US Department of Justice, FAQ on Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, 2003, http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/COEFAQs.htm

Mind and Body

Throughout our class discussion and reading we have learned much about philosophical theories and the many contradicting views people have against them. The mind and body problem has been in existence for centuries. Philosophers from all times have contemplated this problem; two of which are Rene Descartes and John Searle. The problem is how the body and mind interact with each other if they are separate. The mind and body are said to be two different entities that have different characteristics.At present we don't normally take this view seriously, we still tend to believe that we cannot be what we are if we are simply cells, tissues, organs. Many have argued that each holds its own properties and can be without the other. The mind and body are distinguishable in their properties but are derived from one another. The mind and body are codependent on each other and need one another in making decisions. The mind requires the body to learn and experience in order to make accurate judgm ents, while the body requires the mind to make its decisions for it. Without one or the other, they would not be able to perform.We have a conception of at least two different kinds of properties that exist in the world, mental and physical. Mental in which is pain, desire, belief, kindness and physical which is hydrogen, pencils, mass, size and location. I believe the physical category would not exist if it was not for the mental category, in which is directly correlated with the mind and body, one cannot exist if it was not for the other. Parallelism says that there is no connection between any mental phenomena and any physical phenomena. The mind and the body coexist together and thrive on the other by using the others traits.Many argue that a human’s death is not death until the brain or mind has stopped. Once the brain is stopped there is no function to control the body and cannot be revived. By that same statement, some argue that the same body that ends with the minds death does not begin until the brain is functioning or until the mind is able to make decisions. A newborn has a mind that is capable of making decisions, it does not know how to implement the decisions. It is through experience and time that the mind learns. The mind learns from the body, through the experiences that the body has.From touch to taste to sound, every experience is a new experience to a new mind. A newborn does not know what is around it nor does it know the sounds and smells that surround the hospital. The newborns mind uses the body to determine and make interpretations as to what the surroundings are. In that aspect the mind is dependent on the body. It needs the body to experience. The mind cannot feel a desk or smell a flower. It needs the body to relate those findings so that later it can make a judgment or decision on prior knowledge. The mind later can use its prior experiences and knowledge to make decisions that are relevant for that time.A quick example of how the mind and body are dependent is in the new technological revolution. A. I. or artificial intelligence is a computer that learns on its own. A. I. is able to experience and learn. The computer learns from using its senses, may they be wheels not legs, or sensors rather than eyes, to teach it self. For example, a computer could hit an object that is obstructing its path. Since the computer, like a mind, learns through its experiences by using the body it now knows that when there is an obstacle in its path to go around the object and not through it.With the mind being dependant on the body one could argue that without the body the mind would cease to exist. This is true but it is also true for the body not existing without the mind. It uses the body to make decisions almost like a puppet. If the mind feels the body needs food it makes the decision to have the body walk from point A to point B and eat an apple. The body however needs the mind to make those decisions. How would t he body know to eat if it was hungry or drink when thirsty? It would not. It would die of dehydration. The body depends on the mind to make decisions.It only relates the experiences to the mind so that the mind can make conscience choices that will help both the mind and body to coexist. It is in this aspect the mind and body are codependent. If one day I was given a choice to choose between keeping a healthy mind, or a healthy body I would chose keeping a healthy mind. The brain is where all bodily sensations, emotions, and functions come from. I would rather have my consciousness (mind) than just a lump of matter (body) running around. If you exchange your brain with George Bush's brain and do not change the body, what will you feel?You have Bush's mind or Bush's body? Definitely you’ll see you have your own body with George Bush's mind. In my opinion, a mindless person means a nonliving thing. I believe that we see with the mind and feel with mind. Our eyes just receive th e raw facts but we don’t understand it until it reaches our mind through the nervous system. Imagine a toy robot as a nonliving thing because it has no mind. A computer does not have a mind it just uses electricity through a logic circuit to do calculations. In the worse case scenario, imagine someone cut off your head from the neck and you are still living.Which part of you is real? Is it the head or the body? I don’t think a person would care what happens to his or her body because they wouldn’t feel that the body is theirs. You will definitely feel that the head is yourself because it is where your mind is located. And if you separate your brain from it, you will definitely feel that your brain is yourself. A bodiless person can still feel the taste of being able to live, but a mindless person is a toy robot. The body is actually a machine that is attached to the mind and works according to your command.The mind and body problem can be observed in many situat ions, for example human stress. Stress in the mind connects to stress in the body. Stress has an impact on the body because it is the mind that regulates the activity of hormones in all organs, and other chemical processes. Similarly, the mind (brain) is the control center of the nervous system, which also regulates the activity of the organs (can shut down digestion, cramp muscles, etc). When the mind is healthy, it will keep the body healthy by â€Å"telling it† not to be stressed, just what you are asking.Yes, it is possible to cure yourself just by having the right mind processes. Two people in the same stressful external condition or with the same illness can have two drastically different results because of having different minds. The body can be more powerful than the mind if you allow it to be that is if you don't discipline the body and â€Å"let it loose†. Otherwise, it is the mind and your spirit that are meant to be the true masters of your physical existen ce. Stress is a powerful factor, many individuals do not give it enough credit.In past times, people needed to be kept calm in times of illness, in more recent days people work through illnesses. When the mind is sick the body becomes sick. People experience, for instance, elevated heart rate and blood pressure. People can learn to try to counter these bodily forces, but high-pressure jobs do not have high heart-related illness and fatality rates for no reason. The brain controls it all, but it cannot heal everything. When we constantly endure stress and the effects take a toll on dimensions of the heart. It is like doing too many uppers like caffeine or speed, it just shortens your life and ages you.It takes away from the elasticity and resilience of the body's ability to cope with the stresses or hardships it endures. The mind can do what it can, but we also have to exercise and eat healthy to keep our bodies in prime condition. In our non stop lifestyles some often do not take th e time to treat their bodies correctly. We do not always have the time to go have a picnic and a day of no stress, there's always something that has to be dealt with in the near future that makes it harder to find real peace and to let our bodies slow down.For example, taking the time to smell roses or listen to a cat's purr, which actually decreases our heart rates and lowers blood pressure. The mind hears what the body says, so it knows when we are in pain. The sickness of the mind can create physical ailments because everything is affected by the mind and its ability to rule the vast network of the human body. Alternative medicines believe in using the mind or foods to heal the body, and see the foods we eat and the ways we think and cope with stress as having direct relation to many of the illnesses of the body.Everything is connected, for every action there is a reaction, and so it is with the body, which the brain is in charge of. A stressed individual can utilize relaxation t echniques to ease the stress on the body. For example, drink green tea, eat certain foods, or even just a bath. Easing the stress of the mind is not as easy. Drug addiction is another example where the mind and body problem is exemplified. Drug addiction is a mind problem because the chemical that the addict is addicted to has changed their brain chemistry that makes them need the drug to feel good.It is also a mind problem because addiction is usually caused by some dysfunction or unhappiness in a person's life that causes them to use a chemical to cover it up. It's a body problem because the drug is harming many parts of the addict’s body and may require medical intervention to detoxify. Psychological addiction is the way the drug makes a person feel, if it relaxes an individual then it makes them want more. Physical addiction puts you through a withdrawal phase like heroin and you need more often just to feel normal. One can be addicted to numerous things. Some people are addicted to food to satisfy their emotions.Caffeine is often addictive. Whereas amphetamine is very harmful it does give a person a sense of feeling superior, but it also has severe consequences as destroying your teeth and it can bring on a drug induced psychosis, which is a serious break with reality addiction occurs in two types, physical and psychological. Physical addiction is caused by the brain, the brain produces fewer chemicals or to make up for the extra chemicals, therefore the brain needs the chemicals from the drug to reach the correct balance and the individual becomes out of touch with reality. Psychological addiction is much simpler.The individual simply likes the way a drug makes him/her feel and must have it, therefore becoming addicted. No matter what kind of drug you are dealing with, most of them are going to contain a physical addictive quality, which means that your body is actually going to end up needing the drug. Also, along with the physical addiction, you r mind might become dependant on the drug, which is called a psychological addiction. The mind and body need each other to operate. This explains why people having emotional difficulties can develop physical problems such as weight loss or weight gain.Food, no doubt, greatly impacts the health of our mind and the health of our body. For instance, take an example of a tiger and an elephant. A tiger eats a lot of flesh or unhealthy food and is ferocious. An elephant, on the other hand, is a vegetarian and is generally calm. An elephant will never attack unless it gets attacked. This implies that food sustains the physical body and impacts the state of the mind as well. This further enforces that mind and body are interconnected. Rene Descartes the famous French philosopher and mathematician is whom we owe the first account of the mind/body relationship to.Descartes can be seen as a duelist, someone who believes that the mind and the body are not only separate, but competent of indepen dent existence. What I find most appealing about dualism is the belief in the soul and body, spirit and matter. His most famous words are â€Å"I think, therefore I am†. The dictum â€Å"I think, therefore I am† succinctly reflects Descartes' dualist principle. I am what I am because I am able to think. For him, the physical body and the non-physical mind coexist in the person. Descartes asks us to think of the following situation, I can imagine myself existing without the body.But I can't imagine myself existing without my mind. Therefore, the essence of me is my mind. Descartes has two theories in which he tries to establish his mind-body theory. This first of his theories is the conceivability argument. Through various premises and conclusions, he feels he is able to firmly state that â€Å"we are not just a body†. So how can the Eliminativists argue against this? Second, he states his indivisibility argument, which states, â€Å"the body and mind are two di fferent things†. He uses his properties argument to support his claim with X=Y as his example.With this, Dualist says how can Eliminativists account for these assumptions? â€Å"There is a vast difference between the mind and the body, in that the body is always divisible, while the mind is completely indivisible† (Strathern 67). Although Descartes claimed that the mind and body were totally separate beings, he also found that they were closely intertwined. Descartes concluded that because a body part could be removed without taking away from the mind, the body was a separate being (Cottingham 36). The interdependence of the mind and body was what Descartes considered a human being; the mind and body formed a unit.Descartes found that because you sense things occurring to the body through the mind, then if the body and mind were not intertwined, one would not have any feelings in the body. These â€Å"feelings† in the body are what Descartes called â€Å"confuse d thoughts† (Cottingham 40) because they could not be explained through equations or logical connections. The confirmation for the idea that the mind and body were closely connected was the fact that one can never separate from his body, and can feel and sense things only through his own body. Searle differs from Descartes in that he is not considered a dualist.Searle believes that the mind is caused by the brain and that the mind is merely a feature of the brain. According to Searle, animals have â€Å"conscious mental states such as visual experiences, feelings of pain, sensations of thirst, hunger, cold, and of heat. John Searle argues that the connection is between the mind and the brain and disregards of the action of the body. Plato believed that the mind is separable from the body and continues after the body dies. He said our minds forget everything they â€Å"knew† from when they existed before being connected to our bodies.As we age our minds remember everyth ing they knew from before they were connected to us at birth. This assumes that minds live independently from the body. If we accept this premise, then the choice is clear. When the body and soul are separate, according to Plato, the soul can recognize things even more clearly than before. He also believed that the soul faces judgment soon after death. I believe that when we die our bodies will go back to dust and our souls will go to wherever we will go, according to our choice in this life.The mind and body problem cites two major aspects of the relation between mental and physical theories. For this system it is necessary to include both the mind and the body matter as individual substances. The influence that the mind has over behaviors of the body demonstrates the combination and varieties of functions between the two parts. The dependent mind shares a common independence with thought. On the other hand, the dependent body bonds a mutual dependence with action or behavior. To f urther explain, most modern philosophers have theories of dualism.The state of having two aspects are often opposites in human beings. One reason being, the mind and the brain share unique qualities that influence the behavior of the body; yet human beings are build up of two independent parts, the body and the mind/soul. The reasoning is that the mind and body are separate components that build up human beings. Therefore, the commonness between mind and body create the necessary qualities the mind and body need in order to function and accomplish each of their own separate responsibilities. The mind and body differ in makeup and characteristics but need one another to exist.Without the mind our body cannot fulfill its purposes and without the body our mind is left useless. The mind needs the body to learn, experience, and to gain knowledge so that it may make conscious assessments. The body also thrives on the mind. It needs the mind to make its decisions for it. It needs for the m ind to know as much as possible so that the choices that it makes will affect the body in a positive way. The human body is healthy only when both the mind and the body are healthy. The mind and body appear to be different by their characteristics but one without the other would cease to exist.

Domain Names as Internet Properties Essay

What are your long term plans for your domain name? Do you expect to convey the name and the goodwill associated with it to an interested buyer or bequeath it your heirs? Perhaps you intend to use the domain name to secure a loan for a business expansion or for your child’s college tuition. You may be in for a surprise. The intellectual property community asserts that domain names, as source indicators, are akin to trademarks. However, trademark law cannot be effectively grafted on to domain names because of the discrepancies over geographical boundaries and context-sensitive use. In order for a trademark registration to issue, the mark must be used in interstate commerce to identify the source of a class of goods or services. Identical trademarks can co-exist so long as they are associated with non-competing types of goods or services or are used in different geographic areas. Domain names are registered on a first-come, first-served basis. The first individual or company to complete the registration template for an available name gets the sole right to be associated with it. For a reasonable fee, currently hovering at $10 a year, the registrant can brand and propagate the name in a worldwide marketplace. The registrant receives the exclusive right to use that name for a website presence, global e-mail, and network file transfers. But every domain name must be unique, and it is this technical requirement that makes domain names potentially valuable resources which are substantively different from trademarks. Compaq Computer Corp paid $3. 35 million in July 1998 for rights to ALTAVISTA. COM, purchased from a California start-up called Alta Vista Technology. The transaction included existing traffic of a half million visitors a day who were already expecting to find the Alta Vista search engine at that domain name. As the price bar for domain names rises, NSI’s customers may resist being subject to the vagaries of the registrar’s feudal regime. Simple and unencumbered ownership endows the registrant with a type of predictable, if limited, sovereignty. Through legislation and judicial acknowledgment, registrants who meet certain individual responsibilities should be allowed a perpetually renewable and assignable right to enjoy this new source of wealth. Many domain names have become the cornerstone of multimillion-dollar business plans. In the fall of 1999, VirtualVineyard of Palo Alto, California, acquired Wine. Com of Napa, primarily for its domain name. While the $3. 3M-plus acquisition included an operating business, the CEO of Wine. Com estimated that about 70 percent of his company’s value was its name. The current controversies over domain names highlight the interplay of technology, law, economics and politics. Court opinions trail society’s changes and conundrums resulting from technology of recent vintage. Yet, nearly everyone agrees on one point: domain names are caught in a legal thicket. If domain names are property, then existing contracts such as NSI’s harsh Service Agreement must be rewritten. Although the implications of the Umbro decision are yet to be fully assessed, and NSI’s appeal remains to be heard, the magistrate recognized that each knotty domain name dispute before the court may be breaking new legal ground. References Unknown (1999). ‘Mortgages’ for domain names. BBC Sci/Tech News. Retrieved November 26, 2006 from http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/science/nature/533455. stm Oppedahl, C. (1997). Remedies in Domain Name Lawsuits: How is a domain name like a cow? Patents. com. Retrieved November 26, 2006 from http://www. patents. com/pubs/jmls. htm