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The Eudaemonic Pie
chin:
I just started to read this book this afternoon. The book is about this group of physicists & computer wizards using computers hidden in shoes to compute the probability of roulette gambles.
One of the key members of the team Doyne was a book worm grew up in a small town, where he met a physicist Thomas Ingerson who made a lasting impact on Doyne's life. From the book, Ingerson was really a geeky type who once made an observation "Money is the key to freedom", "while thinking of ways to free himself from teaching (at University) and strike out on his own." However "the problem always resolved itself into one of financial independence." And he went on to say that "There are two ways to make it, capitalism and theft." Since the odds of getting caught at theft is too high, that left capitalism.
While I generally agree with the first statement that "Money is the key to freedom", we have also seen far too many people lost sight of the end (having freedom) by burying too deep into the mean (of making money at the expense of other pursuits.)
On a separate but related note, I recently read in the news that the former head of a large internation accounting firm is accused of stealing about $100 million from his clients. Or Q mentioned to me the story where a very well paid lawyer lamented about how little he's worth compare to the mage-rich clients. Have they lost sight of the "freedom" part?
wongyan:
Money for Freedom is also implanted in the bottom of heart. That idea was well accepted back to my age at 20s. I recently found physical freedom can be solved by having more money while mental may not. I still think mental freedom never exists if "God is still alive".
chin:
--- Quote from: wongyan on 06 December 2009, 14:27:45 ---Money for Freedom is also implanted in the bottom of heart. That idea was well accepted back to my age at 20s. I recently found physical freedom can be solved by having more money while mental may not. I still think mental freedom never exists if "God is still alive".
--- End quote ---
Do you imply that religious peope would never have the freedom of mind? It could be very true especially for the judo-christian-muslim type - because freedom imply making choices, and we make choices only because of uncertainties. If everything is governed by an omnipotent, omnipresence, omniconscious being, what's uncertain about anything?! If there is no choice to be made, do we still have free will?
chin:
I read about half of the book by last night. I still do not know if they did carry the scheme to a large scale operation. But I did a look up of the main characters, and they are seem to be now very prominent research in physics AND founded a financial market trading company based on clever algorithms!
More physicists on wall street?!
wongyan:
--- Quote from: chin on 06 December 2009, 17:34:04 ---
--- Quote from: wongyan on 06 December 2009, 14:27:45 ---Money for Freedom is also implanted in the bottom of heart. That idea was well accepted back to my age at 20s. I recently found physical freedom can be solved by having more money while mental may not. I still think mental freedom never exists if "God is still alive".
--- End quote ---
Do you imply that religious peope would never have the freedom of mind? It could be very true especially for the judo-christian-muslim type - because freedom imply making choices, and we make choices only because of uncertainties. If everything is governed by an omnipotent, omnipresence, omniconscious being, what's uncertain about anything?! If there is no choice to be made, do we still have free will?
--- End quote ---
Sometimes, I even think God is created by human instead of "Thy" created the world. For good and bad, light and darkness etc, they are all human concepts. I don't think a shark/lion feels guilty/cruelty when they eat their preys.
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