Hi, this is Tendi's podcast and my name is Reza Sanjide and today is November 29, 2022. This episode is about ethics, and it has two parts. The first part is contained in three segments, which will talk about philosophy of life, which is the name of the podcast, the short history of philosophy. The last will be the ethics. The part two is related to ethics as well. This is something that is happening in the society, and it's a good example that we should talk about it and how we can utilize ethics in our everyday life.

Thank you.

The philosophy of life is the topic of this podcast. In my opinion, philosophy is the most powerful tool we have. Some socialists are in the opinion that religion is a bigger factor than philosophy. And then they could be right in some area. However, I can argue the philosophy is cemented in religious views and for many people that can differentiate and separate them from each other. The effect of philosophy in our lives is tremendous. In a healthy society, it is relation depenna. I emphasize so much because these days we can distinguish between right and wrong. Many people are confused, and they don't know what a right approach is. Therefore, I believe philosophy is more relevant now than ever. There are many examples that we can see these days, such as Arab-Israel conflict, Ukraine and Russia war, China's zero policy, And the list goes on. There are important subjects, and we should talk about them. And we will talk about them in the future. There is value in these conflicts that we can learn from. But today I think is a huge topic by itself, and we will focus just in that for today. Philosophy has an unknown beginning. However, we are aware that Indochina has that region have shared philosophy history for more than 5,000 years. and that their historical tie were tighter than they are today. The ancient Persia has very deep into philosophy as well. Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian were very advanced societies and they were built a lot of fundamental in philosophy. But the philosophy we know didn't start in any of these countries. The history of philosophy as we know it currently started in Greece. About a thousand years ago Europeans found the last history in Islamic countries. Islam was the world far ahead of the European region. in every measure regarding the culture, social events, art, and manifestation of human intellectual and creative developments. In my opinion, almost all social changes in Islam can be attributed to the Persian empire and the culture. This is because Persian has far advanced mysticism. A course of history came most likely from India. The conquest of Persia occurred immediately after Arab's Islamic revolution. Arab Peninsula formerly known as Hejaz adapted Islam at its own single official religion. They did not have advanced society nor they did have university or any kind of school. There were many diverse tribes present in Hejaz during the emergence of Islam. As a nation, they grew increasingly united, and they committed to their objective. On the other hand, the Persian Empire was huge in terms of government spending, and taxes were unbearable for populations. The government was corrupt, the population was fed up with their governments, and Islam looks beautiful from afar. The message of Islam was human rights regardless of ethnicity or gender. Everybody was equal in the eyes of the God of Islam. The Arabs quickly rose to great wealth following the destruction of the Persian Empire and the development of the culture allowed them to acquire the necessary technology they need. Approximately 500 years later, Arab cities and culture were superior compared to any other nations. Europeans traveled to Islamic countries for jobs, learning technology, medicine, and social advance, where they discovered the lost history of philosophy and philosophers. And that is why we know about philosophers and the origin of ancient Greeks and later on. In the history of philosophy, the Greeks played a large role because several written documents came from them, mostly because of three individuals who, in my opinion, changed the world as we know it. Greek philosophy begins circa 3000 BC and it is divided in two periods, before Socrates and after Socrates. Socrates never produced any original writing. However, he is given numerous impressive quotes. He has made so many changes in philosophy that they are generation changes in his lifetimes. Because they were no longer the same nation, they give area of Socrates' names. As a result of all these significant developments, he developed numerous opponents. All we have about Socrates is from Plato. He was one of his students and later he wrote about Socrates and his philosophy. But historians are saying a lot of what Plato wrote about Socrates never came from him. But we can't prove it or disapprove it. Plato as a philosopher was a perfect thinker. He had many books and many followers. Their followers were called Platonists. Many Christians later became Platonists as they adopted his philosophy. We call them New Platonists. Plato has one student named Aristotle. And for the next thousand years, he was the most influential philosopher on Earth. He wrote many books about almost everything in life. Logic, ethics, physics, astronomy, biology, and psychology. Like Plato, he has many followers as well. They were called Aristotelian. Ancient Greece philosophy was divided into the three sciences, physics, ethics, and logic. The divide is appropriated for the natural idea, and the objective was translated logic understanding to poor practical reasoning. Now you are going to ask me, where are you going with this? I know it is quite confusing for some. Don't worry, you will have basic understanding soon. Ethics is one of the pillars of philosophy, and I think it is crucial to understand the science of ethics, especially nowadays. Aristotle is famous for his ethics. Almost everything about understanding of ethics came from him. He has written about ethics many books. But the most important one is ethical eudaimonia. Eudaimonia. I can't even pronounce that name. But I didn't read The Ethics of Aristotle. It was difficult for me to read. I started with Immanuel Kant's Ethics. He's a recent philosopher. He wrote many books in German language that later translated into many other languages, including English. He conducted research in ancient Greek philosophy, and he's famous for Kentian ethics. The four books I recommend for you to read is Critical of Poor Reasoning, Groundwork of Metaphysics of Moral, Critics of Power and Judgment, and Religion Without Boundaries of Reason. As you may already guess, I need to create a lot of episodes regarding this topic. But since I don't want you to get bored with it, I will not do that. All I want is to have a basic understanding of ethics and apply it to your everyday life. Because learning without application is equivalent to having money but not using it for a better life. I want you to study philosophy and put it in use. That's the goal of this podcast. You know, fabric made of string, which the warp and whip entwine one another. The warp goes in vertical direction and the whip moves in horizontal. And they must path each other not in conventional way. Look like they hug each other. in every thread. Fabric can change in any form, but still keep its structure. Warp cannot create fabric by itself, nor web can do it unanimously. We always metaphor good society as example for good fabric, usually only fabric metaphor for a healthy and positive way. To simplify it, ethics are reference for principle. or principles, much like decent fabric is. Obviously, ethics is not a fabric for humanity, but it is the blueprint for that. Of course, it does not contain only warp and web and strain. It is all that and more. For example, wisdom is ethical. Why? Very simple. Wisdom is a behavior. Don't mix wisdom with knowledge. Knowledge is not ethical. Knowledge came from information, or a knowledgeable person can mislead you, and it is an unethical act. Wisdom never does unethical things or behavior. I'm not suggesting that someone with knowledge can have wisdom. On contrary, It is not a must. Moral is ethical. Why? Because it's a reference to the rule. Peace is ethical. War is not. This is where I'm trying to reverse engineering an ethical act. This is what I learned when I was reading about Microsoft design, how Microsoft designed Windows. They had a perspective on how Windows application need to seems. Think about as you have a car and you want to reproduce it, but you don't know how it's made. So you have to reverse engineer it. Since ethics is an action and set a goal, Much like Windows software, we must always reverse engineering if we don't know how to achieve it. Human values came from ethics. Therefore, happiness came from ethics. The common knowledge may be not ethical, despite the fact sociologists think that. Ethics has certain requirements that must be met and fulfilled. The common sense does not mean it's correct in ethical behavior. You see blue sky. We've all seen it almost every single day. And it is blue, right? Wrong. It's not blue. It doesn't have any color. It is sunlight, and it is white. I'm not explaining it here. Just Google it to find out why. As if all of us have blue eyeglasses, and this is because we have all of them on, doesn't mean we see it correctly. Again, even though all of us see in the same way, doesn't mean our collective beliefs is right, isn't it? All beliefs is very fragile, again, It is a lot of sociologists' beliefs, most collective beliefs cannot be wrong, but that is not necessarily through statements. You can notice it if you are ethical aware. If you don't have ethics, you might kill an innocent for your erroneous views, as historians have documented throughout many ages. Ethics give us the vast range of alternatives. So how are we able to learn these ethics? You can learn it because you already know it. You were born with it. You just have to discover it for yourself. This is just like a breathing. You're already doing it. But if you learn how to do it consciously, it will open a brand new world for you. Okay, you will say, how? Just think of what you can do every day as a right and ethical. For example, if you are a doctor, is it ethical to write a prescription only because you want to make money? It is not ethical. Is it ethical for a salesman to sell something for profit, only motivation? This is This is just a sample. It's not a real-life example. Obviously, you guys know already where I'm going with it. You should open yourself and listen to the inconvenient truth. I'm not talking about Al Gore movie here, which was some bullshit put together and given to us to make money. exactly unethical thing to do. Things you dislike or beliefs you don't accept simply because you disagree with it, you should not be denying it. Let your opponent talk and you maybe learn something fundamental. You could be easily wrong about many things. Ethics is more than logical reasoning. It is also metaphysical. Not everything is logic. You can be skeptical. Let me rephrase it. You should always be skeptical. You cannot be ethical at the same time lie to your wife or husband, friends or enemies. You should not lie, period. Telling lies in any form for good of society is wrong. There is no such a thing. And it does not work. We should always face the collective truth. Even if it is not convenient, I will go back deeper into the ethics in the future, but for now I think is enough. This is a situation that deeply worries me and it is also directly related to ethics. We have been for two years in lockdown because of COVID sickness. And recently, at Cold Spring Harbor Light Library near Boston, Massachusetts, scientific experiments were carried out. Scientists supposedly in this institute have figured out how to alter genetic makeup of Omicron SARS-CoV-2. According to researchers, they were able to make this Omicron virus extremely contagious and also can kill their host by 80% rates. This means that anyone who contract this virus has only chance of 20% of survival. There is two message in this news. First of all, this is evidence that this virus most likely originated in lab. Two, many scientists lack ethics. We shouldn't be confused. This is directly related to all of us. We all could harm from it. I was against mass vaccination because of some could be allergic against it. I am for individual freedom, but here I am against it because this matters could harm all of us and no one get benefit from it. You may say these studies keep us ahead of our enemies. Okay, I can argue that where are we going with this? Where is the end of these imaginary enemies? Where is our boundaries? Where is our red lines? Can you tell me that? Two years of COVID wasn't enough? In principle, we should use science as if we have a tool for better life. science by itself is not a goal of a study they are pleased to clear it that is a success this is baffled me these tests to animals in is not ethical it's not moral this sort of behavior should be not be tolerated we have to put stop these pointless studies. Escaping this virus from this lab could cause a lot of disruptions. We should all strongly reject this. These labs can do other research. You want to tell me this is the only research left to be done? Make COVID-19 more infectious and more destructive? I firmly believe that the opposite is true. We could spend money and time in other researches like using repurposed drugs. There are a lot of drugs on the market, very inexpensive, that could save us from other sicknesses that exist in society. Thank you for listening. Please let me know what you think. And next episode, I am thinking to make it about time. One of our old friends was always saying, is it time exists? And I was thinking, time definitely exists, what he's talking about. The more I thought about it, I thought, my God, this is a phenomenal subject that we should make, complete a new episode, just that theme.