The trolley problem

If you had to choose between (1) killing one person to save the lives of five others and (2) doing nothing, even though you knew that five people would die right before your eyes if you did nothing—what would you do? What would be the right thing to do? 

Free will

                                                    http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Free-will

it.toonpool.com

Touch, What if fate is a formula?

"Patterns are hidden in plain sight, you just have to know where to look. Things most people see as chaos actually follows subtle laws of behaviour; galaxies, plants, sea shells... The patterns never lie but only some of us can see how the pieces fit together. Seven billion, eighty million and 360 of us live on this tiny planet. This is the story of some of those people."

"There's an ancient Chinese myth about the red thread of fate. It says that the Gods had a red thread around everyone of our ankles and attached it to all the people who's lives were destined to touch. This thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break. It's often predetermined by mathematical probability and it's my job to keep track of those numbers to make the connections for those who need to find each other. The one's who's lives need to touch. I was born four thousand, one hundred and sixty one days ago, on October 26th 2000. I've been alive for eleven years, four months and twenty one days and fourteen hours, and in all that time I've never said a word."

This is the narration at the beginning of the Pilot episode of Touch and it's Jake Bohm (David Mazouz) telling the viewers at home about himself, and what he can do. He realizes his purpose in life, but unfortunatly is unable to communicate with those around him. This causes numerous problems for Jake in his mission.

What if fate is a formula?

What if  coincidence is a calculation?

What if our lives are part of a pattern?

Asch conformity experiment

“We will conform to the group. We’re very social creatures. We’re very much aware of what people around us think. We want to be liked. We don’t want to be seen to rock the boat so we will go along with the group even if we don’t believe what people are saying, we still go along.” 

This is a conclusion from what is known as “The Asch Experiment,” an experiment originally conceived in the 1950′s by Social Psychologist Solomon Asch, demonstrated in the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWfPaMJEg-M

Migram Experiment

In this documentary Derrem Browm reproduces the Milgram experiment  which tested the willingness of several volunteers to obey orders requiring them to inflict pain on others. In actual fact, pain was not being inflicted on the supposed "victim," but the volunteers did not know this. The experiment and the results raise many disturbing questions about the capability of people to obey orders, even immoral ones.

Why do people choose to obey orders rather than resist authority?

The Matrix

Based on Plato’s allegory. In the film, the humans trapped in the Matrix are like the people in the cave. They see only what the machines want them to see, but they believe they see reality as it really is. 

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

The "Allegory of the Cave" is a classic commentary on the human condition. It is a story showing how true reality is not always what it seems to be on the surface. It is a story of  open-mindedness and the power of possibility.