What is the purpose of Life

I used to contemplate the meaning of life. The age old question which asks, "Why are we here?" In an effort to save you some time, I will present the answer here in the beginning, and you may well be surprised how simple it is.

The answer to the purpose of life : To enjoy yourself while you're here...

I'm usually in favor of simple solutions, and I think if there was intelligent design, that it would favor a simple solution as well. In fact Physics, and science, is also in search of a simple solution linking together all things in a Theory of Everything. Its difficult to reconcile that certain formulas and equations work for very small things, like atoms, while other mutually exclusive formulas and equations work for very large things, or things moving at very fast speeds, close to the speed of light. A unifying theory of everything would have a single simplified answer, and I think that the answer to the question of the meaning of life should also have a simple and easy to understand answer.

Of course, its difficult to believe that all things can be explained by such a simple philosophy, especially since I believe that it is impossible to do whatever you wish to make yourself happy without in some way perhaps, at least on occasion, infringing on other's ability to enjoy themselves. So I propose a corollary to the original answer.

Corollary : ... so long as you aren't bothering anyone else doing it.

Of course this might be broken down to "what if" examples where you and another person, or maybe a whole group of people want to do something and yet someone else doesn't what you to do it. Basically, what happens when the desires of many people outweigh the desires of few people. An example might be if several people want to eat all the bananas off a tree, then cut the tree down and burn the wood for warmth. There might be 5 people who are in favor of such an idea, and yet maybe 1 or 2 are against the idea.

If you cut the tree down, there will be 5 happy people, and 2 unhappy people. If you leave the tree as is, there will be 5 dissatisfied people and 2 happy people. What then do you do? Well usually the needs (or wants) of the many will outweigh the needs (or wants) of the few. And I suppose that makes sense. But in order to counteract some of this negative energy created, something must be done for those people who are now unhappy. So, in the most basic sense, you should endeavor to make those unhappy people less unhappy.

Corollary #2 : Make the lives of those less fortunate better in some way.

While I'm sure some people might argue this may interfere with the first part of the purpose of life, to enjoy yourself while you are here, since making others feel more fortunate may not be in their own interests, it is important to know that we are all connected and the positive energy you create (or negative energy) is likely to come back around later and affect you (positively or negatively).

I am a firm believer in karma, energy, chi, whatever you want to call it. I believe free will and the interactions we have while we're alive with others directly affect the general happiness of all people on the planet. I believe in the butterfly effect: that even small changes on one side of the globe can have large implications on another. Just like billiard balls on a pool table, the spin one ball transmits to another before sending it bouncing against the rail and into another ball is all transmitted about just as our interactions are transmitted about amongst each other.

... To be continued.

The future classroom

I recently read an article about how we have all this data that shows people are more efficient at the workplace if you give them a more comfortable chair, but yet our children still are expected to learn in the same old, uncomfortable furniture in the classroom. It argued if we gave children more comfortable and ergonomic furniture, they would learn better. While I agree that may be true, I see more than just this in the future classroom.

I imagine a different learning environment entirely. Instead of lugging a backpack full of text books and binders to school, they need only bring an ipad. All of their text books are loaded on digitally in full color, high-resolution, and all are kept up to date with the latest edition so nobody is worried their page 83 doesn't look like everyone else's page 83 and they can't find where we are.

I picture that they can annotate their pages and make notes as course material is covered, without fear that they are marking up their books. And the quality of text books will evolve. Instead of just being still pictures and text, they will contain video clips, and animations, sound bytes and links to finding out more on the web. Instill a sense of discovery in children!

So often a teacher will copy information out of text book into their notes, and then during class they spend the whole class with their back to the children writing their notes on the board. The children are so busy copying the notes off the board that they never stop to think, and when it comes time to do their homework, they have little but the rapid scratchings they did before they were lost or distracted and stopped taking notes to complete it.

Instead let the children's ipads wirelessly connect to the blackboard/magic-board, and what the teacher writes appears on the childrens' ipads. And if a teacher sets up an example problem on the magic-board, and calls on a student to complete the problem, the student can work directly on their ipad and their work appears on the blackboard.

Homework where possible would be in digital media entirely, and the ipads would connect at the beginning of class and register their attendance, and submit the homework wirelessly- be they video blogs of them sharing their thoughts, text that they have prepared, problems they have worked out, or whatever.

The ipads could function like a "clicker" and register student voting on questions presented to them. Software would tally the votes and show data plots of the census. Student answers could be logged and tracked, and a general trend as to whether the student was answering questions correctly, incorrectly, or if they used to be answering incorrectly but now are answering correctly, or if a particular subject is difficult for them.

And of course, the students would have better chairs and desks.

In conclusion, if the new iPad has a forward facing camera on it, I'm sooo getting one!