All material are my notes from professor James Duerlinger for Ancient Philosophy.
I'll be refining and editing as I go along.
It's for my class but thought it be good to post it up. I'm digging Stoic philosophy a bit and doesn't seem to out of this world as Plato's philosophy so that's a plus.

Here is what I have for now. A completed version will be more comprehensive of course.
Warning: The following content will be very "drafty" and sometimes incomprehensible since it is in its early stages.
If I have any information wrong, please don't be hesitant to point out or scream if you like. Whatever floats that boat of yours.
Enjoy for what it's worth.
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(I) What is the Human Good?
Stoic ethics is naturalistic. Stoicism can be defined as the theory in practice of the development of the natural mind, which is a mind that posses knowledge of nature, right discourse, and virtue, which is the disposition to right feeling and right action. When this mind is acquired, the good is acquired, since the only way to eliminate our mental affliction, which is caused from our ignorance of the nature of all things, is through the acquisition of the natural mind. In addition, according to Stoic natural value theory, the good depends upon knowing what the nature of all things is and developing our ability to live in accord with nature. The Stoics believe that our minds are a part of the divine center of nature and that for this reason our minds are free with respect to thought, impulse to action, and feeling, all of which are produced by the mind. Therefore, in order to be happy, we need to bring these three in line with the divine purpose of what happens (?).

(II) Parts of Philosophy:
The Stoics believe there are three parts of philosophy and they are like the parts of a living organism. The three parts of philosophy are (1) physics, which is like the soul that gives life, (2) logic, which is like the bones which give strength, and (3) ethics, which is like the flesh that is supported by the bones and given life by the soul.

(III) Purpose of their study:
The purpose of their study is to eliminate our mental sufferings by acquiring the natural mind. Eliminating our mental afflictions is only possible when we acquire a mind that is in accord with nature, which is when we gain knowledge of the nature of things. Additionally, we must be able to incorporate that knowledge in our daily lives in order achieve the human good.


I. Nature of the world
a. The outcomes of our actions are determined, but our actions, feelings, and thoughts are not
b. Nature, according to the Stoics, is a divine substance that possesses body, soul, and mind. The mind is also called reason or logos and it is worshipped by the Stoics since they conceive logos as omniscient and omnipotent. Reason is worshipped and Stoics call it god for this reason. The mind of this substance acts upon its matter to produce copies of the objects it thinks (?). The objects of the mind are universals (?). What the mind does is that it creates particulars that partake of these universals of our instances of these universals (?).
II. How to gain knowledge of the nature of the world
a. The Stoics assumed that our minds are blank tablets in which nature can write the truth, but this would only be possible if we free our minds of false belief. Therefore, in principle, there must be nothing in our minds that interferes with our acquisition of perfect knowledge. Training in logic will show us what knowledge is and it enables us to free our minds from false beliefs. The acquisition of knowledge is basically the use of the criteria of truth and the avoidance of error when arriving at judgments. The criteria of truth are called the mind’s comprehensions of the truth, which are clear and distinct sensations and notions that are impressed upon the mind with great strength by the external objects that are the instances of the objects thought by the divine mind. Error can only be avoided if the mind assents to only clear and distinct sensations and notions. We must avoid opaque sensations and notions since external objects do not cause them. Therefore, we must train our minds to differentiate what are clear and distinct sensations and notions. This is possible since the assent of our mind to their sensations and notions are not determined, since this assent is not a form of matter like the external objects and even the sensations and notions that arise are assent to them, which is immaterial (?). In a world otherwise determine the mind assent to its sensations and notions is included in the domain of freedom (?). Clear and distinct sensations are the criteria of the truth of judgments of the existence of external objects. Clear and distinct notions are the criteria of the truth of judgment about the nature of the external objects. Zeno’s said that when sensations and notions are presented to the mind, the mind is like an out-stretched hand. Its comprehension of the truth is like the hand making a fist, an intuitive knowledge of the truth. And its knowledge of the objects of sensations and notions is like the fist secured by the other hand, reasoning backs your insight. This is a way error can be avoided. Another basic part of logic is the development of right discourse. To develop right discourse we need to follow five rules. (1) First is to check to see the terms refer to something. Check if they are based on clear and distinct sensations of the external objects. (2) Then define your terms. Determine the meaning of the terms by making sure that your notions are clear and distinct. (3) Thirdly, use well-formed sentences. (4) The fourth rule is to use only sentences confirmed by the comprehension of their truth and the last rule is to only use syllogisms that are well formed and confirmed by comprehensions of their validity.

The first week I spent here was hard.
I had to buy blankets, shower-room stuff, phones, pay bills, clean and buy school essentials like books and writing utensils. On top of that, had to do the school work and learn how this place works. Also, since UIowa has integrated the internet in many of their available courses, mainly the student university email addresses (you're more than likely to have more than one university address) and the use of ICON for HW and other class updates, I was pulling my flesh out along with my hair trying to figure out where the damn assignment is located on the website.

Very~ confusing....

Luckly, I had a friend to help me out with all of that. If I didn't, I'd probably had to sleep through the first two weeks with my sweater on to keep me warm at night (the lowest temperature reading I remember at night was 8 Celsius) and my school bag as a pillow.

Anyways, it's been approximately three weeks now I believe and I am getting used to this place. It's kind of like Guam, but just that the weather is different and there are a lot of blonde hair flying in the air. Well, feeling out of place is a everyday thing for me since I've always lived in a place where my race was a minority.

I like it here, although I am still getting used to the weird words they use, such as "pop." I don't know... just doesn't sound right to me....

 

 Hi everybody.

I know I don't update much since I haven't really been concentrating enough on writing.
My new hobby has been taking up much of my time (and sleep)so by the time I decide to write I'm sleeping.

Anyways, I wanted to support a movie where my friend will be acting.
She is Denise and check out the trailer of the movie at www.thebluemansion.com
I saw the trailer and it seems like a real fun movie.

Congrats Denise!

 As scientists began to dig deeper to uncover the mysterious behaviors at the quantum level, they began to fill in the limitations of Newtonian physics and were able to understand how the world interacts at its most fundamental level. With these new findings of quantum theory, quantum mechanics became possible to apply. Today, scientists are still working to unravel the secrets of the quantum world to use quantum mechanics at a more advance level, such as quantum computers and nanoengineering. It is one of the most important and revolutionary science that has tremendous potential in improving the standards of living and further deepening the knowledge and understanding of everything in existence.

Quantum theory began during the late 19^th century. Max Planck became very interested in black body radiations and conducted his experiment by plotting a curve of the energy emitted by the body as a function of the most intense wavelength radiated by the body at various temperatures. In December 14, 1900, Planck presented his results to the German Physical Society and concluded that the energy released by the vibrating atoms of the black body was being transferred discontinuously in lumps called quanta.

 

--- Planck's curve would have looked similar to this ---

 

An important thing to note here is that Planck’s discovery of the quantum energy was in direct conflict to Maxwell’s accepted electromagnetic theory. For example, just as electrons can only orbit the nucleus at a specific orbital path and not anywhere in between, the energy of the atoms will only take certain values. Therefore, to change the charge of an ion, it can only be done by quantizing – by adding or subtracting one electron.

 

--- Maxwell's electromagnetic theory works of course. His theory on energy is wrong. ---

Hence, quantum theory was born and over the years, contributions from physicists like Albert Einstein’s photoelectric effect proving quantization of energy, Louis de Broglie’s matter waves, Niels Bohr’s atomic theory, Erwin Schrödinger’s equation and Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle further developed the quantum theory and are now integral parts of quantum mechanics.

During the 19^th century, physics was in a “glorious mess” as new discoveries were baffling physicists all around the world. One of the many subjects that physicists could not agree on was whether light should be treated as a wave or as a corpuscle. Thomas Young believed light should be treated as a wave and conducted his famous double slit experiment to prove this.

In his experiment, Young shone light, with a known wavelength, to a screen that had two parallel vertical slits. Behind the screen, he had another screen which recorded the final destination of the light after passing through the two slits. Young repositioned the distance between the two slits until he was able to see a constructive and deconstructive interference pattern on the second screen. This is because, interference will not occur if the distance between the two slits were not about the same size as the wavelengths of the objects that are doing the interfering. Eventually, he found the wavelength of light to be a mere thousandth of a millimeter – neatly explaining why nobody had guessed light was a wave before. Many other physicists also carried out the double-slit experiment and found that Young’s results were sound. However, along the process, they also found something very contradictory for light to be treated only as a wave.

 

--- Young's double slit experiment would look similar to this ---

 

For the experiment, the light source must have an intensity low enough to shoot only one photon at a time. The photon will be shot at random directions and at an opaque screen with two parallel slits. Behind the opaque screen will be another screen that would record the arrival of a single photon, such as a photomultiplier . After allowing the experiment to run for some time, a constructive and deconstructive interference pattern resulted.

This is a very strange phenomenon, since in Young’s experiment the interference pattern is from the “interaction of two sets of waves from the same source – the light from one slit with the light from the other slit. But in this case the photons are arriving at the double slit one at a time with no other photon to mingle with. How, then, can there be any interference?

The only way this is possible is if the photon behaves like a wave. Ultimately, this means that the photon began as a localized corpuscle when shot. Then, something mysterious happens as the photon is passing through the slits – it interferes with itself and creates a constructive and deconstructive pattern before it reaches the detector. This means, the photon was no longer a localized particle but a wave. However, when it reaches the detector, it is recorded as a single particle and not a wave.

Scientists have tried to see how the photon passes through the two slits by setting up an observational detector, but when they did that, the photons behaved like a corpuscle all the way through and no interference pattern emerged. When they turned off the detector, it resumed its strange behavior and created an interference pattern. This is just one of the many weird fundamentals that scientists had to accept when dealing with quantum theory.

 

 

The double slit experiment shows a principle of quantum theory called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, named after its founder Werner Heisenberg. It states that the new laws of quantum mechanics imply a fundamental limitation to the accuracy of experimental measurements. Therefore, one cannot use Newton’s belief that every particle’s movement can be calculated with extreme precision and accuracy if the forces acting on the particle are well-defined. In other words indeterminacy, not determinacy, had to be used for quantum theory.

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle explains indeterminacy through his uncertainty relationship; the uncertainty of position multiplied by the uncertainty of velocity equals Planck’s constant. To explain, if one tries to know more about an electron’s, for example, location by using the position wavefunction, the uncertainty of the velocity, found by the momentum wavefunction, of the electron will increase. In other words, we can never know with exact precision the velocity and the position of the electron simultaneously. This uncertainty principle is essential for quantum theory to exist. Without the uncertainty principle, the wave behavior of atoms and their like will be destroyed, thus obliterating one of the fundamentals of quantum theory.

For example, without the uncertainty principle, we cannot understand how the atom can exist. According to classical physics, the electron should collide with the nucleus of an atom within a hundred-millionth of a second. But if one inserts Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle into the atomic structure, “An electron cannot get to close to a nucleus because its location in space would be very precisely known. This would mean that its velocity would be very uncertain. It could become enormously huge for the electron to stay confined in the nucleus.

 

 

--- Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle ---

 

Now this brings us to Schrödinger’s equation, which provides us with a mathematical quantity called the wavefunction. This is where all the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics comes in. For the case of an electron, the wavefunction only gives us the probability of an electron being found in space. The wavefunction contains a lot of information. At any instant in time it has a value for each point in space. So unlike the position in space of a classical particle, the wavefunction is spread out over all of space – hence the term ‘wave.'

 

--- Schrödinger’s equation (* For many particle calculations, other equations are used.) ---

 

             Although, reality in the quantum domain can be rather confusing with many mysterious behaviors that are still unexplained, quantum theory is able to explain phenomenon that scientists were not able to understand with classical physics alone. Additionally, quantum theory allows scientists to create machines that can push the limits of our current technology to new heights.

Quantum mechanics can be significant for a number of issues involved in nanotechnology including understanding aspects of optics, how light interacts with matter. For example, the colors of individual dyes are fixed by quantum mechanics. The large molecule called phthalocyanine, which provides the blue color in jeans, can be changed to give greenish or purplish colors by modifying the chemical or geometric structure of the molecule. These modifications change the size of light quanta that interact with the molecules therefore change its perceived color.

"Quantum computers are also being constructed by researchers who base this technology on superpositions. “The reason they can carry out many calculations at once is because they can exist in a superposition of states. For instance, a 10-element quantum computer is simultaneously in 1,024 states and can therefore carry out 1,024 calculations at once. But all the parallel strands of a calculation are absolutely no use unless they get woven together. Interference is the means by which this is accomplished. It is the means by which the 1,024 states of the superposition can interact and influence each other. Because of interference, the single answer coughed out by the quantum computer is able to reflect and synthesize what was going on in all those 1,024 parallel calculations (Chown 30).”

 

 

--- D Wave might be the world's first quantum computer. There are many skeptics though.---

 

The phrase “stranger than fiction,” can easily be used to sum up quantum theory. Atoms that have a wave-particle duality character and uncertainty in calculations would be impossible to understand through the Newtonian perspective. Although, some of its fundamental principles are shrouded in mystery, quantum mechanics has replaced where classical physics reached its limits. It has also inspired scientists to create new technology, such as quantum computers and nanoengineering. Surely, quantum theory is an amazing new science and as the famous physicist Niels Bohr once said, “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.”

Al-Khalili, Jim. Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed. United Kingdom: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003.

Bohm, David. Quantum Theory. New York: Dover Publications, 1979.

Chown, Marcus. The Quantum Zoo: A tourist’s Guide to the Never-ending Universe. Washington DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2006

De Broglie, Louis. Matter and Light: The New Physics. Trans. W. H. Johnston. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1939

Feynman, P. Richard and Hibbs, A. R., Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965.

Hey, Tony and Patrick Walters. The New Quantum Universe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003

Ratner, Mark and Daniel Ratner. Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003.

Rieth, Michael. Nano-Engineering in Science and Technology: Introduction to the World of Nano-Design. New Jersey: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2004.

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Okay so... I just got my draft back from my professor and got a 19/20, which was a surprisingly high grade. I was expecting him to be uptight and mark me off for all the grammatical mistakes I made. There was also a five page limit that I totally disregarded (well... not really) and got a bit lazy towards the end. 

Anyways, thanks to those who read =) I might be able to answer some question, but no mathematical stuff yet.

Funny picture I found on the net related to quantum theory:

 

 

My friends really love to list down their favorite stuffs.
Favorite movies, favorite tv shows, and of course their favorite female celebrities.
They have a lot more lists and I can't seem to catch up.

I never really cared for making a list of anything, but lately, since I don't have a list, I can't seem to join in the conversation quite well. They'll proudly speak their top five female celebrities in about 5 minutes (they have a hard time narrowing down their favorite) while I barely get pass naming 2 in 10 minutes. Maybe I just haven't been livin' life?

I get confronted with having to name 5 or 10 top whatever everytime I get together with them (which is about almost everyday) and I still can't get pass 2 for every kind of list they mention.

So in conclusion, I've decided to make a list of my own from now on.
I really hate this whole, "got to make a list so i can socialize" kind of thing, but I guess it can't be that bad. It is kind of fun I think.

Well, I've only thought of movies for now so my list of my favorite movies will follow after the colon:
1) Sweeney Todd -- I really loved this movie and it gave me a greater appreciation for Depp.
He did such a great job in that movie, it made me watch Pirates of the Caribbean.
2) Exorcist -- maybe I'm just being a little clingy here, but man... This movie scared the the intestines out of me when I first saw it as a little kid. I haven't had any other movie freak me out more than this one has.
3) Sunshine in the spotless mind - this was a great movie to me. My friend let me borrow his DVD and I watched it after I came back from school. I had tons of homework that day, but I spend the whole day watching the movie over and over again.
4) 300 -- I guess I just like the whole fighting part. Additionally, my highschool world history teacher told us all about the Spartans and it was exciting to actually see a good Spartan movie. My teacher showed us an old version of the 300 battle, but it was as boring as watching someone do a titration experiment.
5) I'll have to say the Asian movie Musa - I don't really like ancient fighting movies because they seem so unrealistic and the plot usually sucks (the one's that I have watched), but this one totally blew my mind. In addition, the main actress of the movie was beautiful. It was the first time I actually went online to figure out what a name of an actress was.


But yeah, to people who watch a lot of excellent movies must be angry while reading this one.
There are probably a lot of other movies that are great, but I haven't been watching much lately.

I just came back from watching Slumdog Millionair and it was a really awesome movie. I'd put it in my top 5, but I wanted to write down my initial top 5 before anything....

And now... this is the beginning of my list making career.
Say hello to obsession and time poorly wasted. =]