Soma Purana

I am continuing MOOCs with the same vigor as before. Started MOOCs in Sep. 2012. So far I have completed 28 courses. My latest MOOC completion with distinction is "How Viruses cause Disease" by Prof Vincent Rcaniello of Columbia U. I also completed Jason Hafner's (Rice U) Electricity and Magnetism and passed it with 92% (>85% is A) but didn't get the certificate, because, I found out when I registered I accidentally chose audit only. I am right now studying Python programming, and a MOOC course called "Justice" from Harvard.

Unalienable right to life is one of the most difficult rights to enforce when it comes to taking one's life. If a person decides to kill himself, if he does not succeed, he will be punished (I guess) but probably mildly. He can attempt again. If he succeeds, it is done, there is nothing anyone or any government can do. In a normal trade, there is a seller and a buyer. In suicide, there is a seller, But who is the buyer? There is no buyer. Therefore, it is not a transaction and therefore, you cannot claim it be illegitimate. You cannot even claim it to be immoral? Who has done the immoral act? The person doesn't exist anymore. The person who killed himself is only in memory, thought. What about war? The war scenario seems more useful to discuss it would appear. In the case of a soldier who is killed in battle, did the soldier have the right to engage in an activity where the likelihood of getting killed (thus giving up his life) is high. At least here, there is an act

I have been reading political and moral philosophy by Bentham, John Stewart Mill, Robert Nozick, John Locke. Absolute right in our life that a pure libertarian would assert is not something majority would agree and can be expected. I can donate a kidney (if I have two working kidneys) to save the life of a loved one. But no doctor would take my healthy heart even if I wholeheartedly(!) agree to save the life of a loved one. Kidney and heart are both parts of my body but I seem to have different levels of right to them. If I want to donate my hair, no one would quibble with that right. If I am suffering from a terrible chronic hopeless condition, do I have a right to end my life? If I try and don't succeed, I will be punished by the government. If I succeed.... If I give away my car, I cannot claim it back. If I give away myself to slavery, by the same logic, I cannot claim it back. The car example seems just. But the inability to claim back the right to our self that wa