This morning we were watching The Fresh Prince of Bel Air which triggered a conversation between my wife and I about philosophy and the question “if a tree falls in a forest and no-one is around to hear it; does it make a sound?”. My wife tends to think of it as a personal perception idea; if a person doesn’t perceive it then it doesn’t exist. So if no-one is around to hear a tree fall in the forest then it hasn’t happened; does the forest even exist? Because no-one is around doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened and the forest doesn’t exist. Was the world not spherical before people perceived it to be that way? Personal perception is personal ignorance in my opinion, because someone doesn’t perceive something doesn’t render it non-existent. If that is the case; I could be arrested for something and in court plead not guilty because I don’t perceive the law I have broken. That wouldn’t stand up in court so why should it stand up in life. Because I don’t perceive something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist; it just means that I am unaware of it!
There has been more controversy in F1 as the governing body has been outed by PitPass as forcing all new teams to use Cosworth engines which explains the exclusion of teams like Pro-Drive (who planned to use Mercedes engines) that has been previously accepted into the F1 world championship in 2008. The FIA moved the goalposts at the last moment after teams had spent considerable amounts of money with their designs to use non-Cosworth engines. This could well explain Lola’s decision to take their name off the reserve list. The FIA hasn’t denied any of this saying that it forced new teams to use Cosworth engines because it didn’t want manufacturer based teams holding the sport to ransom because between them they supplied all the engines in F1. Cosworth have been tight lipped about all of this referring questions back to the FIA about new squads being required to use Cosworth engines to be accepted. There is further controversy about the Cosworth engines not being limited to 18,000rpm like all other engines which is perceived to give the Cosworth teams an advantage but that remains to be seen! Also in F1; Toyota owned circuit Fuji Speedway has withdrawn from hosting the Japanese Grand Prix from next year onwards due to the global economic downturn. Which also brings up questions about Toyota’s continuing participation in the Formula 1 World Championship. This years Japanese Grand Prix is due to be held at Honda’s Suzuka circuit in a sharing system between the two circuits. It is unclear whether Suzuka is able or willing to host a yearly Grand Prix given the extortionate fees that Formula 1 Management is charging. Bernie Ecclestone is looking to move to countries/circuits that are willing to pay more to host Grand Prix’ Mosley is stepping down in October; I believe that Ecclestone also needs to retire/die (whichever comes first) as he’s clearly lost contact with reality with his recent Hitler “got things done” comments! He clearly doesn’t have the best interests of F1 at heart; Formula 1 is simply a cash cow for him. Hosting fees need to be significantly reduced so ticket prices can be slashed making F1 races more accessible!
I’m happy to hear that BT has dropped plans for the time being to use Phorm or Webwise as it’s been marketed in the UK. Phorm is a targeted advertising system that takes a copy of your web surfing habits to provide targeted advertising. There has been concerns about privacy with many people vowing to ditch ISP’s using the system because the system is opt-out instead of opt-in. Some large websites such as Amazon and UK government sites have already blocked the Phorm robot. Of course BT are saying that it has put it’s Phorm plans on hold because of other priorities but in reality they have shelved it because of the fear of a mass exodus of customers.