CS 349 Contemporary Issues in
Computer Science
Alan Cline
What I Have Lived For
Bertrand Russell was one of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the 20th century.
1) Read about Russell here. You may also find the book Logicomix interesting. Russell is its main character.
2) Russell died in 1970 at the age of 97. Three years before he died, he published his autobiography. Read the Prolog to Russell’s Autobiography. It’s entitled, “What I Have Lived For”.
3) Now imagine that you’ve lived to be 95. What would you want to be able to write as you look back on your life? (The idea here is that, if you think about this now, you have the chance to make your vision true.) Write a short (no more than 600 words) essay that you’d like to be able to write under the title, “What I Have Lived For”. While this essay is of course your opinion and doesn’t need to read like a research paper, it should have a clear thesis statement and back it up with coherent thoughts.
There is absolutely no right answer here. Your grade will be determined by how clearly you write your vision. We are not going to be grading your vision. It’s yours.