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Acknowledgement


My Family
I have many people to thank. My family without whom I would have been nothing. Their constant and unconditional love, support, enthusiasm, and their kind contributions to my life are beyond anybody's imagination. They have never stopped their love and the intellectual and emotional conferrals to me, not to mentions their huge financial contributions. My mother who is the source of love, an intellectual and scholarly figure for me to follow as well as the source of the deepest emotional intelligence and wisdom in my life, she who comforts me when she talks to me with or without words and teaches me the art of living with the endless radiation of wisdom she posses and the ocean of love to which I return like a river over and over again. My father who is an example of intellectual abilities and professional success for me and many others and a great source of inspiration in scholarly achievements. He who is the pillar of my family and the enormous force behind me and and my siblings' academic advancements. He who never ends his love under any circumstance and has taught me the art of tolerance. My siblings from whom I learn, every single day indeed, lessons of perseverance in academic life and of course infinite love.

Academia
I would like to thank professor Ray Jennings, arguably the greatest logician alive, from Simon Fraser University (he helped me with natural deductive logic and introduced me to axiomatic logic as well as paraconsistent logic of which he is the founder father of the Canadian school), and professor Jonathan Katz (we discussed intentionality and consciousness pretty thoroughly; he also gave me one of his finest books on philosophy of religion, a real treasure for any serious philosopher of religion) and professor Bill Barthelemy (he helped me with the history of philosophy and we also talked about logical paradoxes in many occasions) both great philosophers from Kwantlen Polytechnic University with whom I discussed many of the ideas that later appeared in the book (e.g. biology of language, intentionality, causality, the importance of logic, and so on).

My Friends
I am thankful to my friends Saber and Maryam who successfully lured me to start a journey to do what used to seem dangerously implausible from my point of view. My friends Chuck and Dee who have never stopped their kind support throughout the whole process of pre and post production of the book, from editing it line by line, giving me valuable advice. I shall mention particularly how much indebted I am with what Dee has done for me and for the preparation of the book. I feel absolutely privileged to have her support as the editor of the book. It was Dee who read the whole manuscript several times and corrected the errors and suggested many clarifications and stylistic improvements (of course the responsibility of any mistake or error that is left unchecked is solely mine). Chuck, kind and supportive as he always is, has done so much for this work to get ready for publication that words fail me to express. He knows subtle ways of making things happen and leaving his positive effects on anyone with whom he comes in contact. I, proudly, am one of those handful, lucky individuals in the exclusive circle of his friends who gets a substantial benefit of his wisdom. Sheri, my closest friend, played a pivotal role in the process by her emotional and intellectual support from the very moment that I put my very first words on paper till now. She is still supportive of my work as always. I am sure if anyone can live as close to a philosopher of ethics as I am living close to Sheri, one cannot possibly be more blessed, for she has not only helped me out when I came across a philosophical problem, but also she showed me many new ways of looking at ethical issues. She inspired me by her hard work and original ideas in countless occasions. I am forever grateful for keeping her close company.

Also my friends Jeff, Avinash (I call him my personal philosopher as in “family doctor” or in “personal lawyer,” since he, generously and kindly, comes to rescue my unborn ideas whenever I have asked him to) and Blake helped me significantly during our discussions on many difficult philosophical issues like time, causality, consciousness and many more.

My acknowledgement will never be complete if I do not mention my friends Farhad and Sohail (who both live in Dubai now). For more than a year, we held philosophical discussions in our regular meetings and came to many interesting conclusions that later appeared in the book (like my thoughts of causality).

Last but not least, let me remember my deceased best friend Maziar Meisami. He had a profound influence on my ideas as well as on my personality, as a substitute for a wise, older brother figure that I never had. It was in a long walk with him on a cold night along the Enghelab street about six or seven years ago where I first thought of a model of religion as similar in behaviour to how a typical virus behaves (unbeknown to me, that model was proposed a year before when I was born in 1976 by Richard Dawkins; so I missed the honour by a slim margin!).

Thank you everyone!
Without you, my dearest teachers, friends, and family, this dream would have never come true. Isn't it wonderful to be surrounded by such amazing individuals? I definitely believe so!