I am

....approaching 200 blog posts.

Not too terribly many, considering my postings are so irregular.

Today, I would like to recommend to any dear readers, do read books written by Farish A.Noor. He writes very good books, books about his travels are GREAT. Because I love how he injects his feelings, emotions and revelations as he travels around searching for himself, searching for enlightenment and above all else, searching for meanings in life.

I practically devoured his books, and during work time at that.

And a recurring theme he writes? Loss of self, seeing too much and he highlights that an all too always-repeating source of conflict is the lack of understanding and communication. Every conflict ridden place he trods on, people lament that they are not being understood or appreciated.

The elite, the learned, the academics who do not truly step foot in and talk to them always misunderstand. Sometimes, what people want above all else is recognition, respect and not development in the capitalist sense.

In a sense, I am happ that such people are out there. People who do not seek comfort in air conditioned malls, convenience and comfort in life. All they want is an identity, to live out their life as they please and not subject to the fashions and trends of the rich and the urban people. Materials are all they are, materials. They mean nothing if you understand what you are, an animal. Not that I am an extreme who thinks he can live without contact with money or materials (there are people like that. I forgot what the term is to describe them)

I would very much love to talk to the man. Perhaps I should consider travelling, real travelling. Not one where the itinerary has been planned beforehand, where tourist spots are visited. No, travel and talk to people. Understand people.

Our dream of a united humanity will never come true until the day we understand one simple thing; variation. Tolerance does not even come into the picture. And acceptance not really. Just understanding.

Just after

I wrote I believe racism cannot be solved by identifying it, I read Farish A.Noor's book that wrote 'racism' does not exist, because as far as the strictest technical definitions goes; there is only one race. The human race. When I read that, I realized how mistaken I was, and couldn't even begin to think of why I didn't realize that word play in the first place.

And we use the words 'racists/racism/racial' so freely. What are we? Monkeys and Chimps?

The issue here, is dealing with ethnic discrimination, if you like. Or ethnic whatever. And well, Farish made the arguments so well that I am very inclined to agree with them.

Well, the idea of 'racism' in Malaysia pretty much came from our so beloved colonists, the British Empire of then. The ruling idea of then was the well established 'pecah dan perintah', split em and rule em all. And from there, well, I think you get the idea.

And reading his book, it strikes me harder than a homerun baseball landing right on your nose (I don't know how it feels though). I DO NOT REALLY KNOW MY COUNTRY'S HISTORY!! How sad.

And indeed, apart from the high school textbook (which is horrendous, in my opinion. Too much emphasis on memorizing, too little on us actually understanding and appreciating), there really isn't much published information about our country available in our bookstores.

A dear friend tried to search for historical books on Malaysia once. And she couldn't find it. Not in any bookstore.

I browsed through MPH's online catalogue. And they, well categorized books by Malaysians and about Malaysia under the category 'Malaysia'. At least three out of four are about our shitty politics. Experts offering opinions. Books by Mahathir. Books about Anwar. Books about corruption, scandals, elections. And if its not about politics, its either comics or lifestyle (I remember I quite enjoyed Lydia Teh's books).

So the point is, and I bet most of us Malaysians do not realize, or even care, that we are losing our roots. We do not safeguard our past, we are concerned about the present and the future of our country's politics (and incidentally, the present is a mess and the future? Nobody knows where we're even going)

At times like this, I feel for my country. My fellow people, who thinks patriotism means to love your country and that's it.

'Tak kenal maka tak cinta', I should like to throw this quote back at the people who gave it to me.

Finished

At Home by Bill Bryson. Very enjoyable read, I must say. The only complaint being the rising price of books (RM120? Daylight robbery. Fuck Inflation)

And now I am plowing through Farish A. Noor's What your history teacher doesn't tell you. I realized, all the philosophy books I have read are a form of history. So yes, I have been deeply immersed in history reading for the past two years. Surprising, even to myself. Even more surprising is I don't know shit about my country's history. I know more about the West. Tells me something, does it tell you something?

Back in High School, history was one of the chew-swallow-regurgitate subjects. It is not one to give much thought for, my past thoughts were that they are past events. Despite the quote 'Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it' printed in the textbook, it is not appealing at all.

Now, slightly more grown up, I still loathe the school's history textbook. For entirely different reasons. I abhor the methods employed in getting us to know our history. I absolutely hate the twisting of history (and I did question why the heck are we honoring pirates in our textbooks, simply because they fought the anjing penjajah?). Now academics are piling up the texts about how wrong the history we learned are, and at a time when History is becoming a must pass subject? So what's a student to do? Learn the wrong stuff and pass simply because the government wants it to be? Talk about senseless education. Talk about meaningless education. Talk about purposeless education.

And through my twenty odd years, repeatedly the government has tried to reach out to me and preach their ideas of racial superiority. The BTN comes to mind, NS not so much, and the school syllabus? Total insult to academics. Teaching what, and not why is one thing I can never ever swallow down. This is why you are getting idiots, mass produced even. And the idea of racial superiority is utter bullshit. Privilege can be given, no problem there, but when it comes to assigning levels of civilization based on races, then definitely it is done by those who feel they are inferior. We are born equal (misfortunes like mutations aside, and external environment like family richness aside), the essence that differentiates each of us are our thoughts.

Which is why I do not like politics. Nobody does, except if it helps them get rich.

Incidentally, despite what I wrote up there, I do not believe racism can be eliminated. For each day I am identified as a Chinese, that's when racism is alive. Make everyone beige, as Russell Peters suggested, then we may be able to talk of racism as something of the past.

Democracy is an excellent idea, provided you get the right people up. And that condition is almost impossible to fulfill, as I am now led to believe. And no, don't even consider about the other government structures. Shifts could be well bloodied. Ideas in the hands of people can get dangerous, and history has shown it many times.

I like night time. It helps me think, because of the silence. And yet I have to sleep, for I have work in the daytime. Sometimes I wish I was an immortal who does not need sustenance, yet am able to partake in food. SOMETIMES. Living forever does have its perks, but I shudder at the consequences.

SWEAT

First decent post of a new year, which I don't see the significance.

First thing to note. I AM NOW A CRAZY FANBOY OF A CERTAIN WOLF.

I can't remember the last time I broke a sweat watching an anime. That was how intense it was to me, despite it all being about trading o_O

Ok, enough about the degenerate activities that I indulge ever so often. On a more productive side, I have finished 'THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH' by a certain evolving Mr. Dawkins. Evolution might not be the greatest show to me, but it certainly is perhaps one of the best books out there about evolution. The way he lays out everything, the way I see it is that the evidences are extremely convincing. So much so there is little room for debate. I have admittedly not given this issue much thought, for evolution and nature are topics of the real. In my head lies questions on meta levels, and those are much more absorbing to me.

So in light of this book, I would indeed profess to admit this theory is, for the most part the best there is in the foreseeable future. Naturally, theories can be improved, even new ones can be introduced. In this case, even if we introduce a new theory, it will probably be an even more refined (not to say its not refined now) theory of evolution, with a lot more details to iron out whatever creases there might be that the Creationists can attack. If, that is. I do not know if it is necessary, but I like to think there are always holes in everything. Me being the sceptic of perfection.

But honestly, in an age of Science can we say for sure that the philosophy of science is spelling God's demise?

My proper answer would always be 'I don't know for sure'. But revelations upon revelations pile up, and the few big questions are being shoved out of the way.

For now, it is still romantic to think of existence as something made with a moral/cosmic order. Considering the fact that existence came from nothing, then in the puddle of existential chaos there came a small pocket of order that gave birth to life and us wondering where everything came from.

No, God did not design you. It will be arrogant to even think of that. The possibility of us being an intermediate to a greater species remains (haha evolution speaking), and even if you do not believe in evolution the possibility of an even greater species existing out there that can outsmart and outfight us remains, no matter how small.

With the way stuff wink in and out of existence, and time being a relative thing, pretty much everything is chaos when we reach the cosmic scale. Whos to say our little mind will be able to understand the turbulent nature of... randomness?

Random fun word : Cosmologists describe the experience of falling into a black hole as 'spaghettification'. You are stretched out like a spaghetti by gravity. It would probably be painless. Why? Cause you'd be dead.

Bryson's new book 'A short history of private life' is an awesome read. Feels to me that, from the time he embarked to undertake the project of 'A short history of nearly everything', Mr. Bryson here has been learning and thinking a lot more. Because his previous books feel differently, them being travel notes. But his humour is evident. I like the way he presents history. They are full of stuff you won't find in your history text book. Like someone famous having sex with a prostitute on the roadside and nobody knew because it was so dark (this was the pre-electric age). Its worth the money, in my opinion.

Judging from my situation with the real, I probably can't start on Mr. Russell's 'History of Western Philosophy'. The book bears quite a bulk, and its paperback. Full of heavy stuff. I expect headaches. Perhaps I should try the mischevious wolf's light novels, just for something to take my mind on a holiday to.

Well, perhaps.

Haven't done this for a long time

........uploading a picture that is.

Lets end the year

with a blog post.

Of course, knowing me, don't expect nice stuff like 'oh this year had been a great year, i resolve to be better next year'. Because I think that's shallow.

Instead, I shall drone about how we, as a human society has failed to understand our purpose. Well, maybe not all of us, but it certainly is apparent in people I come across. And even though my facebook boasts 200 friends (I am an 'average' Malaysian. Imagine that. I thought the average 'friendship' of Malaysians should be like 1000. You people have way too many friends, some that you don't even know anymore), I do come across heaps of people. And we talk.

So yeah, what did I mean by not understanding our purpose?

For starters, many of us don't know why we are doing science. Or that science is fallible in some places. Or what science exactly is.

I might be wrong here, and this is certainly what I believe + my own opinions. They are not in any way.. well.. presented as facts, rather as what I understood from observation and some reading. You get the point I assume.

So what is science? It was an attempt to understand, exploit Nature and at the same time I guess it was also to undermine religious institutions (you know which one) from holding absolute political power and telling people what does not appear to be true.

But science has grown, so much that many people who study and practice science don't know what it is anymore. In the streets I see many claims that 'this is scientifically proven', but nobody questions what it means to be scientifically proven, nor the methods of proving it. And incidentally, most of the time it employs statistics (which apparently is widely misunderstood, even by statisticians so it is claimed).

To illustrate, I take points from an article that I agreed with (no I won't link it here. Its long boring and you won't read it anyway).

Few tests that deal with real living subjects have no effect. Few, in fact almost virtually none. The method of statistically proving, or rather disproving stuff relies heavily on what is known as a null hypothesis. Since the testing methods are limited and heavily influenced (eg hard to control the variables) , the usual step is to set up a null hypothesis.

Lets say 'Eating Grass will not make you look prettier'. And you get a sufficiently large group of volunteers, say 100 people. Their looks you have managed to quantify (somehow), and you have a reasonably controlled environment. For simple arguments sake, everything is good for your test. Except your results.

Now, living beings being living beings, we are dynamic. So the expected results will be a scatter, since that is the point in the beginning, you want to know the distribution. And you do get one, you analyse it. You get a spread. Some people do get prettier, some people get uglier, but most people are unaffected (or significantly affected). But overall, the bulk of the data gives you a, say 98% probability that the effect is give or take 3 unit of prettiness. You would perhaps confidently announce there is no 'significant effect' from eating grass.

I draw the distinction between 'significant effect' and 'not make you look prettier'. One absolutely states that it will have no effect on your looks, and that is the hypothesis. But your data indicates there ARE changes, good or bad or too little to bother with, and they balance out nicely to tell you 'no significant effect'. So, while you may say it is proven statistically, somewhere out there 1 out of 100 people will get prettier if only they would eat grass. And you told them it won't.

I wonder if I made it simple enough, and I don't know if eating grass will make you prettier.

And, second point being that, a few younger people I came across recently profess interest in science. But when I ask them 'why', I get generic answers. 'Career'. 'Interest'.

What irks me is they are interested in something they don't really know what is going on about. I don't know how to put it in words (really honestly), but sometimes I question whether they truly understand what science is for and why.

Lets step back a bit and allow me to explain something a little bit out of place, but I hope to use this to explain the position of science from my perspective.

We humans have two ultimate goals. One is to survive, and another is to understand. The price of developing intelligence is that we are too aware. We question our existence. We are curious, and incidentally insecure.

That is why over time we began the practice of worship (I can be entirely wrong here. This is pure reasoning on my part, not even scientific or religious). We want to feel we have something to pursue for. God became the ultimate idea (I am agnostic by the way, but I guess I would change soon, after a bit more thinking. Not to mainstream though).

Hence, philosophy came in. And boyy, did they come in huge. I don't know when philosophy 'began', but from the Western side it probably started with them Greeks. But hey, that is not in the strict sense, since if we are capable of thought and questioning from way back, then philosophy should probably arise when such capabilities arise.

Many schools form, Socratic Platonic Tectonic you name it.

And one of them appeared in somewhat modern human age. That is science, the philosophy of causality. Everything that happens has a cause, and an associated effect. I think we can even attribute this to the Greeks. That's how far back it went, though not formally called science until much later.

So what is science about? Classical science employs empiricism. You observe something, you infer a cause and you test it under controlled conditions. I think it was called similitude, simulating nature in a lab. It has been successful so far, since many things in our macro world are reproducible. A ball that you throw upwards will always fall down, due to gravity. That is highly reproducible, and not once has it failed to fall down (the ball I mean).

Thus far, it has certainly served us well. Such simple ideas behind it. Understanding the cause and the effect brings about huge effects (hah!). We build factories and stuff based on this. Processes, machines, you name it. All products of science, which is a child of philosophy (I like to think of science as a child of philosophy).

But today, science has grown. We not only observe and take note, we predict. With almost absolute certainty, I can tell you any ball you throw upwards will fall down towards the earth.

...  but of course you could launch it with such great force that it breaks free of the gravity field. I am wrong there then.

But you get what I mean, we can predict stuff. Ah hey, but we not only can predict stuff, based on these information we now can put forward new theories/ideas/models based on old ones. And these are mostly borderline metaphysics.

The atomic theory comes to mind. Funny how no one disputes atoms around me, but many people out there apparently do not believe in atoms simply because it hasn't been seen (oh but it has been seen. They have managed to scan their shapes out). Quantum theory gives us a whole list of subatomic particles (I can devote an entire year to writing blog posts about them, not to say I understand a whole lot there. Just to show how much you can say about it), and string theory predicts even freakier stuff. Thing is, not one of them can be experimented on for now. They fit into models very nicely, and whatever indirect observations that can be made seem to conform to it.

Bearing in mind that we cannot know anything absolute, these are the powers of science that allow us to understand, or at least seem to understand nature. (I want to complain that we do not ascribe laws to Nature. We propose Laws or Models that describe Nature, not the other way around! Realize that! Many people don't, surprisingly).

Stephen Hawking miffed me when he proudly announced that philosophy is coming to an end. Because they, using physics and their results are able to describe Creation itself. I find that somewhat disconcerting, and for lack of a better word, arrogant. Socrates will have a field day with Mr Hawking there.

So look, science is philosophy in action. It is applied, and it has changed our lives so much. It made survival easy for many of us that the only problem you have is your love life and you want to kill yourself because of it. Good way to clear the gene pool of stupidity I say.

Lets summarize what I have written. Science is a branch of philosophy that deals explicitly with reality, in the way that we interact with Nature and observe its behaviour. And we have expanded it to be capable of (certain, reasonable) predictions and even propose models for behaviors of Nature that cannot be experimented upon. Did I miss anything? I hope not, its 2011 and I am tired.

Now if I can just get more people to appreciate what they are doing and why, that we may fulfill the 2nd purpose better.

P/S : Will we someday reach a pinnacle of knowledge and wisdom that we have but one Law that can describe Nature in its entirety? One Law that will be able to explain everything from existence down to every single process, why there are energy, why there is matter etc. And perhaps One Mathematical (if maths survive the advancements.) equation that will allow us to calculate everything from your body temperature to the exact date and time the sun will blow up in your face to the total number of galaxies in existence. All in one.

That would be nice, but it remains unclear if science will give that to us, because the part of being unable to experiment is, well, not so 'scientific' in some sense.

That said, I hope I covered my grounds properly (I always write without drafting or editing. Pardon my errors). Happy New Year