Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion 23% Stability 30% Orderliness 36% Accommodation 16% Interdependence 76% Intellectual 76% Mystical 16% Artistic 23% Religious 10% Hedonism 63% Materialism 56% Narcissism 63% Adventurousness 36% Work ethic 56% Self absorbed 90% Conflict seeking 50% Need to dominate 63% Romantic 23% Avoidant 36% Anti-authority 43% Wealth 43% Dependency 70% Change averse 70% Cautiousness 50% Individuality 56% Sexuality 56% Peter pan complex 76% Physical security 83% Physical Fitness 24% Histrionic 63% Paranoia 70% Vanity 50% Hypersensitivity 63% Female cliche 10%

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0m9z mu( - ph34rzz!!!!111!

Convo on msn.

me: 0m9z mu( - ph34r!
him: wtf? cant read? change font
me: huh, it is 13375p34k
him: stop that you use a normal font
me: omgz much fear

Some people don't get 13375p34k.

Is DNA alive?

It seems like it is just a chemical that cannot do anything on its own. You put the crystal there, and it stays there until something happens to it. It only assumes an identity when it is implanted in the correct place. It seems like a specialised cog in a machine. The machine cannot work without the cog, and the cog is nothing without the machine. The machine acquires some identity from that cog, but the cog is a cog on its own.

So what actually gives something a life? Or an identity? What separates one being from another? Are two chairs of the same model exactly the same? What about the cells that are separated after the fusion of the gamete? Do they each have an identity? What about each red blood cell? Are they identical?

If you can physically map out the position and velocity and type of every particle in a person's body (i noe its impossible, but if) and produce an exact copy of it onto another place, would that person think he is the "original" person or the produced person?

Does the identity of a person depend on his own memories or the memories of the people around him concerning him? As a solipcist i suppose i'd take my identity as the former. The thing is that every time i sleep, i forget who i am and i live as a different person. For that instant somehow i just "know" what everything in the dream world is, who each person is, what their names us what they do beofre etc. I forget who the person i am is when i am awake. So have "I" become a different person?

Apperently the person that "I" am in the dream has different memories from me. "I" have no connection whatsoever with "me" here. What makes both of "us" "me"? Or rather, all of "us", each time I fall asleep and dream?

"I" am the person who can sense and think. "I" can feel my environment. "I" think that "I" exist. That is who "I" am. Even if you have my memories, you are not me. Even if I lose all my memories, I am still me. I am not Yak Xin Yang. Xin Yang is my name. I am "me".

i think everyone is the same as me. i am normal. average. just that the stat points and skill points are distributed differently.

Through fables and many other tales (like xi1 you2 ji4)that we have read and heard throughout our lives, it is undeniable that people admire those who are able to resist temptations through sheer determination. However, it seems to have progressed to an extent that people who cannot resist temptations are despised by others.

I think human by nature would sucuumb to all temptations if not for education and conditioning. Being able to resist it should not be seen as something natural, instead something artificial. This conditioned behaviour allows the society to be stable. If everyone just go around robbing and raping and stuff, humans would go extinct. Education plays a very important part of maintaining social stability. So, this conditioning makes the human race more powerful as a whole. However, there is no way for us to judge whether this conditioning is actually good or not for an individual. All we know is that without this conditioning, the world would be in chaos. Therefore, people are encouraged to remain conditioned. This is done by spiritually rewarding those who are able to remain conditioned, with words like moral, good, noble etc. People who do not are despised and looked down upon.

On the more individual level, we can see why. Generally people who are "moral" treat the people who surround them better, and generally make them feel better than those who are not. You probably don't want a friend who would steal your things. When you see someone giving his seat up for an old lady you feel better because you see that the meek are taken care of. You also don't feel good when you know that someone else is cheating and he got better grades. The list goes on. Society expects each individual to obey the moral codes of conduct, because the constituents stand to lose if an individual doesn't. So the originally jagged stone gets polished and it eventually fits in well.

However, this process isn't fast enough. Education speeds up the process by punishing the people who do wrong and rewarding those who do right. This is much more efficient, but there are elements of brainwashing. They make people despise those who do not conform. Those who find it harder to resist temptations become wrong and immoral. In certain cases it seems that it really isn't worth the effort to condemn those people, because they don't do any harm.

That is why i don't see any reason why we should condemn those who surf porn.

Now I come to wonder. Have you noticed that the chinese department just love to use the word "roots" and "5000 years of history and culture" to persuade us not to abandon chinese? Somehow, even if pupils still don't love chinese, they would somehow feel guilty to abandon chinese. After, it contains their roots. But is that really such an important thing?

Or have you heard your teachers say that it is really sad for people to abandon chinese, because then they would have no identity. They try to identify themselves with the caucasians, yet the caucasians would never identify themselves with the english-speaking chinese. To them, that is tragic.

It seems that these statements seem to have risen more through passion than logic. If you think about it, one doesn't really need any connection to his roots. Orphans live pretty fine. So do the children from mixed heritage background. Do they have roots? Well they do, but to them their roots isn't so clearly defined. So is that tragic? No? So perhaps being unable to find one's roots isn't as tragic as choosing not to identify with one? I cannot see the logic in that.

It is weird that just because you have yellow skin, it means you would have to identify with the events that happened to people with yellow skin. Well of course it is nice to identify with a person just by looking at the exterior, but that is quite superficial isn't it?

I admit that the chinese culture have great things. It is natural for people to have experienced great things to want to share it with the others. However, in my opinion, that should not be forced. After failing to convince people that chinese is great, they try to brainwash people into thinking that abandoning chinese is bad. It's like saying, "Would you like to try this? It is great! No? You suck!"

There only seem to be pragmatic reasons(ie, opportunities in china, your chances of getting into a good school etc.). i really don't think that there are any altruistic reasons for focing people to study chinese when they know in their bones they hate it. As one senior said, "They put us through years of hell studying chinese and they expect us to like it."

Well of course that is his opinion. I personally don't hate chinese. However, i don't like the way they brainwash people into thinking that people who don't study their mother tongue plainly suck. Our comprehensions, cloze passages and summaries are full of essays trying to convince us to embrace chinese. Well, the language they use is good, but the reasoning is still faulty. Someone give me an altruistic reason to study chinese if i hate it please.

I remember i heard this from friend.

"You know, the Christians are the only people who aggressively promote their religion."
"Really?"
"Ok, let me put it this way. Have you ever heard a malay ask, 'Hey would you like to come to my mosque?' "

Why do fish have fins? Because you do not call it a fish if it doesn't have fins.

Why do justice always prevail? Because the party that prevails is always justified.

"Oh hubby, hubby, why do you have such huge ____ ?"
"All the better to _____ you my dear."

went for malaysia trip. the one that all geppers would go for. quite fun, but i think for a science club camp some things could have been improved:

Flexibility.
Being a guided tour we had very little free time to do what we wanted to do.

Time.
Being a Malaysia trip much of the time was spent travelling.

Educativeness.
It was primarily a geography trip.

People.
Being an overseas camp, it would naturally be more costly and less people might want to go. Indeed, some of the fun ppl like ali, yy, kenny, lawry, jiahua, gordon, kiaboon, guocong, michael etc didn't go, making the camp less lively than what it could have been. This is especially so since most of the core members of science club are from GEP and all GEPs would have gone for this trip b4 already.

To make up numbers they combined sci club and library. quite a few of the librarians were plain irritating and bitchy. they also seem to be less inquisitive.

Of course there are good as well!

General well-being.
The food and accomadation were terrrrrrrrrific. 5***** hotel sia! bedside control of all equipment! huge room! enough room for 2 ppl to bathe at the same time but tts besides the point for an all-boys camp.

Miscellaneous.
See a lot more people :)) Esp. the salesgirls in the biscuit store we visited at the end of the trip. Overwhelmed by their courtesy. And the uncle who owned the store teased alwyn.

watched a discovery channel documentary about lying. they said that a child first tells the truth by instinct, but they learn to lie as they grow up. it was discovered that the higher the IQ, the sooner they learn to lie. that is because they have realised that other people may not know what they know. they use that to their advantage, and keep away from trouble.

so, without aesop fables, morals and civics textbooks, and the fairy tale about the old man who dropped his rusty iron axe into the river, would we lie more often? are they neccessary?

Assuming that it is true that it is in the human instincts to tell the truth, there would need to be a force acting against this instinct, such that people would want to lie. It may be a reward from lying, or a punishment from telling the truth. Either case, the force has to be strong enough to make a person want to lie.

My hypothesis is that all these fairy tales and fables and things that they teach us since we are young are there not to reinforce this instinct, but to add an extra reward for telling the truth: the faith that you would be rewarded someday, somehow, for telling the truth. This is conditioned and subconscious, and it affects the way we make our decisions .

So, after this conditioning, not only does a person need to got against his instincts to tell the truth in order to lie, he also has to give up the benefits of telling the truth he has faith in. This, in effect, would mean that there would need to be a better reason for him to lie, before he would. Hence, moral and civics education would indeed help in making people lie less often when they don't need to.

However, a problem occurs when people finally realise that the fables they have been hearing since young, are, after all, fables. They must eventually learn the benefits of lying, and the consequences of not lying.

Allow me to sidetrack a bit, and let me give u a scenario(it happened before). During CLE lesson, your form teacher did a sharing session on Dr William Tan's speech, and it was obvious that she felt very inspired. Then she ask: are you inspired by his speech? Someone shouted, "YES! i'll chop off my legs!" You know who that person is. The teacher doesn't. The teacher was very upset about that comment and proceeded to lecture the class for the next 30 minutes. After class, the teacher asks you if you know who the person who made that comment was. What would you do? (Let's say you don't hate that person to the core)

Whatever it is it wouldn't pay to tell the truth under those circumstances.

So, when the people realise the power that deception can give them, they become cynnical about what they have learnt in civics and moral education. Now that they realise that what they hoped is true is not true, they would have a more bleak outlook of life.

I think that is why people feel happy when reading happy stories. It makes them feel that by following their conscience, their future would hold lots of hope and joy for them. After reading the story, they feel that if they continue to do what is right, and avoid what is wrong and bad, they can have a wonderful future. Effectively, this makes them feel that they can control their future, and hence they would be happy. However, this is most often not the case in real life.

But the thing is, there is a chance that we would be able to have a happy ending, albeit the chance being rather low. If all of us become cynnical, we would not be motivated to work towards that goal, and the chance of attaining it would be even less.

i noticed that i am actually not blogging so much for the sake of leaving my thoughts somewhere so that i may refer to it years later, and chuckle at how immature i used to be back then, and use it as a mirror to improve myself. If i wanted to do that i would have kept a diary. it is so much simpler to write down thoughts on paper than to blog. moreover, as long as u don't have internet access, or googleplex catches fire, you cannot find what you wrote before.

so why am i blogging? i think the reason why i am blogging is to that everyone in the world how smart i think i am, hopefully they look and say, "look, this dude thinks, he's smart." so, sometimes i don't really blog about what i'm really thinking about, for fear of letting other people whacked. Also, sometimes i write so that people would want to read it and see how smart i am. but whatever it is, i don't record my thoughts anywhere else so much.

i guess nobody is really interested in what i have been writing about. but by doing this, it makes me feel as though there is hope that someone comes across and understands what i am thinking. it makes me feel better. but what i really hope to get out of this is that people know me better. so that i can communicate more easily.

tell ya what, i really think that i am quite clever. i am trying so hard in so many ways to give people such an impression, yet at the same time, don't come across as proud and overconfident. but from my so many failures i see that i'm really not as smart as i thought i was. the rjc eureka and nsc really shook me hard. they were so important. about 9 months before nsc, i'm rehearsing what it would be like to win the competition everyday, what it would be like to represent RI and thrash the other schools, and i really studied for that very moment. on the day that we lost in the first round, i was really shell-shocked. on my way home i really felt like crying. i was telling myself "its okay, its just a competition" but i knew in my heart it wasn't! worse still, we are appearing on tv.... everybody would be like "WTF RI sucks like shit! Can't even answer those simple questions!" sigh. we knew the answer, but we were too slow on the buzzer. sounds like excuses, excuses, excuses, but that was what really fucking happened. and i was our fault. we lost at something we could have won and that feeling is even worse. it didn't feel that bad to lose in ACJC because we knew by the end we couldn't win liao. everyone knew that ri's niche was in chemistry and i doubt the organisers themselves could answer the harder chemistry questions (the third hardest question required you to divide by 2, use the pythagoras's theorem 3 times then multiply by 2, then express in nanometres. easy, but not in 20 seconds. the second hardest question the organisers got the answer wrong themselves and the judges had to point that out, and the answer for the hardest question was a 3 page solution for a partial differential equation with 4 variables). the "hardest" maths question was the easiest math question. i guess they compromised on fairness too much for suspense and unpredictability.

you'd say, "yeh yeh, sore loser" but then thats the point. i'm not some noble saint who can look past all these achievements and cast them away as "worldly affairs", i am one who is really really concerned with my image. so of course i'm sore about losing. no one likes to lose, and neither do i.

so yes. if i dispense with all the formalities and hypocrisies i'm really an arrogant bastard who is so proud of my intelligence, that i neglect a lot of the work. i'm so proud of myself, i don't work hard. it seemed to me that the past few years i've been telling myself not to be proud, not to be arrogant, not to be complacent etc. but i failed. all i did was to try to keep it away from others. the balance between hypocrisy and arrogance is putting a lot of pressure on. on one hand i try not to be too hypocritical and seem like i am a humble person when i am far from it, yet on the other hand i'm worried that i come across as arrogant and complacent.

I see that many succeed in balancing it well, by expounding on their achievements and putting others down as a part of friendly humourous conversations that close friends are bound to have. I don't have enough close friends. From what i see, when i try to do that people avoid me, and say things like "yar wad, u very smart". so are people making fun of me, or are they really impressed by me?

i hope someday i can find someone who would talk to me about things that i care about, and joke with me, tease me, and i can tease him back about some other things, without any fear that he may someday leave me because i'm too arrogant and narcisistic.

today i saw this convo when playing 'Conquer' that really cracked me up.

A: ur from singapore?
B: no
A: then how u know chinese? lolz
B: i'm from china... -_- "

stupid singaporean.

On a side note i allowed commenting on posts. I guess people might have comments to make, that are too long for the tagboard.

My father said: "People usually make judgements based on their prior experience. Since different people, especially people from different generations, experience different things, the conclusions they make are likely different, leading to disagreements. Things change, but people don't."

Alwyn and i discussed a bit about cuteness today. He suggests that cuteness actually represents the kind of proportions that make people shower more care and concern for the subject. For example, people show more care to babies that are cute. This seems logical. However, i wonder whether the word "cute" refers to the same thing when directed to a baby and to young person.

However, evolutionary wise the chance of reaching that is quite small. Firstly, there must be a roup of people who have the genes to appreciate cuteness, and you also must have people who are, themselves, cute. The chance of having a high proportion of either evolving together seems quite low. If the cuteness appreciation genes were already there in the first place, then it makes sense to believe that a cute baby is more likely to survive, and hence pass on its cuteness genes, assuming that those exist. However, this is afterall, based on an unsubstantiated assumption that the cuteness appreciation genes were already there. Why do people even have cuteness appreciation genes in the first place? It seems quite unlikely that those genes would actually help them survive and prosper. This means that if they did have cuteness appreciation genes in the first place, it is quite unlikely to evolve to exist anyway. Even if it does, it seems also unlikely that these genes would exist in almost all of us in the current age.

Unless, of course, that cuteness appreciation genes come "bundled" together with cuteness genes. Then perhaps it would make some sense for them to exist.

But I still think that cuteness came before cuteness appreciation. Cuteness appreciation is only favourable to the survivial of the being if cuteness had already existed, and the cute being would also have a higher chance of survival. Basically, i mean that alwyn's suggestion may be right, but i think mine is more probable.

Alwyn also disagreed with my belief that cuteness and beauty are mutually exclusive. Hmm. I guess that has to do with what a person exactly means by cute. This is a very important point. What is cuteness? Crap. I really don't know. I guess it comes into our vocubulary when we see someone or something that someone points to and says "ooooooh so cute...." and then after a few more incidents we automatically somehow find some similarities between them and link the word "cute" with that.

Perhaps every word is like that. Especially the more abstract words. Like love, good, bad, evil, justice... blah. Those concepts that nobody really care to explain but everyone just love to use them (even i am using the word "love" which i have no idea of what it means. I guess it just happens to suit the context). The words are being used differently as we grow up, each person links different things to a word because one hears different ways of the word is being used to describe and explain different scenarios. Therefore, if someone asks about abstract concepts like love, evil, good, and bad, I suppose we do no read too much depth into it. The word means different things to everyone. Just take love as an attraction. Good as things you want to be associated with, bad as otherwise, evil as things against your own conscience. Let's not read too much into these abstract subjective concepts.

While Jingwen says that "love" is a bastardised word, I think that it is okay if one does not use it indiscriminately. A more bastardised word, in my opinion, is "know". Once you use the word know in your own favour, it is quite impossible to argue against you, and that is unfair. What is unfair is not that you know more, but once you start using the word "know" you stop accepting ideas from other people and you would assume that you are right from the very start. Consider this statement:

"Did you know that science is wrong?"

How are you going to respond to that? Yes? No? Whatever it is by using that "know" you are already assuming that whatever statement that is bundled with it is true. We shouldn't do that. There is a joke that stems from the common misuse of the word "know":

"Are your parents gay?" "No."
"Is your brother gay?" "No."
"Is your sister gay?" "No."
"Are you gay?" "No."
"Does your mother know you are gay?" "..."

There is no way you can answer that and still say that you are not gay.

I think that is considered is logical fallacy. Thanks goodness. Let us all try to minimise the use of words, meaning of which we are not sure ourselves.

i remember my sister introduced me to Chobits (the anime) two years ago. Finished 1-10. Yesterday i finished all the rest (11-26) at one sitting. Each episode is 30 mins.

wonderful anime. i tried to clear the thoughts away using paul's wheel, but the feeling remains, and lingers around my mind, affecting whatever i think and do. The reason why one thinks is because of what one feels, and an unfeeling person cannot think. In this case, my mind is so bloggled with feelings and reflections that i couldn't sleep, couldn't play, couldn't think, couldn't read, couldn't study. I think thats what a good anime does to you. The concept forces you to think, and if it doesn't, the images force you to feel. The power of anime is amazing. It can be used or abused.

I wonder why even though some anime characters are out of proportion, we still instinctively find them beautiful. I am quite sure that an anime girl's face wouldn't fit the golden mask [the eyes are far too big and the mouth is far too small]. The anime guy's nose is too small. But why, despite the golden mask thingy, we still find them beautiful?

I've heard that the golden mask measures beauty, but not 'cuteness'. Now that is an interesting comment. what is the difference between beauty and cuteness? Isn't a cute person imperfect in terms of genetics? (I am assuming here that ultimate beauty shows perfection of the genes that control the shape of the face) So is our attraction to cute people, after all, a genetic defect?
On scrutiny, this genetic defect makes evolutionary sense. If the population is only attracted to a small number of people, then there would be harsh competition between species.

Now the thing here is that there must be a balance between competition and propagation. In the case of spiders and crabs, there can be very fierce competition between members of the same species for a mating partner, because their birth rates are very high, and they mature quickly. Fierce competition for mates would ensure that only the best would propagate. Humans, however, cannot afford that. The gestation period is 9 months, the maturity age is 14 years, and most of the time only one is given birth at a time. There cannot be so much competition such that only one in a hundred can mate: if that were so, we would have long been extinct. Also, the chance of genetic defects is also, to a certain extent, lowered by the high sperm count and the rather harsh environment in which the sperms must travel through in order to fertilise the egg.

Back to what I mentioned in the previous paragraph, if the people only competed for the small, say 5-10% with faces that fit the golden mask well, then the remaining would not be able to propagate well. We must also bear in mind that the average human lifespan in the prehistoric times was about 36 years. The average lifespan does not take infant mortality into account.

How was this problem overcome? I think that there were a few ways:

1. lower expectations
2. stronger instinct to reproduce
3. other criteria for choosing a mate

The first one is very subjective, so i would not try to tackle that.

The second one doesn't seem to be true, as almost all other animals are more desperate for sex. Perhaps this is due to education? If that is the case we ought to observe the natives. I would not say whether i agree with this or not.

The third one seems to be quite important, especially since the invention of language. It is not hard to show that people do not only look out for looks, but also other attributes that are easily observed through speech or writing. However, the attraction would not be intuitive, it would only appear after a certain amount of time. However, if the people who did not invent language yet could not survive, then how can we be existing now?

Then the so-called "love at the first sight" come into play (lincoln stated that it is not true love, I agree, but for the purpose in this entry, a physical attraction would suffice). If everyone is only attracted to the 5-10% that are more beautiful, wouldn't there be very few couples, and hence a low fertility rate?

Here is where I think "cuteness" comes into play. My assumption here is that cuteness and beauty are mutually exclusive. So, the physical attraction to cute people is actually a measure that allows for a higher fertility rate.

If beauty is hereditary, and that beauty and cuteness are mutually exclusive, then it would be quite easy to test this hypothesis:

Couples consisting of only cute people would not have children who grow up to be beautiful.
Couples consisting of only beautiful people would not have children who grow up to be cute.

Of course, a surefire way to disprove this theory is to use the golden mask on cute people. If it fits, my argument would all go down the drain. If my hypothesis is correct, then I suppose cuteness is probably second class beauty, technically speaking.

Many of the things around us are being communicated with words. Words are the medium of communication and expression. They are what allows us to pass on the wisdom of one generation to the other. It allows us to communicate ideas. This is why humans change and evolve fatser than the most lethal of pathogen.

Darwin's theory of evolution postulates that the traits of a species is determined by genetic mutations(which is quite rare) and cannot be changed after birth. This evolution process takes place very slowly. You don't see a monkey giving birth to a human baby.

Lamarck's theory however, suggests that the traits of each species change according to their surroundings, and these enhanced traits get passed on to their offspring. The offspring evolve further and pass on their enhanced traits to the new generation and so on. This evolutionary process takes place very quickly as compared to Darwinian evolution. It was however proven untrue by a cruel and stupid experiment.

Both theories of evolution are concepts show nothing wrong or inconsistent when scrutinised. The Lamarckian theory was empirically disproven. This means to say that the Lamarckian theory may be used to explain something else, if there is sufficient empirical evidence.

I think that mankind evolve with Lamarckian evolution after the invention of language. Knowledge is power, and if people could teach their offspring what to avoid and what to eat, then these enhancements can be added into humans without the times spent in the painstakingly slow process of Darwinian evolution. Without any knowledge and tools, can one survive in the jungle? Unlikely. But if you release fish into the wild waters or a cockroach into jungle, they can survive. This is because their survival capabilities are encapsulated in their genome and they instinctively can survive. However, humans survive because of the ability to pass on advantages and knowledge from one generation to another. We survive because we evolve according to the Lamarckian theory, and not by the Darwinian theory.

There is not a great change in the genome from the victorian age till now, but our behaviour is different. I think it is mostly due to words. The way that we change is based on the information we receive. We evolve extremely fast when we compare ourselves to the other species. No other species adapt, evolve and prgress so fast.

There is no justice in the world. Whatever justice may actually be.

• You do not have any rights, and that nobody else does either. Anyone, including yourself, may be punished or rewarded for anything you have done, regardless of whether it is "right" or "wrong".
• You do not have to show anyone respect, and others do not have to respect you.
• You may do anything you like. So may others.
• There is nothing "wrong" about torturing or being tortured, killing or being killed, such that others must intervene. However, they may intervene if they so desire.

Basically, you can do anything if you want but be prepared for the consequences. Whatever it may be. =P

I remember my English teacher making some remarks about an article that mentioned virgin conception, and hence cloning. He felt that the word "create" as in "man can now create another being" was used inappropritately. He felt that the word create refers to making something out of nothing, but man merely took something and modified/copied it, hence it cannot be said that man created a life. So I thought: can man create anything? Then it occured to me that the only thing that man can create is thoughts.

Imagination is a creation in itself. One creates something out of nothing. Yet some would say, isn't what we imagine merely a response to our surroundings? I think this is true. A person in different environments would imagine different things in response to his surroundings. So perhaps imagination itself is not even a creation of mankind.

What would a person who is unable to observe anything think? What were we thinking when we were in the womb, not sensing anything? Were we even thinking? If imagination and thought are merely processes in response to sensory inputs, then it does not seem wrong to say that a person who cannot feel, see, hear, taste or smell cannot think.

If a person cannot think in the modes of sensory inputs that he has never encountered, can he imagine them? Can a blind person(since birth) imagine colour? Can a deaf person(since birth) imagine sound? Sometimes I wonder if a person who is blind and deaf since birth dream in Braille(if he has learnt it).

And now it has occured to me that if I say that I am an idiot right here and I tell people to read my blog, they would probably only notice it if they read carefully. And I do wonder why did I start out this paragraph in the first place? Well, perhaps the reason why I even wanted to write this whole thing in the first place is probably to attract attention. If I did not want to, why did I not write it in a diary? It seems to me that all of each person's actions are based purely for the sake of happiness. And I am rather happy I wrote this paragraph and from here onwards I will try as much as possible to stay on track. But I shall end this paragraph in such a way that this paragraph becomes very long and nobody even wants to read it judging from the last sentence in the paragraph. So you see, despite all our understanding of the world and our beliefs in the ability to understand much of the things happening in the universe, it appears that man would somehow be unable to create anything on his own. He himself is controlled by the laws of nature, and the law of nature defines how he think. The input and process are both not entities that are noble or exclusive to humans. We feel that humans are better or a higher being compared to other animals because we can think. But since the ability to think is nothing exclusive, therefore there is no reason to believe in the sacracy of the lives of man.

What is the meaning of life? I think that this is a rather interesting question. We must first start off with "meaning". Are we thinking about definitions or objectives? It seems that people are more concerned with the second one(unless we are discussing about euthanasia or abortion, but I am not). To approach a problem about objectives, it seems difficult. According to the theory of evolution, life was formed, not made or modified for a purpose, so one cannot say why(In fact if you read my previous entries I have reasoned that there isn't a real reason for anything that people do). However, if we think about the problem as to why it is still here, then there is something we can deal with. One cannot say why an iron ore was here in the first place. But one can ask why an iron ore is here: something moved it here, or it was here all along.

So why is life still here? It is probably because a coincidence created a self propagating and reproductive mechanism. Therefore it is still here. And those mechanisms that propagate better are found in more places and exist in greater numbers. From such, it seems to me that there is nothing noble or sacred about this mechanism. Indeed, death is not easily reversible, but there is nothing that states that it is not possible. It is the technical details that are hard. Life is just like any mechanism. A mechanism does not need a purpose. One does not need a purpose for life to live. One with a life just lives, just like a toaster toasts, like a drill drills. Once this is sorted out, the meaning of life can be anything. However, by coincidence we are beings that are equipped to survive. Some of the equipments are the instinct to avoid wrongdoing to another person as far as possible, the instinct to eat, drink and breathe, the instinct to avoid danger, and the instinct to stay within a group.

So in a sense we have these instincts because if we did not, we would not be here. Simple as that. There is no reason why we are here other than coincidence.

However all I have stated above are mere theories. The theory of evolution is currently under attack (but I still do not see any fatal inductive arguments against it). Whether life was created or not we still do not know. However, the principle of evolution remains clear: it is possible. Many computer simulations have showed so. The walking mechanism in "Shrek" the movie is said to be made using the principle of evolution. Of course creation is possible, but scientists don't like it because it is useless. Creationism has not helped mankind one bit, but the principle and theory of evolution has been a great help to the progress of man. And if there is no evidence against it they don't really care as long as it is useful. (In most areas of physics they don't care if F=ma is true, it is very useful, so they use it)

So let us for once assume that creationism is the way. But does that prove anything? God created mankind. Period. Now from here I do not see any premise-conclusion link between faith and creation. I can try to stick in a premise here though,

Premise: God created Man.
Hidden premise: Man/A being must have faith in whoever created it/him.
Conclusion: Man must have faith in God.

The hidden premise fails the criteria for premise in a premise-conclusion argument, which states that each premise must be true. So, even if God created man, it does not mean that we must have faith. If He created us so that we have faith in Him, why is it not an instinct?

Clearly not. So actually, there are many problems in our lives that do not need to be solved. You can give any answer, as long as it is logical nobody can say it is wrong (just like 0/0 can have any value and you cannot show that it is wrong). No wonder nobody really cares about the meaning of life. There is no real meaning of life that can be proven to be true and unquestioned. Well unless you put it this way,

Premise one: Your purpose of life is to ph34r m3.
Premise two: Premise one is true.
Conclusion: Your purpose of life is to ph43r m3.

Then again there is nothing to show that premise two is true.

Sometimes the trouble lies in the fact that some of the premises are not to be questioned,

Premise one: Premise two is false.
Premise two: Premise one is false.

Conclusion: paradox.

So, since your instinct is to be happy, and it is within our ability to plan for eventual happiness, try to be happy! You don't need a reason to do anything.

neopets teaches me chinese in a fun and innovative way! i learnt a new idiom today! (kidding of course i knew it alrd but u get my point)

i am still feeling pissed. but now it is not too bad because i know that there is no reason why i feel pissed, so i need not feel too bad about it. That is an optimistic view. of course, if my Marvin side kicks in as well i could say i'm hopelessly pissed. But oh well, what is the point of making oneself sad if we gain no eventual happiness out of it? i'll try to cheer up.

and by the way i wish to make this point to someone. 'witty' comments do not make the truth. get some evidence in an argument.

angsty side building up... sigh... rant alert

i feel that arguing on the net is stupid. many do not understand that witty comments do not make the truth, and the person with the last comment need not necessarily be right. and it so happens that in many forums that people with authority on the subject do not need the time to argue with the n00bs. life is not exactly fair, it seems that n00bs have a great deal of time to spend on the forums flaming and spamming and resorting to rhetoric to answer very very logical questions. and majority of the people believe n00bs. the people with stuff tend to lose out as they do not have enough time. since n00bs have more to say people tend to be convinced by them. eventually the guy with authority feels like he is wasting his time and he leaves the forum for good. the n00bs takes this opportunity to 'infer' that the pro guy is intimidated or dumbfounded or convinced and uses this newly gained authority to mislead the rest.

i suggest that people not try to find accurate information on forums. 80% of it is pure junk and another 15% does not look like junk but is. a good way is to ask the teachers to recommend a book. usually they would find one they think is suitable for your level and interest. it is one of the best ways to study extra stuff.

and of course, find an appropriate source to back up your argument. for example books and encyclopaedia and DICTIONARIES are pretty reliable sources.

ja. rant over.

i am an angst man. for no reason. i am not as noble as gordon or other ppl who are pissed all the time because of all the trouble that is bothering the world, or how unfair life had been to them. Gah. i know life had been great to me, has endowed me with what i can use to achieve what i like to have. i can think, and i like to think, i am truly grateful for that. i like to read, and i have many books and great seniors and teachers who like to share what they know with us. i am also grateful for that. however, i am still not happy. i know that i am supposed to be happy, but i can't feel happy. i suppose for this period of time my serotonin and endorphine level is too low. oh by the way i'm grateful to be a guy :-P

sometimes i wonder if there really is a reason to feel emotions. Consider a simple case, "My wallet got stolen, therefore i'm sad." is that so? or is it "I have less to exchange for the things i want, therefore i am sad." But why do you want the things you want? because if you acquire them you'll be happy? so it boils down to "I cannot be happy anymore, therefore i am sad." Sounds like a stupid comment, but i think that emotions indeed cannot be logically reasoned out, after plenty of reasoning you'll just end up with useless things like "i'm happy because i think i will be happy". hmm?

i have reasoned that emotion is a hardwired logical shortcut. somewhat like the L1 cache with BIOS. in some times one cannot decide what to do, and one turns to emotion. i know if i buy this i'll be happy, but i'm worried for my wallet, so what many would do is to follow their heart and take a logical shortcut. This logical shortcut is based on the emotions entangled into the consequences of past actions, if a choice more often leads to a happy ending than bad, then one would tend to feel like making another choice like that again. Hence i say that emotion is a logical shortcut.

But if there any reason why we ought to have emotions? indeed, an emotional outburst tends to be the best logical decision one can make in a very short amount of time. think about it, emotion links the present experience with the past experiences, compares the situation, compares the consequences, and finally deduce what was the decision made that made you happier. All these in a split second. amazing processing power that any numbskull can easily use to 0wn a NASA supercomputer. it probably can't even assess the situation given that amount of time.

But what causes emotions? we must not confuse consequence with cause. primary school teachers often like to say "you are given one mouth and two ears so you should listen more and talk less." WRONG. poor reasoning. "we are given one mouth and two ears therefore we cannot talk as much as we would like, and we are have to listen more than we would like." That is more logical. this fallacy arises because we can derive consequence from cause, but we CANNOT derive cause from consequence.

ok back to the topic. what causes emotions? is reasoning ability a prerequisite to emotion? is euphoria that arose from winning a competition the same as that from drugs? it is likely. there is no direct link from logic to emotion, it seems like another processing unit altogether. Emotions make us do things that are not sensible. Some say, "follow your emotions", for what? so that you can be happy? but isn't happiness an emotion itself? there is nothing wrong in doing things that make us feel good, but is life about anything other than feeling good? i'm afraid not. i hate to admit that life is all about proquring what makes us happy, but that seems to be the case. The book "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley is a great book that tells us what could happen if the world becomes overly engrossed with materialistic happiness. it is scary because there is no chance for people to experience the joy of achieving something that is hard to achieve. Apparently, if there were no differences between the happiness felt either by drugs or by achievement, there is no scienctific proof to say that this happiness is more noble or better than the other, since nobility is very much subjective. however, it feels wrong. i can't tell what is wong, but it just seems wrong. and that arises from emotion.

If not for emotions and hardwired conscience, man would not survived and prospered till today. The capitalist society depends on people's materialistic pursuits, rational thinking, and selfish behaviour to work. without conscience or emotion, man is a thinking machine.

Let me ask a question, what would you get if you ask a laptop computer to think? It would shut down after a while to save power, because that is what it was hardwired to do. What would you get if you ask a desktop computer to think? It would set the screensaver on, turn off the moniter, and eventually turn off the harddisks, because it was also hardwired to save power. What would you get if you ask a supercomputer to think? Nothing would happen, it was designed not to crash, to think for long hours, and thinking whatever a programmer comes along and tells it what to try to achieve.

So what would you get if you asked a person to think? A merchant would think of how to earn money, a scientist would think of how to solve his latest problem encountered, a lover would think of how to pursue his othe half. All in all, a processor left alone to think would be thinking of whatever it was designed to achieve. And humans are designed to be happy, to survive, and very importantly, not to break any of the moral codes of conduct. These codes of conduct are hardwired within us. sure, they hinder our goals, but if we ignore them we'll eventually be unhappy, so there is no point in achieve all the other goals. On the other hand, what is the point of sticking firming to moral codes of conduct if you could be happier had you not followed it?

Emotions are curious things that defy logic, they serve a purpose, they guide our lives, yet they are just so happen to be there. So are moral codes of conduct. If not for emotions and conscience, we would have no sense of direction. Cartoons and drama always have these two cute characters in the mind during a tough decision, the angel and the devil. In my opinion, emotion is the devil and concience in the angel. But let us not be mislead into thinking that the angel is in any way more noble than the devil, or that following the angel would certainly lead you to the correct path. In my opinion one should always think carefully, weigh all the possible outcomes, argue for and against boths sides and see who wins the tug of war. One did not "think" out a "logical" answer, the answer to any question always lies in the emotion and conscience, and ultimately, eventual happiness.

'Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions'. ~ David Hume.

My ci2 yu3 shou3 ce4 is better than yours.

GGY has answered all five questions correctly, precisely, and spontaneously! whee!

Answers:

1: 500kg
2: Thermal expansion of water, and to a lesser extent, melting of polar ice caps
3: The oxygen attached to the carbon within the -COOH group, being highly electronegative, draws electrons away from the OH bond, weakening it and allowing the proton to be lost more easily. After the loss, the excess electron is shared by the two highly electronegative oxygen atoms, rendering the ionised state stable, making it less likely for the proton to return to the carboxilate ion.
4. Theory of relativity (GGY gave "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon its Energy Content?". Frankly speaking I had never heard of it before he gave it as the answer. I checked and found that this was the very paper which Einstein published his e=mc² thing. Considered that answer correct.)
5. Cervical Vertibrae

GGY r0XX0rz.

he wud pWnzz j00 in th30ry and pr4kt1c4l.

ph34r t3h GGY.

(but of course amyas pwnz him in theory, just like he pwnz everyone else who is 8/7 times his age)

sian from mugging chinese, so i visited this site.

felt strange as though someone has been watching me on the inside since the day i was born, and i still dunno who tt guy is. (Myer Briggs?)

have to admit tt i'm somewhat flattered into believing it. but also had to admit tt it is quite true : P

http://www.personalitypage.com/INTP.html

Just a few random questions. If you can answer all of them I treat you to 1 cup of bubble tea. Only people i know, and first person to send answer to yaxy2k@hotmail.com is eligible. only 1 try. no teachers pls.

Qn 1. : A tank of grapes contained 1000kg of grapes. They were 99% water by mass. Now, they lose some water by evaporation such that they are now 98% water by mass. What is their mass now?

Qn 2. : How does global warming lead to sea level rise?

Qn 3. : Why do carboxylic acids tend to lose a proton? (Answer in atomic scales, must involve electrons)

Qn 4. : E = mc² is a mathematical consequence of which Einstein's theory?

Qn 5. : What is the scientific term for neck bones?

There. Geography, physics, math, bio, chem. have fun.

idea: when you bring large amounts of money, copy down all the serial numbers of the notes somewhere, then hide in clothing (not wallet or pocket or PDA or phone). When you get robbed, go straight to the police with the list of serial numbers. That might help them in their investigation.

even though we did not win in the rocketry competiton, i am actually not too sad either.

here's why:

1. one $20 launcher vs about 40+ $80 launchers and we came in second, not bad already.

2. judges complimented our launchers. even though i didn't invent them, i built them myself, so i'm really proud of it. the hand launcher was an innovation, inspired by some guy's RE project.

3. Everyone at the competition felt, saw, and heard our presence. p-34r _5!

4. Amused by amyas' remark. amyas is a person who is not known to exaggerate.

"You could dry launch it, but i must warn you that it is really very loud."

Indeed, all who dry launched without ear protection went deaf for a couple of seconds. The echo was marvellous.

5. Fired a rocket across Malaysian territory. Range: >150 metres
@ 45 degrees, wet launch, 100 psi.

6. Managed to make rockets disappear into the sky for >15 secs. As in, they were so high up that it can't be seen and you are really scared tt it would land on you.

7. Everyone loved my handheld launcher.

8. We beat almost all the teams with a home-built launcher. Sorry, felt the need to stress tt again.

9. We enjoyed ourselves.

10. We didn't really put in much effort.

11. We were lucky tt we didn't cause too much trouble to the LRT ppl, australian ruggers, and trees in ri.

12. We learnt a lot from the organisers. They are really well-learned in rocketry and i'm happy to know that they actually considered many many aspects of the competition in organising. They do read their email, after all.

13. We didn't get caught using rockets >200g.

14. We know we can win.

Lastly, I learnt how to build a handheld launcher properly. if ppl are interested i might make and sell. But the response is not good. It is cool, but not THAT cool.

man... i think ggy is pro.

Hey, i have an idea! Let us organise a "GGY research fund" project!

Currently, GGY wants $1000 to get a road bike, so the first $1000 would probably not go to his research projects. However, GGY can do great things with money! for example, he builds tesla coils with $100+ (considered really cheap), and coil guns with $200+ (considered cheap too). Just imagine what he can do with more funding! He may even come back someday as an old boy to set up a defense science department in RI!

Talents like him are hard to find, and I believe that soon he would be much coveted by DSTA. Remember that DSTA is rich! Fund him while you still have the chance to! It is in GGY to enable RI to make a name in defence science!

Read more about him and his works HERE.

there are so many general interests out there that teenagers are more familiar with. Things like music, gossip, current affairs, games and sports are some of the things that most teenagers would talk about. I am, however, unfamiliar with them.

I find it difficult to mix with many people. What people would be interested in talking about, i probably would not understand, and what i am interested in, others are not interested. From strangers to friends, the only route is communication. There aren't many such routes from me to many people, thus i have few, or no friends.

For that, i used to think that i belong to a superior class, i could continue with my pursuits, my passion for learning, while others of my age can continue with their daily meaningless musings, and surpass them by great margins eventually.

How wrong i was. it came the time when i realised that i wasn't as good as i thought i was. losing several competitions, i had to wake up from my dream. people are progressing so fast that i had actually spent so much of my time wandering in my dream world. and i started to feel lonely.

There aren't any whom i can just pop in and say "hi" and start talking cock. It would probably start with "hey why are you here, you're supposed to be doing something else". I dunno, maybe that is how friends greet each other? i wouldn't know.

i was lonely. i started playing games so that i have something to talk about. i know they are not good. i can stop whenever i want, there isn't a lot of attachment between me and games.needless to say, i wouldn't be good at it, so most surpass e so much that they are sick of explaining just the acronyms.

music is quite a waste of time. time to "chatability" ratio is very low.

current affairs... not interested.

sports... weird way to start.

so lonely. i want to sleep.

So near yet so far. The skin-depth distance too great for me to overcome.

I ought to do something. I can't be a bachelor for life...

moor:

not very congruent, the pieces were not fitted very tightly together, even at the end. Another problem was that it was a bit one-sided, for example, when joe was very depressed and was telling him that he couldn't find a job, the main char enthusiastically encouraged him. not only that, joe actually heeded it. and the main char's big-shot friends were actually too mean to be realistic.

another thing, it is okay for guys to hold hands, four fingers around the other guy's four fingers, okay, but FIVE FINGERS INTERTWINED LOOKS PLAIN GAY.

The actors were good, but the story was not very well done.

morrison:

too abstract for me to understand. my personal opinion is that bayley's was better, but perhaps i'm not so artistic.

overall it was great. akesh and wai kiat were great too.

drama fest was great.

bayley and buckley were both excellent, but since they did two totally different genres, trying to compare the two would be like trying to compare a knife with a tebby bear.

bayley: great story, i have to say. excellent one-liners. i believe it has something to do with benson koh. thought provoking, yet funny. excellent. however, i didn't quite understand why the artist killed himself. in my humble opinion, it would have ended well with lenny going out of control. can't give a lot of comments except that it was really funny.

buckley: great drama. it especially helps since it doesn't get too dramatic, unlike many other dramas do. i believe that the play tugged at everyone's heartstrings. ivan goh cried(but then he's rather emotional). wangting was excellent. lincoln was great too. i feel that lincoln and wang ting's voice and size really helped to portray ryan's role as a big brother shouldering heavy responsibilties, taking care of a younger one. the ending (do i call it a soliquy if 3 ppl are speaking?) helped to bring the play to an excellent closure. even though i'm not an emotional person, i was quite touched when the kid said "gor gor..." at the end. they almost got a standing ovation, ALMOST because some bastards (including me) didn't stand up. i felt that the father figure could have done better.

hullett: weird... i did hear a lot of laughter, but i'm not sure if it was really that funny because there were laughingstocks behind me gaffawing away before the punchline so i couldn't hear what they were saying. besides there were so much laughter i couldn't hear what they had to say... so i guess i can't make a good judgement for them.

interlude: excellent! trying to describe them would really spoil it, because what made akesh and wai kit great was their acting and voice, so i shan't.

looking forward to moor and morrison!

i am feeling not very happy about the outcome of the physics essay competition. didn't get into top 5.

:'(

oh well. i would really appreciate it if some guy out there could give comments on the quality and accuracy for the contents of my essay. Don't worry, its quite easy to follow.

CLICK HERE TO READ MY ESSAY... and understand why i'm not happy.

sorry i cannot simply paste the essay here... it is a little bit mathematical.

i am sad. just found out tt i wasn't so good at the only thing i thought i was good at. What's next?

spent much effort... with much interest and commitment... with lousy results...

sigh.

guess geppers are called gifted for a reason.

on a side note i built a hand-held rocket launcher which works. from the middle of the classroom, i did a dry launch on a 1.5 litre bottle at the noticeboard made of soft cork, 50 psi. bounced off noticeboard, bounced off ceiling, bounced off whiteboard, landed in front of me. all these happened in less than a second.

i could remember that when i brought the launcher to school nobody cared. When i started pumping nobody cared. when i told people to go away from the line of fire nobody cared. when i pointed the launcher forward the guy in the line of fire strolled away, while i was shouting frantically at him to clear. Then when i fired, everyone on the classroom was scared shitless and asked for encore. The bottle had a dent* in it. (*note: understatement)

after which i lent it to a guy to play with.

and i almost killed a bird with it. intentionally. man... if i had REALLY killed it i'd probably be feeling really guilty... but then again whether it died or not is merely the outcome, all it would take is probably 5 degrees to the right and it would have died... fact remains that i tried to kill something innocent for the fun of it... the evil in my heart needs to be purged.

on yet another sidenote, i have spent more than $80 on launchers by now. i am confident that the fourth one would be even better.

thank you lincoln. i can't describe what i am feeling now, so i shan't.

i really appreciate it.

losing sucks. more so when you are getting thrashed and your name isn't even mentioned.

but its okay.

i would try my best not to allow this to happen again.

at the expense of everything. everything.

i remember that during the CHAOS finals kenny lim fell for a trick.

U noe in an LT there is always a master switch that switches off everything(to convenience ppl leaving the LT for the day)?

Yiyuan: 'hey, u noe if u hit the master switch nothing happens?"
Kenny: 'I'm sure!'

mike(pipohpoh) then hits the bottom of the master switch, and obviously nothing happens

Mike: 'eh really... nothing happens.'
Kenny: 'really meh?'

then kenny proceeded to hit the top of the master switch. And all in the LT saw momentary darkness.

today mr physics teacher did a demonstration on light dependent resistor(LDR). she shined a torchlight on the LDR and the buzzer buzzed. So i asked, how about using the OHP? she allowed me. so i used the mirror to aim at the LDR and the buzzer buzzed without the need to laboriously hold the torchlight.

Then i suggested putting the LDR at the focal point of the OHP. HuangLu stopped me, for fear it might melt the LDR. Then my physics teacher put her hand into the OHP and said "Not hot what."

So i took a piece of paper and held it still at the focus. The effect was brilliant. Within 3 seconds the piece of paper yielded to a 1 inch diameter hole and in 1 minute, the entire classroom smelled of smoke. Then, she said: "Okay i see your point."

today i have noticed something about jokes.

Insulting jokes are made up of 3 parts, one of which is usually hidden.

Part 1: Usually hidden, or exists as contextual knowledge. This establishes a trait in the subject one would like to joke about, usually by exaggerating the trait. Most people only find out about this when they understand the joke.

Part 2: Usually the longest part of the joke. Can be a story or a one liner. This usually describes the situation the subject is that, such that he can bring out his trait.

Part 3: Also known as the punchline. This shows the exaggerated trait in the subject involved in the given situation.

Example: Your mother so fat, that when she jump for joy, she get stuck.

Part 1: Your mother is so fat

Part 2: That when she jump for joy

Part 3: She get stuck.

In this case, the subject is "your mother". The fact that "she gets stuck" when "she jump for joy" shows that she is "fat".

Another example:

Why do racists compete with others on the basis of colour?
Because if they competed on brains, they'd lose.

The subject is "racist". The fact that "they'd lose" when they "compete on brains" shows that they are stupid.

Just wrote a 2000 word long physics essay with no smoking or padding (seriously cannot cut anymore). tired. and i feel like a show-off.

frankly speaking i'm just blogging so tt my shares value would rise.

catch no ball? go to http://www.blogshares.com

to my not so good friend's, go buy wang's blog's shares. it is good.

to my good friends, don't. the price is reaching a pinnacle soon. and i'm the biggest shareholder :D

i find science forums are quite hopeless... there are too many people who don't know the facts yet argue their cases with all the time they have spent on this planet... the people who know their stuff are sick of arguing with them... newbie to the forum think that those who are wrong are right... the correct one tries to stop them but the wrong one would engage in personal attacks to draw the new ppl to their side. the correct one is so pissed that he leaves, leading the newbies to think that he is wrong...

So, everyone. Forums are the WORST source of information. if you want to progress in life, get books that your teachers recommend. they are recommended for a very good reason. and they are certainly worth the cost. C'mon, you get what you pay for. Study from a forum and you'll be wasting the time of your life.

updates:

RI got grand slam in NUS physics open house competition. Sent 2 quiz teams and 1 projectile team. Got 1st and 2nd in quiz and 1st in projectile... w00t.

I got into NSC. hurray. more mugging. but i get to go on tv. The stuff there seems more fun and creative than other science challenges, but a crucial element of luck required. questions are... weird.


Quote:
"ahem... mee-mee-mee-meef-arf-arf -arf.... BARK!"- Odie, in the Garfield comic strip.

This quote teaches us its easier to gain an upper hand when u catch ppl by surprise. Dunno how to apply it in life though.

Quote:
"All under heaven see beauty as beauty only because they also see ugliness.
All announce that good is good only because they also denounce what is bad.

Therefore, something and nothing give birth to one another.
Difficult and easy complete one another.
Long and short fashion one another.
High and low arise from one another.
Notes and tones harmonize with one another.
Front and back follow one another.

Thus, the True Person acts without striving and teaches without words.

Deny nothing to the ten thousand things.

Nourish them without claiming authority,
Benefit them without demanding gratitude,
Do the work, then move on.

And, the fruits of your labour will last forever." - Verse 2, Tao Te Ching by Lao Zi.

Your wise quote is: "Reality bites with a
variety of sizes of teeth"(-Tony Follari)
As a person, you think life is just plain
painful, horrible and everything else you don't
like. Happy people confuse you. Alot. I mean,
why are they so happy anyway? You are depressed
and perhaps utterly alone and live life rather
montone. You feel there is no reason to really
be here and feel helpless.

What wise quote fits you?(pics) UPDATED
brought to you by Quizilla

some dude at the bishan mrt thought that my suspicious-looking bag was a bomb or sth. i was helping ali carry his metallic water bottle (which read: "fuel bottle" with a corrosive, flammable danger signs on it) inside, then i decided to go to the toilet, leaving the bag at a very inconspicious corner. When i came out, it was gone. after a short while we checked with the station control centre and they told me that an auntie brought it to them thinking it was a bomb or sth.

"May we have your attention please. Please do not leave your belongings unattended. If you see any suspicious articles, please inform our staff or call 999."

hmm. i thought posters at the mrt station said that if you see any suspicious articles, DO NOT TOUCH IT. keep people away from it and inform the staff immediately, or call the police.

nvm. i thank the cleaner auntie for being vigilant. now i feel safer in the bishan mrt station knowing that there is such an observant auntie. i'm serious.

Alas! I have found the ultimate truth of the universe! And I shall share my insight with all you guys!


A = B


Hah! No one can disprove it!

I also hereby disallow people to redefine A or B, in methods such as A!= C, C = B. This is plain wrong, because i have already defined A=B, and it is always true, so that claim must therefore be false!

Everything else is uncertain! Only A=B is the ultimate truth! Live your life to the fullest with A=B, and you'll always be on the right track!

After some thought, I feel that Alwyn is right, as he has previously stated that he feels that "the most noble aspiration is to uncover the objective truth", and I would agree that science would be the best way.

However, if one knows me enough, you'll know that I am no religious person, and I personally do not believe in the presence of an omnipotent being, but then I would not totally reject it if it can be proven. Or rather, shall I say, the anthropic principle in the boundary conditions of the beginning of the universe can well be interpreted into a "proof" for an divine creator, but then again, I personally think thats a load of crap, even though i have nothing to prove it.

I have noticed how some evangelists jump on anything that seems scientific and seems to prove that god exists, but reject everything in science that clearly goes against their religious text.

For example, someone has commented that using the equation for the overall upward force on an aerofoil, a bee should not be able to fly. Some people immediately jumped on it and said, "Ha, so science is wrong, and hence religion must be right!" Come on, do the wings of a bee even look like an aerofoil? But that is a stupid example, i daresay 99.95% of the people, and even evangelists who heard it will doubt that that is the case.

The thing is that science is really more powerful than some think. Even though it seems that with science we cannot even predict the motion of three stars, it is not the case. Astronomy has the variables, physics has the equation, but maths hold the solution, so please, don't just bugger the scientists. Bugger the mathematicians or astronomers as well. (But then again, it is pointless to argue with astronomers. "look! my telescope shows something different!" "Ahh, i see. thats just &^$^$*^$%(*&%$%$#&*&*. The hubble space telescope is better because it has this $%&^$&* fuction that prevents &^%*$*^, and this (&^%(&$( function.....)

But then again, these are not proof against an omnipotent being. These are just some examples to show that many of the problems with religion to seemingly clash with science is due to ignorance. I'm not a religious person, so pardon me if i do not seem to be offering a balanced argument, but i really cannot think of any examples where science is wrong and religion is right.

I personally feel that there is nothing wrong with the people who have a religion, but it would be better to adopt something that is not based on something we cannot prove. If you don't want to change, its alright, but do keep an open mind.

(Sorry, the only philosophies i've heard a bit about is confucianism and legalism, the rest i have absolutely not idea what it is about, so pardon me if i am wrong) It seems to me that Confucianism works even though they do not preach on what happens to you after you die if you do something wrong, because they drill into you that humans are supposed to help humans, and they also tell you what would happen to you when you are still alive. It IS effective, and it does not hinder science.

My viewpoint for myself: Religion is effective, but I'll prefer secular humanism. Religion is not supposed to explain things, science is. Confucianism promotes loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, love, potileness, righteousness, humility and sense of shame (zhong ziao ren ai li yi lian chi) and does not assume anything about the world around us, except the love of mankind intrinsic in everyone. So, i feel religion is not for me. But I dunno about the rest. I personally can't think of any utilitarian reasons to believe that people can only adopt this certain religion, if there is something like confucianism.

This is in response to alwyn's response to my response to his response to my response to his blog.
Firstly, I am confident of the human race. I believe(and in a sense, assume) that there are no stupid people in the world. There are careless people, there are ignorant people, there are stubborn people, there are unthinking people, but there are no stupid people.

If people read up, spend some time thinking, take note of their actions, and keep an open mind, then we will not have a problem with stupidity, but rather, propaganda. Religious conflicts are caused and maintained by propaganda. (interesting read: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/strife.php)

If the cause of one religion is to stamp out another, it would not be possible to bring so many religions and philosophies in Singapore without a massive conflict. People are clever enough to think for themselves what they want out of a religion. Example: tudung issue. Many muslims are willing to sacrifice some of the beliefs which they feel is not that vital to the goal of islam, and are willing to follow the government's policies on "equality and harmony" in education, for the greater good. It is not correct to say that religion cause people to care more for their god than mankind.

The reason why Singapore and Malaysia is able to bring about racial harmony, I feel that it is not that Singapore and Malaysia have different religions from those in the places where "interreligious" conflicts occur, rather, there difference is that the different religions are exposed to different sources of information. The Singapore government would not tolerate it if Mediacorp's news content in suria is drastically different from channel 8, and the society is generally intolerant to racist acts.

In summary, the 'members' of religions can think for themselves if what they are doing is correct; religions do not turn people into unthinking soldiers and resistance against science, but propaganda can.

In Singapore, we are rather lucky that we are shown "the two sides of the coin" when we look at an international conflict (not involving our countries interest), but do notice that our media also portrays Singapore is right and Malaysia is wrong during the water issue, and that China is right and Taiwan is wrong in the taiwan independence issue. On my on stand, I would not make any conclusions, as i admit that it is much easier for me to strong points in the arguments that the media wants to put forward, and i am unlikely to make an unbiased judgement. Nevertheless, the judgement that the government wants us to make would be in the interests of the country, if the government is a good one, and i would like to believe so.

With regard to the issue that there is no basis for religion, i beg to differ.

Consider the following argument:
Careless student says:
a=1. b=2 therefore a+b=3. hmm...and a+4=6(oops)

what a minute. does a even exist? How do you know it does? you are only assuming that there is something called a, can you prove it exists? If you can't prove it exists, it does not. Look: my equation shows that a=3 and i have concrete proof, so you are wrong, a does not exist. you don't even need a or b to solve the equation, 1+2= works fine too. and haha look, a+4=6...wtf man a is illogical! 1+4 is fucking 5, not 6! and also, in primary school we can score 100% with arithmethic, but we can only score 80+% in alegebra! therefore, a does not exist, it does not need to exist, its existence only causes trouble and confusion, and we should stick to arithmetic.

We don't need to believe in the presence of an omni-potent being to keep us moving. But some people prefer to do things this way.
We don't need algebra, but some people prefer doing things this way.
The fact that some people misunderstand other religions and use that as a justification to murder does not mean that religion is a fundamentally flawed concept.
The fact that some people make mistakes in their algebraic problems and hence are unable to get correct results for their experiments does not justify that algebra is fundamentally flawed.

That said, I summarise the points in my above analogy:
The fact that something cannot to proven to exist does not mean it does not exist.
Something does not need to be proven to exist for it to work.
The fact that something can cause problems if in the wrong hands does not mean it is a fundamentally flawed concept.
The fact that people can use something to prevent another more noble cause from being fulfilled does not mean that that thing causes nothing but harm.
The fact that there is an alternative to something does not mean that that thing is redundant.

Therefore, religion cannot be said to be a fundamentally flawed concept just because what they base their beliefs on cannot be proven to exist.

I am not against science, but I feel that science should not be considered a gauge of the development of human race. Just because science is the correct way to explain things, science does not come first, because science cannot make things work; we need the infrastructure first.

I am also not saying that we all need a religion, i am just saying that there is nothing wrong with any religion. Religions do not cause problems, they help in maintaining social cohesion, and just because blindly following a religion can prevent a certain aspect of science to be recognised does not mean there cannot be religion if one wants science.

Science and religions are not mutually exclusive. There will come a time when people use science to dismiss certain parts in religions, and religions do nothing more than their desired purpose. Despite the Inquisition, we now know that the earth goes around the sun, and many of us have heard of the theory of evolution. People can think, if it is within reason they will eventually accept it. That is why science has triumphed.

Religions cannot hinder people from thinking for themselves, that is why we have so many Christian, Jewish, Muslim and (alright alwyn,) Hindu scientists. If religion and science is mutually exclusive, then the human race would not have progressed till now. Interests that are mutually exclusive always lead to a conflict solvable only by annihilation of one of them, but currently i do not see an unresolvable "Scientific Ideal" vs "Religious Ideal" conflict. If it is resolvable by understanding, then it means that they are not mutually exclusive, but instead the conflict is caused by misunderstanding in the first place. It did not take the annihilation of the Roman Catholic Church to have Catholics believe that the earth goes around the sun. It just shows that the people controlling it misunderstand either the religion or the science to think that they are mutually exclusive and hence oppress Galileo's works.

Scienific progress and religion have coexisted for a long time in human history, and they can continue to do so. However, the root cause of the "conflicts" between different religions and science is ignorance, and large scale ignorance caused by propaganda leads to large scale conflicts. These "conflicts" can be solved by understanding of each other on both sides.

Okay. I admit that the previous post was made so that we can reach a conclusion where science and religions themselves can coexist. I admit that i have been swayed by religion myself and am unable to think from an objective viewpoint. However, i still feel that there is nothing wrong with the existence of religion.

Personally, having seen many clever people who can think for themselves, I believe that everyone does things for a reason. If what the founder of a religion wants is power and ostracising all who refuse to follow him, that religion would undoubtedly be very unpopular, and devotees would be few. However, what we are observing today is that there are only a few religions that are dominant in the world. Why is this so?

Religions are maintained by people, and what determines the influence of a religion is the population. A religion can gain the number of believers in two ways:

a) Converting non-believers

or

b)Helping their members prosper, which i have mentioned in my previous post, and will not elaborate further here.

Method a) involves a descision on the part of a person, and I personally believe that man is not only attracted to physical rewards and repelled from physical punishments, but is intrinsically kind as well. For example, normal people would want to save lives, make people happy, and alleviate the sufferings of other people. In order for a person to make a decision, he must consider:

1. What are the benefits?
2. What are the drawbacks?
3. Is it morally acceptable?
4. Is it morally noble?

Hence, the most attractive religion should benefit, should not harm, and should not make a person guilty, and should make a person feel noble. As mentioned in the previous entry, religions have many benefits. A drawback of religion comes when two religion's beliefs are in direct conflict with each other (even science and religion). Then again, to define conflict, conflict occurs when the interests of two parties cannot co-exist, for example, there is only one sweet, but 3 ppl want it, and we have a conflict. Most religions preaches things that are morally acceptable, and teaches people to do noble things and make them feel noble.

If the purpose of all religions is to maintain social cohesion, then it seems that religions are not actually in direct conflict with another.

Which is more important? To not kill, or to assert that there is only one god? I am optimistic that people can make their own judgement. Personally, i cannot think of any reason for religions to turn against each other if they have a common interest.

Science, however, does have a different objective from religion. The purpose of religion is not to explain or inform, but how can you have an omnipotent being who doesn't know anything? People want to know, and people would believe anything that is believable and soothing to the ear. I feel that religion has done a rather bad job in this aspect, BUT it is not the main purpose.

Science is meant to find out about our surroundings and ourselves, and its purpose is not always noble. I'm not saying Fritz Haber is not a noble person, but the fact that the discovery of Haber process is a major factor in extending the war that could have ended with the defeat of Germany due to insufficient nitrates to make explosives shows that science is a double-edged sword.

Both science and religion contribute to the progress of the human society, but in different aspects. We must realise that the purpose of religion is not to explain to us what the world is like, but how to live as a part of the society. We cannot gauge the progress of a society merely by its scientific accomplishments.

In short, I would like to put it this way: If the purpose of religion is to explain how things work and why things are, I would agree with alwyn that with the current amount scientific knowledge we have we do not need a baseless assertion on how things work, and that religion ought to be replaced by science. However, that is obviously not the case.

Humanism is a noble ideal, I would agree. However, humanism seems to be a superset of most of the philosophies and religions we have: they are all there to strive for the greater good of mankind.

Let me put it this way: For those with a religion, good for you, but realise that religion can be expressed in a utilitarian manner, and realise that if it is not for the benefits it brings, it could not have spread its influence so far, so cherish it. As for the "strange" parts, practice it if you want, but do make an effort to reason it out.

For those without a religion, adopt a philosophy. It helps. I would recommend Confucianism.

I feel that the tone on alwyn's blog (http://sealt6.blogspot.com) is too strong, and even as an agnostic myself i find it difficult to accept his argument with an objective mindset.

I am not religious, I am a free-thinker, and i find myself tending towards thoughts about the utilitarian side of a question, and this would be my emphasis on my following comments on alwyn's arguments against religion, particularly christianity.

I have not read the Quran, nor the bible, nor the Iching, nor the Analects of Confucious, but I feel that the goal of all religion and philosophy is peace. "Thou shalt not kill" is a classic example. There are no long-lasting or progressive society that is based on plunder, murder, treachery.

I find that the general guidelines of religion is to make people follow the "rules". Why should one follow the rules? It is only by following them that the society is likely to progress, and it is because progressive societies are more likely to yield a high population increase, we can roughly tell how successful a religion is in maintaining social cohesion by looking at the population of people. If a religion requires one to be polygamous, kill others, or steal, it would be unlikely to sustain itself for long because these acts lead to social instability, and an unstable society is unlikely to yield a high population growth.

Here I shall not argue about the presence or absence of an omnipotent being, because it is totally pointless to do so. However, we have to realise the benefits of believeing in the power of an omnipotent being.

We must realise that if rules are set and not enforced, there is no point having rules. If rules are to be followed, there must be a system of reward and punishment, regardless of whether spiritual or physical. Hence, the system of reward and punishment in afterlife is especially powerful. If everyone is to accept the "terms and conditions", then little enforcement is needed. The overheads of the society is then able to devote more resources to the development of infrastructure and a system of government.

Since ancient times, it has always been the intellectuals who are giving problems to the government, and it is usually during adolesence that people start to question about purpose and identity, and they have very good arguments to reach a conclusion. Inequality, red tape, vulnerability and purpose of doing things are usually what cause people to go against the government. One can be assured that mortals will never be able to create a perfect system that can ensure that all these are taken care of and will not degrade with time. However, by imposing an "afterlife meritocracy", all the red tape of judgement, gathering of evidence, and the appropriate verdict will be passed, and this would be good enough to make sure that people are deterred from the evils, since there is no flaws that can be found in this system.

Hence, stating from the utilitarian point of view, there are many merits of religion, which is costless maintenance of social cohesion, help one sort one's thoughts out and deal with the cruel facts of mortal life with a positive attitude.

However, I find that i would have to agree with alwyn that that religious sources are not in agreement with science(which we must agree is quite reliable; for now i haven't seen any methods of making carbon14 or radon decay in 5000 years by the amount which would by convention decay in 200 million years). From this fact alone we can draw a few conclusions:

1)Science is wrong.
2)The omnipotent being is wrong.
3)The prophet/gospel writers are wrong.
4)The text is not meant to be interpreted literally.

Assuming that the omnipotent being is perfect, we are forced to conclude that either one of statements 1, 3 and 4 are correct. 1 is certainly plausible, but i would like to mention that it would require a lot of effort to actually explain to the scientists why it is so, and i might add that the process of even undertsanding would daunt many.

i find that it is unlikely that 4 is the case. If the omnipotent being is perfect, then he must also have known all along that man would screw it up if the text is not meant to be interpreted literally. People who have read religious texts should also find it difficult to interpret it in any other way than literally.

i feel that 3 is the most likely situation. Afterall, no human is perfect, and it is not wrong to argue that a prophet can write in the holy text that he is perfect. By logic, if he is perfect, he is telling the truth by saying he is perfect. If he isn't, then he has lied and stated that he is perfect. Afterall, why are there 3 versions of the same text?

Hence, i feel that if it can be established that the writers of the books are wrong, we can bring this matter to a conclusion in a more tactful manner, as this would not offend any religion directly. I urge people not to take their own viewpoint as the only correct one, especially if their own viewpoint is obviously flawed. We can never establish anything concrete about whether science or religion is correct, because there is always a way for philosophers to bring them down.
The omnipotent being is still omnipotent, and science would be able to find more efficient ways for managing resources.

Let us not forget that the human society would not be what it is today without religion or philosophy. It is only with social cohesion and a suitable basis for specialisation that science is able to develop, and even with science we would need philosophy or religion to guide our lives, and to keep the society in place, and to uphold justice.

Note: Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism are philosophies, not religions.

Proper English: "Your base has been captured. You have no chance of survival. Enjoy life while it lasts."

Japanese broken english: "All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time."

Singlish: "I captured your base oredy lah! Anyway you die liao orbigood."

Mat english: "Your base oredy capture lah alemak confirm mati one!"

Yoda: "Belong to us your base does. I see your chance of survival is low. Join us and you can become the one with the force."

Yiyuan: "Your fucking ghetto base has been captured by me lah chee bye, and you shall be destroyed together with your dick to prevent you from enjoying, if you have one."

l337 5p34k: " 411 y0µ^ o 453 4^3 o310/\9 +0 _5. j00 h4\/ /\0 { h4/\ {3 +0 5_^\/1\/3 ma<3 _^ +1m3."

Eva: "Your base has been captured. Mission failed. Abort, Restart, Cancel?"

Jimr: "You suck shit."

and god said, "let there be light." and there was light. and because e=mc², there was mass. and because mass had a property called gravity tt obeyed a=gm/r², there were stars. and because pV=nRT, stars were hot. and because P=5.67^-8*T^4, stars shone. and because of some funny thing, the light from stars caused more light to be converted from mass to light by nuclear fusion. as time goes by, we shall realise that radiation, charged particles, pauli's exculsion principle, EM force, electron degenerate and neutron degerate are interphases of the struggle between light and mass

alas, all get pWnz3d by t3h gravity. which was created by mass. which was created by light. since light cannot get past the event horizon of a black hole, which is the gravity's proud piece of work, i shall say that mass is produced by, and is the nemesis of light.

light shall turn to mass, which shall cease the existence of light.

then, did god create something that would eventually destroy itself?

all the existence of planets, orbits, stars, and life, are nothing but the marks of the struggle between light(big bang) and dark(black hole). time is an imaginary(in the mathematical sense) scale between them. it does make me wonder, if all dimensions of the universe are geometrically perpendicular to each other except one, which lies on an imaginary scale, can it be said that it is only natural that the "beings" in that universe will be unable to observe the objects that lie across the imaginary dimension? or in a sense, is time entirely something that must be perceived in such a way when there is only one imaginary dimension?

hence, it seems that the term "eventually" seems inappropriate here.

how about let's say that something had always been there, but we cannot see it. all the way from light to dark, the route is already plotted, but because of the imaginary scale, or time, we cannot see all the objects at once. what appear to us as events are merely differences observed between one object and another along the time axis.

however, as the human brain is programmed to perceive the increase in entropy in the universe as the forward direction of time, we can say that gravity will eventually own all.

the weakest, yet being only attractive is its ultimate strength and binds the entire universe.

let us not forget that if not for gravity, the universe is nothing but cosmic background radiation. light and dark is in a constant and interesting struggle. the light has wun; the dark will win. and all that we see around us are the effects of the battle.

"do not underestimate the power of the dark side."