Morality has existed before people even came up with a word for it. People have an idea of what is right and what is wrong before there were any theories proposed on it.

An analogy would be that people have already been walking on the surface of the earth long before Newton conceived of gravity. Newton described this phenomenon. However, if it ended at accounting for why things fall, it would be useless; a theory that all objects tend to fall would work just as well, and being simpler than Newton's theory and predicting the same phenomena, Newton's theory ought to be removed by Occam's razor. However, Newton's theory included the three laws of motion, which explains and predicts almost all phenomena very well; far better than that can be explained by Aristotle's theory that objects tend to stay at rest. Thus, Newton's laws are endorsed by experiments and observations, and the "gravity" became a concept we all have become familiar with.

Let me ask a question: Can we live without gravity? This question can be interpreted in two ways. One, can we live if we are not acted upon by a force that would cause an acceleration towards the centre of the earth were there no normal contact? Two, can we live without the concept of gravity? Once this distinction is made clear, answering this question is trivial.

What are the implications of describing this... phenonomena that allows us to walk on earth? So what if we don't have this theory, we're not going to fall off the earth right?

Think of any physics question in your tutorial now. Notice that you have to use the concept of a force. A net force leads to a change in momentum of an object. Tension, spring force, air resistance etc are all forces. Without treating gravity as the force, it becomes harder to predict phenomena. Newton's laws provide an excellent estimate of trajectory. By altering the initial conditions, one can change the trajectory as desired. By obtaining an accurate description of nature, we can manipulate the trajectory of a cannonball to, say, hit a desired target. This is just like many other successful theories that manage to describe nature: explain, predict, manipulate.

Now let us go back to morality. What are the implications of arriving at a successful theory of morality?

A successful theory on nature describes nature. A successful theory of morality describes morality. Is morality objective like gravity? It would be difficult for me to prove that morality is not objective. I think I shall just assume that morality is subjective... the thing is while a subjective theory may not be falsifiable, it is more general than an objective theory. A subjective theory accounts for more phenomena than an objective theory, and in the case where neither theories are accurate, I'll take the more general one, which is the subjective view of morality.

So what is morality relative to? I'll suppose that morality is relative to "consciousness". Thus, a successful theory of morality would describe what a unit of "consciousness" would consider to be moral or amoral. It would then enable us to explain, predict and manipulate what a particular conscious being would consider to be moral or amoral.

If you caught the essense of the last statement, you would realise that this theory would have great implications, and is liable to use and abuse. This would enable the world to manipulate human consciousness to regard morality in such a way that the benefits to the society are maximised, and an objective moral standard can be reached. If everyone regards slavery as amoral, there would be no slaves. If all merchants regard moneymaking(as opposed to personal enjoyment) as their ultimate cause, merchants would be more efficient. If the scholars and scientists regard attainment of knowledge as their purpose, they would have greater fervour. If soldiers regard upholding the defense of their country as their duty, they would fight with their lives. This would lead to an even higher degree of specialisation of jobs. What's more, not only do people enjoy what they do, they would feel obligated to do it, and guilty if they do not. Each unit of consciousness would dedicate more time and energy to, presumably, what they are good at. The clockwork efficiency of an ant colony can possibly be attained.

This would also enable the manipulation of human consciousness to regard obedience and allegience to the state as the ultimate virtue. People are willing to fight to death for their leaders, and also be willingly lord over by their leaders. Personally I wouldn't consider this a bad thing... but in case the reader does, let us be reminded that in the eyes of the citizens, YOU are immoral.

I think this is quite cool.

"I can't believe it, my sister's suffering from aneroxia."
"Oh man, my sister's worse, she's suffering from bulemia."
"You can't beat this, my sister's suffering from both."

3 "principles that I follow:

1. Do what you like.
2. Not sure then don't say.
3. Money is important.

An electron found itself in distress. It was attracted to the proton, but it could never get close enough to it, thus there was always some amount of trapped energy. It thought, "I wish I were a neutrino, then I could stay with the proton and give out a certain amount of energy."

However, a neutrino passed by and told the electron, "Once you became a neutrino, you'll lose all the electric potential energy you currently have, and there is no way of you releasing any potential energy from that proton."

It is nice when all possible factors don't conflict with each other.

When chemical A exhibits extensive intermolecular hydrogen bonding, has large electron cloud, chemical B has small electron cloud and is non polar, simple molecular, nice and simple. Chemical A has higher boiling point than B.

Boiling point is a phenomenon that results from overcoming the electrostatic forces of attraction between numerous particles. Between the particles, these forces of attraction get alternatively weaker and stronger. When the forces are stronger, the forces of attraction of the collective whole would be harder to overcome, leading to a higher boiling point.

When all your agendas point towards a certain direction, your path is clear. I find the 7 deadly sins to be an excellent guide.

Here I shall consider the circumstances most favourable for studies.

Pride: You feel shiok in doing well.
Greed: You badly want a scholarship.
Gluttony: You are aware that remedial => less opportunities to eat outside RJ.
Envy: Someone else is doing better than you.
Sloth: You mother has convinced you that "If you don't study hard you'll go sweep the streets."
Anger: You are pissed that you did extremely badly for one particular subject.
Lust: You think that doing well for Promos is sexy.

There. When all these factors are present, you'll naturally want to study. Such is the power of the Dark Side.

Today I went for scholarship day with my sister and mother. We came back with lots of goodies that are not relevent to us, not meant for us, and cannot be used by us. My mother and sister just took everything they could take, and so we had lots of stuff to carry... its not like I'll take every scholarship if I can, I would be mostly interested in A*, DSTA, MOE or SAF.

They took:

PSC, GIC, MAS, Police, SAF women, Singapore Power, PUB, Design.

Personally I would only take pamphlets from NUS, NTU, A*, DSTA, SAF and MOE. The rest are not really relevent to me.

And I saw bad behaviour today. During the DSTA speech, you could hear handphones ringing pretty often.

After the speech in the question and asnwer session, there came the ultimate:

A woman, presumably a parent, asked the senior public relations officer a question, and she politely answered. While she was answering, her handphone rang. She took out her phone (which isn't supposed to ring anyway!), and she ANSWERED IT and walked away while the PRO was answering her question. There is like almost no regard for her! Lao eh.

An indicent later brightened up my day. My mother and sister wanted to shop at junction 8, but I have to go for tuition so I had to carry all the scholarship goodies home. As you can remember, there was a lot of it. While I was walking towards the MRT station, an RJ girl with two other people around approached me and asked me to donate for some "Very special arts" thing. Here's roughly what she said:

"Hi! We are Rafflesians too! Would you like to donate to our cause, it is to fund the "Very special arts programme" for the disabled members of the society... As you can see, a lot of potential scholars have signed and donated. So you should donate too."

Both the two people with her and I were laughing, and I reached for my wallet.

"I really hope you become a scholar."

ROFLMAO.

But when I took my wallet out I realised I have no money. :( A bit paiseh. The first time I sincerely wanted to donate I have no money :(( I was thinking that by donating I could encourage her to entertain more people with her powerful BSing skills. Aiyar. THIS is what I call very special arts.

If for some reason that particular RJ girl happens to come by this place, I really really realllly had no money. I really wanted to donate, and I sincerely thank you for brightening my day.

Songs are wonderful things made by wonderful people, and being poems they are meant to express feelings. Further noting the fact that there are so many songs in either your mother tongue or in English, there is probably at least one song that can describe your feelings really well.

Thus, it is probably quite a good idea to post lyrics to say your feelings. The song would most likely say it better than most bloggers can. And what can better express your feeling than a sad tune to go with a sad poem? So it also makes sense to put up background music.

However, writing a song is not an easy thing to do, and when someone writes a song it probably means he has strong feelings or is very talented (take Andy Lau for example, who can write a song as an ode to the toilet bowl, AND do an MTV on it).

Enough said, I shall post the lyrics of a very popular song!

MAJULAH SINGAPURA
Mari kita rakyat Singapura
Sama-sama menuju bahagia
Cita-cita kita yang mulia
Berjaya Singapura
Marilah kita bersatu
Dengan semangat yang baru
Semua kita berseru
Majulah Singapura
Majulah Singapura

Wonderful.