Results for 2nd semester

English For Academic Purposes (Arts) B
Introduction to Economic Analysis B
Founders of Modern Philosophy B+
Metaphysics C
Philosophy and Film B+
Singapore Society B-

Cap: 3.4

Sucks! Meta-my-ass!

Groundhog Day

I just did a paper on Groundhog Day. If you haven't seen it, you really should. It's a 1993 comedy film starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It's deeply philosophical (but then all good movies are), and religious people love it( one reason is that it contains speck of wisdom from Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity). It's a great feel-good comedy and quite a decent romantic film. It's deep and meditative without getting preachy.

Phil, played by actor Bill Murray is trapped inside a
time loop in the small town of Punxsutawney while covering the annual Groundhog Day festival. Every morning he wakes up in the same bed and it’s always February the second. He has to relive the entire day, again and again, apparently without end.

Here's my paper for those of you who are interested:[pdf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_(film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/


14th May 2007: Hey I got an A for this paper. Althought prof. commented that the language is "somewhat rough". I really got to work on my english this vacation.

Is metaphysics possible?

In metaphysics, we did Aristotle's statement:

"There is a science which takes up the theory of being as being and of what "to be" means, taken by itself." -Metaphysics, Book Gamma, section 1

We talked about the presupposition that the structure of our language reflects the structure of our thinking, and that the structure of thinking reflects the structure of reality and we were tasked to post an answer to this question:

What reason do we have to believe that the structure of language and thought reflect a 'structure of reality'? If there is no such correlation, or if we cannot prove that there is, does that mean metaphysics is impossible? If this is the case, there is a further question. If mathematics is a language the structure of which reflects that of a certain category of thought, if physics and the natural sciences depend heavily on mathematics (as they seem to), does the hypothesis that there is no correlation between language and thought on the one hand, and the structure of reality on the other, also render the natural sciences impossible? Or is there a difference between these sciences, and a 'science of being qua being' that makes a difference here?

I have no idea.
Anyway, This is my post:

The relationship of thought and language is, in itself, a sticky chicken and egg dilemma without the added complication of them reflecting the ‘structure of reality’.

I think what we can all agree on is that language has evolved to allow us to communicate with each other and each of our languages is influenced by our different culture. Take for example, the old saying that Eskimos has 100 words for snow. Well, if you live in a place where you have an urgent need to know the different between “snow that is melting”, “snow that is moving”, and “snow that is going to kill us”, it make sense to have a large vocabulary for snow.

Taken in this sense, language is simply a toolbox of labels that we use to share information. It doesn’t really matters what colour the screwdriver is, as long as it gets the job done. Shakespeare seems to agree when he wrote “A rose by any other name, will smell just as sweet.”

But now the chicken and egg game has 2 different players, namely thought and reality. What evidence do we have that our thought structure reflects or is even capable of comprehending reality? Take for example, Einstein’s general theory of relativity, it turns out that space and time are variable and interchangeable. The faster you go, the slower time goes for you, and matter causes a “dent” in space-time? Now these are really weird ideas, and honestly, it’s not a concept you can explain and understand using words.

But the fact that this theory and many others have been discovered shows that our minds can comprehend the working of nature that we don’t even have words or pervious knowledge of. And the fact that this knowledge has proven true over repeated experiments is a clear sign that our understanding of the universe is ever increasing and evolving.

Professor Richard Dawkins sums up my point beautifully with his “middle earth” analogy. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4676751.stm)

Our brains had evolved to help us survive within the scale and orders of magnitude within which we exist, said Professor Dawkins. We think that rocks and crystals are solid when in fact they were made up mostly of spaces in between atoms, he argued.

"Are there things about the Universe that will be forever beyond our grasp, in principle, ungraspable in any mind, however superior?" he asked. “Successive generations have come to terms with the increasing queerness of the Universe."

"Middle world is the narrow range of reality that we judge to be normal as opposed to the queerness that we judge to be very small or very large." He mused that perhaps children should be given computer games to play with that familiarise them with quantum physics concepts.

Human beings need some methods of making sense of this huge world that lies outside the narrow range of reality that we are used to seeing; which brings us to the problem of mathematics and reality. Let me share my view of mathematics and why it does not render knowledge impossible.

Personally, I’m torn between the Platonist views that these objects do exist - just not as part of the physical universe, but as part of a separate universe of abstract objects; and that Mathematics is simply a story with certain constraints, written by human, just like in Sherlock Holmes.

My personal view is that universal ‘laws’ (for a lack of a better word), certainly exist. Like 1+1=2 and so on. So the laws are real and plentiful. We can observe these laws in action in our realm of reality, through experiments and so on.

Now mathematics is simply another toolbox, constructed as a proxy, for us to interact with and comprehend these “laws”. As they as modelled and build from the “laws” that we know of from experiences, they naturally reflect reality. In fact, their sole purpose is to reflect reality in a way we could understand.

If you look at the history of mathematics, we have constantly build upon the know rules and invented new methods of doing things. Mathematics is in essence a toolbox that has been put together by us who need to solve certain problems. If we came across a problem that we cannot solve with our current tools, we upgrade the toolbox, take for example, algebra.

Taken in this context, there seems to be no conflict between the “laws” of nature and the laws of mathematics. Our comprehensions of nature shape our rules of mathematics.

Yah, I was making it up as I go along.

ahem...I passed?

Hey, the results for my first semester at NUS is out.

How should I say this? It's like you leaving a socking by your bed on Christmas eve, just for the fun of it, and discovering that it has been filled on Christmas morning. On one hand you are sort of happy that you got presents but on the other hand, you are thinking: "How the hell did this happen? This is crazy!"

Exactly what I'm going through. "I didn't failed ANY thing? How the hell did I pull this off?" While I'm glad, in a happily selfish way, I'm also kina of losing faith in Singapore's education system in the sense that if I'm getting Bs, imagine the trash we are passing out the University.

No, I'm serious. If I'm the one marking my papers, I'll fail me. But that's not to say I didn't learn anything this semester, in fact, I had a great time! For the first time in my life, school is fun and actually lets you learn something.


Geography(1101E), Place, Environment and Society:"B-".
Well, I was never quite sure what geography is all about except that it got something to do with rocks and rainfall. The reason I picked this module is because T.C.Chang's mussing about "magical eyes" and "seeing the world in a whole new way" caught my imagination at the beginning of the term. I was not disappointed. Dr Chang's human geography has introduced an important concept that I have never consider before, the idea of "geographical imagination". How people impression of a place can be influenced and the various social and political agendas behind such imaginations. A good example will be Iraq. Think back to how the America media present the country before the war. isn't the images and message specially tailored to justified going to war? America was portrayed as liberators. Not unlike the colonisation of the East by Western powers in the pre-coloniser era. Edward Said has in his book "Orientalism" proport that Colonialism is the direct result of the stereotypes of the East by Western powers as lazy, backward, ignorance and needy of civilization. Such imagination has been used successfully to justified colonialism. Our P.M Lee's national day message and our national songs are flowered with various geographical terms, think "land of opportunity", "home", where I belong", "land of peace".
The physical geography by (the newly) Dr Lim is a whole lot of joy as well. They never fail to make me laugh.


Chemistry(1535), Our Atmosphere: A Chemical Perspective:"B-".
No idea at all, the exam is MCQs, what can I say? I'm lucky.

Philosophy(1101E), Reason and Persuasion: "A".
Ever have a classmate that never seems to do any serious work, yet breeze through exams, and score really well? Don't we just hate people like that?
Well, I think I have found my niche here. I really enjoy philosophical text and the lectures are better that stand-up comedy (to me anyway). I mean, it's really interesting. The realms of ideas, truths and uncertainty suits me who grow wearily of this mundane existent.

Sociology(1101E), Making Sense of Society:"B-".
Sociology is unsurprisingly a very popular choice of major. Not for me though, too much like real work. I prefer to read a book and call it research.


Southeast Asia Studies(1101E), Southeast Asia: A Changing Region:"B".
This is one fun module. We watch movies, listen to songs and discuss about black magic and sex. Way cool. What is puzzling is how I got a B, because I know for a fact that I did very badly in the exam, and my assignments are worth crying over.

Educators/Teachers wanted. Apply at own risk.

Help wanted. Educator. Preferability with lion taming, counseling, nursing, refereeing, and speech giving experiences. Playwright, entertainer and drill sergeant will be given priority. Stationery and insurance not provided.

My first experience with a class of 40 P1 brats. I nearly came down with an heart-attack. I'll rather sign up to go Iraq. Give me a war zone over this any day baby, at least they give you a gun to shoot people you don't like.

Everyone stood in awe of the lion tamer in the cage, with half a dozen lions all under control of his "consequences." Everyone, that is, except the teacher... -June Dostal