Strings & Branes

The past week seen me struggling with SAT, and I am pretty sure I am not going to America for any sort of tertiary education, at least at this moment, after taking the test. I guess I subconsciously took the test to strengthen my resolve not to go over there (this has absolutely nothing to do with Mib though) – a decision I made previously after hoping to strengthen my Mathematics in the field of Microeconomics. Then I took on the challenge to finish Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe (book version), in a week. I am still at it, and I think I can do it. Besides getting fascinated by the beauty of General Relativity and the freaking Weird phenomena of Quantum Mechanics, I got to immerse myself in String Theory’s description of the world and challenge the limits of my imagination.

Mathematics wasn’t included in the book but just imagine my attempts to conceive the fact that every single space we are experiencing now is full of tiny dimensions curled up in Calabi-Yau Spaces that are six-dimensional. Try again to imagine that every moment you move your hands across the space, the particles may have entered and left these tiny-dimensions without you discovering. Well, all these may still be a dream given that String Theorists haven’t quite grasp the mathematics of everything necessary to explain our phenomena but all we can tell is that the Occam’s Razor hardly works in the fundamental theory of the universe given the complex nature of dimensions, resonance patterns, string tensions and relativity.

The rest of the time have me reading a couple of Economics related stuff – getting to know how playful and active was Keynes’ life, and how Milton persevered to show Velocity of money was stable and advocated passive monetary policy. Was also looking for details on how David Riccardo made a fortune but it wasn’t available anywhere. In any case, I am pretty sure economists don’t get rich based on their knowledge of economics. I was also thinking of writing a ‘Tract on Problems of Economics Education’ but I decided not to. I need to come up with a more elegant name before writing it. I have identified the outline of the essay though. Although labeled a tract, it may well be rather long. It is going to take on the rather tough stance that Economics, at least at A Levels under the Singapore education system, is heading the wrong way. Despite great macroeconomic achievements in our nation, the education fail to help students appreciate the ingenuity of our policies or for that matter, the beauty of economic analysis. It will elaborate on a few aspects that is vital but have been left out, namely ‘Social Indifference Curves’ as a tool for welfare analysis, Mathematics of competition is also left out and historical backgrounds to the debate on macroeconomic theories. All these would not only stimulate the interest of student but provide better tools, if not basis for other content to be built upon.

I would also like to highlight redundant topics that can be left out absolutely, like that of the loanable funds theory that cannot even explain interest rate determination for any economy in the world. There’s a need to really set the basis right and establish the true identity of economics. As far as I know, students like many of my peers are still unable to grasp the essence of what truly constitutes economics and how it is a science in its very own sense. Teachers of Economics will have a long way to go before shifting their emphasis from pure aiding students to score well to inspiring them to be economists – and more importantly, they will have to learn to look beyond this holy document we come to know as the ‘syllabus’ and stop discouraging students interested in pursuing the subject by saying ‘this is not important since it’s not in the syllabus’ when asked things beyond their area of expertise (which incidentally, could be just teaching students the means of attaining good marks). I guess I sounded too angsty – if you have nothing better to do besides reading this blog, you might like to check this out!

Nice One

My sister has tonnes of tuition for her schoolwork and so she gets lots of cool encounters with tuition teachers. There’s this English one:

Tuition Teacher: Hey Jess (not real name), did you do your essay outline?

Jess: Oh yes! I wrote it in my palm.

*Tuition teacher wide-eyed stare at my sister*

*Sister realizes the joke; took out her palm handheld computer*

Tuition Teacher: Oh okay. So hi-tech.

Language is getting kinda complex huh?

Of Stuff

The Elegant Universe – Borrowed one. Micro SD Card – Verified One. Cliptec Cardreader ZR-418BK – Insulted One. Logitech Two-Button Mouse – Dismantled & destroyed one. Economics Essay – Wrote one. The Sixth Singapore Economic Roundtable – Made sense of it. Singapore’s Success, Engineering Economic Growth – Cheers Henri! WordPress Theme Generator – Discovered it. My Thumb – Scalded it. Today – Slacked one. SAT – Going to screw it. New Ideas from Dead Economist, End of Faith, MicroMotives and MacroBehaviours – On my table, half-read. The Joy of Freedom (Chinese Version) – In my shelf, Unread. Blog – Neglected, until now.

Kinda summarizes my week.

Writing Essays

Every time I truly expend effort to write an essay, I find myself reducing lots of complex issues into simple, logical arguments that should have been very obvious to any one who first encounters the issue. I realized that many times, we thought too deeply into the topics we are attempting to engage and in the process, we lost the sense of individual issues’ simplicity. Identifying the most fundamental and basic components of an issue allows you to tear it apart and treat each of the bits with a wholesome discourse. The result can be either a trivialization of the issue at hand or a great depth of analysis. Of course, the latter happens more frequently than the former unless the writers are not thinking about the issue at all.

The most tricky part about writing any essays is really about pin-pointing the segment of the question or issue that interests you the most and that you can engage passionately. For me, politically-correct topics are hard to handle because of the sheer (self-perceived) hypocrisy necessary and my unfortunate desire to criticize things in a bid to make the world a better place for everyone. On the other hand, when it comes to Science & Technology (maybe also Globalization), I am often too biased towards innovations, and I disregard the importance of traditional stuff that we have been withholding. That being said, it doesn’t naturally mean that I embrace all things new equally – because when you expect me to tackle moral and ethics, I attack all the new alternative cultures that are springing up from nowhere and stick wholeheartedly to traditional values and principles. How about solemn issues of death penalty and war? I take on this very cynical attitude that dismiss all as part of nature and all that exist are necessary.

Other times, I always want to achieve a breakthrough in the ideas I raise. I hope for the sort of impress that would make a reader exclaim how well crafted the argument and logic is. I guess I had that sort of epiphany when I read Sam Harris but then again, I may be just plain biased then so it’s hard to say. For my essay, it hardly happens to myself but I wonder if it happens with the other readers of my essay. There was once though, when I read what I wrote last time (I forgot completely what I wrote) and found it surprisingly well-wrote. The analogies in the essay, I can recognize as my style but I just don’t recall the state of mind I was in when I penned the words. Of course, there will be times when I simply chose the wrong question to write and ended up with crap that would give me a fail grade. I guess it’s all about being serious with what you are doing and giving thought to what you have written.

This entry feels so weird, not in typical mode today.

Comparisons

Because my name was mentioned by Kwang Guan, I cannot escape the responsibility of a decent discourse on ‘comparisons’ as he has pointed out. While his entry is on something entirely different and probably something too mature for my understanding, the part where he raised my name and concluded about the whole idea of reference anxiety, needs to be reviewed. As Wensi has intelligently pointed out, the entry seems to be inspired by reference anxiety and I sure hope this post of mine doesn’t seem so.

In the entire of humanity’s history and as far as society is concerned, there has always been a tension between competition and collaboration. The very fact that a society is formed at all is enough to demonstrate that a high degree of collaboration is possible and essential for the advancement of all man but more importantly, it fosters the correct environment for healthy competition. Therefore, ‘comparisons’ essentially is a manifestation of the 2 forces at work. While comparing seem to be all about competition, in that we are trying to show how one is superior over the other in terms of something, it can also be for the sake of collaboration (why else would we have ‘comparative advantage’ for trade and specialization). In any case, there are many perspective that has not been considered in Kwang Guan’s critique of reference anxiety and more importantly, the habit to ‘compare’ has never been ‘strange’ at all. Friction in relationship can arise out of pure incompatibility and not to be attributed to comparisons because comparison places everyone at the same level, just like comparing prices of the products on the market. A society, with humanly comparison is merely a microcosm of the economic forces at large that governs almost every aspect of our behavior and while we cannot help it, the increasing flow of information and connectedness of the individuals is making things more fair and equal.

The world has always been unfair and it is all of our responsibility to make it fair to us, by working to its requirements, by relentlessly pursuing what it considers to be merits. Sometimes, the world is just not meant for us – but neither is it meant for anyone else. So go on, attempt to change the world to suit yourself, or more easily, shape yourself to suit the world and you will be on the better end of the comparison, the one to cause others to shy away upon thinking about you. It takes efforts, and the process is not going to be too comfortable. More essentially, at the end of the day, you might even think that you have been slogging for something you never wanted. The fact then is, you haven’t discovered yourselves enough.

Logical Premises

Dunjie, a one of the more prolific thinkers of weird ideas that I have as a friend asked me;

Is it possible to create a filter that traps the small things while letting the big things pass through? Or a hole that is a size that allows big particles to pass through without the small ones doing the same?

What he has just asked, is not at all a Physics inquiry or stuff dealing with scientific possibility but one that questions logical premises. I explained that it is not possible unless you redefine big and small. For all I know, ‘small’ is a size that can be considered the sub-set of ‘big’ so unless the definition goes the other way round, whatever proposed can never be possible. We all know that if you have a hole big enough for something big to enter, anything smaller than this big thing will be able to pass through so it is valid to say that logically, the ‘small’ is within the premise of the ‘big’. While it is nice to think you can circumvent many humanly impossible task with science, it is never possible to undermine logic.

The same, therefore, applies to formulation of arguments. The definition in the line of arguments must all be consistent or you will get statements like “Nobody is Perfect. I am Nobody. Therefore, I am Perfect”. Or that, “Nothing is better than A1. F9 is better than Nothing. So F9 is better than A1.” In both cases, the ‘Nobody’ and ‘Nothing’ bears different definitions or meanings in the first and the second statements so they cannot be equated or used as the link for the concluding statements. Logic have to be obeyed and we should identify the premise to provide ourselves the context where we can draw upon the most appropriate answer.

不自在

实用华语似乎不再那么自在了。已近一年多没有靠华文的经验了；虽然仍有用话语，而说话还算与以前一样流利，但感觉似乎有点不同了。除了与家人说话还是一样的自在，但来到工作室，我对华语的态度已有了转变。华语对我来说好像就只适合朋友间交谈，聊天，与家人沟通的语言，而工作室，总是用不上。恐怖的是，这话语重要性的萎缩似乎是说大家欢迎的。我的GP就像是因为没有了中文课的存在而进步的。难道，真得不能同时学习，并且精通两种语言吗？对此，我感到很不自在。

新加坡真是烦。近日大部分对国家政策（包括莫些人薪金膨胀一事）的争论，都是由一些洋派的人士发表。这类趋势该是反映受中文教育人士‘原吃苦’的精神还是新加坡人‘有苦难言’呢？当真可笑的是，这些批评国家领袖的人们，便是希望取代他们，甚至成功取代，但却重蹈覆辙的人们。始终不言不语的百姓，的大众，则是永远守护着国家，一心为国，任劳任怨的人们。我呢？只能算是个旁观者吧?就在这儿观着人间的冤案。这也不怎么自在。

The Cynic

I haven’t been reading and I think that’s making me cynical. I am giving my teachers a really hard time by presenting skeptical arguments within almost every aspects of plain inquiry. It appears, I have shown that all arguments can be made logical by twist of language for any flawed model (for Human Geography), all double-side coins can be split and attacked from multiple sides (for General Paper), economic goals and theories conflict so much that all equally valid theories disagrees all the time (for Economics), you just have to slam formula into every single problem and you get some sort of solution (for Mathematics & Chemistry). I guess not encountering new arguments or attempting to get convinced by others would simply cause you to think like a cynic. Worst, I have been rather sick this few days and I am getting rather pissed with my current state of health.

Nothing exciting is coming out as everyone prepares for ever increasing tests and study for the upcoming assessments that would be proved very important. For me, I still have the stupid SAT to worry about though I must say I am significantly less worried already. May has started and I have not even looked at a single SAT question – I guess I won’t be joining Mib after all. It’s a hard life anyway. Looking back so far, I have been really lucky to meet great people, worked with very nice people and learned loads from really intelligent people. Frankly, when you think this way, life isn’t that tough after all. And I have to concur that it is fun to be sharing personal experiences with others (though not that part about others’ good news being your bad news and stuff like that). It’s just that often, I find myself appreciating my experiences so much more after sharing and learning about others – perhaps I have been more optimistic, or maybe I have been really lucky.

While this post is titled ‘The Cynic’, by this point of the entry, I probably no longer sound so much like a cynic. There’s still loads of intellectual space for academic discussions that would inspire many new ideas (but not the debate about ‘true illusions’ – I kinda had enough of that), so I would always be welcoming thoughts encompassing a variety of fields of knowledge. Now, for those hunting for more stuff to read, you might like to try your hands on normalizing a wave function, then read up on the normal distribution. Those are probably not enough, so you may be feeling stressed out, try taking a nap. After waking up, it’d be cool to learn more about Semi-Conductors which are totally pervading every appliances in our lives. Of course, given the climate report, who can resist knowing more about global warming?

Oh, in case no one realizes, the sub-heading on top of this page now changes randomly with every refresh. If you don’t understand what those lines say, don’t ask me – neither do I.

Language Use

I rarely talk about my life but today’s Sports Meet have been an eye-opener. First there was the running-on-slippery-track act that totally stunned me (in other words, cause me to feel so bored I was practically stoning). Next comes the cheering that involved a few zi-high committee people banging plastic bottles and metal pans. Then there was a bunch of idiots who actually made some money out of selling things you don’t typically see on a Sports Meet – ‘Oven-baked Dough’ of various types. Most importantly, I have this freak behind me who told me, ‘You are totally trying to be funny on your blog. You use such complex sentence structures and vocabulary just to express a simple statement.’ I paused. Totally freaked out by the insult, not the person who delivered the statement.

Language have been an issue for me since a kid. I never liked spelling because the notion of a few blades that spins when you turn it on, with some metal netting covering the blades doesn’t seem to relate to the alphabets ‘F’, ‘A’ or ‘N’ and after understanding that the ‘metallic bird’ that we board to go to London is known as the ‘Aeroplane’, I decided that language is something I will not be very good at. Life as a kid who was bad in language is really sad – you start hurling vulgarities (probably the only few words in your vocabulary) when you are frustrated with the weird arrangements of alphabets you are presented with, without knowing what those vulgarities mean. The result – some sort of counseling session that wouldn’t have any effect anyway. Trust me, it really feels bad to be speaking some Hokkien and lots of Chinese when you are in a school with teachers who totally dislike such students. I spent majority of my English lessons in Primary school standing at the back of the classroom, especially for lower primary.

I thought it’d be great to be in a Chinese School since my English was so bad and western culture sounds a little barbaric sometimes. Unfortunately, the school was at a stage of trying to shed their ‘Chinese’ image so I had to go with the flow and trying to pick up English in the way the education system wanted me to. They gave me loads of incentives – I got more counseling sessions for over-using English and there were rules stipulating that Mandarin is disallowed in all lessons except Chinese. In particular, a history teacher scolded me rather badly for speaking Mandarin. It’s fine in retrospect. That’s totally better than the Chinese oppression in Indonesia (that I happen to learn later in that lesson). I knew I had to learn English in the way that I can use it so I embarked on the arduous journey in search of a sort of ‘Enligishtenment’. Eventually, I decided that intuition was the best way of directing my use of the language. Hard learning of grammar rules or memorizing vocabulary does little to improve my standards. Only by embracing the language, using it flexibly, and distorting it to suit the circumstances, would you truly use it and be a user of the language.

So when my sister asking me the meaning of ‘ruefulness’, I said, ‘I am not a dictionary. I study not the language. I use the language.’ Of course, while I now know the term is supposed to mean sorrow, I was trying to illustrate the point that every word you use is but a figure, just like a number, with something it represents but cannot fully describe or replace the ‘thing’ – physical or metaphysical. As a user of language, I am allowed to manipulate it the way I want to achieve my desired effects. Why should that rascal tell me that I am over-working my sentences and using redundantly difficult words? Life’s getting worst for the kid who’s English cannot make it.

Now that you have had a taste of my rant, I think it’d be good for you to improve your thinking habits.

Cycles of Absurdity

I would proclaim that I have been an existentialist. But in fact, I may not be – not in the Sarte way, not in the Camus way or the Nietzsche way. So maybe I am just an existentialist in the Vib kind of way. Essentially, I make use of their arguments, their notions of reality and tools to argue my advice and ideas on life. But the recent studies on climate change and global warming started changing my ideas about cycles and the meaningless-ness of life itself and other natural processes. This discourse would concentrate on tackling Camus’ ideas of Absurdism more than other things and would eventually present something that would sound deterministic. I hope I don’t sound that I have betrayed existentialism because I still feel strongly about one’s ability to change his circumstances and the need to define oneself – but I also believe this ability is part of the entire general direction everything is heading towards anyway.

Scientist studying climate change always looked at the past for patterns of our weather conditions and attempt to use them to predict the future. And all these relies on this fundamental assumption that whatever happens at present and in the future, is governed by exactly the same laws and affected by the same variables as in the past – something that has to be reconsidered given our magnitude of rapid changes. This infectious intuition that things goes in cycles arise not only in Geography (Climate, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Weathering) but also other social sciences such as Economics (Trade Cycles), Sociology (Societies) and more importantly, Philosophy dealing with existence and sentience. In the aspect of philosophy, Absurdist ideas draws upon most of its conclusions of the meaningless-ness of life from illustration of how everything runs in cycles.

My concern here is that cycles that we speak of, are not full circles and we are never on the same path as the past. It is all a spiral that tends to somewhere. We may well be on a contracted spring, with cycles in that we are going round and round so we find things familiar but we are effectively progressing up the spring. That’s to say that all that we have been through is not wasted. Things proceeds with meaning, or at least a macro purpose such that everything that may seem meaningless would converge to something meaningful. Thus, all the climate changes, plunging into Ice Ages can well be processes that drives the entire climate system into maturity, into more stable weather systems. The same applies for Absurdism – every cycle brings us closer to the end. And to answer to Beckett, I think Vladimir and Estragon will meet Godot one day because the time dimension still exists, which is to say that the similar stuff that goes on signifies there’s some end.

Trade cycles as well. There are ups and downs but I guess we can safely assume that economists have been clever enough to identify that we are heading towards upward spiraling purchasing power and ability to satisfy our needs. In this intellectual discourse then, we would still say Economics have been heading in the right direction of analysis at least. All the other disciplines are simply too pessimistic.

We do go through cycles, but it’s a spiral to maturity.