Eliminative Materialism

I have been thinking about this topic for indeed a long long time. (i.e. more than 3 weeks.) To summarise everything, here's the the essay that i wrote for my phil class. my professor Paul Churchland, together with his wife Patricia Churchland are among the top brains working on philosopy of mind, and active advocates of the shocking theory of Eliminative Materialism.
anyways, here's the thing...(i know. it's like a hundred pages...)

We talk about what goes on in our mind all the time. “I feel hungry.” “I love apples.” “I believe I should do this essay.” We are so used to this way of talking about our inner life that we cannot imagine living without it. Therefore, eliminative materialism naturally came as a shock. The eliminative materialist claims that common-sense psychology, or folk psychology, which is the way we talk about all mental states, is false, and the mental states talked about are non-existent. In the place of folk psychology, neuroscience will offer us better alternative understanding of the human mind, and eventually we will adapt to talk about mental phenomena in accurate biological vocabulary.

Before we analyze the theory of eliminative materialism, we shall first look at the theories of mind currently available and their limitations.

Opposing all materialistic views as a group, we have dualism, in which mind is believed to be a separate entity. Substance dualism, which states that mind is made of a different substance, cannot get rid of the problem of how the non-physical mind causally interacts with the physical body. Its inconsistency with the physical causal closure thus keeps the argument from being convincing. Popular dualists, who claim that mind is a different form of energy, like substance dualists, still owe us evidence that shows mind’s capability to exist without the brain, since the mind and the brain are distinct substances. Epiphenomenalists, although avoid the burden of showing that mind can exist without the brain because they believe the former is dependent on the latter, risk the danger of rendering any physical system, like a rock, as having mental states. All forms of dualistic views argue from introspection that they can only conceive mental states as being distinct from the physical things, but introspection might be as in accurate as our external sensations. Just like we cannot see the true identity of light as being electromagnetic waves because our eyes do not detect any other electromagnetic waves, our introspection might be just as limited and inaccurate in revealing the essence of our mental events. Moreover, when we use introspection to prove the existence of mental states, or to try to characterize it in any sense, we are actually using a mental process – introspection – to prove the existence of mental states. As the premise depends on the conclusion, this enters a circular argument.

Behaviourism defines mental states as what determines the behaviour or potential behaviour of the subject. By not directly addressing the nature of mental states gets away with many problems that dualists run into, but it cannot solve the problem of infinite combinations of behaviour, which makes definition of mental states difficult. And it still does not explain what mind is essentially and leaves a lot to be questioned

While the dualists and behaviourists failed to counter their difficulties or give any positive account to characterize the mind, materialists have learnt much from advances of sciences. The materialists believe in the existence of the physical brain, and the neural dependency of the mind on the brain. An identitist is firmly convicted that a physical system is necessary and sufficient to explain our mental life, and aims to match our mental states and brain states in a one-to-one fashion.

Development in neuroscience provides a platform for the identitists to make the connection between physical states of the brain and mental states (as we commonly understand them). As mentioned before, damage to brain parts leads to reproducible and specific loss of function in mental aspects of the patients. This pinpoints to a possibility that the identitists are right. The identitists believe that the sensation of pain is neither a non-physical substance nor some epiphenomena of the brain, but the event of firing C-fibre itself. Overall, the identitists suggest a scientific reduction of complex theories of mental states to simpler theories of brain states. There are many historical parallel, such as temperature being reduced to the average kinetic energy of molecules and lightening being reduced to electrical charges in the atmosphere. When two objects turn out to be the same, one is identified with and reduced to the other. In some cases, identity theory seems to work pretty well because some correspondence between mental states and brain states does seem to exist, with our current understanding of neuroscience. Seeing light seems to be identical to the event of rhodopsin being activated and leading to a series of subsequent biochemical pathways. Tasting sweetness seems to be taste receptors in the tongue stimulated to activate downstream pathway that leads to firing of a certain group of neurons.

One standard objection to identity theory, which is also an objection to all materialist point of views, is the argument from introspection. I do not perceive biochemical pathways when I introspect, but I perceive the sensation that identitists claim to equate the pathways to. I can see light but I have no awareness whatsoever of the function of rhodopsin. Identitists are seen to have not taken into account the experienced nature of mental events. This objection, however, does not stand, because of the fallibility of introspection as I have explained before in the section on dualism. There is anther objection, though, that the identity theory cannot avoid. Not all organisms achieve a certain mental state, for example pain, by the same mechanism, for example C-fibre firing. C-fibre firing is the process that results in only “pain” in human. In a worm, it is reasonable to suggest the presence of a percept analogous to the human “pain” but that is caused by firing of another fibre. In this case, it becomes unclear what pain is identical to. Therefore, a one-to-one reduction does not seem to work in all cases.

In order to solve the problem with matching that identitists encounter, functionalists suggest that what defines a mental state is its relationship with external environment, behaviours and other mental states. Putting mental concepts back into the abstract realm, the functionalists do not have to show that physical brain has any correspondence with the mind. Therefore they believe that the advances in neuroscience will not tell us much about mind. Objections to functionalism include the Inverted Qualia (person with inverted colour sensation but functionally normal) and Absent Qualia (China Brain). If mental states are only determined by functions, person with inverted colour sensation should have normal mental states, but clearly he possesses totally different mental experiences. Similarly, it is hard to conceive the population of China having any macro mental states although as a whole it is logically functional like a group of neurons or computer hardware. In response to such objections, the functionalists have to address the identitist point that there is something in the physical brain that corresponds and determines mental states, hence contradicting their purely functional definition of mental states.

Identitists and functionalists go through much struggle with matching the mental states as we usually understand them and what actually happens in the brain. Such efforts also penetrate the dualist views in order to explain what interactions actually go on between the mind and the brain. Mismatch of the mental states and brain states, often poses challenges to the aforementioned theories. Since the physical presence of the brain cannot be denied, it is tempting for a materialist, to reject all of the above theories and declare the mental states that we have been trying to explain empty and false. Elimination of mental states dissolves such difficulties.

Folk Psychology, or common sense psychology, is a theory that has been postulated by humans to explain others’ behaviour by simulating similar events in themselves, and then used to predict and eventually manipulate others’ actions. Our daily talks about beliefs, desires and emotions are all within the range of folk psychology. The formation of folk psychology is similar to that of other folk sciences in that the postulation of such theories is distinct from the strictly logical methodologies used in modern scientific generalizations. Like ancient mythology, the folk sciences and theories seem to be mere speculations about overtly complex phenomena that are beyond the means of investigation in that particular time, which definitely lack accuracy and credibility.

The eliminative materialist argues that folk psychology is partially or fully mistaken. Since the mental states that we understand and talk about are completely in the folk psychological sense, they might very well not exist at all once folk psychology is false, hence leaving only brain states that exist in reality. The eliminative materialists hence carries the discussion further by suggesting that since there are only brain states in reality, thorough studies in modern neuroscience will be necessary and sufficient to understand our mental phenomena.

The suspicion that folk psychology is falsifiable can be argued from two angles. Firstly, folk psychology does not represent our mental states fully, or even correctly, especially when compared with modern tools of neuroscience that can potentially offer us much more complete understanding of the nature of human mind. For example, nowhere in folk psychology are phenomena such as consciousness explained, nor do we learn anything about learning and memory from folk psychology. Theoretical and experimental neuroscience sets out to find the neuronal correlates of consciousness, learning and memory, and have already yielded promising results for some of the mechanisms involved in such mental activities. More often than not, folk psychology gives a wrong explanation for phenomena too complex for understanding. For example, folk psychology offers demon or witchcraft as an explanation for psychotic behaviours and hallucination in schizophrenia, which has already been determined by modern neuroscience to be a mental illness caused by nothing more than abnormal levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. While folk psychology does not offer treatment because of poor understanding of the cause, modern neuroscience has succeeded in attenuating the symptoms of schizophrenia by externally administering drugs to adjust dopamine level. In any case, as a theory, folk psychology seems stagnant in its progress of understanding the mind problem, seems wrong when it does give an explanation and fails to predict mental phenomena accurately. This leads us to suspect the occasions when we think folk psychology is right. It is possible that we are so used to the system of thinking that we do not realize many other wrongs of folk psychology.

Secondly, folk psychology encompasses a system of representation of mental states in the form of propositional attitudes. Propositional attitudes are statements like “I believe P”, which has a syntactic characteristic. In other words, according to folk psychology when we express, understand or even just think about our own or others’ mental states, we think in terms of sentence-like structures. This is begging the question of whether we really do that. It is hard to conceive that infants, for example, when they first start interacting with the social environment before they learn the language, do not have any thoughts. Similarly, patients with mental illness that leads to a loss of linguistic functions also clearly lead a life with perfectly normally functioning sensations, emotions and desires. We have also experienced the situations in which we cannot describe in words the sensations or thoughts that we perceive. If we really sense, feel and think in a syntactic structure, this is not likely to happen. Therefore, language-like structure does not appear necessary for formation of thoughts in the brain, and folk psychology which bases its theory on syntactic structure of mental states seems wrong. On the other hand, if we abandon this theory of folk psychology and start to examine our so-called mental states on the ground of basic biochemical interactions in the physical brain, we might be able to find some other theories, more accurate and fundamental ones, that can explain how we simulate thoughts and sensations at all.

From the general narrative of scientific history, we observe a trend of folk sciences being eliminated. Folk physics used to prevail as a tool for human understanding and prediction of the natural world, but its mistakes slowly revealed as more scientific and modern physics theories developed. For example, the mistaken calorie theory was replaced by the correct theories of thermophysics. Such replacement has to be distinguished from a change of theory of light to the theory of electromagnetic waves. The former is an elimination process, and the latter is a reduction. Light can be reduced, or identified with electromagnetic waves because the two are essentially referring to the same thing, only that the second one is a more fundamental mechanism than the first. Here reduction is possible. In the case of calorie theory, a scientific reduction is not possible because the theory of calorie is fundamentally wrong, i.e. a substance such as caloric fluid does not exist in reality at all. Thus the concept of calorie has to be eliminated. Similarly, since folk psychology has been wrong in many cases, there is a very good chance that our so-called mental states do not exist and are irreducible to the objectively existing physical states of the brain, but has to be eliminated all together.

The eliminative materialist point of view is radical. It is definitely not easy to think that what we have been talking about for millennia, such as “I love Peter” or “I feel hungry” turns out to be false. If the eliminative materialists are right, then a new set of language has to be adopted for us to talk about our brain states (since mental states are no longer viable). This has happened before in history, however. The once prevalent phlogiston theory of fire is rarely discussed now because it has been proven wrong, and gradually people learn to drop the word “phlogiston” from their daily vocabulary. This illustrates that our language and ways of talking about things evolve as our understanding of the external world develops. The same goes for knowledge about ourselves. The elimination of folk psychology can be a long process, because it concerns ourselves and folk psychology has been around for as long as we can remember. As long as it is proven wrong, however, it is the logical and necessary thing to do to eliminate folk psychology eventually.

Some might complain that this theory dose not actually offer any explanation as to how mind works. On the contrary, I prefer this theory precisely because of its open-endedness. Firstly it has shed the burden of trying to explain the discrepancies between mental states and brain states by invalidating the former. Secondly as he eliminates folk psychology as a theory of the mind, eliminative materialist turns to modern neuroscience for alternative theories of how brain gives rise to mental events (not in the common sense of folk psychology). As our understanding of neuroscience is still rudimentary at this stage, it is not surprising that there are not thorough and satisfactory theories being offered. However, the elimination of common-sense mental states is an important step to opening our eyes to an array of new theories that might potentially be right. These theories will be formed and tested by tools of modern neuroscience, by scientific experimentation and logical deduction and are bound to be more complete, accurate and specific than the arbitrary and out-dated folk psychology.

One other objection states that if folk psychology as a theory and thus beliefs should be eliminated, then how can eliminative materialists themselves have a belief at all. To this objection, the Churchlands responded by saying that the eliminative materialist uses a belief to argue his case for elimination because he has no choice but to think in the context of folk psychology. This does not mean that folk psychology is therefore true, but only shows that there are no other conceptual frameworks available for the time being. (P.S. Churchland 1986).

The eliminative materialist suggests that when deemed not right, a theory is eliminated and a better theory is put in place of the first one. We cannot, however, be sure that the second theory is necessarily true, because there is indeed a possibility of an even better theory replacing the second one. As such, some worry that this suggests that all scientific theories are either false or potentially false and there will be no truth. I cannot say that this is not what happens, but I think that we can just do with the best theory we have, as long as it serves our purpose in its time. Folk psychology however, has proved to be wrong in many cases, thus the replacement of folk psychology with new theories from neuroscience is inevitable.

In conclusion, what eliminative materialists suggest might be true and just like the elimination of phlogiston, folk psychology will be replaced by a more sophisticated and accurate system of representation of our brain states, which is necessarily to be devised by advances in modern neuroscience.

In response to a recent inquiry

"They say I'm dry at heart. That's wrong and humiliating. I am Basque. Basques feel things violently but they say little about it and only to a few."

--Maurice Ravel

nightmare

content not suitable for underaged

so i had the strangest nightmare yesterday. somehow my body was replaced with someone else's. i only had my hands and head i believe. some sort of transplantation. because i could clearly see and feel the stitches around my wrist, still not fully healed and red. of course, when i scratched it blood was oozing out...i was sure that that body was not mine cos i feel that it was foreign. and when i saw it through some out-of-body experiencce, it was fatter than i actually am. so the entire dream, i was trying to go back to the place, a shop?, to find the person who does that transplating business, and hoping that she hasn't already disposed of my body(that was my actual thought throughout).

weird isn't it? why were the two hands mine? why would i dream of having someone else's body? maybe i've been thinking about mind-body problem too much these days...

The Green Table

Ah, i should take more pictures of this table... very interesting quotes...such as

Romantic love was invented to manipulate women.

--The Stuart Collection is an ongoing series of provocative modern sculpture projects scattering within the progressive campus of UCSD since the 80's.

There's a sign in my lab that says:

please do not annoy, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry,
badger, harry, harass, heckle, persecute, irk, bullyrag, vex,
disquiet, grate, beset, bother, tease, nettle, tantalize, or zuker the
animals.

*zuker's my boss.

Cimetière du Père Lachaise

should i visit france, i shall go to this place... i know almost a quarter of the pple interred there...apollinaire, poulenc, balzac, callas, bellini, chopin, rossini, david, pisarro, wright, and of course, wilde. shall go visit the ashes of these respectful personalities and put a little bunch of flowers on their graves.

Corrinne May

so finally saw corrinne may in reality. three years ago a friend first told me of her and passed me her cd borrowed from the library of raffles junior college. it was instant affinity... i heard her fly away and couldn't stop crying. partly because of the lyrics, partly because of my own inevitable and incurable homesickness, but mostly, because of the voice. comfortable, quiet, laid-back, sincere. without excessive airiness. and acoustic guitar or piano. it's all so natural and inviting. like a good company. was just so amazing to listen to at night. calmed me down like no other music. it's been a long time since that cd was returned to the library, but yesterday at borders at mission valley, it only took one or two lines of piano introduction for me to be reminded of the warmth that those melodies used to give. and after a few songs when she started fly away, i was amazed myself how fast my tears came. in addition to all things there was now a familarity, like, meeting an old friend in a strange place, catching up on old memories.

i was surprised how cheerful and at ease she was. making jokes now and then. wouldn't have expected that from the songs that she write. i know that it's perfectly natural for people to have different facets in their personality. i know. but her songs got stuck in my mind as those soft and melo images, it's just surprising to see her in any other way. but i liked her. pulling off the song session all by herself, plugging cables here and there, adjusting everything. (and i would rather believe that it's not deliberately arranged to draw sympathy. don't criticise me of being naive. fm.)it's a hard life. artists'. you're in the world by yourself, and you struggle to become celebrity, or the fallen majority.

and for the tears i shed listening to the songs, i bought her cd. it's true that her style is unvaried. and she's less likely to survive as a commercial singer. but i don't see such sincerity in songs everyday.


Fly Away
"When will you be home?" she asks
as we watch the planes take off
We both know we have no clear answer to where my dreams may lead
She's watched me as i crawled and stumbled
As a child, she was my world
And now to let me go, I know she bleeds
and yet she says to me

You can fly so high
Keep your gaze upon the sky
I'll be prayin every step along the way
Even though it breaks my heart to know we'll be so far apart
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away

Autumn leaves fell into spring time and
SIlver-painted hair
Daddy called one evening saying
"We need you. Please come back"
When I saw her laying in her bed
Fragile as a child
Pale just like an angel taking flight
I held her as I cried

You can fly so high
Keep your gaze upon the sky
I'll be prayin every step along the way
Even though it breaks my heart to know we'll be so far apart
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away
ohh...
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away

my blog is turning into an arts student's blog. so strange.
anyways, today in lectrue l learnt that....

hmm

nothing exciting.

never mind.

Mongo bongo

It's such an amazing song. i keep listening. can't stop. there's this laziness in that song that glues me to the earphones and prevents me from doing anything else. i can't even stand up. definitely a inhibitory neurotransmitter.

Listen to it rain listen to it rain

--Apollinaire

It's Raining. The Visual Poem

It's Raining

it's raining women's voices as if they were dead even in memory

it's raining you too marvelous encounters of my life oh droplets

and those clouds rear and begin to whinny a universe of auricular cities

listen to it rain while regret and disdain weep an ancient music

listen to the the fetters falling that bind you high and low

-Guillaume Apollinaire

在 在 　 　 也 　而　 听　听
　　 　 落 　　　 　　　
落 落　 　 着 　那 　是　 　那
着 着　 　　 　些 　不　　 镣
　 　　　 你 　 　云 　是　 　铐
雨 女　　 　　　 彩　 　　　
　 人　　 我　　 　　　 在　　 从
　　　 　　　 　 高　　 　 　　天
　 的　　　 生　 　高　 落 　　而
　　　　 　 命 　升 　　　 雨　　　降
　 声　 　　中 　 　起　　 　　
　 音　　 　　　　　 　　 与　　　将
　　　 　 　　 美 　 并　 　 此 　　　你
　 好　 　　 　妙　　 　 　 　同　　　　　
　 像　　　 　　的　　哼　　　 时　　　缚
　　　　　 　　 　　　 　 鸣　　 　　　　　住
　　 即　 　 　　　邂　 　 着　　 遗　　　　
　　 便　　 　　　逅　 　　　　 憾　　　　从
　　　　　 　　 　　　 　 一　　 　　 　　　　头
　　 　 在　　 　　哦　 　 个 　 　 与　 　　　到
　　　　　 　　 　　　　 　　　　　　　　　　脚
　　 　记　 　 　　　细 　　 宇 　 　轻
　　 　 忆　 　　　　小 　　宙 　 　蔑
　　　　　 　 　　 的　　 　
　　　　 中　　　 　 　　 充 　 　 和
　　　　 　 　　　　 雨　　 斥 　 　着
　　 　　 都 　　　 滴　 　 着　
　　 　　 是　　　　 　　 　 　 　　　远
　 　　　　 　　　　　　　听 　 　 　 古
　　 　 　 死　　　　 　　　觉　 　　　的
　　 　　 的　　 　　　　　　 的　　
　　　　　　　 　　　　　　 　　 　 　 乐
　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　城 　　　 　曲
　　　　　　　　　 　　　　 池 　 　 　　　　　　　
　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　　　　　　　抽
　 　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　 　　 　 　　泣

　　　　　　　　　　　　
the words laid out in chinese look like a milder, more drippy rain, the rain-drops rather too big, while that in french look gluey and stringy, more sentimental.

OPHELIA

Ophélie


－－Arthur Rimbaud

I

Sur l'onde calme et noire où dorment les étoiles
La blanche Ophélia flotte comme un grand lys,
Flotte très lentement, couchée en ses longs voiles ...
- On entend dans les bois lointains des hallalis.

Voici plus de mille ans que la triste Ophélie
Passe, fantôme blanc, sur le long fleuve noir;
Voici plus de mille ans que sa douce folie
Murmure sa romance à la brise du soir.

Le vent baise ses seins et déploie en corolle
Ses grands voiles bercés mollement par les eaux;
Les saules frissonnants pleurent sur son épaule,
Sur son grand front rêveur s'inclinent les roseaux.

II

O pâle Ophélia! belle comme la neige!
Oui, tu mourus, enfant, par un fleuve emporté!
ô pauvre Folle!
Tu te fondais à lui comme une neige au feu:
Tes grandes visions étranglaient ta parole
- Et l'Infini terrible effara ton oeil bleu!

III

- Et le Poète dit qu'aux rayons des étoiles
Tu viens chercher, la nuit, les fleurs que tu cueillis,
Et qu'il a vu sur l'eau, couchée en ses longs voiles,
La blanche Ophélia flotter, comme un grand lys.



Ophelia

-- transl: Wallace Fowlie

I
On the calm black water where the stars sleep
White Ophelia floats like a great lily ;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its romance to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils cradled by the waters ;
The trembling willows weep on her shoulder,
Over her wide dreaming brow the reed bend down.

II

O pale Ophelia ! beautiful as snow !
Yes child, you died, carried off by a river !
--oh poor mad Girl !
You melted to him as snow to fire ;
Your grand visions strangled your words
- And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye !

III

- And the poet says that under the [light] of the stars
You come [looking at night] for the flowers [that] you picked,
And that he saw on the water, lying in her long veils
White Ophelia floating, like a great lily.


欧菲莉亚
［一］
众星沉睡，死寂漆黑的水面
煞白的欧菲莉亚缓缓地漂浮着，
躺在她长长的面纱里，象一朵硕大的睡莲。

一千多年了，哀伤的欧菲莉亚，
一个白色的幽灵，沿着这黑色长河顺流而下。
一千多年了，她那甜美的癫狂，
不断地向晚风细诉着那浪漫的过往。

风，象花圈一般展开，亲吻她的乳房；
河水摇曳着她的面纱如同摇篮一样。
柳枝颤抖着在她肩上啜泣
芦苇弯过她那宽阔的梦魇中的眉端。

［二］
哦！苍白的欧菲莉亚！如雪一样白！
是的，孩子，你死了， 由河运载！
－－哦，可怜的精神错乱的女孩！
你扑向他，仿佛雪花融于一簇火焰！
你远大的先知扼杀了你的言语，
－－无尽的恐惧惊吓了你蔚蓝的眼！

［三］
而诗人说星光下的夜间
你来寻找你采过的花，
他看见水中，裹在长长的面纱里，
漂浮着的惨白的欧菲莉亚，象一朵硕大的睡莲。

it's a sad sad story. Ophelia. after i showed my mom the translation, i was told that my grandfather translated Hamlet, that's why my mom remembered the part about ophelia. coincidentally, i'm translating this modern poem about Ophelia too. all of a sudden, it felt strange, like something going through the changing time and space, delivering the unchanging sorrow and astonishment.

feminism. Retro?

in america, the 60's was marked by progress in various social aspects, including the striving for gender/racial equality and gay rights. since the 70's, the country has seen a steady decline of the fighting spirit and a smooth return of the pre-60's conservativism. New York Times columnist MAUREEN DOWD analyses the past present and future of feminism in What's a modern girl to do?
some interesting excerpts:
A few years ago at a White House correspondents' dinner, I met a very beautiful and successful actress. Within minutes, she blurted out: "I can't believe I'm 46 and not married. Men only want to marry their personal assistants or P.R. women."

I'd been noticing a trend along these lines, as famous and powerful men took up with young women whose job it was was to care for them and nurture them in some way: their secretaries, assistants, nannies, caterers, flight attendants, researchers and fact-checkers.

John Schwartz of The New York Times made the trend official in 2004 when he reported: "Men would rather marry their secretaries than their bosses, and evolution may be to blame." A study by psychology researchers at the University of Michigan, using college undergraduates, suggested that men going for long-term relationships would rather marry women in subordinate jobs than women who are supervisors. Men think that women with important jobs are more likely to cheat on them. There it is, right in the DNA: women get penalized by insecure men for being too independent.

"The hypothesis," Dr. Stephanie Brown, the lead author of the study, theorized, "is that there are evolutionary pressures on males to take steps to minimize the risk of raising offspring that are not their own." Women, by contrast, did not show a marked difference between their attraction to men who might work above them and their attraction to men who might work below them.

Or as Bill Maher more crudely but usefully summed it up to Craig Ferguson on the "Late Late Show" on CBS: "Women get in relationships because they want somebody to talk to. Men want women to shut up."

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and the author of "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children," a book published in 2002, conducted a survey and found that 55 percent of 35-year-old career women were childless. And among corporate executives who earn $100,000 or more, she said, 49 percent of the women did not have children, compared with only 19 percent of the men.

A 2005 report by researchers at four British universities indicated that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to marry, while it is a plus for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop for each 16-point rise.

Fashionista 69% Tastefulness, 56% Originality, 49% Deliberateness, 31% Sexiness

[Tasteful Original Deliberate Prissy] One is certain: you have great taste and plenty of ideas. You have clearly defined beliefs about what's good and what's bad in fashion but they are far from banal. Stylish and imaginative, you prefer to inspire admiration than to shock and you mostly succeed. Even if sometimes you'd like to have more courage to put on something absolutely outrageous you do great job in creating a unique look that others look up to. There is a possibility that you work in the fashion industry. If you don't, perhaps you should. The opposite style from yours is Bar Cruiser [Flamboyant Conventional Random Sexy]. All the categories: Fashion Enemy Bar Cruiser Kid Next Door Sex Bomb Hippie Kid Fashion Rebel Fashion Artist Catwalk God(ess) Librarian Sporty Hottie Office Master Uptown Girl/ Boy Brainy Student Movie Star Fashionista Glamorous Soul

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 87% on Tastefulness You scored higher than 75% on Originality You scored higher than 39% on Deliberateness You scored higher than 8% on Sexiness

Link: The Fashion Style Test written by mari-e on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

stumbled into the enchanted woods. wondered in awe. walked out.

How apt this picture is. to describe the person painted. and to illustrate my point.

so when i was at the university art gallery seeing the collection of works by john cage (new music composer, pupil of arnold schonberg), merce cunningham (modern dancer), dove bradshaw and william anastasi (artists), i suddenly thought of the objection people ofte made against modern art. "hey, so what is it? is it like a woman or something?" at that moment, i finally figured out the problem with that objection. a portrait can be both a likeness and an art work. it is the likeness that makes the portrait a likeness, it's not the likeness that makes the portrait an art work. it is the creative element that makes the portrait an art work. similarly, there are other creative things that don't look like anything, or don't mean anything. it doesn't mean that they are not art works. they are merely not portraits of things.

Masterclass with Dawn Upshaw

as soon as she landed in san diego from a flight from new york, she rushed over to the school for the masterclass. Dawn is a charming character. she gets into work right after she gets into the room. everybody commented afterwards that she is unexpectedly sweet and professional. (soprano stereotype gets into the mind again.) she worked on 4 of our graduate students. anne-marie sang a beautifully written song by her boyfriend, a 3rd year new music composition student. the ornamentation sounds kind of eastern. anyways folkish. and generally atonal. laura sang an italian song, not particularly of interest to me, but nice sound. fiona sang something totally shocking. sequenza III for a woman's voice by berio. it's scary. if you can find it, you should listen to it. it's absolutely amazing. and this is about the first time i'm hearing modern stuff proper in ucsd. you actually need to fish it out. man. imagine i didn't take the voice class and leave ucsd the hugest modern music place on earth thinking that there's only bach here. lorant sang the same mozart piece.
so to summarise Dawn's suggestions:
1. recite the poem without pitch to help with the dynamics of the language.
2. when an unusual gesture such as a rest in the middle of a phrase appear, ask yourself what might have been the reason for the composer to put it there and how you might make use of it.
3. think through the phrase from the point of departure to the end, show the audience where it ends up. crescendo towards the most important word,as if you can't wait to sing that word. (we are constantly told of this by all the teachers, we just need to be reminded of it again and again)
4. take rests as essentials, not stops.
5. nothing is about total comfort. nothing is totally calm. always some other emotion in it.
6. make it an enjoyment of breathing.
7. all or nothing experience.
8. paint mental pictures.

always think about the big picture, the structure of things.

so thursday i'll be watching her sing. the west coast premiere of Ayre

it's been chilly these days. i still remember the uncontrollable shiver that i felt the other day when i came out of CLICS (some library) after finishing my matlab hw at 00:30am. I indeed utilized a whole bunch of ATP's to unlock my bike with my hands that just wouldn't stop shaking, the cluttering of my teeth nice accompaniment for the action. and then i set off on the bike. i took the route around revelle, which is primarily downslopes. i could hear the wind shrieking by my earphones. on my ipod, was prokofiev. i thought i'd listen to him on a dark night, esp when i had to bike home after a long tiring day. he's a source of energy, usually. so, imagine, i was cutting across this patch of grass, downhill, surrounding me were a few linear and barren trees, with their shadows projected onto the modern sculptures forming bizzarre lines and shapes, as if laughing. the sculptures themselves were mesmerising, the faces in the light orange and those in the shades blue. like an fauvist painting, against the background of shostakovich's ethereal playing. it was a wicked feeling. despite the fact that i was still shivering like mad, i was thrilled! i was almost not able to contain my excitement as i biked down the narrow paths. now i understood why chopin's op 25 no. 11 ("winter wind") was so exciting, not quite bitter, but thrilling. winter can be exciting. was a near death experience.

Soiree for Music Lovers

Friday night was spent in the rehearsal hall of mandeville, with János Négyesy and his friends, who presented an intimate chamber concert. having anticipated for this concert all month, it was no less than shocking for me to find no contemporary pieces on his programme list. on the list:

Händel - Sonata in A for 2 violins and continuo
Marais - Variations from Les Folies d''Espagne for solo flute (done by a student(?) doesn't concern János)
Mozart - Per questa bella mano, KV 612 for baritone, double bass and piano
Fauré - PIano Quartet No. 1 in Cm, Op. 15

Well, i was disappointed. He is so big in contemporary stuff and all he plays on records, is new music. i have no choice but to think that it was the consideration for the slightly out-dated taste of the audience from this OLD la jolla community that had directed his choice of programme.

that aside, János and P�ivikki Nykter (János' long-term collaborator and also a contemporary music enthusiast) played beautifully, especially in the Fauré. their lines were beautifully singing, their emotions no doubt synchronised and their actions tightly knitted (hmm, for most of it.) the Adagio had all of its intensity perfectly conveyed but carefully contained, like the water surface at the brim of a full glass, as, you can imagine, the surface tension holds the meniscus in a smooth curve. only that in this case there's actually ebbs and flows of complex colours under the surface. which was also, i believe, like Fauré himself.
P�ivikki is such a poised and elegant creature. i was so fascinated with the movement of her bow in relation to her brightly shining earrings and her slight but smart smile. she is the kind of person who would've made the plainest hair style and the cheapest gown look priceless on her. she just project a different image from my singing teachers, who are always loud and bubbly, and often dramatic. maybe there is eventually a difference between the instrumentalist and vocalist personalities. i donno.
the Mozart is actually nice, partly because i know the baritone solo from voice master class. i think he might have been a year four or five. but he certainly sounded very professional. i hate myself for not having a recording of that performance. his legato is close to perfection, with gentle onset of the sound but soon growing into a passionate blossom of energy and ending with the unoticeable lifting of the sound into the air. sings like a poet, sings and cries and sighs. one word, bravo.

think should go take chamber music from that two violinists next quarter. think they are perfect teachers for this genre.

just a thought. maybe ucsd should have its own science podcast too. just like berkeley groks. hmm. and, don't know what's up with SQ.

Podcasts

Look, the wave of using podcasts as a form of information distribution is kind of spreading from the west towards the east. i searched the podcast directory, currently schools using podcasts to distribute information include the UC's, stanford, caltech, ubc, chicago etc. most of the ivees in the east haven't started utilizing this extremely useful and convenient way of relaying info, considering the vast number of ipod/mp3 owners on college campuses. see, it says something.

Small World

There are quite a few la jolla pple there. it's amazing. take a look.

quote of the day

A magician pulls rabbits out of hats. An experimental psychologist pulls habits out of rats.
- Anonymous

if only i had a car!

then i could have driven downtown san diego, buy a student rush ticket at copley hall for 10 bucks at 730, and watch joshua bell play respighi in concert at 8. or, i could do the same thing on jan 21st, then i could watch prokofiev's violin concerto no. 1, my fav... :( nothing. for now. go back and study cellular neurobiology.
my life still sucks.

school's been freaking crazy. can't believe that i'm feeling like dying so early in the quarter. actually it's not that early already, there're two mid-terms coming next week. freak!

my philosophy class has become very bashy. curiously, the most active pple in the entire class were two atheists. when the prof is presenting materials for religion, this other guy and me were relentlessly supporting prof's criticism of those theses, and when the prof is criticising materials against religion, we were the most engaged in bashing the prof. the religious rest, did nothing but sitting there and making one or two weak defense against the bashing. i wonder why they didn't passionately defend their belief system just like we do. or is it what i've heard before that they are not supposed to really work on anything but have faith in that god who will make things happen. but i'm utterly disappointed at the fact that the prof only spent less than 10 min on nietzsche's view on religion, and he even spelt his name wrongly. i thought he was an atheist! maybe i really can't tell, and he's just doing a fabulous job in disguising his own religious believes. this other guy in the class, is a very devoted atheist, who repeatedly states his belief system in front of the class. and he openly declared that the masses are stupid this morning. i find it risky a thing to do, because i got strong criticism on that before. nevertheless, this arrogant atheist guy has evidently been exposed to a lot of works on this topic, and makes sensible and well versed comments on almost everything gone through in the class. i wish i could express myself half as accurately.

that aside, it feels good to have a personal voice tutor, who not only knows my name, my major, but also my range, my sound, my preference for music. i feel so important suddenly. (bleagh. i shan't allow my ego to inflate any more.) she sounded really good, at the first lesson, when showing me the pieces that i could choose from. all italian pieces, which according to her, are like spinage for my voice. And she told me, the prof P really liked my voice, and as long as i worked hard and get involved in the projects P would pull me through. (this prof is really good. she could get what she wants out of pple with just a description or two, and the singer sounds instantly different. as if a tranformation.)this suddenly made me feel very guilty. I really don't know how much time or effort i could afford to put into the music department, with all my other commitments. same feeling when my postdoc told me that i shouldn't just look at publishing in a school journal. all is ealier said than done. maybe it's not a good idea to overload yourself from the start. i don't know. it's crap. and i'm tired.

Explanation to "Hey I'm from the other time-space"

The Glass of Raspberry Nestea




The Model

The Stage

And the Picture

HEY I'M FROM THE OTHER TIME-SPACE

i've been wanting to make this fuss for a long time. i've never realised the extent to which biologists are discriminated against as a distinct (lesser) group among the scientists until recent months.. even the lousiest physicist can sneer at any biologist without the least contemplation. how many times have I heard the careless and subconscious comment "blah blah blah....biologists!" as if the name suggests a kind of bad logic that is not even worth discussing. what's the matter with that? i'm reminded of this injustice once again when i read a comment on one of my friends' blogs, by an arrogant PHYSICIST "faint~... biologists." . why? why make the association at all? i think he has got nothing better to say, due to limited thinking capacity and knowledge. from the blog, he is nothing more than a physics student trying hard to become one or those cambridge snobs, who brags endlessly about his own major and school, and who gets excited about the most trivial physics trivia.

my mentor back at imcb has a line. life is a bitch, and then you die.

Man, Help Thyself!

Yes, how can Beethoven not be an atheist! Listen, Man, Help Thyself! and listen to the 5th. not one boring moment, it's overflowing with human vitality, a celebration of human power! just like strauss' tharathustra, his inspiring music opens the new age for human endeavour!

question

just what the world needs. another 3 baroque church pieces in major keys. how am i going to survive this quarter of symphonic chorus! the level of enthusiasm caused by these pieces i see in the fellow chorus members is unbelievable. just unbelievable. considering the 92-93 theist proportion in the american population, this is probably not surprising. which makes me wonder, when strauss' tharathustra was first composed, how did he manage to find an orchestra that was willing to premier this atheist work? (oh by the way, why is this work so often linked to football games???)

went for voice lesson audition. there were 3 guys and 2 dozens girls, all soprani. well, nothing unusual. so i don't get priority cos i'm neither a major nor a minor. let's wait and see. :)

at the price of 1 chipped nail, 1 cut on the thumb, 3 scratches, 1 sore back and 4 paralysed limbs, or maybe it's all of the above times 2, our new apartment currently looks like this:

you see prints of monet's paintings everywhere. you see them on the wall of a home, almost any home; you see them on sale in a school poster fair, or any fair; you see them in people's packed luggage; you see them in dumpsters just as often.

yeah indeed, jade, sch is like the best thing that can happen in the near future. but actually, the rental was not that bad on the hind sight. if not for the flood, i would never have seen a roach, who was taking a leisure walk on my cupboard in the kitchen, suddenly having suicidal intention after taken a glance at the waste water, subsenquently jump into the water and die after a 2 second attempt to swim. he floated the whole night in the oil layer until the plumbers came in the morning. when told of the story, the uncle living downstairs, whose pipe was choked causing this whole incident, told me that roaches don't swim very well so they're bound to die if they ever jump into water. so that was fun.

and i moved to a new place, almost died assembling all that cheapo furniture from ikea...

Bad Day

so there is actually such a thing as bad luck. the lift in the apartment building isn't working. my supervisor thinks i'm ignoring him too much. expt fails. kitchen flooded with water leaking out of the waste pipe. i don't even know why these things happen to me. what the f-.

well. at least i met up with 3 dear friends. and what a lovely evening catching up with them, and laugh at stupid jokes. as usual. and laughed. and laughed. wonder why we don't laugh like that any more..

you never know how much a dinner with an old friend can cheer you up. even if all expts fail. or anything. really. like going back to those days with hesteric laughters at idiotic jokes. ah. so fun man. you think you've been out of touch for a long while, but not really. happie!

the internationale

we learnt that, as part of our communist education. but it's really a worthy goal. how well written, and ahead of its time!
this is a revised english translation by billy bragg. french version


Billy Bragg's Revision(listen)
First stanza

Stand up, all victims of oppression,
For the tyrants fear your might!
Don't cling so hard to your possessions,
For you have nothing if you have no rights!
Let racist ignorance be ended,
For respect makes the empires fall!
Freedom is merely privilege extended,
Unless enjoyed by one and all.
  So come brothers and sisters,
  For the struggle carries on.
  The Internationale,
  Unites the world in song.
  So comrades, come rally,
  For this is the time and place!
  The international ideal,
  Unites the human race.


Second stanza
Let no one build walls to divide us,
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone.
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us,
We'll live together or we'll die alone.
In our world poisoned by exploitation,
Those who have taken, now they must give!
And end the vanity of nations,
We've but one Earth on which to live.
  So come brothers and sisters,
  For the struggle carries on.
  The Internationale,
  Unites the world in song.
  So comrades, come rally,
  For this is the time and place!
  The international ideal,
  Unites the human race.


Third stanza
And so begins the final drama,
In the streets and in the fields.
We stand unbowed before their armour,
We defy their guns and shields!
When we fight, provoked by their aggression,
Let us be inspired by like and love.
For though they offer us concessions,
Change will not come from above!
  So come brothers and sisters,
  For the struggle carries on.
  The Internationale,
  Unites the world in song.
  So comrades, come rally,
  For this is the time and place!
  The international ideal,
  Unites the human race.

schopenhauer on women

read the most ridiculously chauvinistic essay i've ever encountered.
schopenhauer's opinion on everything else is so brilliant and beautiful. but this one. man. although i understand the era he was in when he wrote it. still...

silent syllables

many languages have syllables that are not pronounced. the most obvious one being french (?). what's the significance/uses of a silent syllable? as i understand it, the more combinations there are of a particular set of alphabets, the more meaning the language can express. silent syllables--redundancy--regeneration of language?
pls enlighten me.

what could be more fantastic than a chinese wikipedia?

info organisation

consolidation of information is obviously a new trend of the cyber-space. after all that rise and fall of dot com economy, and the boom of information in the last one or two decade, data is flooding the space uncontrolled. however, the potentially chaotic prospect is actually being cleared up by various effort to consolidate and organising the free data out there. it's same as editing a cannon or an encyclopedia. such efforts include imdb for movie a database, wikipedia for explanation of terms and objects, major ebook sites for ecopies of literature, various biology databases for the organisation and extraction of relevant information such as proteomic and genomic sequences, and faculty of 1000 for the systematic recommendation of biology papers published in the year. with the explosive manner in which information is generated everyday, these consolidations hold much promise for the prospect of a neater and much more user-friendly cyber space for us.

the approach that wikipedia has taken is especially effective. it allows the user to edit and supply information to the pool, making it especially complete and comprehensive. interactive building of sites looks like the way to go!

Dual

went for the concert named DUAL: An American Salute, for which a friend was guest playing. Dual is the Distinguished Universities Alumni League, covering alumni clubs of 17 schools in the US and the UK, which you can guess. (that's about the lamest way of connecting people together, to create extra connections naturally. ) They were the organiser of the concert. the lousiness of the concert is beyond description, and my friend's item, was the only thing worth hearing.

what a typical american thing. it started with grand and bland patriotic pieces such as american salute by Morton Gould, and Lincoln Portrait by Copland (of all the works he wrote!) being amateurs does not give the band excuses for the unpolished, impersonal and sluggish playing despite the conductor's immense effort in mobilising them. bad. bad. best still, they had to play Lincoln Portrait, incorporated in which a narrative about Lincoln and excerpts of his speeches. they got an american man to speak it, who did it with absolutely zero passion. how could they portray such a great soul with so little soul? Only the piano in Rhapsody in Blue brings the concert a little life. he actually plays with a lot of colors and wit and is actually in context. that is what i just discovered. i think he's grown. well, i'm not so much a piano critics, but then i liked it.

and then, there was a light-hearted women's chorus, singing a bunch of songs in major keys with a lot of cheerful phrases repeated and not much color change anyways. they have to put this cute little women's chorus item after the grand masculine pieces, to show that while the men are concerned about big issues, the women are just petit and sweet? (which reminds me of the victorian idle women. surprising how closely contemporary american culture resembles that of the early 20th century england.) can't help but think that the concert is an apt portrait of the conservative side of american cultural landscape. there's no wonder that dual mainly consists of the major old distinguished universities on the east coast of the country.

and above all, of course, this concert is for charity. the kids from the Cannossian School Percussion Band were good though, considering that they are kids with hearing impairment. simple pieces, but almost played to perfection, in contrast with the main band. such spirit with which they played their pieces, and the enthusiastic conductor seemed full of passion and love. i think they won the loudest applause from the bored audience.

say hi

the day before yesterday, i saw a choir junior on the mrt train. i couldn't say hi cos he was sound asleep, totally unaware of anything happening around him. i tried for 5 min and remembered his name. but what's the use, he didn't wake up until the train got to my stop. so i alighted. when i was getting out of the station by the overhead bridge, i saw a chior senior moving down on the escalator. was too fast, i didn't have time to say hi. and yesterday morning, on my way to work with mandarin pop playing to my ears, i caught a glimpse of a girl walking past me. another of my seniors. but that encounter was at the turn of the street. by the time i realised who she was she was already gone. and i walked on. no time.

sometimes, like today, i go shopping just to lose myself in the crowd. just go wandering, get lost in the lights and the shades, the moving and the stationary, the colours and the shapes, the glitters and the shimmers. just walk on. occasionally buy a thing or two. but not having to think about myself, or anyone else. it's not about the things. it's not about me. it's about roaming itself. solitude. i shall always enjoy solitude.

i used to be the opposite. i go to the shop, and buy the thing. finished. and return to where i came from. task-oriented was i. used to be so busy. and didn't like idleness. maybe that time i didn't feel the need to get away. or to get lost. but change came inevitably. part of growing up maybe? part of getting old maybe.

ten years down the road. what would i be? what would you be? i know where i'll be. but i don't know what. what would i be?

Clean

just not so good to watch 3 depressing movies in a single day. get too depressed. Clean is an interesting movie. all too real. no wonder she got the palmes...not for beauty, but for the realness in her acting. i'll write more some other day.

sense and Sensibility

it's so much faster to watch the show than reading the book. i never read S&S, but well, judging from my speed with P&P it wouldn't have taken just a couple of hours. good show. even hugh grant looks poised and charismetic in the movie. i've always liked winslet, and here i discovered two other talented actors. emma thompson who acted as elinor dashwood, and alan rickman who acted as colonel brandon. (oh well, and that half blooded prince.) ooh that voice! and yesterday, engagement reminded me of the super duper ever charming jodie foster. oh how subtly they act! if only i could so accurately express ideas and emotions like they do. interestingly, foster attended yale and thompson was from cambridge, both did english literature. thompson's talent in writing is especially credited when her S&S won the best screen play in both the academy award and the golden globe. and apparently, grant read english at oxford.

i was walking on orchard road, and i thought, singapore is not a cultural desert lah. a lot of my friends say so, but i think, no lah, it's not. it just needs nurturing, which takes a bit of time. but from the people i know, there's hope for singapore. as long as the government doesn't push too hard and cause reverse effect...

To be read in public

Border's is pathetic. there was one copy of Einstein's Ideas & Opinions, which i bought, and a thousand copies of Harry Porter and the Half Blooded Prince, piled up like a wall in the middle of everything.

anyways, after i bought the einstein, i was reminded of a friend telling me that Chupack's (producer of Sex and the City)The Between Boyfriends Book has a tag line on the back cover, saying "To be read in public, so men will know you're available." i was thinking, this einstein book probably is "to be read in public" too, "so men won't care to know if you're available."

read an essay on the jews, he said,

"In any case it is a nationalism whose aim is not power but dignity and health. If we did not have to live among intolerant, narrow-minded, and violent people, I should be the first to throw over all nationalism in favor of universal humanity."

in all such essays, surprisingly there is not excessive bitterness. instead of hatred, it is hope for the well-being of the entire humanity that he speaks of. from this point of view, although both peoples of great sufferings, the jews seem more open-minded and nobler than the chinese. and maybe that's the reason why the jews are so successful even though the trauma they've been through is much dealier than that we have.

but saw a bad review on amazon :see the one on ideas and opinions. you see, einstein's grand brain was fueled by a very small heart. is this a little too mean? or that this reviewer is a attention seeking poser. hm.

which i shall read to find out.

A very very long engagement

After 3 people recommended to me this film, i bought the vcd. always a fan of jean pierre jeunet and audrey toutou, expectation sort of build up when new film comes out and subconsciously avoid seeing it. this is a real tear jerker, and the brutality in some of the scenes was not what i could prepared myself for. one of the films in telling a war story from a female perspective, engagement is not the first one, but a successful one. the strength of the ladies in the story just makes me tremble. beautiful picture. as usual. and audrey is really good! isn't she beautiful!

in the roman languages, to sing is to:
cante (spanish)
chante (french)
canti (italian)
cante (portuguese)
and in chinese, to sing is to
唱(chang)
how fascinating! there must be something about the syllable [a:ng]

my modern world

i've been criticising everything old. and sorry to friends who were offended in any of the critic sessions. :p maybe it was that modern art hist course, maybe it's the music. maybe it's the modern atmostphere in ucsd. or feynman whom i just got to know. (jade's post on feynman). or even maybe Ling Shan (Soul Mountain) that i'm reading right now. whether i like it or not, modernism is here to stay, with me.

it's the state of the mind. in this world, all these parallel storylines. all the relationships. all these struggles against the world and the self. obviously there's not a unified subject in us, or a single narrative that can describe it all. it's meant to be deconstructed, our lives. and it's this life that we are living, why look back and long for that beautiful canonic melodies, or beautiful archy doors, beautiful representational paintings. what for look at those, when life is rarely so straight-forward and beautiful? why do we complain about concrete jungles so much? why not let life be streamlined, cold, concrete, glassy, abstract, simple yet difficult to understand, and taste the flavours of our time. why, must we be so critical of modern art, or modern music, by artists living in our time, and say all too effortlessly, "you call that trash art?"? why not try contemplating how much we have thought about life compared to all these people ahead of their time, our time? why do we have to be such hypocrites who, while entitled to all the conveniences that technology brings, curse and sware about technology? why can't we appreciate the fruits of human intelligence and just be open-minded about the brand new way of living? why can't we accept progress? are humans by nature reminiscencing animals? why not just grow up and accept the fact that we've grown!

new desktop

Acknowledgement: 胡不归画廊 who does beautiful digital paintings. beautiful!
these are my favourites of his portraits. i put them together, in a way that's almost similar to the cover of the colour trilogy bleu rouge blanc. looking in different directions, having different thoughts.

perfect for roaming

i believe pple like us who email, msn, google for info, blog to share info etc are used to the life style in which we freely roam on the world wide web. with any random link, the web carries us a long way in expanding our knowledge because of its radiating structure, ending up somewhere we never expect to be. don't you just like life like this! Wikipedia is perfect for our habits and thirst for knowledge. well, not that other websites do not have such structure, but this one is growing fast and big.. :)

wondering aloud

there's just this lightness and clarity in the stuff i'm listening to. maybe it's french. or maybe it's just poulenc. after listening to russian's stuff so full of drama and dark humour, innitially poulenc's work is so light it seems to me a little flirtatious. (:p) he doesn't seem to do a lot of layering of sounds. (now that i listen to it again, it's not so ture. but still, the general impression is much lighter than his russian contemporaries.) if they were persons, the russian would be a big sailor, witty and heroic, and the french would be a little dancer, slender and elegant. wonder what image chinese music projects, someone like libai, a skinny and lunatic poet? wonder what experience of the country has to do with stylistic composition, the nationalism thing. but one thing for sure, the music sure is consistent with the art and literature in that particular period.

i'm taking my time to digest this album. again it's just poulenc. it took me a long time to notice his works in gens' album. but once i started listening to them, i couldn't stop. my fav: 2 Melodies de Guillaume Apollinaire: I. Montparnasse.

hmm. but the sixteen is nice, except a few places sound a bit straining. the other version of figure humaine i have is by Rundfunkchor Stockholm with Eric Ericson. they are warmer. but not as intimate.

p.s. i think maybe the russians are more like dancers, while the french are like singers.

again. i will be able to catch the renovation in school and miss the renovated part. dammit. UCSD expands it's Price Center

on flight - Birdy!

on the way from SF to tokyo...

IN THE LAB

since i've written it down, i dont' want to type it again.

change

i have decided to change the painting's caption to:





太阳干枯地升起，
于沉睡中惊醒的树，
战栗不已。












and sorry about my low production rate and putting up again. i just really wanted to change the words that go with it.

Hail! Nietzsche!

How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? that became for me more and more the real measure of value. Error (-belief in the ideal-) is not blindness, error is cowardice...Every acquisition, every step forward in knowledge is the result of courage, of severity towards onself, of cleanliness with respect to oneself...I do no refute ideals, I merely draw on gloves in their presence... Nitimur in Vetitum (We strive after the forbidden): in this sign my philosophy will one day conquer, for what has hitherto been forbidden on principle has never been anything but the truth. -

--Nietzsche, Why I am So Wise from Ecce Homo

random

how can anyone believe in religion and science at the same time? how do such people reconcile the conflict between the doctrines of the two? my mentor told me that one tells us why and the other how. but aren't they on different logic and narratives?

and i had no idea a box of small 280ply kimwipes costs over 60 bucks until i stumbled across the price online.

why is consciousness private? why is mine not known to another individual. if so, how is it possible to find a like mind!

Yann Tiersen - Les Jours Tristes Lyrics

some songs only grow on you when you listen to them close to your ears, i.e. listen to them on earphones instead of loud speakers. or you wouldn't have noticed how beautifully written or beautifully sung they are. in this case, this song is beautifully written and sung. thanks to zhu for introducing me to the album a chance of sunshine that contained this song.

Yann Tiersen - Les Jours Tristes mp3(i couldn't find the mp3 with the guy singing. so sorry.)

It's hard, hard not to sit on your hands
And bury your head in the sand
Hard not to make other plans
and claim that you've done all you can all along
And life must go on

It's hard, hard to stand up for what's right
And bring home the bacon each night
Hard not to break down and cry
When every idea that you've tried has been wrong
But you must go on

It's hard but you know it's worth the fight
'cause you know you've got the truth on your side
When the accusations fly, hold tight
Don't be afraid of what they'll say
Who cares what cowards think, anyway
They will understand one day, one day

It's hard, hard when you're here all alone
And everyone else has gone home
Harder to know right from wrong
When all objectivity's gone
And it's gone
But you still carry on

'cause you, you are the only one left
And you've got to clean up this mess
You know you'll end up like the rest
Bitter and twisted, unless
You stay strong and you carry on

It's hard but you know it's worth the fight
'cause you know you've got the truth on your side
When the accusations fly, hold tight
And don't be afraid of what they'll say
Who cares what cowards think, anyway
They will understand one day, one day.

Free Will/ Determinism

i heard from my friend the theory of determinism, but i didn't know it was part of the famous debate over free will/determinism. shame on me not knowing anything about it until i was 21.
a summary of the debate
what do you think? what about randomness? where does real randomness come from? does chaos involve randomness?

An argument

it started with my debate with my housemate with regard to whether biology is fundamentally different from the physical sciences. i essentially believe that the discrimination against biology as an "arsty" science or a lesser science is unjust because biology usese the same data collection and logical deduction process as the rest of the sciences, and also involves great extent of reproducibility. the reason why many people dissmiss the equal scientificity of biology is just that they cannot understand that the difference in extent/degree of complexity does not mean the difference in nature. biology as the investigation of the living system, necessarily studies a more complex object and being a young subject, necessarily has fewer tools to use. the overwhelming information that flux out of experiments all too easily lead people to believe that this science does not run on logic, but tends to be more of a descriptive and arbitary science. e.g. logical processes such as prooving cannot be used. in fact, this should be attributed to our limited understanding of the subject. just step back and look at the bigger picture, since biological systems comprise of physical substances, there should not be any difference between the principles that an organism operates and a clock, apart from that the organism is more complex. and anyway physics and chemistry started as observatory sciences and developed into quantitative and deductive phases that we now see them in. (think alchemy.) so my conclusion is that biology is essentially no difference from the other sciences.

that said, i was myself lead into a new contemplation. how about social sciences? we routinely look at social sciences as fundamentally different from the natural sciences, and, are the "lesser" sciences. but if we follow my logic in the preceeding passage, we would be compelled to acknowledge that they can be real sciences. see, we are talking about material systems such as a human society. with my presumption that there is no God or other supernatural power, our society is no less physical than an e field, all composed of atoms anyway. so when our understanding of the human unit become substancial, there is actually potential for real scientific investigation by the laws of physics on the society, a collection of humans, which are collections of physical atoms.

Ideographic Myth

from the book The Chinese Language, Fact and Fantasy by John DeFrancis. Ideographic Myth
I wouldn't say i agree with the argument, but i think some of it is valuably true. But i still think that the chinese language is to some extent logographic with some phonetic function. the problem is that all these languages have been around for so long and we learn them when we were very very young. so we can no longer differentiate the cognitive process of thinking of the sound and that of thinking of the idea, the two of which prob occur a split second apart from each other. since we cannot separate the processes, we don't have the experimental means to prove whether chinese writing gives us the sound or the idea frist, and thus came the argument. however, i think we should look at the writing on it's own right, i.e. what is the writing itself representing. i think ideas, but in a phonetic pattern, that is necessarily needed in simplification and convenience of usage purpose. it's an evolution over time maybe converging with the phonetic languages, but certainly the logic behind the chinese writing is innately different from that behind the western language.

Dedicated to all the researchers

my mentor was so lame. he said that this following song is dedicated to all the researchers out there.

LINKIN PARK

In The End

[It starts with]
One thing I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time
All I know
time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It's so unreal
Didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on but didn't even know
Wasted it all just to
Watch you go
I kept everything inside and even though I tried it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when I tried so hard
One thing I don't know why
Doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time
I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I'm surprised it got so [far]
Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me
In the end
You kept everything inside and even though I tried it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when I I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
And lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

back for 2 days

ah, i've been back for 2 days. i need to watch a concert.

Random Thoughts on flight

i was writing down as i thought, on the back cover of the De Profundis that i printed out.

Whitacre. He sounds so much like nature itself.
I watch the clouds move by endlessly,
while Cloudburst is playing to my lonely ears.
and let the melody fly,
and the harmony
resonate with the layers of memories.
whiteness outside the window.

lluvia! in all its metallic sounds.
brings life and hope.
and a song like a spring
lluvia.

this music, must be recited by young voices. for its life, for its vibrancy, for its very existence.

a poet's heart
an artist's eyes
a musician's ears.
i don't t have those.

I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.



i hide myself,
i hide myself...

sketches

i found some sketches i made some time back out of time magazine pictures or my own imagination. looks like i was much better at representataion that time, or i was much more patient.


yeah it's satine. don't scold me for not doing justice to her beauty and character.


actually inspired by turando.

i liked her attitude. what makes the sketch come alive. to me.



yeah, to me, each skech is so precious cos i thought the person in there really has a life. it'll be a cruel thing to tear any of them up. so i didn't. no matter how bad some of my sketches looked. haha.

sad cat story

was thinking of writing something about the cat i met outside my place. when i came home the day before yesterday, a cat brushed against my legs near the entrance to our neighbourhood. it was a stray cat with brown and yellow fur, very thin and limping. the guard told us that she had lost her kittens, and had been looking for them for days around the area. after i reached home, i thought about the cat for hours, feeling really sorry for her and imagining the pain that the mother is going through looking for the lost child. today, my mom went downstairs to send off my aunt who came to visit, and came back telling me news about the cat. when she went passed the area where the mother cat was looking for the kitten, she saw the cat with her ears standing up, apparently alert of something. my mom guessed that she heard the kitten. when my mom came back from the bus-stop, she saw the kitten dead in the road with blood around it. the guard told my mom that shortly before that, the mother cat had found the kitten in bush and dug it out, before a car suddenly appearing and flattened the kitten. shocked and really affected, my mom stood there watching the silent mother cat lick the blood stain on the floor for quite a while. how extremely saddening is that.

Devil's Dictionary

i didn't know that devil's dictionary started so early as in the 19th century and it was actually started in America. not until i browsed through it, among my other ebooks. i've only read the chinese version in humour master(《幽默大师》)when i was much younger.

there's one entry that i saw yesterday:
FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

think it's not completely ridiculous.

stop whining

yeah. so i've decided to stop whining. cos that doesn't help much haha. but thx for the comments, pple. been nice reading them :)

right now i'm reading books. organising my music. carving a stone stamp. buying myself some paints. helping a little with housework. cooking a bit. going around meeting relatives. suzhou hasn't changed much since last year, though the industrial park is getting more and more modern every year. i don't really like it that way, but my mom said that comfort is more important. i'm not sure if that's right. the city is getting more materialistic just every day. not that it's not been one. as a city living off tertiary industries suzhou has always been somewhat materialistic and money centred, but with all the rich around it was kind of a centre for culture too. all is lost. mom said that maybe we'll be better off without the traditions. maybe.

a friend went to egypt. how exciting. i got excited just looking at the photos. she, overjoyed, riding a camel with her arms streching upwards, against the vast desert with thousands of years of sorrows and pride, change and persistence. it's just a cool feeling. like hurling yourself into something big. something sophisticated. something meaningful. as if you yourself would become bigger, more sophisticated and more meaningful. like you can be synchronised to the rhythm of the ancient breath of the egyption people. like you could actually experience the ruthless change of time and space, with the sculpture in front of you, worn and torn by the forces of weathering. like the emotion of the dead would flood into you, out of the objects you see, hot or cold. man. i've got to go. someday.

so what is blocked is not actually blogger,com but blogspot.com. no wonder i can access the edit and post page from china.

yeah. felt the need to blog. i will talk about my super long trip back some other time. but here i am at home, my mom's nagging is killing me. she is naggging all about the bf business. apparently she desires a bf for me more than i myself do. as if she thinks i'm a mechine, that can shun the idea of finding a bf for the first quarter of my life and suddenly find one once she opens the gate. and she's talking about all this crap... like i need to look like a proper girl blah blah..appearance and all. i've always been educated almost the other way around. and i've always thought my mom progressive and cool. her reversion to conservativism is just annoying me.

FREEWAY and stuff.

so after i sent fm to the airport, i headed back. not knowing exactly how to get back though. i've always thought the traffic downtown sd confusing and, well, for someone who doesn't even know her way around the school well, that was indeed a challenge. i came back one piece. that's worth a celebration. my first freeway trip alone, outside school vicinity. it's not easy especially when i've slept 2 hours yesterday, had a final this morning, and didn't eat anything. (by the way, my brain must have been feeding on ketone bodies duringn my DOC final.) when i was approaching home, i thought i picked up the feel of the steering wheel again. i thought i'd love to drive. it took me about 40 mins to pick that momentum up haha. so that's that.

when i was back, my suitemates were gathering DOC books for the bonfire. i know it might been better to recycle them but i gave my readers to them anyways. it felt good. reminds me of the badge i received this morning. "i survived DOC" too bad that the readers didn't survive me. i hadn't eaten a thing since lunch yesterday, so heated up the leftover panda express from that meal, ate half of it and stopped eating again. i'm just worried bout exams, which is really my fault and nobody else's. well. i'll be like this till next week.

called home, my cousin was there. he has just finished the college entrance exam. like any normal candidate, the mildly shocked and very tired kid sounded pitiful. he has always been the nice kid in the family, and people adore him. that such a kid has to go through that kind of exam stress makes me sad. kind of. he just sound completely innocent and exhausted. and worried. more than me. so when i said that i was worried too, he said that oh, does you exam affect you a lifetime? no it doesn't. yes his does.

so were talking about uni choices. he said he liked math. or english. i thought it unnecessary to do a degree in english. it's a tool after all. thought a degree in math would be useful, that he could go into science or finance easily. scientists adore math-savvy kids, i heard. he didn't like engineering. or physics. hated bio and chem.(i'm sure he'll hate biochem more). "maybe georgraphy" he said. out of nowhere. i'm not sure i would like to see him coming out of the university without a job. other than teaching i mean. he was just a little lost among the choices. i know he would be. i once was. maybe less. but i was once lost too.

packing

i'm packing as i type this down. it's been too short. one year. now that the common room has all the crappy photos and posters and horny soft toys removed, it feels so empty. although i've never been very close to my suitemates, it's impossible not to feel a sense of. loss. i guess.
sorting out stuff, sorting out memories. found my slashing ring that britt bought me the start of octobor. it's still has battery. and still flashing. and i showed it and they smiled and exclaimed. yeah. been so long.

and my itune happens to be playing sarah maclachlan's i will remember you.

I will remember you,
will you remember me?
I will remember you,
will you remember me...


goes on and on.

it's strange..how sentimental i feel. i don't know. it's not that i'm leaving the school or sth, it's just the room. the room that i didn't even like much. sigh.

ah such a mess!

i'm done.

me has decided to move my chinese stuff over to Methinks so that my non-Chinese speaking friends do not have to suffer through the periodic "blank" posts

i'm so sick of metablic pathways. !!! i don't want to have anything to do with biochem in the future. damn it.

honestly i think i've wasted paul price's biochem class. he's such good lecturer and puts so much effort into teaching and stuff. now guilt stings me as i screw up the exams just because i'm repelled by biochem. man. why do i have to take it! genetics is much better. maybe there something in the bio logic that i just don't get. i've never gotten it during A-levels (Oh heck the A's i got) and i'm still not getting it. i'm just so damn puzzled why chem and phy seems so understandable and common sensical to me but bio is still just a puddle of muddy water... aren't they all sciences? don't they work by the same logic?

and i also realised that my will to suppress the reluctance to do certain things has dropped dramatically. i procrastinate without feeling much. i am not particularly afraid. just leave it screwed. just leave it! how terrifying.

Books to read

I need to make a list of books i am going to read.
the master (less than half way through. if only i didn't have to study.)
Line of beauty...(i'll borrow it someday)
the astonishing hypothesis
quest for consciousness. (i've been reading it forever. always get lost.)
odessy (recommended by a lab colleague in summer)
oedipus (sounds like a fine tragedy)
and i still have my da vinci code that i think i'll put off for a while...
my reading habits have gone from bad to worse. over the entire summer i started 4 books but only finished 2 and a quarter of them. damn me.

Beautiful morning. and spring is gone

it's a beautiful morning in the early summer, the sunshine so pretty that my heart aches. thinking me have let the precious spring time and half of the summer slip away through the phenyl rings and plasmids like a joyful string of notes, i feel a little pity for myself. others tell us, and as we grew up we tell ourselves, that we let a few springs go so that we can enjoy the other springs even better when we become older and more successful, but think, the precious spring of our lives are slipping away unnoticed just as silently. i'm not sure if i were ready to let it go, but nevertheless it's going.

modernism

both pieces that la jolla symphony played for the concert are very
modern. one commissioned for this seasonal finale, by a professor in
ucsd called Steiger. another one is Schwantner's Concerto for
Percussion & Orchestra, originally commissioned for new york
philharmonic. the perc solo this time is an award winning young artist
called Mathias Reumert, who is studying perc in ucsd. it is such a joy
to watch a percussionist's performance, especially when it is staged
with a theatrical flavour like that in the Schwantner piece. i think
both pieces are brilliant.

i'm just wondering, why is it that i have not heard many choral works
that sound completely modern? most choral music composed in recent
times sound no less coherent and "sane" than those produced before
modernity arose. for example, eric whitacre, copland, robert shaw. but the progressiveness in orchestral and other instrumental works are just going like crazy. the
choral pieces that copland arranges sound so vastly different from his
orchestral works. those choral pieces that show a sign of modernity,
for example some of chen yi's work and others', often omit the words,
or substitute them with nonsensical sounds. could it be that words
themselves demand a certain degree of coherence, and therefore
obstruct the complete deconstruction of music? the idea conveyed in
words has by itself a unity to its meaning, and therefore does not
facilitate the formation of multiple and conflicting narratives? in
other words, post-modernity in music cannot be as easily executed in
choral music, or songs, as in orchestral music. (or is it that singers
simply cannot stand extreme atonality or dissonance? that sounds lame.)

Exhaustion

why is it so hard to keep my interests while trying to be who i want to
be? it is not very easy to stand through a 4-hour rehearsal screaming
like mad right into 11pm in some lousy concert hall that aids hardly
anything in the acoustics. the conductor keep repeating passages. the
flute in front of me gurgling with air. the sop solo singing a note
wrongly repeatedly. the baritone is out of tempo. with the all the decent
lines taken by solo and coro piccolo and even the guys, i was left with nothing but boredom.
nevertheless have to stand there, holding that bloody heavy folder and looking involved in the music that has nothing much to do with me
after a day of classes and lab, i was so exhausted, still visualising
every minute spent in the hall pulls me a little away from the A in
biochem. damn.

HEAVEN AND HELL

Heaven is ...

Where the police are British,
The cooks are Italian,
The mechanics are German,
The lovers are French and
It's all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is ...

Where the police are German,
The cooks are British,
The Mechanics are French,
The lovers are Swiss and
It's all organized by the Italians.