Struggling with Meaninglessness

I have always been very fascinated with our human face. Think about it, we are all sharing the same features – eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hair and etc, but doesn’t it strikes you that each of us has our very own distinguished and unique look? I have been pondering for quite a while on this, and after some time, i got the answer when i watch a Hong Kong detective drama series. Basically, in one of the episodes, the witness was assisting the cops to catch a criminal by depicting his look using a computer program at the police station. The program depict the face based on the combinations of the witness’ account of the criminal’s face features. Does the criminal has big eyes or small eyes? Long face or square-shaped face? Broad mouth or small mouth? Combine all of them together, and voila, the face is right there.

I was astonished to learn that the reason why each of us has distinguished looks is due to the slight variation in our face features. One slight difference, and we will look incredibly different. We could easily see that from girls who went for eye surgery. By just enlarging the eye, she will look more or less different. Not to mention, she may gain some attractiveness too.

But how about animals? One thing i noticed whenever i watch a pack of dogs (in a family) is – they all look the same! Human usually differentiate dogs by looking at their fur colour, body pattern or their size. But if we put a pack of dogs who have the same fur colour, same body pattern and same size, it is not unusual for us to unable to differentiate them. A general human perception is – animal from the same species and breed have generic and monotonous looks. Basically, they all look the same!

I have not been reading much on evolution until recently. As i read them, i realised our brain is the pinnacle of humanity’s survival. Brain is basically our ‘weapon’ for survival purposes just like wings to birds and tough skin to ox. However, our brain is not perfect, just like a bird can’t travel thousand of miles in a single flap or an ox having a set of skin so tough it is impregnable even by laser. When something is not perfect, it will bound to have flaws – This is the law of nature. Since our brain ain’t perfect, therefore, putting it crudely, our brain is flawed, and ‘buggy’.

Ok, enough with my philosophical nonsense, back to the topic. Now, why do animals all look the same? For one simple reason – because we, human are not wired to see the tiny variation in animal’s face. Generally, we can’t detect the subtle details in animal’s face since it doesn’t bring us any benefits in natural selection. But our brain tells us that all the animals look the same! Why? Basically, our brain is imperfect. Our brain gave us the illusion that whatever we perceive with our eyes is real. As i have said, the brain is our ‘weapon’. Therefore natural selection will dictate our brain to develop an instinctive behaviour in us to have 100% faith on the ‘weapon’ to keep surviving. That’s the reason why, human ALWAYS believe whatever our eyes and brain tell us. It is instinctive.

I think it is the same for dogs. Whenever the doggies see us, they may just think that all of us look the same. They may differentiate us based on our physique features like size, hair-style, voice, etc. There’s no reason why dogs need to understand the details of human face.

It is not only between animals and human. Even between human and human this phenomena is happening too. Case in point – If you take a Chinese guy who has very little exposure of world culture and put him together with a group of Africans, he will certainly have hard time telling who is who and he may think all of them look the same. Same goes when you put an unexposed Aborigine in Europe. However, since we are human being, therefore, it is not difficult to adept and learn to perceive the face details of other races. Over time, unconsciously, our brain will slowly adept and wire us to understand the details.

Perhaps, a cat freak who spends a great deal of time with many cats everyday are able to different the cats? I’m not sure.

I’m a very curious boy since i was young. Even a small tiny detail could light my curiosity up and made me spend hours pondering on them. Thinking back, my curiosity capacity was at the peak when i was between 7 to 12 years old. However, without my awareness, my curiosity suddenly became ‘idle’ for the next 8 years. Perhaps, i was too overwhelmed by so many unanswered questions that i found it so pointless to be curious anymore then. But thanks to the Internet and emergence of Web 2.0, where knowledge and discussions are so accessible, I recovered my curiosity back 2 years ago when i came across a forum. The topic of the thread happened to be discussing something which i had intently contemplate when i was 7 years old – Does God exist?

Suddenly, i realised everything i questioned when i was a kid have meaningful answers in this Internet age. After spending 3-4 months reading about religion and scientific(evolution) point of view, i drew my own conclusion that religion’s God should not exist (i wasn’t 100% convinced back then). But if religion is not the answer to the existence of humanity & universe, what is the real answer? And that leads me to all of my current interests such as physics, science, astronomy, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, etc. which point to a common theme -  How, & Why does the universe and life exist?

Gifted with strong memory, i could remember all the things i’d pondered on when i was a kid. Apart from God, i also questioned :-

• I noticed from a picture of heaven and hell that God, Deities and devil are depicted very traditionally. If Heaven and Hell exist, do they follow earthly technological advancement? Meaning, does car exist in heaven right now? Do devils use gun now instead of fork to torture the ’sinful’ people in hell? Will God dressed in T-shirt instead of traditional robes?
• If i dig a hole here all the way to the other side of the earth, will i still be considered as an illegal immigrant? (the answer is yes )
• I played around with some rice in a bucket. There are plentiful of rice in the bucket. I take away one grain of rice and it will still be plentiful. But if i consistently taking away one grain of rice at a time, to what extent it will no longer be considered as plentiful?
• I wondered why am i scared of cockroach when these little friends do not hurt me (yes, i’m still frightened by cockroach now). In fact, i’m terrified with almost all kind of insects (except for ant, fly and mosquito). Why do i like dogs and rabbits but not insects?
• Why did the moon and stars follows me wherever i go?
• Why can a fish breathe in water but human cant’? (i experimented it myself and got myself choked lol)
• Why can’t i grab water?
• Can i shout so loud, the other side of the earth hear me?
• Is there a way to burn rubbish without emitting smoke?
• My mum could always tell that i’m bluffing and predict what i’m gonna up to. I always suspected that she has some psychic ability listening to my inner voice.
• I was standing roughly 4-5 metres away from the TV. I stretched my arm forward, and by extending my palm, i could blocked the TV from my vision. Compared to the size of my palm, the TV is so small. But as i move forward, the TV gets bigger and bigger, and as i stood right in front of the TV, my palm is so much more smaller compared to the TV. Why?
• I thought of something exactly like the Zeno’s paradox of the Achilles and Tortoise (conceptually). Up to this day, i still can’t find a reason why was i thinking about that.

And some other lamer and nonsensical stuffs. I think it is rather a blessing to have such curious mind. I always thought it is natural for everyone to be curious on everything, but as i grow up i realised not everyone has the higher level of curiosity in them.

In my next post, i will post an explanation to one of the mysteries i came across during my childhood – why do human have different looks but cats, dogs and rats all look the same?

I’m very fascinated with genius. This is my observation of genius’ area of talent.

Intellectual Genius – Genius who provide solutions to tackle world problems and societal advancement such as physicists, philosophers, inventors, mathematician, technologists, scientists, etc.

Artistic Genius – Genius who are artistically gifted to fascinate the world such as artists, musician, poets, writers, designers, singers.

Skilled Genius – Genius who excel in sports, gaming and skilled work. Tennis, football, golf , drivers, dancing, and PC strategy games.

I always believe you can never make yourself to be a genius. Either you are born a genius, or you are not.

Everyone has very subjective opinion on defining intelligence. Some people call straight-As students as intelligent. Some people call an artist who drew wicked abstract art as intelligent. Some people call a successful multi-millionaire entrepreneur as intelligent. Some people don’t think any of them are intelligent. Despite the variance in opinions, there is common assumption from most people that the more knowledgeable the person is, the more intelligent he/she is. As how Francis Bacon, a renowned philosopher put it, ‘Knowledge is Power’. My gut instinct told me something is amiss and that i got to put on my philosophical cap to reason it out. And so i did …

Knowledge is accessible everywhere

Exactly one year ago, i know nothing about physics. Absolutely zero. It was around January-February 2007 that my interest in physics sparked when i read an article about Einstein with his Special Theory of Relativity in Times magazine. I was very fascinated with the idea of how speed can influence time. Since then, i became a physics-addict. I spent a great deal of time reading about physics up to this very day, a field which i have zero education background in.

With the abundance of knowledge and information so accessible especially on the internet,  knowledge is always just within our fingertips. If knowledge has become something which is attainable by everyone and anyone, by all means, knowledge is no longer something special and valuable. Suddenly, knowledge has become a common commodity. Knowledge is literally free and easy to seek. This means, whatever knowledge that you know, others will know too. Nevertheless, knowledge only limit to things that we know at the present time. To see the future, we need imagination.

Knowledge ≠ Imagination

I always discourage people from being a book-freak. Even if you get to read all the books and become the most knowledgeable person in the world, it is still pointless. To become a thinker, one needs to spend an equal amount of time to contemplate on all the knowledge that he/she has just absorbed. If all a person do is just read, read and read, he/she will forever dwell in other people’s ideology, opinions, and mind-set. To stand and think at your own feet and , you need to spend time to reflect and imagine. Why? Because a thinker is a person who creates and invent new knowledge, ideas or thoughts. It is through human imagination that humanity consistently push our boundary to progress further. What separates a genius with an extremely smart person is the amount of imagination he/she possess. Try to ponder on this point – everyone can become a genius by just reading and following other people’s point of view. Sounds illogical, no?

I’m not suggesting that knowledge is utterly useless. In fact, knowledge is important as the basis of all intelligence. However, in the higher level of thinking process, having a great deal of knowledge do not mean having a great deal of thinking ability. Most people thought it worked that way, but in truth, it is a big false. There needs to be a balance. A balance between knowledge and imagination …. which imagination will then manipulate knowledge to create more knowledge.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. – A. Einstein

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own. – A.Schopenhauer

(This is a continuation from my previous post …)

Whenever we are driving a car, we place our foot on the accelerator paddle to keep the car moving. Otherwise, the car will slow down and eventually stop moving. Same thing goes when we take a walk, we need to keep moving our muscles to make forward steps. Stop moving our muscles, and our body will be completely stationary. Make sense, right?

However, this logic is only applicable within the earth boundary. Beyond earth, this logic is absolutely invalid. The truth is, according to Newton, once an entity is in initial motion, it will remain in motion. This condition is known as inertia. Instead, a force is required to slow down or stop the motion. On earth, we have a natural force – gravity, which acts as the force of friction to halt objects from moving non-stop.

In space, as we know, it is all vacuum. Therefore, there’s almost no force to counteract the orbit movement and momentum of the earth (except for gravitational friction emitted by nearby planets, sun and moon which are extremely insignificant to cause visible effect). Just like light, it will keep traveling on and one until something major interrupts with the traveling process. (For instance, if a huge asteroid coming from an opposite direction of earth and hit us, it will slow down the speed of earth’s orbit movement. But i guess all of us will be dead by then if something as big as that hit us.)

Next question. What kicked start the movements of planets to go around the sun? What caused the earth to rotate around the sun in the first place?

The momentum was actually initiated from the rotation of the protostar. Protostar is basically the second stage of a star’s life cycle (Nebula is first) and is formed through clumps of dense gas and dust which rotate and form a disk. Hence, protostar pulls the planets within its gravity around during the formation stage and these planets danced around the big-bright-eye ever since then. See the picture below to get a rough idea.

(credit: daviddarling.info)

I hope i can write more about star’s life cycle in the near future … I have so many things that i wanna write, just need to find the time to articulate them out.

In my previous post, i mentioned about Einstein’s theory of how planets orbit around the sun. Contrary to popular belief, no , the sun does not directly pull the planets around with gravity. Rather, it was caused by the curvature of space-time fabric . Have a look at the diagram below to get the idea.

(pic credit: nasa.gov)

Planets move around the sun based on the curve formed by the sun. Basically, the sun keeps ’spiraling’ to create this effect. It is a pretty similar situation when you use a teaspoon to stir your cup of coffee. Put some small ice-cubes in to cup, gently stir the drink and you will see the effect right under your nose. This is the phenomenon which causes earth together with other planets to constantly stay within the orbit, not moving away from sun and obediently orbiting around it.

Notice that the satellite in the image is shooting a beam towards the earth. What it tried to depict here is that even light and radio-wave movements are influenced by the space curvature. They have to move along it.

Now another question. What caused the planet to keep orbiting and moving on and on eternally? What caused the sun to keep on rotating eternally hence creating the spiral effect? I will answer that in the next post.

Everyone knows about it…. So common it is a verb.

However, isn’t it strange everyone is calling Einstein a genius when not many people truly understand his work? If you ever throw the question – what makes the Earth goes around the sun, a typical answer will be – The sun’s gravity pulls the Earth around it… which is not an accurate answer. If you ask what E=MC^2 is all about, most people will associate it with Nuclear Bomb. Haha!

Most people do not understand Einstein’s work yet everyone is calling him a genius. And that puzzled me. Why so?

From a psychological point of view, this scenario is known as the ‘Bandwagon Effect’. It basically explains that human fundamentally have strong tendency to believe and think in a herd behaviour. Hence, when the masses think that Einstein is a genius, it spreads like virus. People do not question the statement since the masses all agreed that Einstein is a genius.

Another instance will be Thomas Edison. Let me tell you what, he is nowhere near to be classified as a genius. Edison is just a very smart entrepreneur. Yet, everyone think he is a genius. Ok, perhaps this is just my subjective opinion. But have a read on the story of Edison vs Tesla, and perhaps you will get what i mean.

During the ancient times, lightning is the most fearsome entity in our human’s world. The terrifying flash accompanied by a deafening thunder scared the crap out of everyone. Nobody knew what the heck it was all about, the purpose of it, why and how it happened. However, human wanted an answer for it regardless. This is human – we want to know and we want answers. As an insecure creature, instinctively, human fear for things which are beyond our comprehension. Human inherently can’t live in uncertainty.

Hence, Gods and Deities associated with lightning were created all around the world – such as Zeus (Greek), Thor (Scandinavian), Tien-Mu (Chinese), Indra (Indian/Hinduism), Ptah (Egyptian), Yaluk (Mayan – South America), Sango (African), Perkusan (Baltic) and etc. People took these Gods/Deities as answers and people were comforted that it was divine power after all who summoned the lightning and thunder. Divine power is the only convincing answer they could get at the time.

Today, we know lightning is just a natural process and we no longer associate it with God/Deities anymore. There’s no purpose for lighting, it is just a natural phenomenon. Subsequently, human today are asking a higher level of question – Who created the universe and human being? How/where did we come from? As the answers provided by scientists are pretty vague at the moment, hence it is convienient for human to link it with … who else but God.

I’m always convinced that the truth lies with the way of how nature on earth and universe work. The underlying principle of the cosmo. It might take up to hundred or thousand of years to discover the answers (or perhaps never) and i may not have the life long enough to witness the truth – but I believe time will tell the answer …. for our next generations.

PS: This is a comment posted in Mr. EL’s blog. Edited.

INTP – ENGINEER

INTPs are logical, individualistic, reserved, and very curious individuals. They focus on ideas, theories and the explanation of how things work. They are especially adept at discussions and debate. They have the ability to focus intently on a subject. They appreciate and respect intelligence in others.

“INTPs contribute a logical, system-building approach to their work. They like being the architect of a plan, because of the scheming and thinking involved, far more than being the implementer of that plan. Implementation tends to be drudgery. They are content to sit back and think about what might work, given their view of the situation. INTPs may ignore standard operating procedures. The hours that they spend are not what is important to them, but rather the completion of their thought process”

Carl Jung’s Description of INTP

loner, more interested in intellectual pursuits than relationships or family, wrestles with the meaninglessness of existence, likes esoteric things, disorganized, messy, likes science fiction, can be lonely, observer, private, can’t describe feelings easily, detached, likes solitude, not revealing, unemotional, rule breaker, avoidant, familiar with the darkside, skeptical, acts without consulting others, does not think they are weird but others do, socially uncomfortable, abrupt, fantasy prone, appreciates strangeness, frequently loses things, acts without planning, guarded, not punctual, more likely to support marijuana legalization, not prone to compromise, hard to persuade, relies on mind more than on others, calm

People with intrapersonal intelligence are adept at looking inward and figuring out their own feelings, motivations and goals. They are introspective and seek understanding. They are intuitive and typically introverted. They learn best independently.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You know what makes personality test so attractive? It is when they start putting you in the same category with other celebrities and geniuses. In INTP, they put me in the same category with people like Einstein, Carl Jung, Descartes, Socrates and Charles Darwin. Hooo~ hooo~~ HoOooOOOoo~

It was strange i got a little excited by such trivia stuff …. 

Question: I was watching some TV show talking about the start of the universe and they were talking about anti-matter.
How can you have anti-matter? Isn’t anti-matter already matter because it’s “stuff” and it takes up space? Help me, I am confused.

My Answer: This question can only be answered effectively using analogies. Ok, try to link these 2 analogies together alright?

1. I bet you know what is a magnet right? Magnetism become meaningless if it is devoid either of positive or negative charge. A magnet is a magnet because it has both positive and negative charges. Same goes for universe, to create the universe, you need both matter and anti-matter.

2. When you freeze a pile of water, heat will escape from the water and slowly turn into ice. Now, think of ice as matter and heat as anti-matter. Same goes when you put the ice under the sun, heat will take over the ice and melt it down. The best word to describe this activity is ‘reactions’.

They are not exactly very precise analogies but i hope you will get the picture of how they work. Basically, this world is a yin-yang world. Matter and anti-matter work in a harmonious way. However, the world/universe we are living at consist mainly of matters only. Therefore, some scientist believes that there’s another side of the world where it mirrors our universe, consist mainly of anti-matter, hence the Parallel World.

When matter and anti-matter meets, they will create a very strong energy (big explosions).

Best Answer chosen by Asker :

Matter is composed of particles.
Antimatter is ALSO composed of particles with exactly the same characteristics as their corresponding matter particles, but with opposite charge.

In this universe, or … at least around here, there is enough matter around that anti-matter is destroyed pretty close to instantaneously. In other places, it may be the reverse.

Mr EL: An objective and unbendable truth that is NOT based on human knowledge. And this truth has to come from an external source. Using this argument, which I would defend at great lengths, Dawkins and everyone else, including my own opinions would be easily destroyed. That brings us to objective truth… it must be a source that does not claim to be of itself. See the religions around, and at the end, two main religion claims that the authoritative source is not human, but conveyed through humans; (you guessed it) Christian and Islam.

However, notice that here it boils down to the use of scientific methods to assertain objectivity of truth. In scientific research, multiple sources of evidences showing the same fact would gain higher credence over others. Quran (recitations) is from Muhammad alone, as it was said to have been revealed to him over a period of 23 years. We learnt that from the books and you can read more into it from other sites that are credible. Whereas, the bible is made up of so many different authors ranging from fishermen, to learned doctorates and kings, princes and others. All saying the same thing; Jesus Christ. In all the books.

Now if that does not pique my interest in truth and objectivity, nothing else will. And really hope that you would not just leave it the evidences (like Dawkins does) by sweeping it under the Science vs. Blind Faith category. Because it is not. We just don’t subscribe to the science as Dawkins see it. Experiments are subject to limitations and assumptions (basic things we learnt in secondary education). Which of course creates a limited Hawthorne Effect even the most physical sciences (like microscopes crushing cells while under observation affecting the quality of cells observed, etc. *got this from Crichton’s Lost World*). Not only that, the interpretation is done by individuals with the loudest and best interpretation taken as the finalised version (correct version). If these are not assumptions, I don’t know what else is. Which is why journals are highly prized research mechanisms; to weed out week arguments.

So, yes, I have a big problem with Dawkins and evolution and all. Yes, I do understand what evolution prescribes… I’ve been studying it for sometime, and I agree about systematic changes and probabilities… but remember, probabilities are at the end random events that may happen. Even a 1% probability may turn up as an event in the rare occasions. I believe in micro-evolution. But I definitely would disagree against the gigantic scale which is put forth by the atheists like Dawkins.

My Answer: I do not agree with your view on the scientific experiment methods pertaining evolution because I believe scientific theory is more than that. I think it will be hard to articulate this point out on evolution context, so i will give an example on astronomy context instead.

Isaac Newton was the first person to explain gravity, both on the earth and space. He attempted to explain on how gravity works in space in his work Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation. 200 years later, when Einstein studied the theory along with other astronomy studies, he realized Newton’s theory did not explain certain questions in space. One of them is the non-constant orbit movement of planet Mercury around the Sun. And that’s when Einstein realized perhaps the space is not flat as what assumed by Newton but rather the space is curved. Hence, Einstein introduced General Theory of Relativity to better explain about the space (that all matters – space, time, light, gravity, inertial masses, etc. are relative to each other).

Therefore, what we can learn about science from the scenario above was:

1. Although Newton made wrong assumptions when introducing the law of universal gravitation by assuming that the space is flat, credits should still be given to him for attempting to explain gravity on space. He needed to make assumptions for a simple reason – he was the ‘pioneer’ in the gravitation research and nobody before him done it before. Due to the limited existing scientific knowledge, resources and technology at that time, he has no choice but to make assumptions in order to proceed with his theory. And that’s what all scientist-thinkers do to create a breakthrough in discoveries. They need to keep exploring possibilities by making assumptions. Hence, if this assumption is wrong, then they will move on and create another assumption. As what a famous quote said, “If you are not making any mistakes, you are not trying hard enough.” Even Michael Porter himself based on certain assumptions in coming out with the 5 Forces of Analysis. Few years after that, he refined the theory again to fit in better with the existing environment. Whether it is business theory, scientific theory, engineering theory, or even cooking theory, every theory has its own assumptions. But I never believe these assumptions are as wild or as random as rolling a dice. They are all built through meticulous research and observations.

2. Scientific discovery is built on each other. Newton’s theory has laid a very strong foundation for Einstein’s theory of relativity and this is what science is all about. Science build on each and other and it is progressive.

In his book the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin has noted that his theory of evolution is ‘provisional’ (that the idea is the best truth at the present moment). He urged scientist not to take his idea as the truth but rather as a foundation for future scientific research works. He also said should there be better theory to explain lives in planet, then throw away the theory of evolution. I think he should be well respected for saying those words, but why was he being hated so much by certain quarters is beyond me. Extreme religious sentiment or over-exaggeration/boasting by evolutionist (atheist)? I think it is the ignorance from both sides.

At the end of the day, I’m not really interested in the creation vs evolution discussion because I feel it’s a never ending spiral of argument. Besides that, I never view people who practice religion is someone who has blind faith. To me, regardless whether God do really exist or not, religion will always have its goods and merits. And to me, that’s what Dawkins lacked off in his arguments, he discredited the positive side of religion.