Monday, October 31, 2005

questions schmestions

i've come to realise that i am an exceedingly rational person, tempered with "righteous emotion". but what is rationality? what is "righteous emotion"? rationality is based upon logic, induction-proven causality, falsifiability, and solid premises not unlike morality. "righteous emotion" is as far as i would admit i am emotional, to the extent of righteous zeal, a fomenting rage against injustice, a profound compassion of the innocent sufferers. "righteous emotion" is also rightly predicated upon morality.

what then is morality? two threads exist: a) morality is the absolute laws of life as dictated by a supernatural authority, or b) morality are relative laws formulated through informal but extremely binding social contracts within any community.

if morality is absolute, it would make things much easier, since we don't even need to ask questions - the supernatural moral authority reigns supreme, and that authority being benevolent leaves no rational room for questioning. but the problem is that moral dilemmas are almost a daily affair! how can absolute morals reign over grey areas?

this problem does not exist if morality is relatively constructed within societies through the mechanism of social darwinism - the evolution of social action. morality exists in secular humanism insofar as morals have a function in achieving certain goals humanity has deigned of primal importance, for example, survival.

yet, in considering morals to be functional extensions of human goals, one must ask how do humans decide which goals to go for. it may seem like certain goals are simply rational (i.e. eliminating poverty), but philosophically, it is possibly tautological to consider morality predicated on rationality while rationality itself is predicated upon morality, unless rationality is amoral.

yet on the grounds that rationality is amoral, rationality loses its human connection and becomes as abstract as mathematics - a formulaic method of cogitation based within arbitrarily determined boundaries. this makes rationality more of a micro-managing tool suited for small problems rather than a macro-inclusive method suited for large problems such as moral dilemmas.

and so it may be that both types of morality exist - that of religious fundamentalism and secular humanism. some are laws from an as yet unseen authority, while others may be founded upon societal evolution - both higher authorities than the individual, upon which morals impress their influence. the etiology for these dichotomous morals are ever so subtly different, however. supernatural morality is intended (among other interpretations) to free the individual from worldly desires and cast spirituality (and the afterlife) as substantially more important reasons for life. natural morality is simply intended for the survival of the species while making life for the individual "better". note the highly subjective terms i am imposing here.

thus said, rationality may indeed corroborate both forms of morality: one being noumena-based to the extent that the afterlife and spirituality remain, as yet, unproven by scientific method, the other being phenomena-based to the extent that human survival is an observable occurence. some may consider noumena to be irrational, but descartes has also shown phenomena to be probably as frivolous. thus philosophically, both could be construed as rational premises, and thus applicable to rationality.

ergo, narrowness of emotion aside, i am one who accepts both in religious fundamentalism and secular humanism as authorities of morality, simply due to rationality. but what if these premises clash? that is when the appeal of "righteous emotion" steps in, as a "last resort" adjudicator.

but these... are aside from the times i revel in deconstruction. for in deconstruction, it is only rational (and right) to be absolutely neutral. nothing is to be spared deconstruction, not even morality.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

what's the hype all about?

hmm. apparently the martyn see documentary abt CSJ isn't very good in the documentary-sense. but oh well, it's only 105mb.

Singapore Rebel Download

in other news, candle has an Exco Exposé now!

"If i should ever walk in the valley of essays, no mindblock would I fear, You are there to get my As."

Sunday, October 16, 2005

epiphany #5

to do list...

sc2220 poster write up SOON... WHEN??
candle release 17/10 mon 8pm
ps2237 presentation 19/10 wed
cg planning wed
sc2220 reaction 21/10 fri
retreat announcement fri
candle 2nd follow-up fri
sc3101 essay 24/10 mon
cg planning wed
ph1101 essay 28/10 fri
cg planning wed
ps2237 essay 4/11 fri

incl.
retreat/bash poster
caroling locations: hollandse/minds/hospitals
exam rally backup
mm pub poster

and on top of all these... i'm thinking of shaking up nussu?? what am i thinking.
god help me.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

losing touch?

do you feel like reality is somewhere there, just beyond your fingertips, a slight hairline away from your grasp? do you feel like somewhere outside of your knowledge, something is moving ahead in an unknown direction while leaving you behind, stuck in a strangely abject loneliness that you don't even understand? does it sometimes seem like you exist only because you believe so, and that your significance hinges on that leap of faith?

well, you're not really alone la.

you just need to get re-introduced to your Ruling Elite.

but of course, you can also get introduced to your Average Cock-Talker.

life's a peachy peach: as long as you don't realise it's just a prune.

Law of Possible Impossibilities

this is what happens when you try some philosophy in the toilet...
Outcome X is possible so long as its probability is not zero.
Outcome X is impossible so long as its probability is not one.

If it is possible to gather Perfect Information,
Then probability will be absolute (zero or one).
Ergo, Outcome X is either possible or impossible.

If it is impossible to gather Perfect Information,
Then probability will be abstract (neither zero nor one).
Ergo, Outcome X is neither possible nor impossible.

Taking the probability of gathering Perfect Information to be neither zero nor one,
Perfect Information is neither possible nor impossible to gather.
Ergo, probability is neither absolute nor abstract.
Ergo, Outcome X is either impossibly possible or possibly impossible.
you get fantastic fallacies.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

it seems i may have been mistaken...

have Singaporeans really been apathetic?
Big-O [justin's recommendation!] says it slightly differently...

WHY SO QUIET $INGAPORE?

maybe we havn't been apathetic, but silenced.
maybe we havn't been politically inactive, but neutered.
maybe we havn't been opinionless, but disenchanted.
maybe it isn't what we are, but what they did.

of course, it could also be that most of the happy robots around me are simply brought up to be PAP sycophants, but that's probably just me and my overactive imagination la.

WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN [oh, really.]

yep, my new fave. mwahaha. even talks raunchy on the main page too!

Monday, October 10, 2005

22 & 4 days

that was a really strange day. after my mum reminded me of my birthday on monday (3/10) i couldn't help but wonder if anyone else remembered. this thought actually embarassed me, and i quickly told myself: it doesn't matter if anyone remembers la. already how old liao. eh. how old ah? for that moment i thought i was going 23. my poor brain... what have you been going thru??

and so on wednesday, i actually managed to forget that the next day would be my birthday. went about my usual wednesday schedule: skipping the 10am SC3101 lect, going for tuts, plan cg with carol, hang out at yih pretending to study. i can't remember how, but benjy got stuck at yih so i accompanied him, surfing silly websites, learning weird words etc. we were bugging joanne, and she actually remembered my birthday, and benjy was surprised. after the obligatory "happy birthday/thank you thank you" we went back to erm... kittenwars.com? something like that. joanna then smsed me happy birthday (HB), which still surprised me la.

so on thurs, i was actually mildly content, and went for th 8am philo. during lect, i bugged jon with my criticisms of Descartes, tho he says that kept him awake. i was beginning to be a bit suspicious as nobody seems to remember my bday at all - another embarassing thought! how could i be so demanding? ppl got so many deadlines to worry abt... why bother with my 23... 22nd birthday? not impt la.

but actually, they did remember! alph and gang brought me a tissue-box "birthday cake" complete with candles, with audrey chanting "cakes are a social construct!" this phrase is to be featured on the bday card audrey's gang made for me (in 2 whole hours). it was really funny to have a tissue-box cake tho! who else would ever have such a thing? and of course, there was a real cake, and the best present for me: an arts corner filled with the arts people... i was so amazed by the entire thing that i actually reassessed my judgment of birthdays as being pointless. mine revived arts corner! how cool is that? this effect was to flow into cg later, as a whopping 15 ppl turned up~ i only hope that it would last la.

but the celebration wasn't everything... stella called from hawaii to wish me~ and it so happened that jon & marcus were around too when she called, so the 4 of us had a mini-gathering... haha... it was 22min (where got so zhun one) of long-dist call before we all started worrying for her phone bill and hung up reluctantly. just when i thought getting an overseas phonecall for your birthday really rocks, i got another one the next day from erina~ oh how i miss her... but i suddenly wondered if she would come back with an american citizen baby. that would be AWESOME! please come back soon dear sis...

but those still weren't the most surprising phone calls i got. catherine's one was. i was almost shocked! the sad part was that i had lost her number when i changed phone... so i couldn't recognise her instantly. but her voice still made my heart skip a beat. the memories... i still haven't forgot

that night i had another birthday cake... at home. it's been more than half a month since i last went home, and the tv remote actually seemed remote! (pardon the puny pun.) for the first time in more than a decade, i actually sang the birthday song with my family... it was like a dream come true. just 5 yrs ago, this wouldn't have been possible. my family has gone such a long way... i couldn't help feeling a sense of pride... and pure joy.

i couldn't deny it any longer: i was touched. ppl were rushing for deadlines, remember? and yet they remembered. and celebrated with me. even though i myself was so skeptical abt birthdays. "birthdays are a social construct!" well, for that one day, it certainly didn't seem so.

thank you, everyone, for celebrating the "milestone" with me. i couldn't have made it this far without you!

Sunday, October 02, 2005

bye Dr. Chee, bye!

pardon the rather crude pun, but if even TalkingCock.com wouldn't dare rub shoulders with the Singapore Rebel, how is the deluded population ever going to know what he truly stands for?

if i have a link to the trailer of the banned political film Singapore Rebel, would you take a look? it's only 6MB - plus i'm risking the ISD's wrath here! ISA rules, you know.

and for those of you out there who still don't know who Dr. Chee Soon Juan is, read up. he may be the next fallen hero along the likes of Joshua Benjamin 'JBJ' Jeyaretnam [more here] or Chia 'Exiled to Sentosa' Thye Poh [more here], so don't wave him off by pointing to your pockets when he asks where is the money, but see him as who he is: a Singaporean.

also, see what LHL has been up to at LHL Watch.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
John 8:32