Monday, October 31, 2011

Sudden Strange Epiphany while reading "The Lost Symbol"

I was halfway reading Dan Brown's latest novel, "The Lost Symbol", when I had this sudden epiphany.

In that particular part of the story, it speaks of "Man" trying to find his link or relevance to the rest of the world.

I realized that the meaning of our existence must be defined by another higher order being.

Consider this, the study of lab rats in a given habitat...

The rats live in their given habitat, happily eating, fornicating and defecating.
By their instincts, they have to forage and breed without much thought to their purpose of existence.
As they live their lives following their instincts, they are unaware that their lifestyle is being monitored, tracked and recorded for some other purposes.
Their lives is defined by the scientists that bred them for specific purposes.

It takes a higher order of intelligence to study and understand the lives of beings with a lower order of intelligence.

Scientifically speaking, it is impossible to measure or quantify without some form of intrusion to the environment in which the absolute result is required. i.e, it is not possible to measure the exact temperature of water without using an intrusive thermometer that has its own thermal properties and hence when introduced to the water, changes the way the thermal energy is spreaded within the water. Though it may be negligible [(mass of water x thermal energy of heated water) vs ( mass of thermometer x thermal transfer )], this causes change to the absolute quantifiable result that it is trying to obtain. Moreover, the butterfly effect theory comes into play with of minute changes that will introduce undesirable and unexplainable phenomenons in the long run.

Akin to the Observer Expectancy Effect experienced in the Hawthorne Factory experiments, placing a person to study a group of people will not produce accurate results, regardless of how dissociated the person is with regards to the group of people that are studied. Further reading of this effect can be found reading about Epistemic Feedback on Wikipedia.

To watch without knowing that they are being watched...
To study the subjects that are oblivious that they are being studied...
Closed Circuit TV(CCTVs) are also considered intrusive for that matter, for subjects whom know that CCTVs are meant for surveillance and will react and behave differently knowing that they are under surveillance.

To watch and study human subjects is impossible, without being intrusive.
And that our nature and instincts that defines our individual selfish needs to survive, far surpasses our need to understand our own kind as a single entity.

Thus with my epiphany, I conclude that we, as humans, can never be able to study or research on ourselves as a species because we are always limited to the technologies that we created ourselves.

If we can study lab rats whom are oblivious due to the technologies we use to watch them,
that "might" also mean that we, as a species, may be oblivious to technologies used by another species of higher intelligence used to watch and study us.

If the above is true, then, there just might be a God somewhere out there...

Friday, October 14, 2011

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Idyllic thoughts on a Thursday

The lack of luxury does not make one unhappy.
Neither does the abundance of luxury make one happier.

The search for happiness is not the search of ownership of luxury.
Happiness, as defined by others can visually see, solely depends on the look on your face.

Specifically the smile in the center of your face...

Smile because you still can...

Thursday, October 06, 2011

An old joke I recalled and the epiphany that resulted

Suddenly I recall an old joke told to me when I just joined the boy scouts during my secondary school days..

All new boy scouts have to go through a test that will prove themselves to be good enough to join..
There are tons of questions to be answered in the manner of a 1 to 1 interview..
Though the questions seemed trivial now, it was quite challenging for us, young boys to remember so many answers...

So, a senior told us a joke on how "not" to cheat..

So the joke goes, this budding boy scout was afraid that he couldn't answer all the questions correctly.
So he practiced very hard.. There was only one question which he always stumbled and forgot the answer..

The question was "Who is the Chief Scout of Singapore". This position was usually held by the President of Singapore and then it was "Benjamin Sheares". The boy found it hard to remember the name and wanted so badly to get all the questions correct, so he thought up a scheme to cheat just for this one question..

He'd written the answer on a small piece of paper and stapled the paper to his underwear outer rubber band, so he can take a quick peek at the answer on the pretense of adjusting his belt.

On the Q&A interview test itself, guess what he said when he was asked the question?

Q: Who is the current Chief Scout of Singapore?
A: Crocodile


Looking back sometimes at the problems and difficulties we had when we were young,
everything seemed so trivial when we look back it them. 
However, when the problems are current, they always seem bigger and unsolvable by the current version of us. 

If I might say, 
Challenges, beyond our wisdom to tackle, are constantly presented to us.
Yet, if we do not attempt to tackle these challenges,
Our wisdom will never grow.

10th Wedding Anniversary

Today is 6th October 2011..

In a blink of an eye, in the midst of working, having kids and making a living,
today marks the 10th year of partnership continuity between me and my missus.

Time flies when we look back at the years that whizzed by..

We had our good times and we had our bad times.

10 years ago, I asked for your hand because I was afraid I'd lose you if I didn't.
10 years later, I am glad that I did pick up the gem that turned out to be a real diamond.

On our good days, let's make it a point to remember them..
On the bad days, the memories of the good days will keep us going strong again..

Let me quote a poem I wrote on my website dedicated to you more than 10 years ago:

Seasonal Torrents...

Great speeds they come,
Much often without warning.

Tides of unimaginable proportions,
Tidal Waves.

Some Perish , Some Hurt..

The next morning,
Healing begins.

i love u
Whatever happens in the future, I am not sure...
But I know memories of the happier days will get us through any dark ones ahead!


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Monday, October 03, 2011

Neo's at the Beach...



Isabel had a great time collecting seashells and Nathaniel refused to go to the sand or touch the sea water...