Though Logicomix is in no way historically accurate, it portrays well a feeling that I think a lot of us share. I'm sure that a lot of people saw the delicate beauty in Euclid's Elements, in the (relative?) certainty of mathematics, and hoped that something remotely similar to Elements can be made to solve dilemmas that come up in every day life--a consistent philosophical system deduced from the basic facts that everyone would understand and agree upon.
I had the naiive thought once. It's comforting to believe that there's a way to make a limited set of assumptions about life and existence, and derive from those a consistent set of beliefs about everything from metaphysics to ethics to politics.
From what other people are saying around the interweb, I'm not sure if Bertrand Russel would be the right person to attribute this set of feelings to. Actually, this might sound weird, but a more appropriate person would be Ayn Rand.
I recall in Atlas Shrugged, she speaks of people -- even philosophers (and logicians?) -- using logic to prove that logic is flawed/inadequate. These people were, of course, the "bad guys", the people that are held by the masses to be the "leader" of their chosen fields, but who are really there to foil the heros, the proponents of logic.
I loath hearing things about so and so "used logic to prove that logic is inadequate". I heard it once on numb3rs, too, so it's quite annoying. I had no idea that this in fact had been done. It's Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. Of course!
Did Ayn Rand know about Gödel? Would that changed her mind in any way? If we make the assumptions that (1) human life/experience/society is much more complicated than the natural numbers, and (2) a system of philosophy (built up from a few axioms, for our purpose) can be thought of as a model of the world, then Gödel seems to imply that any of our philosophical system is either incomplete or inconsistent.
I'm probably missing something very important here.
End of Entry
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Moment of Fame
I celebrated Chinese New Year this year by writing this article for the Facebook Data Team:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=304457453858&id=8394258414
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http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=304457453858&id=8394258414
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Sunday, February 7, 2010
The Impostor Syndrome
The Impostor Syndrome is a phenomenon where a person is incapable of internalizing success, often attributing it to luck, good timing, or pure fluke. The person is fearful that they might be "found out" to be less intelligent or competent than people make them to seem.
It's interesting that this phenomenon is prevalent enough to be both studied and given a name. Very interesting.
(And yes, I've felt this way many times, but it also seems that I am capable of internalizing success. Or maybe I'm just giving myself credit for effort, in which case I should remind you of this quote.)
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It's interesting that this phenomenon is prevalent enough to be both studied and given a name. Very interesting.
(And yes, I've felt this way many times, but it also seems that I am capable of internalizing success. Or maybe I'm just giving myself credit for effort, in which case I should remind you of this quote.)
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Sunday, December 20, 2009
suspension of criticisms
In grade 7, I was (re?)introduced to music. I wasn't curious enough to use Kazaa or care enough to download music on my own accords. In fact, I didn't really listen to music at all. That is, until I had a friend who started sharing Chinese music with me. We had dial-up back then, and I remember it taking forever.
Since I didn't listen to songs very often, I was easily distracted by the details. I told him why I didn't really like each particular song -- this part of the lyrics seemed so cheesy, that sound there seemed uncalled for, and that random bit of Japanese is weird... Oh, and please don't send me another English song! They're so awkward.
Did I know anything about music? Actually, not really. I didn't. All I knew was that the songs didn't sound "right", whatever that was supposed to mean. I was just like one of those arrogant literary critics who pretended to know.
Yet as I listened to more and more music, these details stopped bothering me. This seemed counter-intuitive at the time. Have I merely accustomed myself to mediocrity?
I'd like to think that at some time or another, I just got the point. There are different levels that I could focus on: there's the level of the individual sounds, and there's the level of the song as a whole. When I learn to suspend my criticisms (much like the "suspension of disbelief"), I learned to appreciate a song as a whole and became more forgiving. It was no longer about "how many things about this song I would change", but the appreciation of the message. I focused more on connecting with it, emotionally and otherwise. I could do that without the song being absolutely perfect.
"But the individual sounds are important!" Sure. I'm not saying that we should shun all criticisms. But sometimes, it is worthwhile to let the details slide for a moment, just to gauge the actual message being sent. The arguments might still hold regardless of innocent mistakes.
It's always easier to criticize than to create, but it's much more worthwhile to give someone the benefit of the doubt and to focus instead on the message they're trying to send.
End of Entry
Since I didn't listen to songs very often, I was easily distracted by the details. I told him why I didn't really like each particular song -- this part of the lyrics seemed so cheesy, that sound there seemed uncalled for, and that random bit of Japanese is weird... Oh, and please don't send me another English song! They're so awkward.
Did I know anything about music? Actually, not really. I didn't. All I knew was that the songs didn't sound "right", whatever that was supposed to mean. I was just like one of those arrogant literary critics who pretended to know.
Yet as I listened to more and more music, these details stopped bothering me. This seemed counter-intuitive at the time. Have I merely accustomed myself to mediocrity?
I'd like to think that at some time or another, I just got the point. There are different levels that I could focus on: there's the level of the individual sounds, and there's the level of the song as a whole. When I learn to suspend my criticisms (much like the "suspension of disbelief"), I learned to appreciate a song as a whole and became more forgiving. It was no longer about "how many things about this song I would change", but the appreciation of the message. I focused more on connecting with it, emotionally and otherwise. I could do that without the song being absolutely perfect.
"But the individual sounds are important!" Sure. I'm not saying that we should shun all criticisms. But sometimes, it is worthwhile to let the details slide for a moment, just to gauge the actual message being sent. The arguments might still hold regardless of innocent mistakes.
It's always easier to criticize than to create, but it's much more worthwhile to give someone the benefit of the doubt and to focus instead on the message they're trying to send.
End of Entry
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
2009 in retrospect
Writing a review blog is quite an indulgence, but this year I can actually get everything to fit in one bite-size entry. Here goes:
So the year 2009 started off terribly. Winter 09 was a disappointing term, and I quickly lost interest in everything. Luckily, life brought me to San Francisco in May-Aug 09. Working at Tagged doing programming was not something I was immediately comfortable with, but it definitely helped me grow. I finally learned that being afraid to be busy is not going to cut it, and went all out in Fall 09. I may have ridden on borrowed momentum (borrowed from... a certain person. You know who you are.), but that momentum sure helped me thoroughly enjoy this term. As for how I did in keeping my resolutions from last year, it's as you might expect. "Don't go nuts" was fine for the most part. "Don't be lazy" - not quite.
My resolution will change completely this year. In fact I have already done the switch. This new resolution is:
It's simple, really. Focusing at the right "level" and looking at things the "right" way solves a lot problems. Not being lazy and not going nuts will be the consequences.
Actually, I need to add another resolution:
No comment on this one.
Let's end with notable moments in the past year, whatever I can remember: HSU Go Tournament, Waterloo Go Tournament, GEB, London Life and co-op drama, spring + winter trip to Rochester, Ghirardelli's / Pat's / Gelato / Tuk Tuk / Indian, hills across golden gate, a tuque, an epiphany that I'm supposed to have soon, the tactile dome, data center field trip, LA, pets gold/cash drama, jogging at the beach, balancing on the exercise ball, masala bay, the man that died in 95, sugar sammy, tutorial center, "Suppe mit nichts", collaborating using etherpad for cogsci exam ....
... and hopefully I'll have a tad more to add in the last 15 days of the year =)
End of Entry
So the year 2009 started off terribly. Winter 09 was a disappointing term, and I quickly lost interest in everything. Luckily, life brought me to San Francisco in May-Aug 09. Working at Tagged doing programming was not something I was immediately comfortable with, but it definitely helped me grow. I finally learned that being afraid to be busy is not going to cut it, and went all out in Fall 09. I may have ridden on borrowed momentum (borrowed from... a certain person. You know who you are.), but that momentum sure helped me thoroughly enjoy this term. As for how I did in keeping my resolutions from last year, it's as you might expect. "Don't go nuts" was fine for the most part. "Don't be lazy" - not quite.
My resolution will change completely this year. In fact I have already done the switch. This new resolution is:
Focus on what's important.
It's simple, really. Focusing at the right "level" and looking at things the "right" way solves a lot problems. Not being lazy and not going nuts will be the consequences.
Actually, I need to add another resolution:
Declare major!
No comment on this one.
Let's end with notable moments in the past year, whatever I can remember: HSU Go Tournament, Waterloo Go Tournament, GEB, London Life and co-op drama, spring + winter trip to Rochester, Ghirardelli's / Pat's / Gelato / Tuk Tuk / Indian, hills across golden gate, a tuque, an epiphany that I'm supposed to have soon, the tactile dome, data center field trip, LA, pets gold/cash drama, jogging at the beach, balancing on the exercise ball, masala bay, the man that died in 95, sugar sammy, tutorial center, "Suppe mit nichts", collaborating using etherpad for cogsci exam ....
... and hopefully I'll have a tad more to add in the last 15 days of the year =)
End of Entry
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