Thesis Writing is a 4-chan Meme

Looking at this excessively cited dissertation (below), I can’t help but think that thesis writings are no better than 4 chan memes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan You or your paper survives on the very basis of being cited. I still remember what someone said of 4chan’s message boards: It is just a repost of posts.

That’s right. The fittest survive. Especially in an ultra-active message board with no archives and limited page space. You repost what you like and what you think deserves a more permanent spot in there.

And then again, the very (rebellious) thought of this can be a thesis. SIGH. And the medium is indeed the message. With this, I resign. I’m getting this over and done with. You (or rather I) can never get out of philosophy by ‘fighting’ against it. By ‘fighting’ against it, you are meta-philosophising. If you ‘fight’ against meta-philosophy, you are meta-meta-philosophising.

I think the only way to get out is to conduct a spin-off like the natural sciences and just ignore the entire franchise. Ignore your ‘roots’. And get mocked by the self-important, life-sucking philosophy… of science. I think philosophy has a terrible complex. I’m through with it. It’s more than that of a nagging parent or an equivocating old person (though no offense to old persons and parents)— it just— doesn’t.get.it.

I think my topic is: “Microbiology and Medicine: A Case Study on the Interconstruction of Reductionism and Holism in Foundationalist Science”. Or something like that. According to the whims of my tutor.

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“Because organisms and their environments form complex integrated systems, the most robust biology will be an integrative biology (Ruse 1989; Russert-Kraemer and Bock 1989; Savageau 1991). Organisms and their environments are studied (of necessity) on many hierarchical levels -for instance the focal unit of biological organization can be a gene, cell, organism, population, or species, depending on the focal level of study (Jacob 1977; Bock 1989). Scientific explanations rely on establishing causal relationships among units of study (Bock 1989). One the most fundamental methodological differences between reductionist and integrative biology is in models of causality. Reductionist biology has a much more restrictive model of causality than does integrative biology. The reductionist model is one of unidirectional causation (Fig. 1.1). [1 sentence of 2 lines deleted] Reductionism assumes that effects at higher levels of biological organization can always be reduced to causes at lower levels (Jacob 1977). For instance, the reductionist approach assumes that effects at organismal level can always be reduced to causes at the gene level.  In the integrative model, causality can occur from the highest levels to the lowest: temperature dependent sex determination is an example of how the environment can affect gene expression (Ewert et al. 1994; Lang and Andrews 1994; Viets et al. 1994). Only one of many possible directions of causation is from gene to organism. In this sense, integrative biology encompasses the methods of reductionist biology but goes much farther. Reductionist biology has made tremendous advances in the “parts catalog” (Savageau 1991) of life. However, the reductionist approach has failed to make significant progress in the study of complex systems (Savageau 1991).”

Departure: My Last Editorial

Just posting it here for ‘fun’— or just posting it here to make a mark that such a phase in my life did happen. And since I have no time to reminisce about my time in Publications, I shall leave that to a later date although it’s doubtful that such a date will ever occur as seen from my experiences of saying ‘I’ll talk about that in a later post’ which often negates such a possibility. But I do hope that it does occur.

I shall just say for now that I feel like I’ve lost my baby. But babies are more or less, irritating. But still, my baby.

And with this, I shall scramble on in my busy and meaningless life as of now. Not that I am in a dire need for anything to the contrary to happen.

And I shall also say that this is not really genuine. I’m not portraying ‘myself’. If I were, there is nothing to represent. I shall not attempt to explain for fear of the length.

These all came out as brain snot. In fact, the subject of this came about because I was listening to ‘All Good Things Come to an End’ by Nelly Furtado. Shall also talk about the song, perhaps, sometime later.
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Greetings readers,

As they say, all good things must come to an end. But then again, I’m pretty sure all bad things or mediocre things must come to an end too. I have always wondered how by similarly stating the obvious, the ‘good things’ version of the aphorism has emerged more popular than the ‘bad and mediocre’ versions.

All things do come to an end and that’s that. Good things do not come to an end more than bad and mediocre things come to an end—which is what the over-emphasis on the most popular version of the aphorism suggests.
And with that, our ‘tenure’ in this very cozy corner of the world draws to an end. Due to the way society is made, for every ‘ending’, it is only whole and complete if a reference to a tearful beginning is made. And so, I shall follow.

As such, I still remember my first words here: “The furniture has been moved around slightly—and hopefully, still very much to your liking.”

What has been moved has settled, definitely, over time. I sincerely hope that you have enjoyed my arrangements. And our ‘infrastructure’ will continue to undergo annual furniture movements and (to be optimistic for once) will grow from strength to strength.

What I aimed to bring to your eyes is a set of furniture pieces unlike any you have seen before. Throughout our residence, we have brought forth to you the value of inquiry and open-mindedness, the ability to make mountains of molehills and proportionately, sound interesting—and mainly, a new and previously impossible way of looking at things.

And with this, I shall leave you to a last ‘wise’ jab of mine: If there is light at the end of a lighted tunnel, why try?

Is the light all you are seeking?

If not, what if there is a lighted tunnel at the end of a lighted tunnel? What do you feel about this state of infinity? A sense of futility?

Well, this paints an accurate picture of ‘life’. No matter where you are heading, no matter how novel and rare where you claim to be walking on a path of your own, you are only digging through a new tunnel and all these tunnels will converge somewhere, just as they originated from one source—to arrive at a common fate.
I have just introduced a dimension of finiteness to the picture. And I daresay that a part of you has died more than you had in the metaphor of infinity.

Sartre is right: There is meaning only in the illusion of infinity.

And so, search not for a destination, or rest with one.

And I will gladly take my leave and leave you alone, in the presence of words in the pages to come.

Chief Editor

Schrodinger’s Cat: I believe I am crazy because I don’t think I’m crazy anymore

Clarification: Please ignore the logical loopholes unless you think that they are relevant to … (… heart aches (physically), can’t write anymore). Also, looking at this post, it might be because I am just too stressed out— only for today. Full-stop. In fact, now I think that this post is quite irrelevant (perhaps because I have written IT out and casted IT away) but at least it has captured the moment and that’s what I keep this site for. It’s just like photography. Now I know why I don’t ‘miss’ photography.

I used to be a disbeliever in the causation between stress and heart attack. Now, I finally do. And I REALLY do.
I feel like I have overdosed on digitalin and am experiencing heart ‘palpitations’ and my breathing is really shallow and a little too frequent. I feel like my heart has sagged 5 cm down and shifted to the left appreciably and is pressing onto my ribcage. This is around the second week of school and I am conscientiously noting down my symptoms as of date.

I have NO TIME. If you know me (the up-to-date version) and hear me saying this, you will know that if anyone else is leading a life like mine, they would have thrown themselves into a river.
If you are one of those who interact with me enough in school, you will know that recently, I have started to exhibit certain strange behaviours. Or rather, I have allowed them to surface more frequently without suppression. Imitating animal noises, making strange hybrid screams, jumping around and exclaiming and laughing at nothing and everything and randomly, crash at the very next moment and proclaim that that is the perfect day to commit a massacre.

I feel feverish and drunk without the physical aspects of those. But at the same time, I feel clear-headed—in the wide-eyed, caffeine-stoked sense (I am a regular caffeine ‘user’ but it’s just a cup of black coffee every morning. This cannot be that bad.). I get it. I feel like I have just awoken on the operating table from a general anesthetic.

Oh, and also, I tend to make really strange links out of everything which turns out to be rather funny or perhaps, insightful but I see them as indicators of my weakening grip on sanity.
And also, I really think I am sinking into a mental disorder of some sort which I am very afraid of and even more afraid of naming them for fear of contagion (this is irrational, yes). Recently, I don’t find myself ‘weird’ or at least off-the-norm—I find myself perfectly normal and yet… I have this dying voice which reminds me that I am (of course) not.

This means I am crazy, because I don’t find myself crazy anymore. I was ‘becoming’—have I now become-ed?
Has my 3rd person died away? I don’t know and I don’t really want to know. But please, don’t let me go crazy. I feel myself spinning away and I somehow unconsciously like or am fascinated with the sensation.
Also, I find that I am getting more neurotic than usual—anxiety, paranoia, suspicion, bouts of sensitivity and insensitivity. I don’t really analyse and re-analyse and watch over myself from a 3rd person point of view anymore. I would like to think that that means an established comfort and esteem with myself but… no, not in that sense.

I shall not let myself sink into insanity. I shall also not let the power of suggestion manifest itself. And I shall be more conscious. And I shall try to hold on to the reams of society to avoid falling off the carousel but settle just right at the border.

Or maybe I can be Schrodinger’s cat. (Yes, this is an example of me making random links.)

Both dead and alive. Neither dead nor alive.

Both crazy and sane. Neither crazy nor sane.

Wodaabe: Herdsmen of The Sun

I am so enchanted by them. Partly, it’s the accompanying music. Partly, it’s Werner Herzog. Mostly, it’s just… the people. Wow. Also, I am very enchanted by the phrase ‘Herdsmen of The Sun’. The combination of words is so beautiful that I want to eat it up.

2 Short Clips. Total:  around 5 minutes

ENTIRE VIDEO. Total: 50 minutes

Maya Angelou: This really touched me

“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers.” – Maya Angelou.

This really touched me, because I’m the surly kind. But then again, this could be— just only could be, a sign of ‘affection’ and test for ‘closeness’. For I will never do much of anything else other than smile and be nice to strangers or any other non-family members.

I Value Meaninglessness

I’m feeling it again.

Each time I feel like deleting myself from existence, I’ll always eventually feel better— in a very short time because I am an efficient person. And when I feel better, my locus of acceptance for meaninglessness enlarges to include the subject I was helpless over.

And only when I deem it meaningless, I can face it head on and nail it.

When I deem something meaningless, I do not take it seriously. I put in my best and expect the worst and keep in mind the salvation plan. I only do something and continue doing something comfortably if I know that I can nail it. And even then, I do not care about the matter. It does not concern ‘me’.

It sounds ridiculous but I really do not care about it and I cannot care about it. I need to detach a part of myself from it or anything else in order for myself to even function properly in any daily activities.

I guess: when I deem something meaningless, I am no longer afraid of failure— because it is never possible to fail and when a lot of things are meaningless due to accumulation of the meaningless-labeling over the years— I feel so free to move and to breathe because no matter what I do, it is meaningless and I find that fact funny, joyful and uplifting.

And I’ve become a more balanced person— in fact balanced to the extent there’s nothing of me. And I see the value in floating around. And I know the value in ‘every cloud has a silver lining’. In fact, I think every cloud is choke-full of silver-linings and truffle shavings. The bad is the good because something that happen after that will always have a good one and it is only possible after going through the bad. And for the bad to happen, something good must have happened before that. So why aren’t we blaming it on the good?

On another note, studying KI was the most wonderful thing I’ve done to myself. Not because of KI’s content itself— more of the self-readings but KI led me to that. But because it led me to fully appreciate the interdisciplinary. And I feel like I’ve seen pieces of the world once so distinctly segregated, piecing up together— pieced together. And I love all of them— science, math, culture, language, religion… even art. I love the big world for what it is. For its DIVERSITY. And for its meaninglessness.

So why do I live? …when I live without meaning.

I guess I’m in the post-nihilistic phase. I live because other people find my existence meaningful. If not, I can work towards creating meaning (meaning to others) in their lives. I find an equal meaninglessness in death. So it doesn’t matter if I die or not. But since others care, I live for their meaning, no matter how small or big it is.

So you might ask: by that, I find meaning in fulfilling other’s meaning? No. I find it an economic waste to destroy myself— and the economical concept comes from you and your society. Even if I’m not truly living among you, I am physically. I do not deny that I am a human being. And I should be made use of by your society and not unnecessarily trespass it.

Kazuo Ishiguro

I am on the first page of Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘An Artist of the Floating World’ and found myself mesmerised.

Nowadays, I choose books based on the 1st sentence or 1st few paragraphs. And… this book’s 1st sentence was enchanting (Which in my vocabulary means a combination of ‘nostalgic’, ‘daily, matter-of-fact’, light and heavy at the same time, if you get what I mean. It is the feeling you get when you’re walking down a pathway, thinking about something and accepting it and thinking about it again but still accepting it while looking at your surroundings— you feel the same, whether you’re in the middle of a busy street or strolling in a park or looking at the sea. Intense, with distractions. Intensely distracted.).

“If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as ‘the Bridge of Hesitation’, you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two gingko trees. Even if it did not occupy such a commanding position on the hill, the house would still stand out from all others nearby, so that as you come up the path, you may find yourself wondering what sort of wealthy man owns it.”

This paragraph agrees with me too much.

Do we need to remember our childhood for it to be a happy one?

Do we need to remember our childhood for it to be a happy one?

This question has serious implications which I don’t have the time to fully address but will sketch an outline and perhaps get back to it if I feel like/remember to do so.

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If it does: 1. Then we’ll never know what our childhood is really like unless we remember every incident that happen. For me, I mostly remember the random and unhappy things. 2. #1 assumes that what we interpret from our memories is what we are experiencing in our childhood at that time. 3. However, #2 can be countered by a different approach/definition to the idea of ‘childhood’. Childhood can be said not to be a state that happened but is an experience that is constantly being interpreted.

If it doesn’t: Then how can we use the word ‘happy’ in the manner that ‘happy’ or its adjectives are always used? 1. If we don’t remember, we can’t interpret. We can’t call it happy in retrospective. 2. Neither can we call it happy in a descriptive sense because we don’t even remember it. 3. Can we intuit? We felt that our childhood was happy? Or infer from our current state of un-screwd-up-ness that our childhood must have been quite fine? I don’t know about this one.

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For me, from the time at which I start remembering most things from my childhood which is 5 year old onwards, I remember being unconsciously happy in a descriptive sense around 30% of the time. I was upset or unbalanced for the other 70%. I can safely say that I was never fully happy as a kid (from when I was 5) for an entire day.

In retrospective when I apply my current interpretation on my memories, I’ll give my childhood a very bad rating (probably 2-3/10) but that doesn’t bother me because that’s the only possible childhood I can and will ever get. And ‘I am living the life of the light-hearted and grave-minded.’.

However, looking at 0-4 which I remember certain traces of it, I don’t know why but I tend to adopt the #3 attitude to this period of time. Also, we can say that if we don’t remember, ‘happy’ or not probably doesn’t matter to us at that time.

I’m not a nice person

Today, I found out a few things about myself

1. I’m not a nice person. I just haven’t been provoked enough. And I haven’t been partaking in interactions where I can be easily provoked much.

2. I can’t accept failure. This is not that apparent in my traits but it is just because I haven’t been failing enough in the select group of activities which I care for and play a role central enough that my screwing up would entail failure.

Character in Residence: Machine with a Past

So it’s been done and done before. When I have too much time on my hands, I tend to slip into this horrible state which I do not care to describe or am not able to in a way that is concise and un-misunderstandable. But this state has manifested itself in most of my posts below since the holidays have started so, if you notice anything kooky about me during this period of leisure, it is, highly possible that that is the state I am referring to.

The period of leisure is going to end. Something I am ironically, very glad about. And this is the post to indicate what I am going to do when it ends.

I am going to severe the possibility of acquiring new relationships of any kind that takes up too much mental space for the next year. I am placing all what-I-think-to-be an established group of connections/relationships into an ‘ark’ and I shall no longer put in effort to discover/create/worry on an intra/interpersonal scale unless it is a passive process where the other party makes it clear. This has little real-world implications (no one will see any difference) but means a lot to me. Because my head actively creates junk out of the littlest things which are counterproductive to my life.

And the worst thing for me to see is for myself to slide back into that past, no matter how appealing it looks and how ‘reformed’ and ‘informed’ I think myself to be. I shall not let my delusional self decide. The rational shall drive.

I am temporarily removing the ‘person’ from me and for the next year, for not just survival’s sake but to flourish and to continue in the future. I shall be a machine, because the roleplay needs it. But a machine with consciousness and appreciation for the past characters.