Stephen Batchelor, the author of <Confession of A Buddhist Atheist>, has articulated he feeling about atheism very well.

nor am I an Atheist, who has a particular axe to grind with God. I’m not an Atheist in that I have some objection or some dislike of that way of thinking. It’s simply that I see no use or value of entertaining such notions. I feel that I can articulate what I believe to be at the heart of my quest for meaning as a human being without any recourse to such ideas.

I can make perfect sense of the world without making any reference to god. I see no need for me to confirm or deny its existence. I won't call myself atheist though, as this term is usually associated with the opposition to the concept of god. I think a better description for me is "I don't care".

2010.08.05 [philosophy] - comments (0)

How long ago was it when I went to the marathon screening of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue, the entire ten episodes shown in one full day? It must be more than 15 years ago. Kieslowski's films have a such important place in my memory, it is hard to imagine he has left more than 10 years ago.

This time I have as much time as I need to review each episodes on DVDs. The Decalogue One, "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before me" is a about a tragic accident. Against all the computer calculation and precaution before going on ice skating on the frozen lake, accident has befallen on the young Paweł. Daddy returns home to stare at the green glow of the screen of his trusted computer. Just yesterday it made the assurance on the ice strength. Now it displays a single message - "I am ready _" with a blinking cursor. The picture remains there silently. It is some of the most contemplative moment in the cinema.

I don't remember how I feel when I saw this the first time. The message is simple enough. It questions the primacy of science and structure in modern society and to reflect on the diminishing role of religion and spirituality.

Today I think I have resolved such conflict. It is a false dichotomy between science and religion. To me science is spiritual. The story implies a kind of scientific determinism. I think it is old school. Of course old school probably still describes the majority of people, both religious and non-religious. And also we have to take into account of Kieslowski's background working in the communist Poland in the 80s, where determinism is really the rule of the society and has far more relevance for him.

The flaw of Decalogue One is some may see it as an apology for scientists. Many people may simply conclude scientists are arrogant and ultimately hurt people. If so they are too affected by the accident. Kieslowski is a master to induce us into reflection of a moment. But we must not lose the bigger context to a single moment. Can religion or traditional knowledge make a better guideline regarding safety compare to science overall? I doubt it.

And this is only old school science. The "new" science of complexity sees the world as fundamentally nondeterministic. Many events are unpredictable. Accidents do happens. But this does not mean scientific prediction are not useful. They are useful in plenty of ways. The problem is those people who expect 100% certainty are not realistic of their expectation.

In the middle of the film the father was giving a lecture on language. Unlike other old school point of view, this lecture on the relationship of language and intelligence resonates deeply to me. He laments that computers, a machine that operates on 0 and 1, can somehow displays awareness. He was talking about emergence! It strikes me that human, an organism makes up of simple molecules and a lot of H₂O can display awareness. So a man made machine, despite its seeming simple logic structure, can conceivably display a consciousness on a high level someday by the similar principle.

I don't have a conflict between science and spirituality. Science is my new religion. This is of course the topic of another 100 blog posts.

2010.06.14 [movie, philosophy] - comments (0)

Yesterday the U.S. stock market experienced a sudden and volatile fluctuation. Dow Jones index has briefly dropped by 10% during intraday trading. The main culprit seems not to be economic issue but suspect to be a glitch in trading. Apparently one trader has entered an exceptionally large trade by mistake, which set off all the automatic trading program to sell-off. There goes the market value.

Watching this episode I see a picture emerging. This is the day when machines begin to rule the world. For all the vigilance put in place after the computer induced 1987 market crash, we are still, or perhaps even more vulnerable due to more reliance on computers.

The conflict of man against machine seems like a sci-fi plot. But I think it is more realistic than most people think. The problem is we are looking for an anthropomorphous entity like HAL, an supercomputer that knows it all, have immense analytic power, and the most frightening part, it has a mind of its own. As far as I know I don't see anything like this on the horizon.

Instead there are countless software agents roaming the net, collecting information, building database, distributing information and in some case taking active roles like trading stock. This global computer network has developed immensely in the past 2 decades, impacting every aspect of our society. Mostly it makes our economy more efficient and keeping us better informed. But does the system also enslave us in some way? Are human truly in control of our destiny. Or are we at the mercy of the system?

I am imagining how the next computer glitch would look like. Think Google Calendar. One day it may suddenly 'recommend' a political rally event to all users, those logic that even its creator cannot explain. And our history may have changed as a result.

2010.05.07 [philosophy, tech] - comments (0)

Your walk in a cafe. You see everyone is working alone with their laptop. Nobody is talking to each other. Even the most ardent Internet junkie would admit they should have spent more time personally with other people rather than glue to the computer screen all day long. These cafe owner even try to setup rules asking patrons to log off and talk.

These moves are no doubt well intentioned. It will probably inspire many supporters. But why is so many people stick to their computer in the first place? It would be easy if we can determine that too much Internet is for sure a bad behavior, like watching too much TV. But what if it is true, that your second life is actually better than your first life?

2010.02.06 [philosophy] - comments (0)

My son is a really good talker now. He is very inquisitive about everything. The most common question he asks all the time is "What is the name of this?" Sometimes he asks for the name of an animal, sometimes for some sort of vehicle, sometimes for an object that we just see or use. But sometimes he'd also ask for something we don't usually attach a name to.

One day we were walking on the street, he pointed to the ground and asked me "what is the name of this?" So I answered "pavement". Sometimes I used a new vocabulary like "hauling" and he'd ask what is the name of "hauling"? Then I explained to him what hauling means. Sometimes he'd ask "what is the name of green?" And I just answer green is green.

People might find him cute for asking this sort of naive questions. I think he is just curious and want to learn about everything. Somehow I have an epiphany; perhaps this is a lesson in epistemology for me, to know a thing is to be able to name it. He is just practicing the saying.

2009.04.24 [philosophy] - comments (0)

I was in a coffee shop one day. I saw this man in his 50s. His look aged. His hair grey and thinning. One thought flashed though my mind. I saw my son Tat Chee aged like him.

Mind you my son, now two months old, is the cutest baby in the world. He just starts to sleep through the night. He cries a lot but also smiles sometimes. He can babble and we are expecting to hear his first legible word. Then there is child care and school in our mind. Nobody would have associated old age with a baby. I should really concerned about myself with all these middle age issues like hair loss striking close.

But then... one day... Tat Chee would indeed become an aged man. Surely. Inevitably.

O impermanence.

2006.04.21 [personal, philosophy] - comments (0)

US federal judge rules against teaching 'Intelligent Design' in classroom yestarday. Good for the kids now that the idiots are not allowed to stuff non-sense into their curriculum.

I don't plan to spend time debating creationism itself. Instead this led me contemplate the appeal of creationism and the concept of anthropomorphism. There are plenty of world origin myth. What about the world is originate from four elements and such and such. Few would consider them as valid theory. Why does creationism seems to be more plausible and have more credential in comparison? I really like to challenge fundamental assumptions. Great insight would often come after.

First of all many of us are already indoctrinated with Christian theory since young. But besides that the logic of creationism appeals to anthropomorphism - the attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena. We love to perceive the world according to human behavior. It is easy to think of things coming from a designer similar to ourselves. In contrast other theories like Big bang, heaven and earth or four elements don't have this kind of appeal.

Turns out I am not the first one to think of this. Philosophers have been thinking about anthropomorphism for a long time. Just too abstract for most people to grasp probably.

2005.12.21 [philosophy] - comments (0)