Quaint, my foot

Hmmm, I can actually read some random French scribbling on the wall in the computer room. It says "I want to eat with my money, not pay for a link and services in a cyber cafe. We are students!!! Not RICH"

Am I supposed to feel accomplished that some of the language is starting to make sense, or be mortified that after over 4 weeks of lessons, I still can't hold a conversation, only read graffiti?

Anyway, went to Bruges over the weekend, quite a pretty little town. A hundred thousand population, and half again that in tourists. Must be nice to be a tourist town. You don't actually need any skills or anything like that, just be pretty. Sounds like human society, actually.

Anyway, just realised that it isn't really all that small a town. I believe that the ancient Romans and Greeks generally thought that 50,000 people was the absolute limit for a city. Any larger and it would get unwieldy. So Bruges is actually probably larger than Athens was. Not so quaint after all, eh?

Professor Redfield was saying that the population of modern-day Evanston is about the same as ancient Athens, so where are the Sophocles and Socrates of Evanston? Personally, I think the question is misdirected. I don't think the problem is with a lack of talent and ability, but with a lack of channels. A play written two thousand years ago is far more impressive than one written today, simply because it is so old. We marvel that these ancient, ostensibly primitive peoples are so modern, when all we have to do to see the modern is to look around now.

Similarly, it was probably easier to stand out as a philosopher or natural scientist in ancient Greece than it is today. After all, the simple discoveries have been made, and the cutting edge today is beyond the comprehension of the average man. Evanston is probably fairly similar in the level of intelligence of the population to ancient Athens, but the brilliant have to be a lot more brilliant these days if they want to achieve immortality. I do not believe that Northwestern is bereft of brilliant people who, given the same conditions, could not approach the heights reached by Aristotle and Plato. It is simply that that has passed, and it has become increasingly difficult to plough ahead in the realm of human knowledge. I do not think it can be doubted that quantum physics is harder than figuring out the basics of trigonometry. I am also fairly certain that the average university professor today is far more educated, cultured and accomplished than Plato ever was.

I wonder if the modern academic would approve of me bashing their idols in order to defend them.

Dazhouan Doctrine Part I

Huh, as it turns out, I had the same idea as Luther did, about free will and predestination. If I were born 500 years earlier, I would have founded a new religion.

Ok, I haven't a clue if I've rattled on about this before, and I cannot be bothered to poke through my own archives. So here's a brief version of it.

I am a Christian. I believe there is a God, and it is a singular being. That really is about the extent of my belief, by the way. I'm a little doubtful about a lot of the other stuff that is attached to it. It's all written by men, always a dubious source. I mean, if in ten thousand years, someone finds a copy of the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, would it be taken as a serious historical document? It has occurred to me that it is possible that a very bored and rich person could fabricate the existence of a civilisation. Say we take the Shang dynasty in China. If I am not wrong, there are no actual documents or relics existing from that era. The only reference to it comes from the Zhou Dynasty, which followed it. So what if some bored scribe in the Zhou Dynasty decided to make up something and wrote it down? After a couple thousand years, no one really knows anymore if the history was real. If the Da Vinci Code survives a thousand years, will people really believe that Jesus married Mary Magdalene or whatever other nonsense is in that book?

Ok ok, back to the point. I don't believe in chance. I believe that everything has a cause, no matter how complex and involved it is. Given the exact same set of circumstances, things would happen the exact same way every time. It is impossible to vary from it, because the only autonomous factors are decisions, but if an individual is given the exact same set of conditions, the decision would be the same every time. People disagree, but really, it is like computers, for whom there are no random things, only an algorithm that runs every time a random number is requested. If two exactly similar computers are given exactly similar conditions and data, the answer would be the same every time. Unless there is some difference somewhere.

Do note that this does not invalidate the notion of free will. It does require a slightly different way of thinking about it. Free will is not random, that would not be free will at all, in any sense, for to be able to make autonomous decisions, one must make rational decisions. Rationalism is another complicated affair. Many people like to claim that the failure to take into account all available data is irrational. I say that in itself is a rational decision, to take only the amount of data that is perceived to be necessary to make a decision that is as informed as is needed. When a person makes a decision, the information that is discounted is considered to either cost more to obtain than the benefit of the improvement in the decision, or it is considered to be not important to the decision. Do also realise that the concept of importance is different between every individual. Every person has different priorities and preferences. The French generally prefer leisure to economic prosperity, certainly in comparison to Asians or Americans, but even then, it is a decision that is weighted. If the choice were between leisure and actual poverty, the choice would likely change somewhat. The utility derived from any particular thing varies between individuals. I find the utility maximisation model of economics to be a very all-encompassing one. Given preferences and constraints, every person makes decisions that maximise his or her utility given what is known. So-called irrational decisions are perfectly rational within the sphere of knowledge and thought at the time. With sufficient investigation, the maximisation is always there to be found.

Free will is within this context. If there is no maximisation of utility, then it is not free will. It is not will at all. It is giving up of all thought and action to Fortuna. If there is will, there will be decisions. To have will and not be able to make decisions is impossible. Even if you have an individual who has no means of manifesting decisions, such as perhaps a person who has lost all motor functions, or a non-corporeal ghost or something like that, decisions are still made, there is simply a gap with action. But to have will is to be enslaved necessarily to the factors which are involved in every decision. Free will is only the autonomy to maximise utility. To be given free will by God is to be allowed to develop without further modification. This is not to say that God does not know what will happen. If a mouse is released in a maze with cheese in the centre, the experimenter knows for certain that the mouse will seek the cheese. Yet the mouse is acting under its own free will. It decided to go look for food. That was a decision, not dictated by the experimenter, but known to him. To some extent, it was dictated in that by setting up the conditions, the experimenter knew what the decision would be. So the decision was created in that sense.

Ok, class is over, got to go. I'll continue later.

Gaiden: Uchiha Itachi versus Shikamaru!!!

I was talking to someone about what character I would be in Naruto, and I decided that I want to be Uchiha Itachi. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a rundown of the manga.

Basically, Uchiha Itachi is this super genius ninja who was promoted to the highest rank in the village at the age of 12. Now, this is rare, since most other ninjas only graduate and begin their career at that age. So, anyway, in the flashbacks of his brother, we see that Itachi was a pretty nice guy, stood up to his father for his kid brother and all that. In the end, in order to make a new breakthrough in his abilities, he decides to kill those nearest and dearest to him, as a way of cutting off all ties to the mortal world, or something like that. So he goes off an massacres his entire clan, parents, servants, retainers. He leaves his brother alive as a potential challenger in future, since the brother has the same ability as himself.

Now, this doesn't sound like a very nice guy, does he? Why would I want to be someone like that? Well, if you think about it, this is a person who finds that his natural talent sets him above everybody else, and there seems to be no way forward, since there isn't anyone who can push him further. So he casts aside his morals and sets out to do whatever is necessary to achieve greater heights. Even the one vaguely nice thing he does, leaving his brother alive, is motivated entirely by selfish motives. To make the most of himself, he allowed nothing to get in his way.

While I doubt I will ever attempt to massacre anybody in a physical sense, I want to emphathise with this fellow. I want to be so enamoured of my own natural talent that I will do whatever it takes to maximise my achievements. Also, he's really powerful, so that's pretty cool.

The thing is, I think I'm more of a Shikamaru type. Shikamaru is a shinobi with little actual power, but an extraordinarily high level of intelligence. When he does fight, he strategises and plots constantly, so he usually wins, even with his very limited repertoire of skills. However, he's incredibly lazy, and spends most of his time lazing and watching the clouds.

Somehow, Shikamaru seems quite a lot like me. I have little natural talent, nothing along the lines of sport or music or oration or math or science or letters or anything like that. All I have is this raw, uncomfortable intelligence. Many things I can simulate using this unfocused intelligence. For example, while I am quite uncomfortable speaking to crowds, I find that I can do it fairly effectively, simply because I can react quickly enough and read the audience. I sound smart because I am. So with limited natural talent, I compensate quite adequately with my mind.

I am also pretty much a bum. I am one of the laziest people I know. I lack motivation to do pretty much anything, and really, the only reason I'm studying and all that is because it's the easiest thing to do. School is pretty easy, and it'll give me the highest rate of return in terms of money in future. I want money for all the cool things I can buy, so I can't just settle for mediocrity. I have to be rich, or I will be miserable.

The last point aside, I find myself terribly similar to Shikamaru. This bites. At least he's kinda cool though. I wish I were Itachi.

Palmistry

Ugh, just not my day today. Waited a full hour before being seated for dinner, then had a terrible waiter who mostly ignored us all night, ended up with walking for a good hour across something like 1/6 of Paris to find a cab at 2 am. Come on, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to find a cab in a major city at 2 am.

Anyway, not feeling up to agonising over myself today, so I'm just gonna do a quick update. I've thought about it a little, and I really shouldn't have kids in future. Seriously, it would be a terrible idea. If they're anything like me, they're totally screwed. I have no particular talents, and while I am one of the smartest people I know, intelligence does not rest easily with me.

Some people are comfortable with their intelligence because it is directed. They are brilliant at math, or music, or with letters, or they can solve problems very well, or something like that. My mode of intelligence is really nothing more than a lucidity of mind. I see things clearly when I care to, and that is really just painful. I am able to figure out so much that I leave nothing to the imagination. Every detail, every flaw is laid out before my gaze, and I cannot accept things for what they are. Now, it might be a useful thing to be able to do, but the problem comes when I see myself as well as the world. Yes, I think that is the problem here. Most people have their intelligence turned outwards, focused and directed towards the world. The mind is put to work solving problems, finding things, creating. Even when introspection occurs, it is of the self-searching sort. There is an expectation of what to find, and it is usually found. Even if what is expected is not found, there is generally an acceptance of what is there. When I look inwards, I see so much that is wrong and puzzling. And I cannot simply accept it. I cannot truthfully say that others should accept me for who I am, since I can hardly accept myself the way I am. Still, I am who I am, and that will never really change.

I cannot be bothered to explain the dichotomy here, perhaps some other time, since I'm tired, and I need another Coke. Suffice it to say for now that my intelligence is of a very uncomfortable sort, the type that makes it impossible to truly have any sort of contentment or happiness in life.

I've been told that my palm lines show that I will not have a lot of money, but will be happy in life. I think I've been lied to.

Paris

I've totally fallen in love with this city. It wasn't the food, it wasn't the culture, it wasn't the architecture, gorgeous as it was. All it really took was a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon spent wandering a neighbourhood alone.

I went to Notre-Dame to look for some travel guides in an English-language bookstore I had heard about. As it turns out, Shakespeare & Co. is utterly brilliant. Just a tiny shop, shelves used as partitions, leaving the narrowest of corridors for the throngs of people to wriggle through, books stacked from floor to ceiling, broken tiles on the floor, an old well in the middle of the shop, a pile of coins in its centre. That alone wouldn't have been enough. No, it was the books. I actually wandered through the shop for a while, mouth slack as I read the titles of the volumes on the shelves. Literally, this was the bookshop of my dreams. History, literature, science fiction, vintage photograph books, quick and dirty biographies, wine guides, social science. Everything I could possibly want to read in my lifetime was stacked in those shelves. Even in the dustier corners far up in the regions beyond my reach, I saw names like Bacon and Aquinas sitting there patiently, waiting for me to muster the courage to pick them up. I think I could spend every day of my life in a shop like that. Prices are a little steep though.

I ended up hunting through the store with a Colin Farrell look-alike for a translation of Caesar's account of his conquest of Gaul. I actually found it before him, by poking through the classics section instead of the history shelves. Then I wandered down the Left Bank for a while, stopping to watch a group of roller bladers who had set up on one of the bridges to show off around three rows of paper cups. Spent a good fifteen minutes there, ooh-ing and aah-ing along with a pair of little British girls there on holiday with their parents and their dog, a huge, friendly, shaggy creature. Then I browsed the booksellers along the Siene, with their touristy gimmicks and rows of second-hand French books. Ended up buying a few gorgeous prints of 1930's black and white photographs.

I liked the Siene the way it was today. Dark, cold, the grime evident on the walls of the river. When it's bright and sunny, it somehow seems a caricature of itself. I had the sense of it today as a river around which a culture has spent the last two thousand years developing into the highest in the world today. It was old, not ancient. Not so much a sense of history as a feeling of age. It wasn't beautiful, it was entrenched. A part of the world that is not so much indispensable as would be missed if it were lost. A place of sentiment, not need.

The Paris I fell in love with this afternoon was not the Paris of beautiful boulevards and fine wines and fantastic food. That I like, not love. The Paris I see is the Paris that has aged, not beautifully, not tastefully, just aged so self-consciously and gracefully. A contradiction in terms? Perhaps that is why there really is only one Paris.

Should I or should I not? I can't when I do, and don't when I can.

For some reason, don't feel like ranting recently. Don't really know why. Not for lack of thoughts, certainly. Never had that problem. Just don't feel like it. Maybe I no longer feel the urge to think out loud through my keyboard. We'll see.

Stuck in class now, sore throat so I can't talk, and didn't do the reading anyway.

Didn't do the reading because last night I had to go to some ridiculous dance performance in the Opera Garnier. Pretty building, but nothing too amazing or affecting. The dance totally sucked. I had no idea what was going on, and I don't think any of the Americans did either. The French seemed to really like it though. Three curtain calls. For a completely interminable, pointless collection of random dances.

Is it just me? Do I simply miss the point of such things? Am I so uncultured that anything vaguely different and avant-garde seems merely vulgar to me? Somehow, I get the impression that most of the world is in the same quandrary as I when it comes to art, whether performance or material. I am of the opinion that art has little value unless society finds it to have value. If an artist produces a work that is a thousand years ahead of its time, it is worthless until that time. It would have historical value, but no social value.

Ok, y'know what? I have a sore throat and I feel like crap, so I'm not going to ramble today either.

I had a pretty decent day today, but hey, the pope died. I disagreed with almost everything about him and what he stood for, but I guess he was probably a good guy, if quite misguided at times. So I won't ramble today.