Philosophy Journal 8/30

Hi guys!

As I mentioned before, I'm currently taking a philosophy class in my first semester of college, Honestly I'm a bit scared about this class mainly because I am not used to thinking so much about the situation in terms of specific definitions and components. In a way, I felt that my ideas such as my faith in God and my optimism will be challenged in this class, which can be a scary experience especially when I tied my ideas to my identity. Nevertheless, I am interested in the ideology out there and what is philosophy itself.
The main reason I want to write about my personal thoughts of the class is that I enjoy writing about my ideas (and sharing photographs) whether it be about struggles, advice, or out of interests. Also my teacher said he may offer extra credit on our journal reflections (Hahaha yes, this may be the underlying reason). Even if I do not receive the extra credit, I am genuinely interested of how my ideas will change during the semester.

Let's begin,

August 31, 2016 Tuesday

I learned what a philosopher is: A skinny, Asian dude with long hair.
I'm kidding, but that is what my professor Mr. Yuen said when he introduced the course to the class, along with the historical fact that half of the class dropped out by the end of the semester. Comforting, isn't it?

However I felt intrigued by the ideas he talked about when he explained about definitions, necessary and sufficient conditions, and what exactly is philosophy. He began the class with a simple question: what is a triangle? My head was thinking a polygon with three sides while the class and my professor drew shapes on the board. Three corners? Three lines? Three straight lines connecting each other? The definition of a triangle becomes more specific, and what contributes to the definition revealed to be the necessary conditions. When there are enough necessary conditions about an entity, then they become sufficient altogether to define the entity. Later on in the class, he brought out two thought experiments, one concerning about a life stimulation and another about a pill that affects a baby's life.
    Would you want to plug into a machine that would give you the experience of a very good life, even though it's fiction? 

    Guess what? You're already in the machine already, Do you want to be out of it?

When my teacher presented the scenarios, I was thinking of The Truman Show, which stars Jim Carrey who plays Truman Burbank. Truman lives in a 24/7 TV show broadcasted worldwide, yet he is not aware that he is being watched or that his life has been manipulated nor watched. (Watch it; I will not put spoilers here).
Personally, I feel that if I can shape my life to what I wish would be too much power in general because I cannot know nor control the external factors that affect my life. I do not even know who I am enough to know what I need, and that would be my greatest mistake. I simply don't want to live my life as a lie. Where's the freedom in that? Even if I don't always like my situation in reality, I cannot let my struggles convince me that it is better to deceive myself because lie always fall apart.

The point of this thought experiment was to realize what you value: truth or comfort? The truth can be harsh as people say, which can contradict the saying that the truth sets you free. I think both ideas are valid in the point they do not promise you that you will comfortable with the truth. To me, it's necessary to know but hard to accept.

Second thought scenario.
     Say you are going to have a baby and want a disabled child. Would you take the pill to damage the baby's brain?

     Or do you want to take a pill to increase the baby's IQ by 24 points?

"Don't mess with the baby." my mind retorted back. The mere thought of a couple wanting  to modify their child to be come disabled makes me shudder, mainly because I already experienced the pain of my parents and my older brother, who is diagnosed with cerebral palsy and spastic diplegia. These two main conditions render the right side of my brother's body stiff, affecting his ability to move well. Raising a disabled child is not what every parent wants, especially when we keep thinking, "Why aren't you born normally?" But we cannot control that (in my knowledge) and asking that question reminds me how foolish and painful it is. Another part of me wanted to inform the hypothetical couple that they can gladly adopt a child who has a disability, which can make his or her life joyful.

As for the other scenario, I thought about how my dad likes to say to me, "You got my science genes. Where are your math genes?" . I hope that every parent want their children to be successful, but the idea of boosting their IQ shows what the parents value and how desperate. In another sense, it showed what the society valued. As I thought about it, I then remembered an advertisement my AP English told the class when we read Brave New World. The ad titled "Genius Asian Egg Donor Needed - $20,000 Compensation" stated:

"We are a couple seeking an Asian egg donor to help build our family. You should have or be working on a university degree from a world-class university, you should have high standardized test scores, and preferably have some outstanding achievements and awards. We prefer Asian race, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese. You should be between 18-35 years old.
We are happy to pay you well above market compensation for your egg donation.
An example of our ideal egg donor: 21 year old Chinese MIT student with A grade point average, near-perfect SAT score, several awards in high school and university. She wants to be an egg donor in order to help bring a child into the world with the same special gifts she has.
Your eggs will be fertilized with sperm from the husband, and the resulting embryos used to impregnate the wife, or possibly a surrogate mother.
About us: we are a highly educated couple, but we are unable to have children due to infertility of the wife. The husband is a highly accomplished scientist/mathematician and businessman, the wife has a good university degree. The husband is of European race.
We value education, and we live in one of the best school districts in the world. We hope that our child will be a top student, as each of us was, and that he/she will be able to go to university at MIT or Caltech or Stanford or other top university.
For more information, please email us williamn@alumni.stanford.edu

Thank you for helping us build our family."
.........
Yep, the response of my classmates back in good old 6th period of my senior year.
The ad was published on November 30, 2012, so not too long ago. After it was published, there was an article named Opinion: GUEST COLUMN: ‘Genius Asian Egg Donor’ ad is offensive about the discrimination of this ad, aiming at Asian women deemed as smart, young and debt-ridden. The article pointed that MIT has also submitted a similar ad back in 1999, but that alone should not be a clear reason why such requests should be allowed. Near the end of the article, it even suspected the couple to be lying their intentions, suggested by the racism and sexism used in the ad.

Back to the thought experiment, the idea of conditioning "people" into the ideal image brought me back to Brave New World. When I first asked my friends about the book before I read it, they chuckled when they simply said "Sex." I could tell they did not read the book at all, not even the first page. (Sigh) The book was so much more, conditioning, intimacy, mass production, efficiency, emotional expression, history, philosophy, (blah blah I think my teacher would be proud of me remembering her discussions on the book here, until she read this sentence. Opps). But it did raise the question that if you modify the baby or even a person against their wishes to simply fit a defined purpose, then is that considered morally right or wrong? (This question itself can lead me talking about the Plato's cave allegory, or whether or not God, parents, people should shape us. I could, but this is a lengthy analysis already and I'm tired. It's almost midnight. I want to sleep before my 9:00 am class tomorrow. Maybe on another day). Yeah, it was a fun English class. Still I enjoyed my teacher's video of his harlequin cat sucking the air. Cat. Love cats. Cat.

After class, my friend and I later discussed about the thought experiments such as the struggle shown in Gattica, which discusses parents shaping their child by optimizing their genes and how children born without the gene modification are discriminated. It raises questions about whether or not should we modify genes in humans, playing like God, or whether the act of it simply does not optimizes society and get rid of its problems. He also mentioned that if the parents use the IQ pill, then other parents would do the same thing and the children would still be considered normal. As we talked about things, he started joking about the necessary conditions I must state in order for my idea to be valid. Hmm, I have a feeling we're in a one crazy ride this semester.

I guess one thing I want to add before it's midnight. I watched the film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi later that night, as I was stunned of how much valor and endurance the soldiers have as they fought against the Libyan rebels on 9/11 2012. I thought about the necessary conditions they made as they choose to disobey orders and fight with almost no protection nor support besides each other. The pain, the sacrifice, the loss, no wonder they are all retired. The quote, "All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you." by Joseph Campbell lingered afterwards, and it reminded me how the search for something bigger may happen in ourselves, fighting and driving us insane. It really makes you wonder that maybe the answer to the question, "What is the meaning of life?" lies in you, or it's 42. Hahahaha, I'm alluding to The Hitchhiker Guide's to the Galaxy.

Honestly, Rafael I'm going to give you credit for recommending these books and movies to me. Well only for the hitchhiker one and Truman Show here.

Now bedtime.

Update September 3, 2016
I guess some things I can add to the journal is discussing the Plato's cave allegory that my English teacher taught us. The allegory describes how people are aware of their surrounding up to a certain extent. Imagine a group of people in a cave with their heads and feet chain, prohibiting them to move around and look behind them. Meanwhile they're are looking at a cave wall of shadows cast from objects and puppeteers behind a fire. (I feel the website hyperlink explains this clearer than me. This is just a generalization). The people in the cave can surmise what the shadows represent, but they only perceive the shadows not the actual objects until they are free to do. But do they want to know the truth? Would they rather be fine with their current conditions and roles in the cave?

Experimenting my DSLR

Hi guys! How are your school years, so far?

I recently started college, and it has been pretty chill though I'm not used to having a class once a day, reading assignments with twenty pages's worth of content, and papers. Typical, I'm guessing, especially for humanity courses I'm taking: psychology, english, philosophy, and U.S. History. A new thing I have started is riding a bike to school every day because I knew I should exercise and reduce my carbon footprint. The downside to this is I never imagine going uphill for around thirty minutes would render me a bit sweaty for class. Hey, at least I got a biking buddy, so that biking can be a bit more fun.

Anyway...

If you have seen me talking pictures, you may have seen me snapping around with a DSLR 3300 camera. Because I learned how to use my camera, I took two online courses at Coursera called Camera Control and Seeing Through Photographs. I enjoy both of these classes, especially on how the content relates to the techniques and meaning of photography.

What I mean is I'm not only learning on how to take a picture, but also how to take a meaningful picture. The shutter speed, aperture, framing, subject space, blur, lines, etc, are all part of how the picture is captured and interpreted, whether or not photography is used for documentary purposes and/or artistic expressions. It is important to know more about the photographer's objective and background to gain a deeper understanding of the pictures they take, or not, depending on you viewed it.

Since I'm currently learning Philosophy, the idea of "your opinion is the truth, depending on your stance" is called relativism. In a way, I find it annoying and not a solid argument. What's funny about it that my philosophy textbook stated that the authors themselves argued back that it's their opinion that relativism is wrong and an excuse to not delve into the question thoughtfully.

So I hope through these photographs I have taken, you can think about how they make you feel.

August 14, 2016
Path of lights 

I was outside and exploring the neighborhood, and I found the lights of this walkway to be mesmerizing with its circular patterns.

August 15, 2016
Dahlia (I think)

August 15, 2016
I also think it may be a Dahlia

I was on an evening walk with my mother, and I happened to spot these beautiful Dahlia (again not so sure) on someone's front yard.

August 27, 2016

Rose origami overlap

Colorful rose origami overlap

As part of my photography course, my classmates and I were asked to take a motion-blurred picture. Since this is the first time I was using a camera that allowed me to manually adjust the shutter speed, I went full-blown on the topic--except I was not sure what to take a picture of. After I thought about it, I decided to take overlap pictures of the origami rose and quick drawing for around minutes. Originally the flower I drew took me less than thirty seconds, and my intention that the motion of my hands would be shown in the picture. Instead, I got a white blur around the picture and I decided that it would be a waste of paper to try again. (This was my third time). In the end, I realized it was not a motion-blurred picture, but I shall try again!!!

August 31, 2016

Silk water

Stepping Stones

 Pondering about my motion-blurred homework, I decided to visit the creek in my hometown to see if there is still water there since there is the ongoing California drought and the creek has dried up before. I was surprised there was water, so I tried to take a four second long picture with out a tripod. What I learned is that I can use the camera strap and the rocks as an impromptu tripod. Plus I accidentally dropped my mom's sandal in the creek, but it did not get wet. I then thought to use the sandal in the picture because I felt like the picture overall show my sense of adventure to keep traveling and exploring nature with the sandal and water flowing underneath.

Gracie
Love my cats

After I got back home, I petted my cat Gracie and took this picture quickly before she walked away. Overall, love my cats.
Cats.