Law of Possible Impossibilities

this is what happens when you try some philosophy in the toilet...

Outcome X is possible so long as its probability is not zero.
Outcome X is impossible so long as its probability is not one.

If it is possible to gather Perfect Information,
Then probability will be absolute (zero or one).
Ergo, Outcome X is either possible or impossible.

If it is impossible to gather Perfect Information,
Then probability will be abstract (neither zero nor one).
Ergo, Outcome X is neither possible nor impossible.

Taking the probability of gathering Perfect Information to be neither zero nor one,
Perfect Information is neither possible nor impossible to gather.
Ergo, probability is neither absolute nor abstract.
Ergo, Outcome X is either impossibly possible or possibly impossible.

you get fantastic fallacies.

it seems i may have been mistaken...

have Singaporeans really been apathetic?
Big-O [justin's recommendation!] says it slightly differently...

WHY SO QUIET $INGAPORE?

maybe we havn't been apathetic, but silenced.
maybe we havn't been politically inactive, but neutered.
maybe we havn't been opinionless, but disenchanted.
maybe it isn't what we are, but what they did.

of course, it could also be that most of the happy robots around me are simply brought up to be PAP sycophants, but that's probably just me and my overactive imagination la.

WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN [oh, really.]

yep, my new fave. mwahaha. even talks raunchy on the main page too!

22 & 4 days

that was a really strange day. after my mum reminded me of my birthday on monday (3/10) i couldn't help but wonder if anyone else remembered. this thought actually embarassed me, and i quickly told myself: it doesn't matter if anyone remembers la. already how old liao. eh. how old ah? for that moment i thought i was going 23. my poor brain... what have you been going thru??

and so on wednesday, i actually managed to forget that the next day would be my birthday. went about my usual wednesday schedule: skipping the 10am SC3101 lect, going for tuts, plan cg with carol, hang out at yih pretending to study. i can't remember how, but benjy got stuck at yih so i accompanied him, surfing silly websites, learning weird words etc. we were bugging joanne, and she actually remembered my birthday, and benjy was surprised. after the obligatory "happy birthday/thank you thank you" we went back to erm... kittenwars.com? something like that. joanna then smsed me happy birthday (HB), which still surprised me la.

so on thurs, i was actually mildly content, and went for th 8am philo. during lect, i bugged jon with my criticisms of Descartes, tho he says that kept him awake. i was beginning to be a bit suspicious as nobody seems to remember my bday at all - another embarassing thought! how could i be so demanding? ppl got so many deadlines to worry abt... why bother with my 23... 22nd birthday? not impt la.

but actually, they did remember! alph and gang brought me a tissue-box "birthday cake" complete with candles, with audrey chanting "cakes are a social construct!" this phrase is to be featured on the bday card audrey's gang made for me (in 2 whole hours). it was really funny to have a tissue-box cake tho! who else would ever have such a thing? and of course, there was a real cake, and the best present for me: an arts corner filled with the arts people... i was so amazed by the entire thing that i actually reassessed my judgment of birthdays as being pointless. mine revived arts corner! how cool is that? this effect was to flow into cg later, as a whopping 15 ppl turned up~ i only hope that it would last la.

but the celebration wasn't everything... stella called from hawaii to wish me~ and it so happened that jon & marcus were around too when she called, so the 4 of us had a mini-gathering... haha... it was 22min (where got so zhun one) of long-dist call before we all started worrying for her phone bill and hung up reluctantly. just when i thought getting an overseas phonecall for your birthday really rocks, i got another one the next day from erina~ oh how i miss her... but i suddenly wondered if she would come back with an american citizen baby. that would be AWESOME! please come back soon dear sis...

but those still weren't the most surprising phone calls i got. catherine's one was. i was almost shocked! the sad part was that i had lost her number when i changed phone... so i couldn't recognise her instantly. but her voice still made my heart skip a beat. the memories... i still haven't forgot

that night i had another birthday cake... at home. it's been more than half a month since i last went home, and the tv remote actually seemed remote! (pardon the puny pun.) for the first time in more than a decade, i actually sang the birthday song with my family... it was like a dream come true. just 5 yrs ago, this wouldn't have been possible. my family has gone such a long way... i couldn't help feeling a sense of pride... and pure joy.

i couldn't deny it any longer: i was touched. ppl were rushing for deadlines, remember? and yet they remembered. and celebrated with me. even though i myself was so skeptical abt birthdays. "birthdays are a social construct!" well, for that one day, it certainly didn't seem so.

thank you, everyone, for celebrating the "milestone" with me. i couldn't have made it this far without you!

bye Dr. Chee, bye!

pardon the rather crude pun, but if even TalkingCock.com wouldn't dare rub shoulders with the Singapore Rebel, how is the deluded population ever going to know what he truly stands for?

if i have a link to the trailer of the banned political film Singapore Rebel, would you take a look? it's only 6MB - plus i'm risking the ISD's wrath here! ISA rules, you know.

and for those of you out there who still don't know who Dr. Chee Soon Juan is, read up. he may be the next fallen hero along the likes of Joshua Benjamin 'JBJ' Jeyaretnam [more here] or Chia 'Exiled to Sentosa' Thye Poh [more here], so don't wave him off by pointing to your pockets when he asks where is the money, but see him as who he is: a Singaporean.

also, see what LHL has been up to at LHL Watch.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
John 8:32

losing the cool

plato vs aristotle...

descartes vs hume...

patriarchy and the catholic church...

singapore's realist foreign policy...

america's surreal relations with saddam...

decency of dress and masculine fear of feminine sexuality...

interchangeability of gender roles...

black and white rights and wrongs...

vatican expenditure...

the reality of the family...

that last topic was unfortunately discussed when i was most weary and mistrusting of the social fabric i've been woven into - and with my poor unsuspecting mother. imagine her astonishment when her son whom she misses so much questions her about the validity of her rudimentary notions of 'family' and 'sonship'.

"why don't you call back? everytime i call you you're busy..."
"you didn't expect me to be doing nothing in school right?"
"then don't need to call back? don't need to see your family?"
"what is family?"
"your own parents and your own brother in your own home... don't you miss them?"
"when i was home two weeks back i didn't get to see most of you anyway."
"but we saw you for a while..."
"a while only, then what's the difference!"
"doesn't it mean anything to you?"
"if family is seeing some person for a while once in a week, then you better think again."
"why... call you for a chat and end up talking like this..."
"that's family. gotta go, keep praying."

and i just wrote a philo essay supporting plato's proposal to take children away from their parents before they get to know each other. how much less critical would i be of the family? once again, the cool is lost at the most crucial of moments. poor mum.

read more la.

"Cruel Irony Defined: A PAP Minister who takes home SGD100,000-SGD175,000 PER MONTH in tax dollars telling a worker (who earns SGD2,000 a month) to be "less choosy" and to work harder."

where is social activism in singapore?
Singapore Review (Yahoo! Group)

it's not non-existent. you just need to look for it.

on another note, perhaps you'd like to try out my survey! haha...
Readership of Alternative News Media

for others, here's a little something from God:
A Lamp Unto My Feet

a christian love story I

Jesus says: "love one another as I have loved thee" how did He love us? by dying for our sins of course. He also says: "whosoever strikes thee on one cheek, offer the other to him." but of course, this is not without disclaimer: "whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto Me," he also says.

therein lies multiple dilemmas...

1. are we to die for others' sins as well? it so seems that we should offer ourselves up for torture should anyone so desire to do so. in so doing, the christian thing would be to pray for the sinner even as that person rains suffering upon us. ultimately, either the prayer touches the person to stop, or we die for that person's sin. is that the way to go?
   
   
2. unfortunately, dying for another's sin may not necessarily change the sinner's fate... for that person has seriously hurt Jesus as well! if God were to take a sinner's sins personally, God knows what's gonna happen to that incalcitrant peccant. won't you make sure that the bully who beats your kid up gets just punishment? and, if the bully is incalcitrant, that the kid gets expelled (or at least distanced permanently from your child)? in God's terms, defending his children would most likely involve limbo, purgatory, or eternal damnation...
   
   
3. but then again, wouldn't that negate the poor christian's efforts? imagine the poor sucker who followed Christ's command and martyred himself so that a sinner may be saved - that fellow would have died in vain! couldn't it be said that the martyr-wannabe had given up God's most precious gift - life - for another to receive eternal punishment?
   
   
4. this isn't the end of it... elsewhere, Jesus says: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are." the second part is so far in line with the reasoning above, but the first part leaves us with much to worry! isn't he calling those who try too hard for one convert hypocrites? isn't he saying: "woe to you, martyr-wannabe"?
   
   
5. the crux of this whole dilemma: should one offer one's life in an attempt to save another? it seems if we offer up God's gift in vain, the consequences are dire! so i'd say we offer the other cheek, but not to the extent of doing anything more drastic than that, or losing something dear to ourselves. ultimately, it is measured altruism and not flat-out selflessness that we should be aiming for, right?

on the other hand, the way i'm approaching the problem of this love story may be wrong from the start, of course. perhaps by putting these various verses of the New Testament together is already using them out of context, and i've already lost sight of the "spirit of the Word" in so doing. perhaps Jesus meant 'be tolerant and calm in the face of violent oppression' when He said "offer the other cheek." perhaps it was only meant as a teaching on revenge anyway.