1) To start doing things immediately as soon as there is a need to do so. 2) To definitely make an effort to set aside time everyday for prayers and reading the scriptures.
(Retreat = Fall Conference with HCF somewhere upstate Maryland over last weekend.)
So as soon as I came back, I changed the layout of my room. Shifted the bed 90deg, kept my printer which is no longer working, placed two sets of drawers together and created a second table next to one of my bookshelves, moved the portable lamp so that it worked as a second table lamp, and my computer will never go to the second table (to make checking email/watching YouTube inconvenient when I am there).
Has been working as far as I can tell; yesterday night I was doing what I was supposed to be doing (studying German) but I was just simply too tired. So instead of some excessive studying, I had enough sleep instead. Which is good :)
And today I went to S/U Advanced Cell Biology. I did not do well for most of my homework; although I think I probably wouldn't have done too badly for my midterm, I still think that it is a better idea to S/U it. This will give me one less thing to worry about.
AND - I am loving my work...! That day as I was talking to yc and Grace I made the following comment - 'You guys know me for 2 years already and you still don't know meh - since when I work with money as the primary concern one! Now I don't even receive credits nor money for my research!'
(Technically, A*STAR is paying me - so because I have enough money to get by, and I don't need that extra cash, I don't have to ask to be paid...)
I am just happy that I have access to both human and material resources to allow me to play with things that I want to play with. We are actually going to start growing some recombinant tissues (prostaspheres :D) either in vitro or as grafts and establish a budding assay. We are developing the strategy now. The expression patterns have also been tremendously interesting; I am hoping tomorrow will see more striking results with the newly established phospho-Akt immunofluorescence.
Also, we are almost set with the Peru trip after Christmas (the three of us have been talking about it through our Cambridge days, and CL has apparently proven her worth in Yellowstone and the Rockies). Our focus will be on Lima, Cuzco and Machu Picchu, plus a three-day hike - most probably we won't be following the Inca Trail though. I really hope it will work out! Honestly, as soon as we graduate from college, there won't be time for us to do such things anymore...
Submitted a set of cell bio homework today, and when I saw the answer key (actually she went through the whole assignment in extreme detail), I started to doubt my ability to be a scientist.
At least half my answers are wrong. Wrong as in - wrong facts stated, and wrong analysis. Well you know there will be certain things that have to be wrong even though this kind of assignment is not meant to have absolute right/wrong answers.
I analysed myself and think that the reason behind the recent mess-ups (history of medicine exam included) are due to:
1) Too complacent 2) Too lazy to actually study properly 3) Failed to concentrate when reading stuff. The homework is one good example.
I am being too nuah lately. TOO NUAH. Cannot.
So what if I am graduating this year. After this, medical school is worse.
Anyway.
ESTJ - "Administrator". Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.
Not being able to load YouTube is already one huge issue. And - when it takes freaking 5 minutes to download a 1Mb paper, this is simply ridiculous. It is not as if we don't pay for it.
We are probably going to change service provider soon... ______________________________________________________ This is MY signaling pathway :)
1) My parents are on Facebook! If you know them too, you can go to my profile, find them and add them :D
2) I am in lab now, and the music that is blasting from the computer speakers are Cantonese Classics from the 80s. Not me but a Chinese post-doc started it - he says that he loves Cantonese songs :P Haha this is making me happy which is good.
Haha if I were to whine I have A LOT of things to whine about. For example over the past couple of weeks every week I will have at least 2 nights not getting more than 3 hours of sleep, yet everyday I have lectures starting at either 8:30am or 9am. While at the same time I am having quite a bit of fun too, so it kind of balances out...
Theme song of some 1950s Disney movie. Davy Crockett is a hero in American history; he sacrificed during the Battle of Alamo in 1836 when Texas was fighting for independence from Mexico. He used to be a House of Representatives congressman from Tennessee, and after he was done with politics decided to travel west and got himself involved in the Texas Revolution.
I began reading a little about this after a lecture on 'Remember the Alamo!' and realising how hopelessly ignorant I was regarding this part of American history. And more and more I realise with significant interest that Disney concepts are extremely tied in with American history and ideals, and without actually being American it is super difficult to sense it without just buying into the whole Disney fantasy thinking that it is uniquely Disney.
The lyrics of this Disney song makes this super obvious! I actually have this in my music collection and I didn't even know until today :P
The Ballad of Davy Crockett
Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, Greenest state in the land of the free, Raised in the woods so he knew ev'ry tree, Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three. Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!
Fought single-handed through the Injun War Till the Creeks was whipped an' peace was in store, An' while he was handlin' this risky chore, Made hisself a legend forevermore. Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!
He give his word an' he give his hand That his Injun friends could keep their land, An' the rest of his life he took the stand That justice was due every redskin band. Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!
He went off to Congress an' served a spell, Fixin' up the gover'ment an' laws as well, Took over Washin'ton so we heered tell, An' patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell. Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!
When he come home his politickin' done, The western march had just begun, So he packed his gear an' his trusty gun, An' lit out grinnin' to follow the sun. Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!
His land is biggest an' his land is best, From grassy plains to the mountain crest. He's ahead of us all meetin' the test, Followin' his legend into the West. Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier! Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier! King of the wild frontier!
Dear Mum/Dad: Sorry if my recent posts have been pretty religion-related. Though if you can read and think through them as well they should be pretty interesting to you too! It is a good chance for you to know what I am actually believing in.
Let me copy out my characterisation of GCS's viewpoint regarding Christianity and he approved it:
CS's position further means that, if God shows himself and sticks out a hand to pull him to heaven, he will not reject Him; he just doesn't like the idea that, if people stand up against God or do not receive Him, they will be thrown to hell for eternal damnation, and he feels that even for people who do not accept God, by our definition of God, He should accept them as well because He is infinitely good. So, Jesus coming to the world and dying on the cross to redeem us from our sins and offering righteousness through faith (by Christian doctrines) is not enough to show the grace of God; by the Christian definition of God, He should be handing out free gifts to all. Then that's when He is worth being followed.
I would reply to this as follows. I will not use any analogy - Ferret's chicken rice analogy has been twisted and it is not twisted in a convincing way either. So as a lot of prominent philosophers'. Analogies are not necessary.
(And I am not going into why evil exists in the first place here.)
To reply to GCS's point regarding a humane and benevolent God should be handing out 'free gifts to all': God like that is not humane and benevolent; that would be one which encourages anarchy. If God is indeed humane and benevolent, He would be able to differentiate what is good and what is evil, goodness will be rewarded and evilness punished. There will not be fairness in the world if everyone is rewarded even if they reject God outright - and by nature of human beings non-distinction encourages the evil to be more evil and the good to become evil.
I do not think that we can see God's grace as being completely 'free'. We did not earn it, obviously in that God sent Jesus to die for us without even asking for any pre-requisite. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't come with a price. To accept God's grace there is a certain attitude that we have to undertake. Throughout the Gospels the theme regarding 'following Jesus means sacrificing everything else that you have for the Truth' repeats itself numerous times. We might suffer, we might be persecuted, we have to dig open our hearts and lay all our deeds and thoughts open and repent, we might be put through all kinds of temptation, but all those are okay because we know it is the Truth that we are seeking. We are not doing this to seek favour in the Lord, but it is just what we are supposed to do.
It is the act of accepting that makes the difference.
Honestly I don't think the Pharisees that openly persecuted the Church would be allowed entry to heaven if they didn't repent and cease doing what they were doing. Saul did that when he was called and he became the hero St. Paul; I have no idea about the rest. He talked about himself in Philippians 3.
Thus, Christians are always warned against self-righteousness. Simply put - thinking that you can be good enough. A lot of people's objection to the whole hell idea is that, doesn't good people who are 'righteous' their whole lives would have to go to hell as well just because they are not followers of Christ? In Christian doctrines, we do not believe that anyone is good enough, at least in the eyes of God. By definition, God is infinitely good, and we are finite - this is one way of seeing it. Another way of seeing it is, we don't even know ourselves well enough sometimes. Who is to tell that righteous people living in this world are all perfect - how do you know the philanthropist who donates 1 million to YLL SOM every month does not secretly have an affair, does not like to surf porn, etc.? If you are that philanthropist, and you know that you don't have an affair and do not like porn, but probably you won't know that 50 years ago when you made your first million you forced three other businesses to go out of business and 30 families to lose their main source of income and suffered, and apparently you were so engrossed in your success then that you didn't do anything about it, and then you forgot about it.
This is why we are warned against self-righteousness. You think that you are good enough, but in fact there still are some problems within yourself that you probably don't even know. Comments made by others are even more suspicious: time and again people whom we all agree to be upright in society has been charged with all kinds of crimes, including prominent religious figures, whether Christian or not.
To that God has a very high standard. He needs all of us who enter heaven to be almost like Him (makes sense right?). He knows none of us have the ability to do that by ourselves, so Jesus came and was crucified to fill up the gap 2000 years ago to pave the path towards judgment day. God knows each and everyone of our problems, we might have forgotten about them, but He still sees them. Being self-righteous means that you will be blinded in some way. Heaven by its nature should be infinitely good too; thus, no one can achieve God's standard by himself without His help (many ways to articulate this concept), and if you do not do something to accept His (free) grace, you cannot achieve God's standard, you are not eligible for heaven, and the only other option is Hell and nothing in between at the end of time.
Thus, when we ask the question 'Doesn't good people who are righteous their whole lives would have to go to hell as well just because they are not followers of Christ?' we are judging other people and God using human standards. Heaven is where God lives, God does not judge with our standards. He judges us using His. Our standards are nowhere near His, and He is always helping and willing to help us achieve His.
Buddhists believe that one can achieve self-enlightenment; this is a concept fundamentally different from Christianity. Humanists believe that humans can settle everything without the need of a God, this is also something fundamentally different (more similar to Buddhist thought though). If you are a humanist, your main objection should not be the 'compartmentalisation of religion'; because Christians are not compartmentalising our faith, it is just that we simply do not believe that humans by ourselves are good enough to achieve the standard of God. Instead, your objection should be this fact that I have just stated.
I mentioned when I spoke in large group that I thought about a lot of things when I was in my freshmen year; one of the conclusions that I came to was this. I would rather be skeptical about human ability and human institutions than to be skeptical about God. I am extremely thankful to God that He made me realise this, and CS - this is the fundamental difference between us.
If you actually bothered reading my previous post, I hope that you actually understood what I was talking about... It was, after all, philosophy.
However, from the standpoint of a believer, all these discussions are not that meaningful actually. We believed based on faith, and all these rhetoric is not going to change anything. We do not need to know that it is 'impossible that an infinite causal series exists' before we believe in God. Only people who still not yet believe will say 'I'll believe that God exists when I see angels dancing outside my window' (quote GCS); to believers, our existence everyday is sufficient proof for God's goodness and power.
That is how Anselm's ontological argument will work perfectly for us; God exists both in reality and in the mind, and he is of course infinitely good. It is not difficult at all. We feel him acting around and in us everyday.
Actually, the phrase 'I'll believe that God exists when I see angels dancing outside my window' assumes that God (if the unbeliever finally believes) is a physical existence, which is not likely to be the case. Even if God does not exist physically but only metaphysically, it does not render Him any unreal - He still exists in reality, it is just that we can't perceive Him through our physical senses. Well of course Jesus is an (and so far the only) exception. Anyway, because we are finite, even philosophically we can never fully comprehend God. All we can do is try our best.
A friend once asked me which is the Christian song that means the most to me. I replied that it is the children song 'Jesus loves me this I know'. This song has been playing in my cassette (together with 'London Bridge is falling down') since probably when I was three - and I only recently rediscovered it. It served to remind me how faithful God is - and the song very comforting as well...
Jesus loves me this I know For the Bible tells me so Little ones to Him belong They are weak but He is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me Yes, Jesus loves me Yes, Jesus loves me The Bible tells me so
(Jesus loves me He who died Heaven's gate to open wide He will wash away my sin Let His little child come in)
(Jesus loves me He will stay Close beside me all the way He's prepared a home for me And some day His face I'll see)
Just to share - this is part of my homework. The posting that I was talking about in the last post. My reply to #206 is #216.
Message no. 206 Author:RACHEL RYAN Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008 12:34pm
Anselm claims that we can not conceive of a thing that is greater than that which can be though (i.e. God). But we can not even conceive of God. The 'perfect island' objection invokes comprehensible, worldly ideas. And these ideals can be conceived of, for they are real, and relatively tangible. God, however is not tangible, and no human could possibly conceive of him. So, even if in our imagination we can conceive of this great being, how is it remotely legitimate to suppose that such a thing’s existence would be ideal? We have no reason to believe. Who are we to try and conceive of this being? Granted, Anselm stipulates that you must be a believer to understand, but if every argument were to have a similar stipulation, you would rule out all possible opposition. In essence, I can't see how Anselm's argument is even remotely legitimate and discussed by philosophers. It seems so close-minded and uselessly simplistic.
Message no. 216 Author: HIU YEUNG LAU Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008 2:18pm
You have brought up very interesting points, and I do think that today's lecture has enlightened me enough to put forward some points that might address these issues.
There is an issue regarding human limits here. Anselm's first premise defines God as 'something in which nothing greater can be thought', and subsequently Guanilo's reply built on this point and made that 'something' tangible. Prof. Gross mentioned that a valid reply to the objection will require that the reply addresses relevant differences to these two variants of the same argumentative form, and from what I have gathered, there seems to be a fundamental problem with Anselm's first premise which generated the perfect island problem.
When Anselm said 'something in which nothing greater can be thought', he probably unknowingly placed limits to the world that he is talking about. If you think something as 'the best', it will have certain qualities which you assigned to that object to make it 'the best'; and since it is 'the best', you can't think of anything better already. Of course, such things can be conceivable and understood, and of course, it might or might not exist - the only way to prove it is to find it, and finding it is a simply game of probability, because this 'the best' is based on a limited, finite world. To add on to that, 'the best' is almost always subjective as well.
However, God is different. Let's change the first premise to 'God is a being that is absolutely perfect and infinitely great' (assuming that it is true - Anselm will agree with me I suppose). Now the point of contention comes to premise 2 (God exists in the mind): to believers like Anselm, premise 1 is not a difficult concept to grasp; to unbelievers, this is also a concept that is possible to grasp. Thus, it is not necessary for premise 2 to be false even if that is the case - we might not be able to imagine God as exactly how He is like, but it is possible that we can comprehend the concept that God is 'absolutely perfect' and 'infinitely great'. And the rest follows, because there is no such thing as more perfect and greater than 'absolutely perfect' and 'infinitely great' - and just to bring the argument down a little, to individuals, isn't the existence of something 'good'/'great' (can even be subjective, need not be absolute/infinite) better than not?
It also follows when Anselm suggests that God exists in reality that he might not have meant a physical existence. By means of God having a physical existence, He will NOT be 'absolutely perfect' and 'infinitely great', because anything physical has LIMITS. The world (assuming the world has no limits) is not only limited to things that are 'physical' and 'imagined' - an example would probably be TIME. 'Real' doesn't equate to 'physical'. Thus, we can see God as existing in a realm whereby He's neither 'physical' or 'imagined', but yet He is still real - probably some kind of metaphysical existence that we can grasp but not fully comprehend.
Lastly, yes it is true that we can never fully comprehend God, because we have limits and by that definition God is infinite; infinity divided by a finite number = infinity. However, the job of a believer is not to fully comprehend God, but to approximate as much as we can, which is possible - in mathematics we have this idea of the 'asymptote', something we can get closer and closer to but never fully reach. That is what people like Anselm spends all his life doing - to understand God as best he can. There is this whole set of Christian theology that addresses your question regarding 'who are we to try to conceive this being'; I won't go into that here.
Of course, for this argument to be sound, the first premise has to be true, and honestly there is no way I can prove to you that it is true. As a result, Anselm's notion regarding the pre-requisite for this argument to work is that you must be a believer is true. This argument cannot prove God's existence if you do not believe that God is absolutely perfect and infinitely great (premise 1), or refuse to understand the notion (premise 2); but to a believer it makes complete sense. This can only serve as a means of 'faith seeking understanding' - by pondering over this believers can better understand what they are believing in, but it cannot serve to prove to an unbeliever that God exists.
Still got: 1) German: Nico, vocab list, quia 2) HOM: paper due tomorrow. Haven't even done the reading. And of course reading for this week. 3) Phil: Luckily I have completed anaylising Anselm and the reply. Have yet to do the posting...
But I am not giving up play! I was in Boston last weekend; it was awesome! Met up with so many people, and I got to eat my lobster :D Also, I actually got to address my concern regarding the relative lack of social support to low/middle-income families regarding financial planning and seeking opportunities to the PS that presented to us. He replied that - involving too much into that can potentially put the government in danger of being too omniscient, and from there I implied that after all the provision of such services will still rest in NGOs and the civic society. I will see what we can do about it.
Random things - I have long been using the Mudd - Macauley - Dunning - Remsen tunnel to avoid the crowd out of Mudd after lectures. Now I discovered an even more cool tunnel/overhead bridge link in the Med School which links the southwestern-most building (where my lab is) and the northeastern-most building (where my collaborator's lab is):
From NE: Rangos -(bridge)- Wood -(corridors)- Pre-Clinical -(bridge)- 1850 Monument -(bridge)- Rutland -(bridge)- Carnegie 3rd floor -(stairs)- Carnegie 1st floor -(hospital corridors)- Halsted -(hospital corridors)- Blalock -(hospital corridors)- Administration -(underpass)- Outpatient Centre -(tunnel)- CRB I -(tunnel)- CRB II (SW)
Haha Biopolis's skybridges cannot even match. Unless there is an unknown tunnel that links Biopolis, Fusionopolis and NUH then yes Singapore will win.
I have also engaged myself in a pretty interesting small online discussion on the relationships between YLL SOM and Duke-NUS, as well as the need for change in our medical education system and the attitude of our doctors towards research and teaching. It is quite refreshing getting such viewpoints from a YLL student and I guess it helps bring people like us back to the actual ground situation in Singapore and not think everything should and can work like how we work here in Baltimore.
Looks like it is going to get pretty exciting as soon as I go back. I have submitted to the fact that my destiny will be tied to Singapore's, so I might as well show some interest in such issues and not always thinking about running away...
I am certainly no expert and I do not wish to make any superfluous comment that will make me sound naive. But then again, this is something that affects me and thus naturally I am interested.
So, I am concerned about - 1) Is my money in BOA safe? 2) How will this impact research funding? 3) How will this impact my family's planning and my own planning? 4) Will this lead us to a state whereby I won't be able to find money to buy my first house?
I think -
1) Although it is pretty scary now but that shouldn't be a concern. BOA has been strong in their retail banking and they should have enough capital to absorb the shock. The fact that it is federally insured, well that's a bonus; though if BOA dies I don't think even the federal government can absorb it. We will all die together.
2) We can almost definitely expect federal funding to crunch in the short-to-medium term. No matter who becomes the next president, both have their own priorities and medical research is not part of anything. But the awesome thing about America is that research is not entirely dependent on the government, thus although funding will become more competitive it is unlikely to have a sustained effect on research as a whole. We have to be aware, though, that schools might cut down PhD positions and stipend rates, and there might be stronger competition for research fellowships.
3) I have been extremely conservative regarding my financial management, mainly because I do not have time to properly manage a complicated plan, and partially also because I am not too concerned about planning for the future at this moment. The economy's problem is not going to affect me in that respect, and because I am bonded, I am not worried about survival in the next 10 years at least. Though because I am thinking of going to do MD/PhD and this decision will severely impact my income and financial status, I will probably have to check spending pretty carefully in the next two years just in case I want to get married five years from now or something. I need to make sure that I can get fellowships to at least partially fund my medical education and PhD too.
4) This is something I can't control - I don't think the credit crisis will last that long, and if it does, we are all in deep trouble. Well, the worse case scenario would be, even after I get married I will still be living with my parents... So I definitely won't be in trouble, and since there is no way I can get married now, I am not worried. The smart thing to do would be, get a subsidised HDB before the combined income shoots above $8000, which I believe is quite unlikely to happen.
Oh and will the market sort itself out under all circumstances? I sincerely hope that it can, but I don't believe that it can without making all of us honest unambitious people not smart enough to undertstand financial engineering pay a huge price at intervals and usually at the most unexpected moments. Regulation is always a contentious issue, I don't know what to suggest about it, and I hope that those smart people sitting in DC and NY know what are their priorities and know what they should do...
