thinking of....

school.

for once, i shall not post poems or such because i want to share interesting nuggets from the Theory of Knowledge/ epistemology lectures i have been receiving the past few days which benefitted me greatly despite the fact that the auditorium was somewhat a human freezer! :P

questions like:

is there a god?

is there free will?

is there right or wrong?

what is thinking?

is the brain and mind separate?

we were also given issues to judge whether what should or shouldn't be done. (e.g. to torture an innocent wife of a mad bomber to divulge where the bombs were hidden?)

anyway what really struck me the most was the lecture given by this professor from nus's english/literature faculty.

she said that the difference between people who take science and arts/humanities was that

• the science people wanted the world to be factual, absolute and certain ( till one scientific theory or discovery debunks the former)
• whereas the others (humans/arts) could deal with the world being everchanging, ambiguous and indefinite.

so you see, the perception of the world in these two spheres differ greatly. i was greatly comforted by her speech because i was still in the middle of wondering whether i am more 'science' or 'humans'. (though i chose a humans based course of study --- lit, history, econs, maths) so when she said that, i felt that she managed to arrange my jumbled thoughts and ideas in a logical manner and without hesitation, i knew at that juncture that i wanted/could deal with an ambiguous and uncertain world because i could never take things at face value.

the tests that i took during the course on skepticism also convinced me more.

it asked questions like:

Doctors really know the causes of diseases?

There's an objective difference between right and wrong?

Morals are just made up by societies to make people behave in convenient ways?

anyhow, if you are still wavering between arts and science, just ask yourself this question:

CAN I DEAL WITH AN UNCERTAIN AND AMBIGUOUS WORLD where there are grey areas and little black and white ones

OR WOULD I RATHER HAVE A FIRMLY EMBEDDED VIEW OF THE WORLD WHERE MOST THINGS ARE CERTAIN?

you will have your answer.

thinking of...


so tomorrow we will go our separate ways

for you

faded letters litter my desk,
the ink on it has ran.
perhaps as you have,
away from everything.

faces fuzz around the edges
of my mind.
your face,
it's nondescript.
nothing for me to remember.

the feelings,
you always told me
that's what mattered.
but i feel i can't anymore.
or maybe i can't bring myself to.

you left me.
so now as i tear up those letters,
it is time for me
to leave you too.

new blog: http://des-roses-jaunes.blogspot.com