Friday, February 22, 2013

Structure is her favourite word

Structure is her favourite word. Europe, her long-lost childhood friend, who's been misbehaving. She dares to believe science can be spiritual. I wish condensed matter physics were spiritual, but I'm just playing around with electrons, photons and ions. How does one explain self-awareness? This seems to me the fundamental prerequisite. We have long conversations about the overlap of science and mathematics. About quantum mechanics and neuroscience.
 
Space cells. I can't get my mind around them. We unconsciously compartmentalize space into a honeycomb lattice - an array of connected hexagons. To each space cell corresponds a periodic subset of hexagons; when we step into one of these hexagons, the space cell begins to fire.

The blind side. Some blind people receive geometric information about their environment visually, without ever being conscious of it. While denying that they can see, they have an uncanny understanding of spatial relations. Is consciousness separate from brain activity? Why not? This reminds me of the left-right brain dichotomy in unfortunate patients; it turns out they are unrelated phenomenon.

We agreed that we understand science empirically through cause and effect. But progress in science is characterized by structural change, or the unification of many empirical observations by a fundamental principle. In physics, such principles could be symmetries, or symmetry-breaking, or topological order. Fundamental, it seems, is defined only with respect to its explanatory power. I wonder, is this what science is? Finding ever more fundamental principles, the turtle under the turtle. Towers of turtles, of various heights, but never fully connected into one giant tower. It's inevitable, the result of complex, collective behaviour emerging from simpler constituents.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

The spirit of excellence

hello susan

hi uli. i have been having a crazy time - pretty exhausted from my long hours in hospital (general surgery) and im having to do a lot of work for teammed too. my research abstract submission in by early march.

yep, sounds like a typical susan day. I think your tanzie trip will be a holiday compared to your everyday life.

yes haha im trying to enjoy myself while doing all these semi-stressful/ time-consuming things that i do. Sometimes i wonder why i keep getting myself into these things. why i cant just simply do my hospital and curriculum things and do recreational activities.

it's because you have the spirit of excellence

i love you ulu for always encouraging me in all that i do and trying to understand things from my point of view. i have to get some studying done before im off for yum cha with my friends. talk to you soon bro.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Willing

I found out that I have the superability to ride a bicycle one-handed. It gives me such satisfaction. While riding back to OGC in the cold, each hand takes it turn steering, while the other I keep warm in my jacket. Like how bees take their turn at the edge of the hive during winter. It seems we have a multitude of skills to master in a lifetime, a multitude of satisfactions to be felt. Schopenhauer claimed that art is our sole respite from our unhappy existence of willing. As if being stunned by beauty makes one temporarily forget despair. Does beauty not come in more guises?

I've been learning such great metaphors lately, from Sagan, Nietzche, Schopenhauer. By willing, all happiness is short-lived and ends the moment we acquire our object of desire. Happiness is thus the sunny expanse of the future, the nostalgic glow of the past, but presently a cloud follows us deviously, relentlessly, casting its awful shadow. I learned this today, during a lecture series dedicated to Nietzche, given by Nehamas. Nehamas who? Nathan says he is a famous Nietzche scholar, and I find that I am not immune to the allure of fame. I am drawn to famous speakers, their words automatically receive greater consideration. These lectures are a welcome break from the robotic excesses of physics. I have been itching to take a humanities class for a long time, ever since my UCSD days, when a path hadn't yet been chosen, and curiosity was rampant.

Saturday, February 02, 2013

KFC Girl

There are 'beginner' classes for skiing, and then there are 'never-ever' classes. "For people who never ever want to ski?", Alcoholic asked. Patty laughed mightily at that. It was the night before our  'never-ever' on Buttermilk mountain, Aspen. Over wine, Alcoholic told me about KFC girl. Only thrice in nine years did they ask each other out, and always to the same KFC. Only once did they succeed.

In many ways they were different. He, quiet, studious, the top of his class, and timorously fascinated. She, boisterous, lively, at the bottom, but not at all impressed. Probably the only thing they shared, in the beginning, was a corner of the classroom, where they sat together, day after day. As if love happens by osmosis. When young, his reservation was as tough onion peels, but he overcame it to ask her out.

It was raining. He arrived first, with heart turned 180, not realizing his watch matched his heart, worn thoughtlessly upside down. He chose a booth, sat down and waited, glancing at his watch periodically. At the entrance, KFC girl arrived, but she chose to make a stand at the entrance. How long did they wait for each other? How did he not realize that he was travelling backward in time? Such thoughts were agony for him, but only later. KFC girl gave up first, and then Alcoholic; their worldlines did not intersect.

Later that same day, they met by chance, somewhere else. She asked him, "Chi bao le ma?" When young, he did not understand brashness from pride. He said, yes, I did, when he hadn't. And that was it.

A year later, she asked him out. He agreed, but foolishly came late.

Alcoholic understood only one way to impress the girls, and one girl in particular. That was to win gold in the Physics Olympiad. Such confidence he had in himself, that hard work combined with his innate intelligence will save the day. He devoted his days toward mastering the Olympiad, his fantasies of triump becoming ever more intricate. It came as a surprise that he did not qualify to represent his city. Disappointment followed, and a resignation of his fantasies.

Many years passed, he left China and she stayed. On a visit back to his hometown, he asked her out again. Older, wiser, he made no mistakes. They finally met in KFC, sat down, had chicken. They were both newlyweds, he a month ago, and she two weeks ago.

Toward the end of his tale, Alcoholic began to mix up 'he' and 'she', which betrayed his increasing intoxication, and also his Chinese heritage. He reached for his phone to call her, to hear a familiar voice, something he hasn't done in years. That was how Katie and I affected him. I wish KFC girl had picked up his call - the number dialled was no longer in use. Distraught, he turned to me, she's alright, isn't she?