on intelligence

okay so theres this type of crow called the New Caledonian. it is presented with a bucket of little pieces of pig heart. thing is, that bucket is inside a cylindrical beaker. this crow is a given a piece of stiff straight wire. this isnt a single smart, trained crow. apparently 90% of all new caledonian crows can perform this feat of tool use.

finding a never-before-seen material and manipulating it into a tool is a complex feat they say even a chimp cant figure out on its own. this crow on the other hand, has also been documented using tools to obtain tools to obtain food. in one experiment a crow, in a similar situation as above, used a provided small stick to retrieve a larger stick, which it then used to retrieve hidden food.

now if material manipulation is seen as advanced pattern recognition and application, then the mentioned meta-tool processe (using a tool on another tool) must be a serious display of the capacity for delayed gratification. i myself have not commonly observed this behaviour in humans, let alone considered the possibility of this occurring in the primate realm. but tweet tweet birdies are doing it now? incredible!

what do i mean by delayed gratification? well for example if an animal could not suppress its immediate desire for a food reward, it would not create for itself a job first. this is why most animals cannot fathom creating a hook from a short wire. forget about creativity (most critters couldnt even keep their eyes off the prize for a period long enough to entertain the idea of tool creation). and if an animal could not suppress its desire for its current tool to work on retrieving the food which is still too far away for that short hook, it would not create for itself yet another job, such as using that tool it made to retrieve a longer piece of wire. but the new caledonian crow can do this. i must say, this bird must possess extreme amounts of intuitive ability in order to entertain multiple intentions in a chronological fashion.

i am almost prepared to believe that these crows are intelligent because of their ability for idea creation and scenario conception. why else would such an animal bend a wire into a hook if it did not believe that a curved wire would work better after experiencing that a straight wire would never do? why else would such an animal use a tool to obtain another tool which it cannot eat, if the bird didnt believe that the other tool would definitely work where the older tool failed to retrieve effectively the food reward (which it can eat).

i would be most impressed if we discovered yet another animal that exhibits similar intelligent displays of delayed gratification. no. i would be more impressed if this hypothetical animal would do something like this not for food or for survival reasons. i would be impressed if this animal did something like this just because it can--more importantly because it knows it can, and does it because it is interested to see just how far its own innovation can reach.

ahh. i guess i can only be impressed by intelligence that is also coupled with a competent curiosity for knowledge itself--an intelligence with potential, so to speak. am i asking for too much? nah. i could ask for more, such as for these clever crows to starting asking themselves why instead of how; "why do i make hooks? why do i have wings? why is the sky blue? why am i asking myself so many questions?"

but then even birds would become philosophers, and they would sit on huge rocks and rub their chins, and they would say cogito ergo sum, and they would start using computers, and then millions of new blogs would pop up on the internet written by clever crows, and then i would be out of a job.

true faith

it seems like the selfish ones are the same ones who can never have enough for themselves, so they can never seem to scrounge up much of anything to give away. conversely it would appear that the generous ones are the same ones who know they have too much, so they feel guilty if they didnt give anything away.

but the ones who are content are not swayed by their current predicaments or windfalls. they give away irregardless of being in need nor in excess, because they know that they themselves will always have enough. do they continue giving because of some faith that assures them unlimited and constant provision?

rather the better message here is that they more we give, the more we realise how little we need. and given, on one hand a diminishing resource due to extravagant generosity and the other, an equally diminishing hunger for resources--the net outcome is null; though we end up with less, we also need less, and therefore remain content.

isnt it better to be content, as opposed to being in want, or need?

we are always encouraged to ask, for the one who asks is rarely ignored. yet, is it so inconceivable that we have inside us a switch waiting to be turned on and make us realise that request or no request, receipt or no receipt,  we really have no need to ask? are not our requirements already met? are not further requests only due to greed? why are we even then encouraged to ask for me when we already owe so much?

morality part une

yesterday i went for a run and i looked up to the sky and ran into a fly and it died in my eye. i know it all rhymes but its true, and it was the highlight of my week. that probably speaks volumes about my uselessness and aimlessness as of late; i know i can do better--but i also know that the things that people prefer to chase after do not interest me. the things they prefer for themselves and for me, i do not prefer--those things cannot make me happy. i know i can do better, but it wouldnt be better for me.

what would make me happy is a house in the countryside with a garden with vegetables that i grow myself. maybe a couple of pigs and a roost of chickens for meat and eggs. ill never get this in this country. a country that stands so high in all the international rankings, a country that is obviously so well-managed and efficient and orderly and consistent and stable but completely immoral.

everyone has been schooled into thinking a stable job and an hdb flat and 2.1 children would make them happy. they have been guided to believe or strongarmed to accept that father government knows best, and while they are encouraged to grow they are restricted to Stage 4 moral reasoning, a notion that right and wrong is a question of benefit and disadvantage respectively to society as one system. such mentality creates stability and security and progress, socially, economically, but not morally. today the system in my country is a swill of stage 4 morality and asian conservatism; a corrupted mutation of an otherwise blameless stage 3 moral system like original Confucianism.

for perspective, stage 3 mentality reasons that right and wrong are derived from respectively the well-being or animosity created by moral action between interpersonal relationships. eg. "stealing from another is morally wrong as it would offend, harm or trouble that person."

stage 2 reasoning understands rightness or wrongness as a concept of social exchange, eg wrongness: "i should not steal from him because i dont want him to steal from me," or  rightness: "im nice to everyone because you never know when you might need a favour!"

stage 1 reasoning, like stage 2, is egocentric and is the first cognitive structure of morality that children grasp. here, rightness or wrongness is weighed according to consequence of action. eg "stealing is wrong because we will go to jail," or "i follow the ways of my religion because i dont want to go to hell,"

as children grow, they are continually tested by real life situations that challenge their existing understanding of life in general, and their curiosities impel them to revise these understandings to become more comprehensive, more adequate in a sense--and as any reasonable person would see now, any person of a lower stage in moral development would encounter grave difficulty and confusion should he be suddenly placed into living his life in a sea of higher moral reasoning. what is comforting to note though, for that person, this confusion is not permanent, for these troubles and hardship compel him to grow up--in effect his moral growth is supported and encouraged by the average higher moral mentality that surrounds him. eg, upon realising that the world does not exist to serve him, the child begins to abandon the egocentric stages 1 & 2, and upon realising the value of social relationships subscribes to 3, and upon seeing the bigger picture, moves on to 4.

but to what end does this growth move to? it is my belief that moral development is, by nature of its virtue (system above self; all > one), limited to Stage 4, which, together with stage 3, are known as the conventional stages of moral development--owing to the fact that stage 4 mentality is the most commonly observed thought system. it is of no surprise to me that my country has already reached this glass ceiling. and the reason that moral development stagnates at stage 4 is a function of this stage's ability to maintain security and stability.

after all, stage 5 begins to challenge the inadequacy of systematic order or (let me coin this word) mass-produced morality. a stage 5 moralist realises that any reasoning powerful enough to move an entire population with one vision is also powerful enough to overwhelm and wipe out the many constituting individual visions. in effect, stage 5 sees stage 4 as trying to visualise too much of the big picture, and worst of all, using it to replace the individual small pictures of each and every person within it; thinking as a system breeds systematic thinking--brainwashing if you will. it is my belief that this inbuilt security system of stage 4 morality automatically weeds out from itself the stage 5 individuals that crop up around here and there. ultimately a stage 5 person believes that society can improve, while stage 4 societies reject him as they have come to believe that they have already attained the plateau of perfection and have become comfortable with sacrificing much for the sake of stability. stable, but therefore also rigid and unchangeable. inflexible.

reluctance to change cannot be justified if one knows that such change is progressive. the fact is that stage 4 societies know what they are giving up for their security and stability--namely the human rights of political prisoners, lgbts, people on death row--leads me to believe that my country, no matter how high on the HDI rankings or whatever list that makes it sound awesome, is really a country built upon principles that my God wouldnt be proud of.

to be continued.

yesterday

yesterday i thought i was a fucking idiot. today...well today i feel less stupid. and tomorrow i will make myself smarter.

i will be different tomorrow.

past versus future

so 80s, so highschool prom, so karaoke, so true.

so nostalgic.

everything that is good already happened for me.

kinda makes me wonder what else is there to look forward to.

i reject your reality and substitute my own!

the unhypocrites part deux

people dont want to hear the truth, only to bathe themselves in the waters that that reinforce their existing beliefs in thought and behaviour. why should they? why accept a negative truth if it disrupts a perception of oneself when one can simply punt it in swift denial and preserve one's self-worth?

ignore ignore ignore. if the truth is too conspicuous, deny deny deny. if the evidence is overwhelming, resist resist resist.

once upon a time humans were shepherds and farmers. either the rain fell and your crops grew or the sun scorched and you endured hunger. that was truth. there was no running away.

reality is so much larger and more complex. we have the youtube, twitter, blackberries and iphones. pubs, bars, clubs. churches, schools, rights organisations. POLITICS. back in the day our neighbour was our friend, be it Bob the Spinach Farmer, or Frank the Cattle Rancher. today, cities are so huge we can choose our friends. nerds hang out with nerds, lesbians hang out with lesbians, christians hang out with christians, alcoholics hang out with alcoholics, homophobes hang out with homophobes, extroverts hang out with extroverts, conservatives hang out with conservatives, atheists hang out with atheists, vegetarians hang out with vegetarians and the same old people hang out with the same old people and all they ever learn is that they cant learn to accept others.

you name it--people do it; we choose our company in ways that allow us to fabricate our own truths. the larger our company, the stronger we feel. if our fragile world was ever threatened, we run back to our gossamer web of self-deceit for safety and security. if one friend gave us a so-called truth that ran counter to our predetermined truth we stop associating with them; we keep our truth, and we discard the so-called truth and the then also, the so-called friend. in our childish zest for worldly security we cling on to incomplete beliefs in choice against real truth, against even family...

"They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

as you fulfill this prophecy, would your steadfastness be described as bullish stubbornness or rock-like confidence? something tells me that the answer depends on the people you surround yourself with. they can be the most trustworthy of peoples, but can they be trusted to tell you the truth? are you even interested in the truth? or do you already have your truth?

:)

watermelon

i dreamt of a family of watermelons, there were five of them. the father melon was the biggest and not as green as the rest--slightly yellow, and his name was Gomez. the mother melon was named Nona and the three children watermelons, one was named Pova and another Gerho!, yes with an exclamation mark, and the third i cannot recall.

i remember waking and keeping my eyes closed while i tried to burn those names, and their order, into my memory. it was an image of two racks of watermelons, and the second rack was an alternate duplicate of the first, and those had different names, with the exception of the mother watermelons--both were named Nona. needless to say, i could only remember, if only partially, the names of the first set of names and i doubt it would have turned out any different if i had a pen and paper next to me the moment i woke.

the watermelon family was substantively linked to a simultaneous dream, in which a father was killed by a robber, and that man's wife held me captive. and because all of this was such a sad sight; this world of a broken family was replaced by a new set from an alternate universe; this is where the second set of watermelons come in.

for reasons unknown, new Gomez was nowhere to be found; this supposedly new family was still incomplete. i neglected to question this, but somehow i was still in a captive situation. oh did i mention that all of this was happening in my house? anyway the gun that was used to subdue me in universe one was now lying unattended in universe two. it was a silver Glock-ish type which rattled like a homemade piece.

i checked the clip--it contained two rounds. i noticed the magazine was similar to one of those hand-held sweet-dispensing thingies you buy at 7-11. the bullets were also shaped like sweets--rather button cell batteries--LR44 to be exact. coincidentally, two of these are precisely what you need to power a Digimon device. i digress.

i load the clip back in and cock the slide. it is worryingly rattly, and i doubt the safety mechanism is safe at all so i point it down at all times. new Nona bursts through my room door and i point the gun at her. she has a knife and she lifts it up, whether to defend herself or attempt at matching my threat, i did not put much thought into at the time. she tells me i dont have to do this, and that my false imprisonment was not her first choice but last resort. she was trying to convince me that if it were up to her she would have let me go, but part of me could not let loose the possibility that she, or anyone for that matter, would say anything to get out of the stare of a loaded barrel. i put two in her chest. suddenly i doubt her no more, but it is too late.

i was free. but then i realised it wasnt what i really wanted anyway--to be free. now i had neither father nor mother. no Gomez, no Nona. and i look down and i see two racks of watermelons, and their names appear and i know i am far too rational at this point to remain in this dream; i start to drift into consciousness and i try in vain to record their names. i know i am awake now but i keep my eyes closed to preserve the image.

Gomez, Nona, Pova, Gerho!, nine names and i only remember four. at this point i am quite certain the other five did not even appear for me to remember; but that is one of the things that will never be proven.

flaw

if there is a chance for my thoughts to be misunderstood i will not consider it
if there is a chance for my words to be misquoted i will not say it
if there is a chance for my intentions to be doubted, i will not do it

and i will forever be nothing because my discipline overwhelms my hopes.