The Concept of Time

Time, according to (layman’s) definition, is conscious experience of duration, the period during which an action or event occurs. I think that argument is enough, as I am not going to breach the aforementioned 256-MB barrier…

Actually I want to write on rapidity. The pace of most modern society’s life is undoubtedly fast. So fast that finishing a meal and bath within 10 minutes is of commonplace and a de facto standard. Is this true? If so, I am going to confess that I’m not belong to such society, since I do things so slowly. I need maybe 15 to 30 minutes finishing a meal and similar amount of time to bath. Depending on the kind of food I’m taking, sometimes I need as much as one and a half hours to finish a meal. How am I going to survive? To me, the so called common pace is like that of the spirits of brothers released from the netherworld during the seventh month of Chinese lunar calendar, raging for food. (No offense OK?)

I would have to agree that doing things fast is an advantageous practice. However, there are many downsides to this. Look about the Korean forgery case. Maybe that’s caused by the urge to succeed, the need for speed. Apart from this, hmm… maybe our biological clock will get out of sync and our pace of life will be seriously disrupted. This is analogous to the current situation of the development of our civilization. We use a lot of resources, particularly fuel, to improve our lives, but there’s so much negative effects that eventually would cause our descendants to pay for it. Similarly, we (I?) do things fast, but sometimes this do more harm than good (at least to me) and we (I?) would have to clean it up.

However doing things fast is not quite the same as promptness. Maybe promptness is similar to mathematical derivative, while pace is similar to… Hmm… Dunno… Anyway someone cannot compare making quick decisions to washing cutleries isn’t it? So, to summarize my point of view, we need to start to act fast, no procrastination that is, but doing things at a very fast pace may not be as good as the pace suggests. Most people just said to me, “Ah, you act so slowly, how are you going to survive?” The thing is that we have to strive for a balance for everything. Just as they think I won’t survive, I think those who go too fast won’t survive either. Maybe they will, but not for long. At least I won’t experience a horrible death by being slow… From medical perspective, right?

The last few words makes me think of history and the forms of administration system of the civilized world. From family, to villages, to communes, to feudalism, to monarchy, to aristocracy, to democracy, to… (what’s next?) Another arousing topics from ISA point of view… The argument is that whether this world ever need governments to keep things running. As I have said before I’m agree with arguments of Adam Smith and Thomas Hobbes. What does government have to do with time? I would say, evolution. Though 六祖慧能 advocates spontaneous enlightenment (顿悟), I believe the world just not have such level of wisdom to attain spontaneous enlightenment. If spontaneous enlightenment is of commonplace, we would advance by leaps and bounds and there will be no such words as evolution. What about revolution? Revolution is an evolution that occurs in a short amount of time, and it takes time.

It seems that the content of my posts become more abstract (or gone nowhere?) as it progresses. Is this a good thing or something that deserves a change? If it is the latter, how long would it take for me to change? The post is so titled not due to my understanding of time, rather, due to my disillusionment and an urge to clear things up as I’m really blur about the concept of time. Henri Bergson said you would have to learn to experience time as time is something derived entirely from experience. It therefore may be deduced that I’m not well learnt to experience time, that’s why I’m so blur about it. Ah… Mentally retarded, I guess?

So, please recommend some treatments or medical experts for me while I look for schools designated for such person as somebody really want to deprive me of tertiary education…

December 25, 2005

December 25, 2005.

Talking about fans yesterday, the ‘dysfunction’ing fan inside my PC has started to run, albeit in a noisy way. I just can’t manage to get out to buy a can of WD40 and spray on it… Pity. Today is December 25, Christmas Day that is, but I don’t feel excited except being aware of the fact that most, if not all, of the trading markets in the world has closed on this day. Any good opportunity follows?

Today I assigned a diskette for blogging purpose. Since for the time being I’m not able to online from where I am, it makes good sense that I save my articles (or craps) in a fixed location, to be transferred to my blog from time to time with the help of my friend’s computer, if I don’t want to leave my blog abandoned. Maybe it’s a relatively primitive and out of date method compared to the use of thumb drive and the like, but anyway the diskette is still able to do the job perfectly. In addition, I don’t think I manage to write something that approaches 256- or 512-MB file size, at least, within the foreseeable future.

Another interesting fact that I must remind myself when posting the articles is that I would have to change the date to correctly reflect the date of composition. For those who are working from office and wish to blog during office hours, changing date and time of post is a good idea, well, to avoid being evidence of… Or get caught by colleagues who searched hard to find mistakes from you… Get to know this thanks to a post I read elsewhere except the get-caught part… (Will check out the source when I manage to get online). Contradict to the principle of honesty? That’s a pretty subjective matter, whether to uphold someone’s ‘dignity’ or rice bowl…

A few days ago our respected opposition party members urged Pak Lah to try out the regular bus service provided by the current… cartel(?). I use the word cartel because of their practice. There is a virtual breakdown of walls between bus companies as the spirit of competition has been distorted. You may see the busses painted in different livery but actually there is no difference at all… I got to know this when I saw drivers changed companies, that is, driving busses of different liveries, within a span of weeks. It’s quite impossible that they changed companies in just a few short weeks, so something pretty interesting must have happened underneath the skin. Yet, the transparency of the system and relevant authorities means that we are not able to understand the situation completely. On the practice of renting busses, I am in total opposition, if the attitude of the relevant authorities is to be continued. This may prove the law of the jungle but without proper regulations and enforcement, the drivers will try to maximize profit without respect to timetables and the frequency of the route.

Consumer is the real prey and victim in this game of jungle. OK, I better stop before ISA steps in my way… To be continued…

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Finally after many days being deprived of coffee I had the chance to sip some at 4:28 pm. Two spoonful is better than nothing at all, for sure… But the problem is when can I get to gulp a whole glass of coffee? Sigh…

Logic

December 24, 2005.

Maybe due to the home detention in the aftermath of the chickenpox and to some extent, constant reading of dry economics text book, my intelligence has deteriorated somewhat. I can’t even figure out the meaning of logic, so I referred to the Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary. From what I saw logic means…

log•ic [lójjik] noun
1. PHILOSOPHY theory of reasoning: the branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of deductive and inductive arguments and aims to distinguish good from bad reasoning
2. system of reasoning: any system of or an instance of reasoning and inference
3. sensible argument and thought: sensible rational thought and argument rather than ideas that are influenced by emotion or whim

From this (supposedly) neutral point of view humans are expected to make deductions and decisions based on received information and some rational self-interest. OK, a bit on rational self-interest…

“A key economic assumption (in economic analysis) is that individuals, in making choices, rationally select alternatives they perceive to be in their best interests. … In general, rational self-interest means that individuals try to maximize the expected benefit achieved with a given cost or to minimize the expected cost of achieving a given benefit. …”

- Economics, A Contemporary Introduction, 7e

It’s quite hard to live in this world… Scholars often say that you would have to develop a model to analyze something because it would be hopelessly complicated if your something is to be analyzed as it is. Talking about economics, (some) economists may have gone too far in simplifying the something. Maybe not, consider that the arguments economists presented have their own points too. However when it comes to practice, especially in the stock market, this may not be the case. People are inevitably greedy and, if logic and greed is not to be included in quality of rational self-interest, the analysis can be regarded as useless. Is supply and demand all-important in the stock market? Not really, as people always believe to some impossible earning figures and when it doesn’t come out, they would be disappointed and price starts to fall. Or to over-react when companies issue warnings on not able to meet expectations… Learning not to be moved by masses and speculative thinking is a real art not taught in books… But at the same time to know how masses think and act subsequently… Two confusing and intertwining things but need to be clear of their distinction and not to fall into the trap… Really deep…

Ok lar enough boring talk on those thoughts and something more personal… I virtually become a lazy hermit over these few days (weeks). Not only being cut off from the outside world (Internet connection increasingly become my one and only means of communicating with the outside world) but also, largely due to some rites, I am not able to set my foot (let alone feet) to the streets for the fear of dew and worse of all, not able to eat certain kind of foods. To me the abstinence is harder than the sensation (the sensation is nothing, as happened to me…). When I visited the doctor, he told me not to abstain from taking any kind of food, as opposed to… So who should I believe in?

On the other hand I think of something good too (due to the fever accompanying the pox that shocked my brain?)… On conservation of energy (not physics anyway) and natural resources. Many years ago senators and ADUNs urged people to use basket and paper bags to shop, in place of plastics, but in the end, how many actually did that? No one wish to be viewed as alien I guess… Viewed the 2004 annual repost of ZF and feel really pleased with their environmental conservation measure. So what have I done in conservation? (Haha me in conservation…) Reducing the use of PC, of course, (my electric bill was cut by RM 12+ per month – unbelievable?) as my PC has 13 fans (truly mad – however just try to fully utilize the 400W power supply…) and another big, antique one to cool the monitor… Talking about the fans makes me a bit nostalgic – the fan that cools the monitor is a 1962 Tatung fan with steel blade, of which my fingers have been… (try and guess what happened); one from 80486 DX4; one from the swear-I-will-remember Pentium 3 casing; and two from the damaged Pentium 4 power supply… What’s next?

I intentionally write the date on the top of this article to ascertain how many days pass by before I finally have the opportunity to post it to my blog. I’m still feel more lucky than Daw Aung San Suu Kyi… Pray for her and the people of Burma lar…