Sunday, April 10, 2005
Musings...
Been thinking the past few days... Friday after sch had to go back zh to request for another copy of the cca report (bad me... think it was in the huge stacks of papers which i threw away during the holidays)... Aaron going back for sjab, zhenhao decided to tag along so i had to wait for two lessons before they are done.
during that hour and a half original plan was to go lib and do some work, but as usual i didn't feel like it. then checked the catalogue to see if they have the bio textbook i borrowed from the sch lib to continue my reading but it wasn't available (have i mentioned bout that? find it kinda weird i'm reading bio when i'm no longer taking it after almost giving up on it for the exams, but it's fun when u're just reading for general knowledge without the need to memorise all the names, processes and whatnot... bio rocks lol ^^)....
then suddenly thought bought reading up on dreams. but while checking the shelves, came across religion and somehow i was kinda compelled to check out the books. not that i'm gonna read up on any particular religion and actually take it up but i was interested to know, "why religion?"... religion has always baffled me, the reason why i'm a free thinker (next time i should use 'secular humanist' just to avoid that twinkle in the eye of the christian who is trying to convince me to go church when he/she hears that)... i believe that i should not believe in anything unless i'm really convinced it's true, and nothing has managed to do that so far... in fact, sometimes i look down on those who practice religion just cos of 'as is' when they actually ain't very convinced bout it. my greatgrandparents converted to christianity from buddhism because they dreamt during war time that jesus appeared in their dreams and told them the war will end the next day, and it happened, and i look up to these people who can really say they're convinced bout their religion, god exists etc and they can feel Him...
my parents are buddhists and i went to a church kindergarden but somehow i can't bring myself to relate to either religion... nvm, i digress, back to those books. so i was trying to see if the books can convince me to believe in religion or relate to atheism. turned out the books weren't really good, but there was one interesting point in one which made me think bout some other things
it was bout two experiments... first there was this boy with severe epilepsy (sp) and had to have the connecter between the left and right brain cut (forgot all the tecnical terms...), so both parts of the brain can't communicate. so they had this machine to show his right eye (left brain in charge of logic and speech) a picture of a chicken head and left eye (right brain) a picture of a house covered with snow. then they put a few cards and asked him to point to what he saw. his right hand pointed to a chicken claw and left a shovel, which seems logical. but then he was asked why he chose that. he said he chose the claw because there was a chicken (which is logical) and the shovel to clean the chicken shed (but there was no chicken shed shown!) without hesitation. the reasoning behind this was that his speech was controlled by his left brain which did not receive any information bout the house but instinctively he came up with a plausible explanation for his own actions of pointing to the shovel...
then the next experiment was on another woman with the same problem. this time a picture of a naked woman was shown to his left eye (right brain in charge of emotion). she was asked what she saw and the answer was nothing, confirming that the picture seen in the right brain was not transmitted to the left brain in charge of speech. but it was observed that the woman looked uncomfortable and blushed cos of embarrasment while being shown the picture because the right brain which controls emotions saw it and felt embarassed. however, when asked why she looked uncomfortable the woman said that the machine was weird...
this two experiments seem to show one thing, that it is human nature to find logical explanations for our own actions. i can see the link of that to religion but then i was thinking bout sth else already... sometimes i find myself leading a life of excuses (again i forgot whether i've blogged bout that before, but oh well)... sometimes i do something for a particular reason, but i'm not comfortable with that so i just come up with another very plausible and logical reason for my actions. it's like i do that at times even though no one ask me to explain anything and i'm just trying to affirm myself with an excuse to take the easy way out... so now i'm wondering whether i should embrace this human instinct to come out with reasons for things or just take things as they are cos in the end i'd probably be wasting my time making sth up... hmm, think i'm starting to lose track of my point here.... i've even forgotten what the main point i am talking about is... so guess i should just end off this part here...
so later looked up dreams but found nothing that i not already know. i've already thought of the normal lines, sth i've been thinking bout recently, sth i've been hoping for or dreading, sth i want/hate but don't really show it, etc but none seem to fit tt recent nightmare. oh well, think i'd go down to a bigger lib someday and read up more, but then again i don't have the time... argh....
during that hour and a half original plan was to go lib and do some work, but as usual i didn't feel like it. then checked the catalogue to see if they have the bio textbook i borrowed from the sch lib to continue my reading but it wasn't available (have i mentioned bout that? find it kinda weird i'm reading bio when i'm no longer taking it after almost giving up on it for the exams, but it's fun when u're just reading for general knowledge without the need to memorise all the names, processes and whatnot... bio rocks lol ^^)....
then suddenly thought bought reading up on dreams. but while checking the shelves, came across religion and somehow i was kinda compelled to check out the books. not that i'm gonna read up on any particular religion and actually take it up but i was interested to know, "why religion?"... religion has always baffled me, the reason why i'm a free thinker (next time i should use 'secular humanist' just to avoid that twinkle in the eye of the christian who is trying to convince me to go church when he/she hears that)... i believe that i should not believe in anything unless i'm really convinced it's true, and nothing has managed to do that so far... in fact, sometimes i look down on those who practice religion just cos of 'as is' when they actually ain't very convinced bout it. my greatgrandparents converted to christianity from buddhism because they dreamt during war time that jesus appeared in their dreams and told them the war will end the next day, and it happened, and i look up to these people who can really say they're convinced bout their religion, god exists etc and they can feel Him...
my parents are buddhists and i went to a church kindergarden but somehow i can't bring myself to relate to either religion... nvm, i digress, back to those books. so i was trying to see if the books can convince me to believe in religion or relate to atheism. turned out the books weren't really good, but there was one interesting point in one which made me think bout some other things
it was bout two experiments... first there was this boy with severe epilepsy (sp) and had to have the connecter between the left and right brain cut (forgot all the tecnical terms...), so both parts of the brain can't communicate. so they had this machine to show his right eye (left brain in charge of logic and speech) a picture of a chicken head and left eye (right brain) a picture of a house covered with snow. then they put a few cards and asked him to point to what he saw. his right hand pointed to a chicken claw and left a shovel, which seems logical. but then he was asked why he chose that. he said he chose the claw because there was a chicken (which is logical) and the shovel to clean the chicken shed (but there was no chicken shed shown!) without hesitation. the reasoning behind this was that his speech was controlled by his left brain which did not receive any information bout the house but instinctively he came up with a plausible explanation for his own actions of pointing to the shovel...
then the next experiment was on another woman with the same problem. this time a picture of a naked woman was shown to his left eye (right brain in charge of emotion). she was asked what she saw and the answer was nothing, confirming that the picture seen in the right brain was not transmitted to the left brain in charge of speech. but it was observed that the woman looked uncomfortable and blushed cos of embarrasment while being shown the picture because the right brain which controls emotions saw it and felt embarassed. however, when asked why she looked uncomfortable the woman said that the machine was weird...
this two experiments seem to show one thing, that it is human nature to find logical explanations for our own actions. i can see the link of that to religion but then i was thinking bout sth else already... sometimes i find myself leading a life of excuses (again i forgot whether i've blogged bout that before, but oh well)... sometimes i do something for a particular reason, but i'm not comfortable with that so i just come up with another very plausible and logical reason for my actions. it's like i do that at times even though no one ask me to explain anything and i'm just trying to affirm myself with an excuse to take the easy way out... so now i'm wondering whether i should embrace this human instinct to come out with reasons for things or just take things as they are cos in the end i'd probably be wasting my time making sth up... hmm, think i'm starting to lose track of my point here.... i've even forgotten what the main point i am talking about is... so guess i should just end off this part here...
so later looked up dreams but found nothing that i not already know. i've already thought of the normal lines, sth i've been thinking bout recently, sth i've been hoping for or dreading, sth i want/hate but don't really show it, etc but none seem to fit tt recent nightmare. oh well, think i'd go down to a bigger lib someday and read up more, but then again i don't have the time... argh....
