serendipity

heh i find it interesting that as far as intellectual pursuit goes, ideas i form independently of any living breathing human being telling me what to think gets confirmed by just that. that is to say: the unexpected confirmation of my own little thoughts that i mull over now and then in school.

the first example wld be smth abt solipsism. well simply put, its an idea tt kinda extends "cogito ergo sum". i think therefore i am. but what can i be sure of sensory experience about the world around me? and by extension, if i am the only thing that i can be sure of, then greatest utility for me wld be to do selfish things tt benefit only me. heh. then arises the question tt if i sumhow find helping others to be the best thing to benefit myself, what then? lol. well ok. cool. well i guess resorting to pragmatism, it doesnt relli matter even if everything around u is mist and shadows. i mean if u can see shapes in the fog and interact wif em, it doesnt matter if they're relli non- existent or anything right? when it comes down to it, so long as u can get utility, sure anythings fine. heh.

well then theres "translation is betrayal". haha my thoughts exactly, but the elaboration was abit too hardlined for me =/. guess it looks like i hv to learn some new languages. but the point here is that i wasnt looking for confirmation of my views (considering my random thoughts r kinda random and dun usually find themselves into the classroom), and yet somehow they found me. hm.

ah the biggest one might probably the concept of binary. well we did this in lit, tt instead of opposition, there r these binary pairs. not necessarily diametrically opposite, but still contrasting with regard to each other. and in every piece of literature u can see binaries. hm yea i mean, parellelism, thesis and antithesis, these are essentially pairs striking off against each other for a revealing effect. well i guess its a confirmation in a way that u can look at the world in terms of ones and zeroes, on's and off's, light and dark, hot and cold, alpha and omega, etcwdv. now i wonder if the universal theory tt scientists are looking for shld not be expressed in words but in numbers. now tt wld be interesting. oh yea sum stuff abt math as a universal language also came up in a convo in sch. mm. 

i think its relli great tt such ideas manage to find themselves into what i see as a meshing web of thoughts and ideas. well i did see somewhere tt ur brain apparently makes another furrow (knot? convolution?) when u make a connection. so i guess the conceit is pretty accurate. hm joy.

more binary

no actually, the world IS binary. just that there are plenty of numbers.

sense of the epic

wat is the epic? length? magnitude? revelation? 

ah well, sometimes it just feels like it. 

(this must be an epic short post tho)

adaptation

ok.. i guess now i hv a bone to pick wif the adaptation of material. like in the world of multifarious media today, i guess its inevitable that a work makes a transition from one medium to another. and this would be adaptation (?). 

well to some extent i guess id relli love to see ppl keep to the original. but then again u cant get anywhere without someone making changes to suit the new medium. or just cos they feel important enough to tweak it in what they see as a better direction. well specifically and personally, im always pretty interested when a bk ive read makes it to the silver screen. or vice versa. or other stuff, like songs quoting works of literature, etc. but i guess adaptation is rather relative. and subjective. like if the new product is better than the original, then i guess ur "faulty" adaptation is justified. problem is that more often than not, u hv an inherent bias whichever u r exposed to first (usually its the original). i guess this has got to do wif novelty only being experienced once anw. well ive kinda discussed that previously... and i tink it still holds more or less.

but more often than not, this phenomenon of adaptation jus leads to the bastardization of things i appreciate and sometimes its jus painful ><. im sure everyone agrees to some extent. owell. then again, there hv been several pleasant surprises. 

ho hum.

all the fun's in how you say a thing

ah well, im reading another "textbook" again. so... theres interesting things to think about. well ok i'll quote: "a formally experienced poet would not require a book on meter to learn his trade." well once again ><. i find it kinda painful sometimes that im not a "formally experienced poet". actually i find it kinda painful that im not a poet in any sense, but, owell. moving on..

"Indeed, some metrists have theorized that iambic is a sort of universal meter" - !!! ok that's cool, and the substantiation is "Iambic meters appear in the poetries of a number of Indo- European languages."

"The brain itself, according to this theory, relishes binary patterns and finds iambic rhythm congenial." wow funky stuff. and the qualification is "Many prosodic systems, including those of French, Persian, and Chinese, do not involve iambic measures." now i think this deserves more study, but since this is not at all the focus of the book (that would be the study of the rhythms of poetry in various languages), i guess i'll hv to look elsewhere. but hey, the whole binary idea is relli quite interesting, as i had been thinking abt the capacity for everything to be described in binary. uh well ok, i shan't spend too much time to go in depth cos theres smth else, too.

"It may also be easier for us to hear the tetrameter, on account of the residual influence of the old four- beat alliterative line of the Germanic tradition. If there is such a thing as a collective memory, it may contain that line's thumping pattern." ok apart from "thumping pattern" its pretty well expressed. too bad i hv almost absolutely no knowledge of "collective memory", but from what i do know, hey its really cool.

well considering that these two very interesting asides came up in the introduction, i guess the actual content should be rather more stimulating, ceteris paribus. happy times.

lost in translation

ok some while ago i wrote this essay abt the importance of learning languages other than english. for some intra- sch competition. dunno wat happened to it. anw... some thoughts tt i put down then hv recurred to me arnd now. i had written smth abt the sapir-whorf theory (tho i hear its been disproved, but its still interesting... and id like to believe that some of it makes sense), and now is the time to extend the idea and examine other permutations. if we take understanding of various languages to enable one to better represent the world (if we do disbelieve that it doesnt help our understanding of it at all..) at least, then wat happens if we do not have so many languages at our disposal? well i suppose the opposite would happen. u wld hv a world view, well and gd. but i suppose it wldnt be as flexible, and ur ability to express ur perspectives wld be less malleable than if u had multiple languages at hand. an intuitive example wld be when u cant express urself in one language (or at least not as accurately as u wld like), when another just fits. of course this probably can be overcome by widening ur vocabulary, or in the worse case, inventing ur own words to signify what is lacking in the existing lexicon (but then it wld hv to adhere to the rules of ur language, otherwise ud arguably be making a dialect; then again, wats the difference?) 

so well, assuming that u only know one language, and u still (obviously) dont want to miss out on works in other languages in whatever media, ur only option is to translate. now therein i feel is a problem which is worthy of contemplation.

ok the idea here revolves around languages and their conversion into other languages. and, of course, as in how data inevitably gets lost during transfer, syntax and obviously sense (and mebbe style and other stuff) get lost during this process, too. (oh i hvnt read the bk or watched the movie of this title. its just apt for the discussion and im not relli alluding to them cos i hvnt read/watched them)

well translations are rampant these days, what with the improved technology and hence efficiency of translating media. the fact that more people are receiving better educations probably also contributes to a (i hypothesize) increase in translations. we cld also argue tt languages r constantly being invented [(as in totally different languages, not dialects or slangs, or watever derivations.) though u can argue tt languages are dying somewhere in africa or china...] and so more translation is needed. anw, the bottom line is that, with translation comes loss of material, and this is (definitely?) a bad thing. 

the purpose of translation is to allow the work to reach a wider audience. we've seen this with the Bible, and we now see it with things like anime and korean soap operas. would the world (or at least the people not versed in the means of communication) be worse off without a processing body to change unintelligible words into meaningful ones? i think so. however, we must be conscious of the fact that these works often (if not always?) become worse off themselves, even as they extend their reach to more people. ok this is not going to become a discussion whether expansion of target audience justifies or even promotes translation which comes with its corruption of original material. rather, this is just interested in examining the nature of the corruption. 

ok, i suppose everyone can figure this out for themselves, but im jus gonna list the probable cases and some examples. firstly, translation affects the meaning of the words of the language. we are all aware of connotations and associations. these are the word's own relationship to fellow members of its lexicon. replace it with another word from a different language and u distort meaning by failing to fully copy its relationship. while some words are relatively easier to translate being more common and of (perhaps) a simpler idea in both languages, many are not. we are all aware of the dangers in mistranslating wat someone says. like in tennis recently, venus and serena got into the finals and a fellow russian competitor said it was a "family decision" or smth along those lines tt hinted at a conspiracy of not playing fairly but deciding on the result before hand. this was later corrected. ok i noe there r better examples, but this will suffice. i guess this result of translation has obvious dangers. u can incite riots and even wars with the right mistranslation (haha). things also get sticky in the religious sense. as if holy writs were not ambiguous enough, u hv to translate them frm their original language and, furthermore, translate them in many different versions. now interpretation of agreed texts are complicated enough, differentiating them probably doesnt make things any easier. though i dun see much immediate problem in this. though it should be said that u cant get the most of out smth u read if u cannot fully understand what its implying. religion, if nothing else, shld be the place u dun wanna go wrong, and where more knowledge is obviously a good thing (u noe, theres a saying that goes smth like: half knowledge is more dangerous than none.. or smth. u noe wat, its probably translated...) 

here i shall digress and make an aside abt the Bible. its the world's bestseller, so it shld be mentioned, if not being the most relevant to this topic. i suppose everybody's aware of how preachers sometimes throw greek words at u frm the Bible and make themselves sound impt and how their subsequent explanations of the text seem so obvious - after making the necessary connotations and associations with the alternative translations or the etymology of wdv word they illuminated. heh. well heres an interesting idea. some say the Bible was written in English. which means to say, it doesnt matter tt it was written in greek or hebrew or whatnot, because ultimately its being most widely read in English. which i find an interesting idea really...

anyway, translation also hinders the appreciation of a text. i suppose this affects verse more than prose as verse seems to be more interested in craftsmanship. u noe, stuff like rhyme, alliteration, wordplay (which imo, is one of the hardest to translate. u noe how cry in english can mean to shout or to weep? yea its the same in jap wif the word nake apparently.. but how many language can u keep this consistent. and if u use phrases, or less common words... well good luck), rhythm, texture (consonance, assonance), syllable count, line length, stanzas.... the list goes on. u cant possibly manage to recapture the brilliance of the original language wif translation. and i dunno if the people who try to should be commended or pitied and laughed at. if u read translations of literary texts, and they hv notes (which they shld, if not ur pretty much losing out on alot), u tend to see alot of comments "resists translation". well heres an example, aura in greek means breeze, and is also a female name. the translation given was zephyr, which can arguably be a girl's name too. but u kinda lose the "a" sounds... uhh. ya stuff liddat. frm what i have read tho, i tink its highly commendable of translators to still keep to the syllable count (often) and to even try to recreate the effects of the original meter. ah well. i wld bring up the examples, but im lazy. haha guess i didnt do too great a job substantiating my arguments. 

anw the conclusion of this matter is that u lose much in translation. so wat can be done? well.. go learn the original language! sure, easier said than done. in parting, i'll jus leave an anecdote of this guy called Joseph Needham. i read an article abt him in the papers quite some time ago. anw hes this british guy who went to china and lived there and wrote a bk on its development of civilisation. well not relli a bk. a massive 15 volume collection or smth. anw i guess tts cool in itself. but i quote "A polymath in the best British tradition, Needham was a talented linguist who could mentally translate his manuscripts from English to French and back" um actually he supposedly translated, edited, translated back, and etc. mentally in an armchair. hm. ok my aspirations..

hedgehog's dilemma

well u might hv heard of this, but theres this snazzy analogy called the hedgehog's dilemma, or porcupine's dilemma. of course, wikipedia will provide a much more comprehensive description of just what this is, but, hey, i'll jus provide some cursory information.

i suppose everyone noes wat hedgehogs r. they r pigs u find in bushes. or those things that stay in ur hedge all day long and wun get out. uh. ok this is jus being stupid. hedgehogs or porcupines r those little rodent- like things tt hv spines on their backs. kinda like quillboars in the warcraft universe. or like sea urchins. and come to think of it, street urchins r kinda spiky and all. like their hair, or their knives when they stick u up... uh no i jest. 

so anyway, hedgehogs hv quills/spines for self- defence. and this proposition is that it also prevents them from getting close to one another. which is completely ridiculous seeing as they dun reproduce asexually. 

in any case, it is quite an interesting scenario. taking it for what its meant to imply, it suggests tt people (well obviously, who's seriously interested in hedgehogs anw?) dun get too close to each other cos they're scared of hurting each other. evangelion kinda explored this idea. in fact, its the name of one of the episodes. hm.

i guess this is based on the assumption tt our model hedgehogs want to get close to each other in the first place. and by extension i guess it also means tt this is so important tt they'll withstand the pain of being arnd each other. now, why wld anyone wanna do that? and this is the explanation for isolationism and basically emo-ing at home. 

well, wow. a dilemma. dun u jus hate it when things turn out like this? ur damned either way. the saying goes, choose the lesser of 2 evils. uh well, i wonder what that would be here. 

just another example of how we all suffer from existential dread, and since we're all gonna die someday anyway, who cares =)

some thoughts on fiction

i actually do pay attention at school, and every now and then, my teachers say something interesting that jus sticks in my mind (well there r the times where they request tt it sticks, too, but tt doesnt always happen unfortunately). well one said: you are what you read. another said: until u do ur PhD, no one really cares about what you think (ceteris paribus). 

well, i'd really agree tt u r influenced by experience, and while sense experience seems to do a considerable amount to ur development as a person, i guess uh.. wdv u call processing of information (i dun tink u can call it sensory eh?) does also shape ur thoughts, ur perceptions, ur world view. and despite the advancement of technology seeming to promote the proliferation of videos and whatever that may entail, reading still (imo) will continue to be a force of trading of information to be reckoned with. 

in the more specific sense, reading as in reading things that are meant to be read for some time and not in passing ie books, should also be likely to continue (and that said, the physical book as well, and not ebooks, or audiobooks, or wdv). and this is where the second point comes in. obviously with insufficient exposure and experience in the rather complex fields that i try my rather poor task of engaging in, i am (once again) in no position to give my critique. but heck, it helps me, it might help u, and its jus makes me feel better. so here goes.

how is this related to fiction. well the scope of this discussion is books; the printed word. it is specifically fictitious. or imaginary. so here we're dealing with novels, scripts for plays, even poetry. whatever is, as aristotle commented on tragedy (which i think can be applied here) "an imitation of an action that is real" of course, this goes beyond the "serious and of a certain magnitude". and so, we are interested in the impact that stories have on the individual. 

well i hv long wondered the extent of the imagination. well from my limited knowledge of works of fantasy and fiction out there, i feel that some are really far off from reality, while others clearly have some basis or inspiration in the contemporary, or the past - or to any extent, to events that occured. thus "imitation of an action that is real" really applies rather directly. then, what with "futuristic" fiction like sci- fi, cyber(and whatever derviation thereof)punk, etc, and with works of epic fantasy, i really do wonder to what extent do the writers of these works draw their inspiration from the real world. well tt said, i guess we could all comment on certain metaphors or comparisons in poetry that seem "out of this world", perhaps for their perfectness of representation or wdv. but tts slightly different. 

so in any case and at any rate, im not going to explore the purpose or function of fiction, but rather look at how certain works might either add or detract from the formation of a world view that is appropriate for life in the 21st century (uh? yea.. smth liddat) 

ok this works off the axiom that "you are what you read", or rather, that works of fiction (or substitute it for "media" as u so wish) influence the individual (of course, if we're talking about the media and causation and acts of violence, then things get abit hazy. if we simply talk about "outlook on life" or something rather hazy to begin with, then we're probably fine.) so then, is it better to appreciate a work interested in recreating a real- life scenario, but idealistically, or one tt chooses to represent it as accurately as possible? of course, one wld immediately realize tt u cant jus compare these two like that without setting the relevant parameters. uh. but ok lets jus assume tt there is no inherent purpose in the consumption of either (like u appreciate either cos it makes u feel happy, or want a cathartic experience, or wdv. tho clearly, it doesnt help learning about the "real" action, since its clearly an "imitation", and thus putting any weight into its representation and evaluation of the action is rather highly dangerous.) 

well to try to make this more understandable, lets jus take a topic like friendship and explore it. well representations of this relationship in fiction is unlikely to severely alter ur world view for better or for worse. because in all likelihood, any kind of friendship tt the writer presents can and should fall within the realms of the possible; it is an imitation that is similar to the real, and perhaps in most cases, does not hv any significant differences that shld be taken note of. however, once the subjects become rather more intense, such as love, or hate, or some other big "emo" idea, then the situation changes. i tink tt it is fair to say that if u spent all ur time reading (or watching or wdv) the kind of "thrashy romance novels" like the maid did in Gulliver's Travels when the palace caught fire, then ur whole view on love is probably going to change. similarly if u continually read betrayal stories or wdv. well this is of course neglecting the impact tt ur real life business does have on ur perception at the end of the day, but still i tink some consideration shld be given to the whole information- gathering- via- work- of- fiction thing. 

thus the question is, is it better, in such cases, to appreciate an idealistic representation, or a "realistic" representation, knowing that both are equally far from reality? 

heh at the end of the day, i tink the answer probably is: get out more, so ur ideas r based off experience in reality, rather than works of fiction, inasmuch as fiction is supposed to be escapism in some sense, anyway.