Term 1 Week 1

Well, think I will blog about this fast, else I will forget whatever that goes on during this period.

Talks

For the high school students, more than half of the talks were, well, rather boring since we already gone through those in assembly. Moreover with everyone using PowerPoint, no stunning background could help you get attention from us. It is a bit like stoning at PD judging full of lousy projects.

Yet amazingly, on Friday, we had 4 interesting talks in a row. First of all, the deputy principal (I think he’s called Mr. Chan) talking about his high school experience. Apparently he only got 35 for his first college math test before becoming a math teacher. Wow, that’s cool. And there’s this talk about history of hwachong which is rather insightful as the speaker talked about how the school had developed and the original positions of certain building and our moves from woodlands, bukit batok…. rather than wasting our time repeating the school values. Same goes for the sexuality education and the “MRT” talk. Haha.

Station Games, Dance, Songs

First and foremost, I’m okay with most of the songs maybe except for the college anthem as it’s particularly high and it’s of a very large range so it’s hard to sing. In contrast, I think our school song is rather low, just right for boys.

The dances are disastrous. Enough said (Read on to find out what I did to escape from the torture).

The station games are obviously designed by students to students but are they are for students? After the entire ordeal, the only people having “fun” seem to be all those councilors.

Subject combination and KI fiasco

As you may had read from my previous post, I had actually decided on “ccme” quite a long time ago. However after listening to so many talks and from effective persuasion from your friends, your resolve seems to be wavering.

Actually I’m quite undecided whether to take the KI selection test, such that I arrange my holiday so that it will not clash. However, though I’m interested in the subject and willing to try it out, I’m not sure which combinations should I be taking with it. Therefore my mind is in some sort of stalemate whether to take the test “for fun” so that I may opt for it later on should I change my mind.

What eventually overcame the stalemate, of whether or not to take the KI test, turned out to be the disastrous dance session. Seeing that I can miss the dance session if I take the KI test, I promptly asked Kian Yang to go as well (or is it the other way round?).

The test turned out to be quite okay. You need to write an essay not more than 500 words on “in your opinion, what makes a piece of knowledge certain”. I was actually quite taken aback at first since I’m not prepared for such kinds of question. However, after some planning, I promptly write the essay. Basically I argued that you can prove or disprove a hypothesis, thus validating the piece of knowledge or otherwise, through repeated experiment and intellectual debate based on logic and actual observation, which will remove possible fallacies and or loopholes.

Then obviously I waited for the test result. And guess what, amazingly, I actually made it! Lol. Then there’s some people who are really serious but did not made it. Then here comes a guy who had gotten in partly just to miss the dance.

Although I’m still uncertain at that point whether to really take the subject, I decided not to tell the school I do not want to take it as I want to put as 2nd choice (only), with ccme still being the first of course. Thus, imagine my horror, when the isp said I can only register for combination with KI! After fallen into panic as I froze on the deeper implication of my failure to decline KI, Chuan Xin came to the rescue! Somehow I can choose ccme again.

:) Thanks, lcx!

KI test’s new point

(Btw, it’s ok if you don’t understand the following para. It’s normal)

I had thought of a new point which should be quite suitable for the above question as well. See if you agree with this following paragraph (I had broken it down into several big chunk for easier reading).

“In some cases however, there may be insufficient evidence as to prove or disprove a particular hypothesis, thereby resulting in a stalemate.

One example will be the question on whether god had really existed, which had eluded humanity. Proposition or opposition for such a hypothesis, even after a rigorous debate, will be unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion for one side or the other based on the available evidence.

Another example may be that some people proposed that the world may not be real, but merely the stimulation of a “matrix”, like in the movie. Obviously, there are absolutely no signs or evidence of this being so, but proponent of “matrix world” may propose further that such was the intricacy of the matrix’s construction, that it is impossible to detect any signs. Though this sounds absurd and unlikely, this is obviously logical and entirely possible.

Fortunately, we can still resolve the above 2 hypothesizes even though we never reached a conclusion. For the former, the existence of god is a religious issue and can be treated as a personal choice. Therefore, some people may continue to believe in god while others do not. As for the latter, we can resolve the issues mathematically, by ranking all possibilities in order of likeliness. In that case, the possibility of this “false real world”, so to speak, to be “real” is very high. The existence of a “matrix world”, though possible, is too unlikely for it to be considered and so should be ignored.

However, the above methods of resolving hypothesizes have a deeper implication. By resolving them without conclusive evidence for one side or the other, it leaves a chance for the other side, though already deemed unlikely mathematically, to be actually true. Therefore, strictly speaking, these pieces of knowledge are not really “certain”, but only “near certain”. However, in a normal situation in a normal context, such “near certainty” is “certain” enough for most of us to validate a piece of knowledge.”

It follows that my new conclusion, incorporating my new point, may be something like this.

“In cases whereby the process of validating a piece of knowledge can be done through observation, repeated experiments should be conducted. As humanity progresses, sometimes entire new body of knowledge can be created and perfected by abstract intellectual debate and discussion. However, even if such new theories are perfectly logical in our mind, they need to agree with the laws of nature before it should be accepted. As for cases whereby there are insufficient evidences, we can only take the likeliest possibility, and accept this “near certainty” as “certainty”.”

Wow, I’m impressed by myself. But then this point is edited in my head over these 1-2 days and way beyond the 1 hour test duration. In any case, this point can be a stand-alone essay even without conclusion, with about 400 words. Lol. Lastly, please comment whether you agree with my new point. Thanks. Maybe I will email the KI teachers on what they thought about my new point.

So to all those who think I'm just laming and crapping all day, I won't mind if you start thinking that I have a good mind. :)