Author: Warren Tang

I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.

Does X exist?

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1.
I have never physically been to France.

I have read a lot about it. Many things have occurred there. I have met French people. I have friends who have been there. But I have no direct evidence of the existence of France other than the things I read, hear, the maps I see, the people I meet. As far as I am concerned the existence of France could be a conspiracy of the entire world for my benefit.

But why would the world conspire to make me believe its existence? For what reason? Sure, I can go and check. It isn’t that hard. The “French” I have met, if they are not French, surely came from somewhere else. Perhaps they are a people of compulsion to lie collectively. Why?

2.
It doesn’t need to be France. It could be some other place. There are many places I have not been to. But I can go there and check. Korea, for example, is a short plane’s ride. Finances and time willing I can go (it is within my means).

The act of checking and the the ease of such checks surely tells us about the nature of reality and the nature of secondary sources. I have no reason not to believe someone that they come from France, or have been to France. Many a time I have experienced something they have not. Pretty much my life before I came to Japan is a mystery to my children and wife. I tell them about it. They believe it. There is no good reason to lie about it. It is mundane as mundane can be.

3.
The question of God’s existence is a little different.

No amount of wanting to check will bring me to God. God is not anywhere (though it is claimed God is everywhere). I cannot find God except with in thought and name. That is not to deny God’s existence, but rather to say what I know of God.

I know God as thoughts and name as much as I know France as thoughts and name. While I can check France’s existence I cannot check for God’s. Fundamentally France and God are different. One is a concept of a place. The other is a concept of a concept. I’ll let you decide which is which.

But still we talk of God as much as we talk of France, if not more. No amount of talk will allow me to go check of God’s existence. Buying a plane ticket will.

4.
If I want to see God I am told go to a church. But when I get to the church I do not see God but only a church. If I want to know about God I am told go read the Bible. But when I read the Bible I do not know God but only the Bible.

5.
This is true of all other religions, philosophies, sciences. There is a difference between first-hand knowledge (experience) and second-hand knowledge (reading, hearsay). Check for yourself when possible. Be weary of indirect sources. Do not confuse the two.

Determinism and relativity

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1.
Think about it. If your language determines your thought entirely then the entire population of speakers of a language would all think in exactly the same way. Variation of thought exist within a language/culture. Otherwise we would not need to vote in elections, have different types of cereal or have genres or music. Relative to other languages your language influences somewhat the range of your thought.

The English grammar distinguishes singular and plural. Arabic grammar distinguishes singular, dual and plural. And Japanese grammar does not distinguish number. By being forced to think about and encode number in English and Arabic, and not needing to encode in Japanese will influence your thinking.

Japanese tend to encode plurals poorly in English as a second language. More than likely, Arabic learners of English will find it easier to produce the grammar for plurality.

2.
Like bat-and-ball sportsmen who tend to pick up other bat-and-ball sports quickly, language learners from related languages also acquire the second language faster. In applied linguistics this is called positive transfer. It makes sense that transfer can be applied to other skills like sport as well. But this does not mean a sportsman cannot become good at a dissimilar sport. If things were (pre)determined then we will never need to try because there is only one outcome – failure. Language learning is partly nature, and partly nurture. Both are necessary. It is not either/or but and.

But history may proof that nature and nurture may be misnomers which have ultimately influenced our way of thinking all along.

Like old friends holding beers

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If I have to have a PhD in some topic in order to have the right to say something about it I would have nothing to say. I do not expect that of others either. I am forgiving and I respect those who are also forgiving. In this way we can have an open conversation without fear, like old friends laughing at our similarities, differences, quirks and stupidities over a couple of pints from the cold tap at that dark dank pub on a Friday night and forget we ever had that conversation the next day after the hangover.

Baggage and garbage … rhyme

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Like most people I grew up with “baggage”.

My mother used to rave on about the greatness of Chinese culture/civilisation. True there are some things which are admirable about it. But like everything else there are unsavory parts to it as well.

Recent Chinese history is not something I can praise. In fact the opposite. The underhanded way in which China (HK and clampdowns in postcovid) has craved for world domination is ugly. Equally, the West (particularly No. 45) is no better. And Japan has its unseen side (Abe and the Moritomo affair) also.

In short, baggage is not culturally or ethnically based (as if it ever really was). Everybody, and I mean everybody, is trying to force their opinion on to you. We are by nature like this.

So to try to live a life where I do not throw my opinion out there is near impossible. That is why I had chose to be a monk once. We want to escape from it, not be a part of it. The Amish and Luddites have tried. Brazilian tribes to hide in the forests. But in the end, isolation is unattainable or unsustainable. The world is not a series of enclosed bubbles. And if it is, it is as fragile as soap.

For all the baggage we try to throw out and discard it remains like garbage in a landfill.

Experience, memory, learning, knowledge

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1.
The way I hit a tennis ball determines the way the ball behaves. My serve, stroke, smash and volley is not going to beat Roger Federer or even any of the top professional players let alone the guy down the road … or my son tennis playing son.

The point is my idealised (imagined and willed) version of tennis will not make me a great or even a good player. I have to work hard (practice) to get there, follow a corporeal regiment because the physical world takes priority. The physical supervenes upon the mental.

2.
I have broken (not lose, thank goodness) a my finger bone before. During karate when I was receiving a kick in practice. My bad for not keeping a tighter fist.

3.
I have met people who have lost a finger, foot or limb. But none of these losses affect their mental capacity. For it is not in the limbs that the mind resides. Similarly, my broken finger affected my hand but not my mind. Experience tells me that the mind is in the brain or rather it is created by the brain.

4.
There is something important about the definition of experience (knowledge or skill that you gain from doing a job or activity, or the process of doing this). Experience is more than memory (something that you remember from the past about a person, place, or experience). And it is more than learning (knowledge gained through reading and study).

Like the construction worker character Douglas Quaid in Total Recall, or the replicant Rachel in Blade runner they have implanted memories, not experiences. The danger lies in the fact that the definition of experience makes the concepts of memory and learning conveniently disappear.

5.
We have knowledge as though it is 1 or 0 (no knowledge). It is a non-mass noun. It is one thing. Memory can be plural (memories). They are “things”. The attraction of that is knowledge is important in the sense that it says something about the way we think of it. Like a catchment or a carbon sink, it is one.

Memory is not knowledge. While a thing (count noun) it is not about gain or knowledge.

  1. I have had many experiences.
  2. I have had many memories.
  3. It was a good experience.
  4. ?It was a good memory.
  5. He has a lot of experience.
  6. He has a lot of memory.
  7. He has a lot of learning.

Experience is more important. Memory and learning are the basis of experience.

≠

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Things are individuated. The p=q is not a truth. Categorically, this can be true. Realistically, p is p and q is q.

Inclusion

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Inclusion is a perceptive process, not a reality. Reality doesn’t care about inclusion or exclusion. It’s the mind – another kind of process – that thinks it(self) is important.

Avoiding transmission situations and route

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‪If #covid19 has asymptomatic transmission then the only thing we can do cut the chance of exposure with masks and general avoidance with people. Respiratory exhalation (talking and singing) seems to increase likelihood of transmission. ‬

Japan is a culture where talking (socialising) seems far lower than the West, and could be one reason for lower transmission rates. Certainly, physical contact is not the cultural norm. I doubt I would physical come into contact more than once a day with people I live or work with. This is a cultural thing not an expression thing. Love or any other expressions of feeling are done in other ways.

Killing two birds with one stone – good ol’ fashion labour

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I have been riding a bicycle everyday for about three weeks now. I hadn’t gotten exercise for a couple years and I was getting out of breathe just by climbing two flights of stairs. But now the stairs are easy and my body recovers quickly.

Modern life is the opposite of fitness. Everything is made to make things easier. And for this easiness one has to exercise instead. Is this not double the work. Should not the things we do in life be also pet of your fitness. Should it not require effort so as to help maintain your fitness.

Isn’t doing things the long way really a way to kill two birds with one stone?

It is true though I cannot always do manual labour. White collar work is simply too static that one needs to do exercise outside of the labour. Unless I can incorporate physical work into teaching (without being sued for slavery) I have no choice but to bike.

But biking is not so bad. it is definitely fun. And it is a change in scenery to my indoor existence.

Of the mind

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Once and for all I shall rid myself of absolutes. Not in the real sense for absolutes firstly do not exist other than in the mind. To say in mind is to give it substance for which is has not. Such is the power of language. Of the mind is better but still not adequate.

Without the process of thought there is no idea or concept of absolute. For it to be conceived is for it to be thought. In this sense Descartes is right – I think therefore I am. And for Berkeley to be is to be perceived is a leap of faith too far in my opinion.

The notions of rationality and idealism are in the end notions of process not notions of corporeal things. As much as ideas are in language countable they are nowhere to be found. Neither are their minds independent of the very metaphorical machines that produce them.

The unexperienced reality is no different from the experienced one. I can say then that the mind produced by the body is as much part of the reality that it inhibits. But I cannot say that it exists outside of the process that produces it. The Rylean categorical mistake is thus to believe something exists because it is named.