The Internationale (Machine)

[Sung to Your Favorite Socialist Theme]

Arise, I-bankers from your slumber,
Arise, you dismal of the earth!
For Reason, we must all now plunder,
And all morals we shall pervert!
Away with all your superstitions,
Social welfare? All lies! All lies!
We’ll all march as greedy mathematicians
And we shall maximize our buys!
So come lads, come ladies
Decency we shall deface
The Internationale
Machine pwns every race!
MPC, GDP
Capital wins the case!
The Internationale
Machine we shall embrace!

No more declaring your deductions,
No more taxation in your sights!
Arm now the agents of production,
As their labor are your rights!
And if those leeches keep on trying,
To sap and feed their own hive,
They soon shall hear the bullets flying,
We’ll shoot them by our drive!
So come lads, come ladies
Decency we shall deface
The Internationale
Machine pwns every race!
MPC, GDP
Capital wins the case!
The Internationale
Machine we shall embrace!

Sing now the wealth of all our nations!
Recall the ones who brought us here:
Smith, Franklin, Burke all taught us patience,
And showed us all damn fine careers!
Crunching numbers, optimizing models,
Making sure each cent is saved!
Our gold coins and silver we shall fondle,
As we all sing our tirade:
So come lads, come ladies
Decency we shall deface
The Internationale
Machine pwns every race!
MPC, GDP
Capital wins the case!
The Internationale
Machine we shall embrace!

Return to Innocence

Good God, it's been a while since I've last posted something! The last thing I see was the Timothy Wu event from Autumn of 2007 and quite a bit has happened since then. Although I personally don't know who would be interested in reading such nonsense, for those of you who care, I shall summarize my development over the past year and a quarter.

First off, I shall have you know that I am no longer a silly chemistry major. Honestly, I find it a vile subject that reeks of B.O. and by B.O., I mean the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation. Here, I hold up a broken beaker and pose for the camera, with the captions reading out "Never Again."

I am now occupying my time as a physicist, hoping to dear God that I pass each course I'm taking. The pain of physics is quite different than the pain of chemistry: in chemistry, I hate my the subject with my life; in physics, I hate my life with the subject. Given my first year as a physics student (note that I have not ever taken a physics course before autumn of 2007), I have already found myself flirting with Condensed Matter Theory, particularly working in soft condensed matter, thermodynamics, and field theory. There's something satisfying about being able to describe how information flows through a system and at times I wonder if it actually borders on computer science. However, my good friend Birchwood (or i-Bird, or IB, however you prefer to refer to her), who is a most brilliant mathematician and computer scientist, assures me that I'm just being silly and should finish doing my analysis proofs instead. The joys of having brilliant friends.

In terms of plans, God knows that I have too many. I'm looking towards a doctorate in physics, hopefully at Stanford, and perhaps a Ph D minor in math. I've also looked at systems engineering, but I think I'm better off creating a strong foundation first in some technical skills. I still can't get Fortran to work (and I doubt I ever will), but even if Stanford's condensed matter program isn't as strong as that of U of I or UCSB, I feel quite strongly about the fact that they still have an excellent math department, especially in algebra and group theory. I'm also seriously considering MIT for physics, seeing as how their CM is really strong too (plus they have excellent maths), and Harvard is quite attractive too, but any of these schools would require me to be brilliant, and I have my doubts about that. I mean, I think I'm smart enough to get by in physics, but I just really wish I could have some sort of measure as to what they're looking for. If worse comes to worst, however, I do have the U of I to fall on. Thank God for legacy.

After the Ph D in physics, I'm probably headed towards law school, hopefully enrolling in a dual JD/Ph D program. The Ph D, however, is still in the air, as I have yet to decide between sociology and economics. I'm pretty sure I would have the math background necessary for econ in either case, and a JD/Ph D from Stanford would be pretty sweet, considering their tech-heavy client base and my interests in IP Law (specifically technology transfer and patents). I may also come back to the U of C for the JD/Ph D, but I think then the choice between econ and sociology would be even more difficult--do I choose the department that revitalized the free market or do I choose the first department of sociology in the United States? Stanford's program is also pretty strong in both cases, although they don't seem to have the hardline libertarian philosophy as the children of Friedman has, but I could be incredibly wrong.

In the middle of this, I also wanted to put in an M Sc. in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge (a single year study), but as transcripts are pretty unfairly random here at the U of C, I doubt I can get in through the Churchill scholarship or other trust programs. Plus, given the fact that I'm doing so much already, I'll probably end up avoiding real life forever. In fact, why don't we make a quick calculation here:

Age 22: Finish BA in Physics.
+6 years for Ph D in Physics
Age 28: First Doctorate Completed
+1 year for 1L
Age 29: Ready to Begin Second Doctorate
+6 years for Second Doctorate
Age 35: Time to Finish JD
+2 year remaining
Age 37: Multiple Doctorates, but no job yet. Choices: 1) Law professorship (ha! good luck finding that!), 2) work off student loans as a 20K/30K post-doc forever (in econ/sociology--prolly too old to do physics), 3) give up, get an MBA, and become a businessman, 4) find a rich husband, 5) become a writer and live from paycheck to paycheck.

Oh wow... God help me...

Admissions Essay

I've been looking over my old admissions essay, as I am currently helping out old high school friends with theirs, and it's been a bit of a surprise to see how much I've changed. Perhaps it's the nature of the U of C to be soul-sucking, but I've noticed how much more optimistic I was back then when I was applying here. At the same time, it's been a source of strength, as it helps me remember why I am here and what I am doing. Sure, plans may change, but the fact that I remember having such strong feelings and burning passion allowed me to reaffirm my conviction to take part in the U of C Experience.


Topic 5: One Possible Variation, I think.

According to the literary critic Roland Barthes, the author of a work is dead. If that is so, then any intended meaning within any creation is obsolete, including the preceding sentence. If that is the case… what is left? Is there truly any meaning to anything? Or is existence itself the theatre of the absurd? Analyze and discuss… or ignore the prompt.

“Whither is God? I shall tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are murderers… God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…”~Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

When the madman held his lantern and shouted in the market, he spoke of an era where there is no “God.” Of course, being a bit early, he smashed his lantern and babbled some more. However, that time he has predicted (or should I say, that state of reality) has come. Welcome… to the admissions essay of Daniel Choi.

Jungian psychology was always a fascinating subject and as I explored its contemporary branches, I came across the Myers-Briggs test. At first I scoffed, thinking that the depth of the subconscious would not allow for Aristotelian categorization. Yet, having a secret weakness for personality tests found in fashion magazines, I couldn’t resist the urge to find out what type I was.

I was surprised by the test’s amazing accuracy; it had pinpointed my “type” and I was deemed forever INTP (Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceptive… or as I like to refer to it: I Never Think Practically). Interestingly enough, the archetype associated with INTPs is the architect—analogous to the author of a text or the creator of a world. Because of this realization, I devoured books on various cosmologies of the universe and revered the axiom “everything happens for a reason.” Some may say I was Newtonian in the aspect that I believed for every phenomenon there was a cause, for every action there was an intention, for every being there was a justification, because to me, that was how the universe operated.

I rationalized away the injustices and the problem of evil as part of the “grand plan” and pointed to the Tree of Life as the explanation for strife (God’s energies oscillate between two pillars: the Pillar of Mercy and the Pillar of Severity to create phenomena in the Middle Pillar or the Pillar of Mildness). For every death that occurred around me, I pointed to the fact that death is the yin to the yang of life. Religion, philosophy, and scientific laws explained everything for me, which I now realize was a foolish grip on pedantry. As an architect, I realized I had one fatal flaw—I lacked originality. I was constantly taking ideas from dead hands and never formulating any of my own, and when the absurdity of life hit me, I was not at all prepared.

When my models were failing me and my explanations (or rather excuses) were coming up short, it coincided with my most severe bout of depression. Of course, all teenagers go through some sort of angst, but I wonder how others coped with their pathos without periodic episodes that left scars on their forearms and torso. For a while, self-injury became my source of power as everything around me fell apart—identity, confidence, achievements, etc. I became disillusioned with the Kabbalah and Golden Dawn Hermeticism along with the worth of works or achievements. In a sense, I’ve realized that everything in society was nothing but a hyperreality as described by Baudrillard: a set of symbols and institutions that are “more real” than reality. All that mattered to me was that I was able to slash open another wound on my wrists. Even though I thought everything was meaningless, I felt compelled to live everyday life with school and homework, but the empty feeling of nihilism replaced the awe and wonder I once experienced when learning about the world.

Amidst all of my moping and cutting, I was still drawn to reading, only now it was for a justification. I sifted through the Bible, the Qu’ran, the Shruti, the I-Ching, the Zend-Avesta, the Communist Manifesto, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and even through the Satanic Bible, A Course in Miracles, Mein Kempf, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead in order to find meaning in my life. I’ve prayed, chanted, and worshipped more gods than most have ever heard of in search for that Grand Design, the meaning of things. With each unanswered prayer, each unsuccessful summons, each ineffective ritual, I became convinced that there was no one listening. Again, I’ve tried to reason my way out, telling myself that “God is furious about your idolatry” or “God has a hidden plan,” but that did not liberate me from the mental prison I’d created for myself and it actually dug me deeper into this trench of despair.

It was during the first semester of my junior year I became obsessed with Nihilism because I felt that its message for destroying the fallacies were imperative in finding truth. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche became the topic of my conversations with everyone, which was quite unfortunate because many Utahns are not even able to pronounce their names. Pressure-cooked by a Mormon community and a Christian family, I felt as if I was boiled down to a bitter solution of rage and hurt. I attacked anything that seemed to promote happiness or other optimistic metanarratives and my tongue became a hypodermic needle injecting acrimony into my opponents. The fury I harnessed was slowly destroying me as I was isolating myself from my environment, feeling as if I was reliving the difficult four years I spent in Korea. At first I saw this wrath as power (after all, hatred is very powerful), but like an ulcer, it burned me inside out. I realized that I needed a hero. I needed someone to save me. I waited for that someone who would lead me from my solitude. That someone was a surprise. That someone was me.

Okay, okay! Technically it was a combination of Sartre and Kierkegaard that saved me, but nonetheless I realized through these authors that I was the one who had to save myself. The realization happened quite unexpectedly—during an episode of the TV series Angel. In Episode 2x16 “Epiphany,” our hero has an epiphany (hence the title): if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. Angel has been battling for centuries an endless battle for his redemption (he’s a vampire… with a soul… how cool is that?!) and during the past couple of episodes, he has been going through an existential crisis. As with all American television programming, it took carnage and bacchanalia to knock some sense into him. At the end of the episode, he learns that redemption starts with the forgiveness of the self, just as existence begins with the awareness of the self. Even though our existence is futile like the task of Sisyphus, it is all that we have; therefore, it is the only thing that has meaning.

After sharing Angel’s epiphany, I realized that the nihilism and the nonexistence of purpose no longer matters because it is our actions that justifies our existence. Nothing is true; everything is permitted. It is not what the author says that dictates the meaning of the book; it is what the readers interpret and do about it that creates the true meaning of the book.

Likewise, it should not matter if there is an absolute purpose in life or not. Life itself is meaning. Experience is meaning. Sure, the author may be dead. Sure, God may be dead. What really matters is what we do about it. Although we may cry when we are born because “we are come to this stage of fools,” that doesn’t mean that we can’t laugh about it—after all, what is absurdity but the most humorous and ridiculous of incredulity? Through laughter the audience of a work receives power and through power the audience creates meaning. We create our own meaning. That is why we are human beings.

Although this revelation of mine is not original either, I’ve also discovered that an architect needs not be truly original to be great (name one original idea by Shakespeare, the “inventor of man”). The architect instead must be dedicated to self-conviction and open to experiences, especially since the architect’s job is a process of synthesis and evolution. Besides, you generate more controversy by wearing both a crucifix and a pentagram than you would if you wore an “original” symbol.

Through this discourse between the different voices in my head, I have realized that I am under no obligation to fulfill any narratives other than my own. So what meaning have I chosen for myself, you ask? Well… I’ll let you know once you accept me.

HIPS Response 2

This is my second response for my HIPS course. This time, it's regarding science and religion in ancient Greek philosophy. I didn't get any special recognition for my deconstruction last week, so I'm a bit miffed, but I understand, as the University of Chicago really likes its New Criticism paradigm.

Response 2: Separating Practices

The aphorisms of early Greek sages are without doubt eloquent—“Numbers constitute the whole universe” [1], “Just as our soul, being air, holds us together and controls us, so do breath and air surround the whole cosmos” [2], “Anaximander says that the stars are borne by the circles and spheres on which each one goes” [3]. Each of these ideas show seeds of the Western Thought, reaching out on natural, mystical, and philosophical motifs, but given the current divisions in science, religion, and philosophy, how exactly have these different areas diverged from a common source? Obviously, rigor, cosmological conviction, and speculation are all intricately intertwined in ancient Greek philosophy, so to explain science and religion independently is futile—science and religion can only be explained in relation to each other.

If we examine the Milesians and Pythagoreans, we see an elegant cosmology based on some sort of monism—be it Thales’s primordial water [4], Anaximene’s air [5], or Pythagoras’s numbers [1]. Although these are somewhat “natural” cosmologies as opposed to theistic origins (but this does not mean that there is not a place for a creator or creators), they are merely speculations that even Thales’s student Anaximander has labeled only as “stuff” [6]. These arguments are not “scientific” in a Popperian sense since they lack falsifiability, but they provide an important function to the early Greek philosophers: an origin of sorts, a design that allows individuals to find some sort of position in the vast universe. This was especially dear to the religious division of the Pythagoreans, the akousmatikoi—despite the fact that some of the teachings of Pythagoras, such as his white rooster superstition [7], are “unproved” [8].
The teleology of the universe is what drives religious speculation, but the Greeks also demanded justification, as per the rigor of the mathematikoi group of the Pythagoreans [9]. This justification provided was proto-scientific—for instance, Pythagoras experimented with mathematical proportions and wave vibrations and discovered the relation between harmony and number [10]. In fact, the term mathematikoi stems from mathema, meaning “study” or “learning,” and the mathematikoi applied the utmost rigor in their knowledge pursuits [9].

Once again, it must be stressed that these knowledge pursuits were religious in the end, as even the mathematikoi searched for further examples of their maxims regarding “the One” and “numbers consisting the universe” [11], but it is clear that there is a fundamental relationship between science and religion that cannot be severed to create separate disciplines in early Greek philosophy—religion provides a motivation for science, as science explains religion. Even though mixing these two disciplines in contemporary discourse is nothing short of controversial (cf. “Creation ‘Science’” and “Quantum Mysticism”), there is an eloquence in early Greek philosophy that stems from this combined pursuit of truth.

References
[1] Attributed to Pythagoras, quoted in Aristotle’s Metaphysics in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[2] Attributed to Anaximenes, quoted by Aetius in pg 12 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[3] Quoted by Aetius in pg 11 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[4] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 9
[5] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 12
[6] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 10
[7] Quoted by Aristotle in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[8] Quoted by Iamblichus in pg 17 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[9] Cohen et al. Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 15
[10] Quoted by Stobaeus in pg 20 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy
[11] Quoted by Aristotle in pg 18 of Cohen’s Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy

Text: Cohen, Curd, and Reeve (Eds). Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy. 3rd Ed. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc, 2005.

Deconstructing Sappho

Okay, so for my HIPS (History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine) Civilization class, we must also write a weekly paper to turn in. My paper started out as a direct response to "characterize Sappho's representation of desire." Then it turned into a deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence in Sappho. So, without further ado, here is the paper of scariness:

Response 1: Desire and Presence
“The most beautiful thing,” according to Sappho, is “what you love” (Sappho, Sect 16). Throughout If Not, Winter, Sappho writes many verses on the experience of love and desire, two of the most basic experiences of the human condition. These fragments reveal a heart-breaking narrative of a lover who leaves Sappho anguished, yet Sappho beckons her lover to cherish the “beautiful times [they] had” (Sappho, Sect 94). Despite this sentimental tone, Sappho’s text reveals a rather glaring bias present in many Western works—the metaphysics of presence. The analysis of this metaphysics of presence in Sappho’s If Not, Winter shows that by advocating love, Sappho also advocates suffering.

Jacques Derrida presents the argument of the “metaphysics of presence” in his Of Grammatology as a system of metaphysics motivated by an “irrepressible desire” for a “transcendental signified,” that is, a signified (thing or idea being referred to) that any signifier (the object used to refer to the signified—words, symbols, etc.) cannot capture wholly, but is inherent in meaning regardless of signifier (Derrida, 49). This will require that the signified have a permanent presence external of any subjective experience in the form of an immutable essence. In Sappho’s text, the metaphysics of presence is obviously driven by the transcendental presence of love—Sappho establishes the omnipresence of her love by stating that there was no “holy place from which we were absent” (Sappho, sect 94) and the fact that Sappho attempts to comfort her lover by asking her to “Remember […] how we cherished you” (ibid.) clearly indicates that Sappho believes love to be a presence that is beyond the limits of time and space. In the absence of the physical presence of love, Sappho supplants the absence with memory and desire as the access to the transcendental experience of love.

Buddhist metaphysics, on the other hand, is extremely critical of both the metaphysics of presence and holding on to desire. In the “Turning the Wheel of Dharma” sermon (Dhammacakkappavattana-Sutta), Buddha introduces the Samudaya: the cause of suffering in existence is craving or desire (attributed to Buddha, see Reference 1). The very love that Sappho holds onto continues Dukkha, or suffering, as desire leads to disappointment, obsession, and overall unhappiness, especially over something that is transitory and fickle as human form (attributed to Buddha, pp 163). This continuing clinging to desire only prolongs Samsara, or the cycle of existence, which prolongs the suffering. Therefore, according to the Buddha, Sappho’s love and desire for her lover will in the end lead to renewed existence, renewed suffering, renewed presence. The Western Tradition of the metaphysics of presence, then, is one of affirming suffering and by affirming the transcendental presence of love, Sappho further intensifies pain and suffering.

Although Sappho attempts to comfort her lover by reiterating the transcendental nature of love, Sappho ironically only reiterates the suffering associated with desire and the perpetual rebirth of pain through the affirmation of presence. This shows that the Western Tradition of privileging presence is not limited to abstract philosophical treatises and ontological musings; it applies to the most emotional and irrational of human experiences as well. The juxtaposition that occurs when deconstructing the metaphysics of presence in Sappho’s text is extremely incredulous, but it illustrates the fundamental importance of primary values in any metaphysics.

References
1. Attributed to the Buddha. Dhammacakkappavattana-Sutta. Found online , Accessed 1 Oct, 2007.
2. Attributed to the Buddha. The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Trans. Yamamoto, Rev. Page. London: Nirvana Publications, 1999-2000.
3. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Trans. Spivak. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
4. Sappho. If Not, Winter. Trans. Carson. New York: Knopf, 2002.

A Dialogue Concerning Absolutely Nothing At All

me:
Hey there

Parijata:
hey you!
how's it going?

me:
I think I pissed off at least half of my HIPS class

Parijata:
oh? how did you manage that?

me:
I stated that any scientific claim has to be supported by a controlled experiment
and when my prof asked about things like Geophysics or Astronomy
I said that they are not really sciences

Parijata:
hahahahaha
ouch
what would you call them?

me:
well, a better question is why do we need to call them "scientists"?
I mean, "science" doesn't have any stake in truth, IMHO
especially considering the impossibility of knowledge a la Hume
but if I were to give them a name
"Natural Investigators"

Parijata:
well, hume is kind of full of shit, i wont go into it now, but im sure we will, a la popper

me:
hey, I like Hume
>:-I

Parijata:
i think science is the only thing with a stake in truth; what would you say has a stake in truth, then?

me:
I don't believe in truth

Parijata:
haha, okay

me:
kinda like Nietzsche

Parijata:
define truth

me:
that's the problem
what defines truth?

Parijata:
IMHO, correspondence to reality

me:
hmm...
assuming that there is an external reality, yes?

Parijata:
not necessarily, although i tend to

me:
so correspondence to reality would be like what?
synchronization of propositions to some criterion?

Parijata:
something like that, although predictive power is probably at best an indicator that we are probably on the right track

me:
hmm...
well, I think it seems you are defining truth as "consistency"
is that correct?

Parijata:
consistency... well, that is certainly a way to know that you have at least a vague idea of whats going on

me:
you are arguing that there is some sort of "essence" in truth beyond consistency?

Parijata:
what exactly do you mean by consistency?

me:
you are talking about "correspondence to reality"

Parijata:
i mean, i grant no metaphysical property to truth, if thats what you mean

me:
which implies that there are at least two sets

Parijata:
it's just what is
yeah i know

Parijata:
the set of what is, and the set of what we think there is... the former, which may or may not exist, is "truth"... the latter, which exists at least in some form in my head, is the correspondence i hope to attain... with no clue how real it actually is. again, if it's all an illusion, that is truth.

me:
I see
so... truth must be independent of the observer?

Parijata:
um, well, the truth is at a very minimum inclusive of the observer. i'm very reluctant to grant much to truth, but i do employ the scientific method of hypothesizing an external reality, and setting out to disprove that hypothesis

me:
hmm... so it seems more like a compromise... hmm
lol
I agree that science is possibly one of the more well-formulated investigations for "truths"
although these "truths" tend to be rather descriptive statements of causality...
in a natural world, that is
although, if we argue about social sciences, we can...
well
then our definition of science becomes a problem
Ah, I see
this is how social "sciences" can possibly be called science
because they are employing controlled empirical tests

Parijata:
hahahaha
yes
good times with social sci

me:
I mean, mathematical science works
sort of
mathematics is... empirical?
hold on
lemme think about this one
do you think mathematics is experiential?
I mean, it's external
but I don't know if it is necessarily experiential
I dunno
I still really really like Hume
but mathematics is a really weird area
because... the experience it provides is somewhat... inaccessible to human perception?

Parijata:
sure, hume is cool, but popper seems to defeat him
i think
the jury's still out in my mind, but when i dig that book out of storage, i'll let you know

me:
alrighty
but this issue of mathematics is really confusing

Parijata:
well, math is lies, but go ahead

me:
how exactly would we experience?
lol

Parijata:
what do you mean?

me:
how do you experience mathematical ideas?
of course, there are different schools
realists like Godel think that mathematics exist externally
intuitionists tend to think that mathematics is a human tool

Parijata:
well, godel believed in god

me:
I guess mathematics really tends to go out there...

Parijata:
minus 50 life points

me:
lol
so did most mathematicians

Parijata:
yeah, and math is lies
find me a perfect circle, anywhere

me:
I guess math is Platonic then

Parijata:
yep
therefore, lies. QED/

me:
Oh God
lol
that's too funny
but math is also empirical
somewhat
if you consider reductio ad absurdum a form of experiment
although...
don't you think it a little funny how we use math and logic, both rather "Platonic" tools, in determining and formulating empirical claims?

Parijata:
yep. it annoys the hell out of me.
i'm working on alternatives
this is why i should just be a corporate sellout. so i dont have to care

me:
wurd.
to hell with intellectualism

Parijata:
ramen
i mean, yay money

[end transcript]

The Return to the University of the Cruciatus

I have moved back in to the dorms and now I face the growing doom of second-year. I've been back for three days of classes and I already feel as if I am behind. For one thing, I have a shitload of management things to do, especially for Tai Chi Tao (of which I am the president of... because I was the only undergraduate not graduating in the past spring) and I've done things for The Triple Helix and auditioned for the a capella group Rhythm & Jews, without any idea whether or not I've gotten in (I swear that I have issues with singing, although I was surprised that my range is actually closer to counter-tenor than the baritone I thought I was... but at the same time, I wonder if my range is any good at all...)

My courses are quite burdensome this year, as I am finishing the Common Core and getting organic chemistry and general physics out of the way. If you read my previous post (about two posts ago), you will remember that my crazy Russian ex-boss is my O-Chem instructor. What's worse is that he calls me by name during class. I don't know if he hates me or not. To be very honest, it feels extremely awkward around him, because it's as if we were in a stormy relationship and I dumped him, only to find that he holds so much power over me. No, I did not date him, but watching him lecture and glancing at me the way he did made me feel as if we broke up under trying circumstances.

I've applied to a different lab that focuses instead on more theoretical science (systems biology, statistical mechanics, and network theory) rather than a more self-serving engineering discipline (microfluidics--although I would like to say that "self-serving" is not meant to be pejorative; perhaps "self-propagating" is a better term). The P. I. is a pretty cool dude (foreign again, this time French), and he was excited at the fact that I was excited at what he is excited by (unfortunately, for me, it is not men). He looked over my research interests and told me "you obviously have good taste," but since what I'm interested in is pretty much "final year graduate mathematics material," we are on hiatus as to where to fit me in the lab. However, he did tell me to reconsider going back to Russian's lab. I guess if I go back with my tail covering my genitals, it wouldn't be too horrid--I could work perhaps on a different project this time. But that's what's going on in the O-Chem front.

On the physics front, I'm having a lot of fun in my course. Although French prof will be teaching next quarter, this quarter (mechanics) is being taught by an awesome high-energy physicist. He's taking a really unconventional method in teaching us mechanics by beginning with special relativity. He claims that it is best to teach the "correct state" (special relativity) before "approximations" (Newtonian mechanics), which is quite an interesting statement. I'm of the persuasion (as a philosopher) that any scientific theory is an approximate description of a physical phenomena (a la Galileo and Laplace), but we will never be able to determine anything for sure (a la Hume). Still, it's a very interesting approach, especially since I have never learned special relativity before (what can I say? My mother was a quantum physicist and I'm technically a chemist). I'm starting to understand this now, seeing that relativity is built on playing around with reference frames. There is no such thing as absolute time or space. Of course, special relativity deals with inertial reference frames, whereas general relativity allows non-inertial reference frames, but with such a big shock to Newtonian determinism, I wonder why the scientists are vehemently opposed to relativism. It seems to me that relativity essentially captures pure empiricism and thereby invalidating any absolute measure. It seems to further support the absence, or at least the inaccessibility to "absolute truth" by value changes, such as the Lorentz time contraction factor. Of course, one could argue that this is purely an issue of perception, but at the moment, I will not divulge any further, since I obviously have to learn more to form a more sophisticated argument.

I do not have much to say about my civilizations class, which is "Science, Culture, and Society in Western Civilizaton," as it's being taken by humanities and social "science" majors as well, who do not have any notion as to what science actually is (perhaps I am at a disadvantage because I've already established a definition of science via Popper), and as I've explained in my Mansfield post, I have nothing but disdain for such people.

My social sciences class, "Self, Culture, and Society" is really awesome, as we go into political economy the first quarter (reading Smith, Marx, Weber, and Grieder), sociology and anthropology the second (Levi-Strauss, among others), and psychology the third (Freud, de Beauvoir, etc.) I have to turn in weekly critical responses, so now I will be writing out my thoughts for this week's reading in Smith (I may or may not continue to use my blog as an idea generator).

In the progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like every other
employment, the pincipal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of
citizens [...] Each individual becomes more expert in his own peculiar branch,
more work is done upon by the whole, and the quantity of science is considerably
increased by it.

-Adam Smith, The Wealth of the Nations. Book I, Chapter 1, pp 14

In the first chapter of Book I, Smith argues that the division of labor is what causes greater productivity and "greater power of labor." He presents pin creation as an example of the efficiency caused by the division of labor, stating that a group of individuals assigned a different task in the creation of each pin working together will create twelve pounds of pins a day (a pound having upwards of 4000 pins), whereas an individual alone might scarcely make even one a day (Smith 8). He then extends this analogy to "every other art and manufacture" (Smith 9). Although he does not provide any empiricial evidence for his assertion, his argument does make sense mathematically and thermodynamically speaking: given a limited amount of resources R (which would include time and effort) for each individual, an individual working alone would have to create the whole product (we will denote the amount of work to create the whole as W), while division of labor will reduce the output to a partial product (work to create the partial as P). Since W>P, (R-W)<(R-P), meaning that the individual who creates partial products will have more resources left, allowing for the creation of more partial products than the individual creating whole products. Empirical issues aside, this model that Smith presents makes sense, but only on a limited scale. The major assumption that Smith makes is the reducibility or divisibility of labor--what about irreducibility and/or complexity?

It is fair to say that in manufacturing, Smith's model can hold true, but Smith extends the division of labor to the creation of ideas (Smith 14). Although his assertion regarding a "class of thinkers" rings true to ancient and contemporary society (e.g. the intelligentsia), he claims that further specialization will somehow benefit the whole of science. In many cases, this is true--there is too much information out there for an expert virologist to also be a brilliant cosmologist, while publishing copious amounts of publications regarding Baudrillard's "non-Euclidean semiotic space of war" (although, one may argue that the last achievement is not too difficult, given the Sokal Affair and the "Postmodern Essay Generator"), but there are many examples of progress without the division of labor. Smith seems to ignore the idea of a "Renaissance Man," such as Sir Issac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, and, of course, Leonardo Da Vinci. These examples are admittedly extreme, but nonetheless present the profound effect a single individual can have on broad reaches of disciplines, whereas the names of hyper-specialized experts are not even registered.

Furthermore, continuous division of labor will also result in catastrophe, which is also demonstratable through physics and mathematics: division of labor L by any number n and also with recursive divisions by any numbers n or otherwise (m) will lead to an extremely large number D (D=n x m x l x k x j x...). This means that there are D degrees of freedom, with D becoming larger with more divisions. Thermodynamically speaking, the efficiency of a system decreases with increasing degrees of freedom due to entropy (it is useful to use Shannon's definition of information entropy: the amount of information lost in transmission). A simple example is the difference between listening to a conversation in an empty coffee shop versus listening to a conversation at the New York Stock Exchange during trading hours--self-described "intellectuals" revel in the calm ambience of a coffee shop in which they can engage in profound philosophical discussions, whereas stockbrokers on the floor will shout at each other, gesture, and only end up frustrated and tear their hair out. Similarly, with complex organizations like the United States Federal Government, efficiency is further limited by the large amount of projects it oversees and limited budgets will in the end restrict the overall progress of the organization. Of course, Smith provides a solution in Book IV Chapter III (competition), but the basis of his oevre is on the division of labor and since his foundation is shaky, his entire theory may be subject to criticism.

To conclude, Smith's model of division of labor applies only to the examples he has described in manufacturing. However, his attempts to extend this to other spheres, such as the technological or the intellectual arena, is easily rebutted. Perhaps Smith's description of the importance of the division of labor is incomplete--maybe there is a "golden mean" to the division of labor, but in any case this issue points to a flaw in Smith's model.