I Think, Therefore I Am

The quote "I think, therefore I am" is Rene Descartes' famous cogito argument, and it is extremely important in epistemology. Using his own Method of Doubt, Descartes doubted everything that was provided by the fallible senses, as well as anything that could be part of a dream or an illusion created by an evil genius. This left him with one thing that he could be sure of— his existence. He reasoned that even if everything around him was an illusion, his mind must exist because otherwise he would never have been fooled. This quote is an extremely important argument in rationalism— as it is purely based on reason— and it is also relevant to solipsism. It illustrates Descartes' method of doubt, which is to doubt anything that comes from our senses or anything that could be an illusion.

Not A Priority

A lot of things have happened last month. I dropped one of my courses, I started following a new television show, and I have encountered many thought-provoking things.

However, clearly I didn't take the time to document any of these onto this blog or anywhere else. Even when I had spare time, I would always choose another activity over writing a blog post.

Why? I think one reason is my preference for thoroughness. Whenever I thought of updating the blog, I would want to make a super-long post that would outline my thoughts with great detail; I would never allow myself to write a 2-sentence blog post. But thoroughness is costly— it takes time. I have time to make a post, but obviously not enough to spend 2-3 hours in a single session. And since I do not have the habit of writing a post chunk by chunk, I just never wrote anything.

Also, I have started to think that perhaps it's not always necessary to write everything down. Why can't I just go through everything in my head?

Besides, school really is busier than last year, and also a lot more important. In my final year, almost all my marks matter, and I have to spend a lot of time and effort to prepare for tests and to go over assignments.

So unfortunately, this trend probably wouldn't change until sometime next year. Blogging isn't a priority right now.

A Few Complaints

The administrative team of my school constantly brags about how the school is one of the highest-ranked schools in the school board. However, these rankings are merely based on the scores on standardized tests, and in actuality have little to do with how "good" the school is.

This post is going to outline all the major flaws that I find with the school.

Nightmare: Snakes and Death

September 27th
This dream was a bit more mystical than the one during the night before; it's a lot harder to put it into context.

For some reason I was walking in an area with a lot of trees, with many poisonous snakes on the ground. Of course, I couldn't actually tell whether they were poisonous or not, but they had black bodies plus some weird yellow patterns on their skin, so I assumed they were. Also, these snakes were all very large. They were perhaps as thick as a person's leg.

Nightmare: Failure

September 26th
That night, I had a bad dream in which I didn't win any awards at all during graduation. I'm not sure if there was any other "major failure" in the dream, such as not getting into the university program of choice, but I remember I was absolutely devastated during that dream; I think I literally cried. This goes on to show how much it means to me for me to win an award.

But why is it so important to me? Of course, there is a practical side: this year I have actually set goals to obtain awards just so that I can have more things to put onto my resume. However, I think it's mainly about pride and a confirmation of my ability, just like how I care so much about my marks.

The Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger

I recently read the famous novel The Catcher in The Rye by J. D. Salinger, after seeing it in book stores and reading lists so frequently.

However, I really don't have much to say about this book, which is why it's five days after I finished the book and I still haven't written a post about it yet. This is probably because I don't have much connection with the narrator; we are simply two very different teenagers with different family backgrounds as well as values and concerns. Not to mention that Holden is a teen in the 1950s and lives in New York; even our societies are tremendously different.

The Asbestos Problem

This was an assignment for my economics course

Asbestos is a mineral fiber that has many wonderful properties— it's fire-resistant, flexible, and a good thermal and acoustic insulator. With these useful qualities, it became extremely popular in the early 1900's, when people used it for a variety of things, such as wall insulation, roofing tar, and fire blankets.

Unfortunately, as wonderful as asbestos may seem, it is responsible for a multitude of diseases: it has been proven that exposure to airborne asbestos can cause lung cancer and mesothelioma (a cancer of the pleura of the lung), as well as asbestosis and diffuse pleural thickening. Cancer is almost always fatal, and the other two conditions result in the difficulty in breathing— which, if not fatal, severely affects the quality of life.