A year changes a lot, doesn't it? My boundless sarcasm has been tempered by a more mature sensitivity, the cruder humor that my class and I used to possess has been gradually ground down to sophisticated wisecracks, and the virtue of brutal honesty that was present in all of us has been eradicated now that we are in a school where there is actually an opposite gender present to offend. So this blog will instead be a collection of my calm, peaceful philosophical musings on the going ons of life and the bigger picture.
Yeah, and I just got full marks on my Math Class Test.
WHO the FISH am I KIDDING? Some things never change.
Today Aasaw will muse about aspects of philosophy. Sounds positively scintillating, doesn't it? Of course it is.
I've been doing a little subject called KI in Jc thus far. It has affected me in many profound ways. Some of them are actually positive. But anyway, it's an interesting subject, but there are many common misconceptions about it. Let us now list some of these misconceptions and attempt to evalutate them.
1) All students in KI are wonderfully proficient in English
This is of course absolutely true. We are linguistically superior. This of course means that half of what we speak will seem like contrived gibberish that will at best earn kindly looks and offers of professional help, at worst a knuckle sandwich followed by a trip to the hospital where the physically incapacitated student would be listed as 'John Doe' in the dossier because no one would care enough to pay. We would of course also lose all hope of becoming fully functioning, er, any sort of functioning member of society. Sad.
On a more serious note, this is quite a serious misconception. We do not all PWNZORZ at English. As one of my fellow students, known only as my Yu pian mi fen pal, so succinctly states, 'Oh my god, my English sucks lah! Why do they think we are good?' We would not neccesarily get fantastic marks for GP. Another fellow student, known only as SR!!!!!!!!! says, 'Before I joined KI, I GOT 29 ON MY GPPPPPPP ESSAY! Now I might get 27! RUIZEE!!!'
Yep, yep. And my most unshakable counterargument is the fact that I take the subject. Damn.
2) All we talk about is nonsensical Philosophy
Here's a definition of Philosophy from a most prestigious online website, Mirriam-Webster:
Main Entry:
phi·los·o·phy
Pronunciation:
\fə-ˈlä-s(ə-)fē\
Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural phi·los·o·phies
Etymology:
Middle English philosophie, from Anglo-French, from Latin philosophia, from Greek, from philosophos philosopher
Date:
14th century
1 a (1): all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts (2): the sciences and liberal arts exclusive of medicine, law, and theology (3): the 4-year college course of a major seminary b (1)archaic c: a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology2 a: pursuit of wisdom b: a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means c: an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs3 a: a system of concepts b: a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought
Since I have no idea what the hell that means, I'm just going to showcase a typical conversation between two KI students to show you how normal we are. Let's call one R and the other one T. Note that the two letters give no clue whatsoever about the real identities of those mentioned, so any resemblance to living characters are purely coincidental.
R: So how exactly do you know that a table is a table is a table is a table?
T: Because it has four legs and I put stuff on it? Yeaaaahhhh!
R: Then if I take this chair here and put some crap on it, like your old GP essay, then does this make it a table? Also, some tables have less than four legs, then what?
T: Hmm. Well, look at this here. This is a table because we define it so by virtue of the fact that we generally put stuff on it.
R: But if I sit on it, does it make it a chair?
T: Well, but you don't always sit on it, do you?
R: I think it's just a matter of definition. Argumentum ad defidendum, don't you think?
T: YEAHHHH. Brings to mind the black swan problem, where scientists once defined a swan not only by it's physical characteristics, but color as well! All swans used to be white, so when a black 'swan' came along, they didn't know how to classify it!
R: Anikwan masi jin li hai!
T: Oh my! Epiphany! Cogito Ergo TABLESUS!
R: How Cherniss.
T: I think it's more IMMANUEL!
R: You faggot piece of crap, how can you think it's Immanuel? It's damn Cherniss la!
T: Are you retarded? IMMANUEL FOR THE WIN! SYNTHETIC A POSTERIORI
And so on. As you can see, a perfectly comprehensible conversation spoken in plain English. No philosophy or jargon at all. No sir. Who says all we crap about is philosophy?
3) Admission Tests and Actual Tests are EXTREMELY difficult
Quite an assumption. Look at the one of the questions for one of the selection tests:
a) Are all history books biased? Substantiate.
And an excerpt of an answer:
Of course history books are biased. Biased biased biased. What a wonderful word. Why are they biased? They are written by people. People are biased. Biased biased biased. Let's look at an example. Japanese history textbooks. What the HELL is up with them? Japan wanted to save Asia? Clearly wrong, but what do I know? All knowledge is relativistic. Um, yeah. Also, Mao rocks. If Mao had managed to spread Communism through Asia, our history books would sing praises of the savior of humankind. Right? Right. So history books are biased. End of story.
Hmm.
Also, our recent class test at B201, the next class that came in after that might have taken a gander at our amazingly simple questions, and laughed at our simplistic simplicity:
KI Class Test
Start Time: 10.04 am
End Time: 11.04 am
Do all the questions.
a) Metaphysics was superior to metachemistry in being the catalyst for philosophical breakthroughs in the 20th century. Discuss. Also state the relevance of the Gettier Problem to the issue and substantiate. (8)
b) Hume's Fork and Hume's Spoon are direct contradictions of the primary ideals of metabiology. Discuss. (8)
c) Critically summarize and evaluate Harold Cherniss's "The Philosophical Economy of Ideas". (14)
Easy peasy.
Yep, the three main misconceptions about KI, all summarily disproven. And that's all for today.
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