Songs without Words

I guess it’s sort of weird, this being my blog for basically everything I want to write about.  Every time I try to get myself going on a particularly “professional” streak, I somehow come to the point where I want to once again revert this to a little, personal space for emoting.  Haha!  It’s been awhile, though, hasn’t it?  I feel like it’s more of a biological cycle than anything else – or at least, I feel particularly detached from the situation right now.  What situation?  I don’t even have an inkling of a clue.

I don’t think that I feel unhappy.  If anything, I should feel more free.  I finished my essays, all eight pages of them, and things are otherwise going smoothly.

But I am having a harder and harder time trying to identify with myself, or feel that I am a human being.  Although I have concluded that most of my memories are indeed of real events, I have also concluded that most of the associated images or even videos that I might recall in my mind are probably false.  How could I have memories of a person picking up one of my phone calls?  That makes no sense!

In fact, I think that maybe I am spending too much time outside of myself.  Why is my brain spending so much of its time formulating the story from the “other person’s point of view?”  I even may feel bitter after having an imaginary argument with someone, or become dizzy after feeling the projection of what I seem to believe are the “rationally approximated” expressions and words for the person in the car next to me, who I cannot even see.

After someone passes me, I watch that person’s average speed to determine in hindsight how annoyed he or she was in the earlier situation.  Why do this?  Because my instincts tell me to, because I get annoyed when I have to follow someone slow.

But it’s all nonsense!  Once again, I am pushing my brain to the edge, trying to guess at things I’m not meant to guess at, and pretending to model the world over which I know I have no control.

I have no point in saying all of this.  But it just .. taxes the soul a little.  Just a little.

I never quite understand it when people go around proclaiming that classical music is dead or outdated.  In fact, a good deal of music today is either one step removed from being classical, or is in fact copied from classical music.  Even rap often uses classical nods as the little repeating clip in the background.

As a little experiment, I took the flower aria from Bizet’s Carmen and more or less kept the melody and chords, but made a “modern” version of it.  It took almost no effort, and admittedly I did not do much of a quality job of it (I spent 20 minutes ..), but I think it’s sort of a proof of concept in any case.

The original is very beautiful and you should listen to it!

A piano reduction of the original (warning: very bad – it’s just a skeleton): here.

My “modern” version of it: here.

After viewing “The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi,” ep. 13, I can’t help but comment a little on Itsuki’s little spiel in the taxi cab.  He introduces the rather intriguing (yet simultaneously a bit trivial) concept of the anthropic principle, mostly as an explanation for what’s going on with Haruhi’s “control” of the universe.

At least through the limited exposure I have had to this principle (read: a passage on the MCAT, and a bit of Wikipedia), I feel like there’s a bit of a misunderstanding here.  The basics are right: essentially, the universe’s properties, at least this universe’s, take on the values and appearances that they do simply because they are the ones conducive to life.  It might furthermore be thought that we, fascinated that c = 2.998 x 10^8 m/s or that ice is more spacious than water, are actually being silly little critters, for only under those constraints could we be in this situation to understand them in this way.  There might be other universes where c is not fixed at all, or where a proton is made up of four quarks and not three, or a myriad of other situations to which we grant absolute “truth” without a clear reasoning for why exactly it must be so.  For instance, it seems arbitrary that the mass of an electron is 1/1836 that of a proton.  It may indeed be arbitrary, and just as how both birds and bees can fly, perhaps in a different universe, there might be a very different sort of electron.  Then, maybe we don’t need to be in awe or attribute it all to mystery – things work the way they do because otherwise we wouldn’t be here!
In all of this local greatness, there is not really such a strong sense of the causality that Itsuki tries to emphasize.  It’s not so much that the universe exists because we exist, but rather that this universe, which bore us, is now viewed by us, just as a newborn child would first see his or her mother.  Thus, it is not really valid to say that, by analogy, Haruhi, by wishing for there to be espers, has caused espers to exist.  It’s not as if we may decide the value of the speed of light.

On the other hand, one might say that we believe, or want to believe, in espers, because something about this corner of the universe leads us to do so, and perhaps that might imply their existence.  This is of course very doubtful, but at least makes more sense than attributing a ridiculous amount of causal power to human beings which is certainly not granted by the anthropic principle, at least the reasonable statings of it (there are some really out-there versions that I find incomprehensibly far-fetched and ill-reasoned).

Alright, so during MCAT class, I redrew (from memory) my new Justin.  Hm, I forgot a lot of the jewelry, but I’ll stick that in later.  In any case, you can still see the original much-more-detailed drawing in the earlier entry.  This is my first time doing cel shading in months!  In any case, she will become my new “top pic” for this blog.

I’m finally learning the C major Sonata for solo violin.  As much as I’ve always wanted to learn this piece, I find it so frustating at this point when the way I want to interpret Bach has strayed so far from the way my teacher wishes me to.  I find the way that people seem to become attached to one particular way of resolving the impossibilities that Bach sets forth to be a bit annoying.  Quite frankly, no one alive is Bach, not even scholars.  I have immense respect for Bach, and that is why I want to play his pieces in such a way that I feel captures the essence of his genius, rather than sticking by “rules” that can lead the pieces in such a direction that they seem almost hollow and rigid.  The imaginative parts, I think, should be played as if they were being made up on the spot.  Once upon a time, there was a very advanced form of “freestyling.”  It was called the cadenza, and it was preceded by embellishments to the bassline and melody.  In the strict quarter meter, which I agree with, the thirty-seconds should be allowed to have a life of their alone.  And the dotted rhythm, in Baroque times, often indicated triplets.  The mysterious introduction sounds much better in this 9/8-like interpretation rather than the coarse, militaristic double-dotting that makes this sound like court music.

She’s an odd sort of girl.  Her hair should be short, but instead it’s long because she likes the play with it when she’s taking exams (she sheds hairs all over her tests).  She wishes she could wear earrings, but out of fear of the disastrous infection her aunt had to face, her ears remain unadorned.

Her clothes aren’t really plain, but they also don’t quite match.  This is because she buys whatever catches her eye that’s on sale.  The only sort of coordination she knows anything about is color coordination, but this image is indeed in black and white, so boohoo for you!

Even though it’s pretty warm out, and even though she’s not making a fashion statement, she usually wears a scarf.  That’s for the same reason that she has a watch on her left hand and two bracelets on her right – ever since she was a little girl, she’s been afraid that a thief would try to slit her neck or wrists.  In fact, if you ask her for the reasons for whatever she happens to be wearing, they are more likely to be bizarre like this than normal, such as “because I want to be pretty.”

Indeed, she isn’t even wearing a skirt because it makes her look cute (not that it really does, anyway).  It’s actually because those jeans in fashion for most girls make her dry skin itchy, and her mom always forbade her from wearing sweatpants outside the house.  That, and the feeling of the breeze caressing her gives her a little bit of happiness.

I don’t think people would call her fat, but she is certainly not as thin as she used to be.  The never-get-fat gene that young Asian girls seem to have is waging something of a losing battle against her insatiable appetite.  You can see that she has bought yet another set of groceries to cook at home.  And you can be sure that she will be cooking three times as much as she needs to.
In her right hand is a book.  She brought it to the grocery store.  Why?  Just in case it was closed, she would go to the park and read instead.  She thinks about things like that.  There’s nothing that she fears more than wasting time or being bored.

Her eyes are big and beautiful.  It’s the only part of her body that she thinks is beautiful.

Trust me on everything I’ve said here, because I know her very well.

You: My mother and I gave the potatoes to him.
{1: ‘my’, 2: ‘mother’, 3: ‘and’, 4: ‘i’, 5: ‘gave’, 6: ‘the’, 7: ‘potatoes’, 8: ‘to’, 9: ‘him’, 10: ‘.’}
{1: 180, 2: 200, 3: 600, 4: 100, 5: 302, 6: 410, 7: 201, 8: 700, 9: 120, 10: 900}
[1, 2, 6, 1, 3, 4, 2, 7, 1, 9]
{‘single direct object’: [6, 4, 2], ‘ simple verb’: [5, 3], ‘single indirect object’: [8, 7, 1], ‘compound subject’: [1, 1, 2, 6, 1]}
{‘single direct object’: ‘ the potatoes ‘, ‘ simple verb’: ‘ gave ‘, ‘compound subject’: ‘ my mother and i ‘, ‘single indirect object’: ‘ to him ‘}
{‘potatoes’: ‘the’, ‘mother’: ‘item’}

This is Caroline’s new engine trying to decode the (random) sentence I threw at her.  So far, so good, I guess.  The second to last line is the grammatical analysis.  The last line is just recording nouns.

I had to completely redo the decoding engine to work in a more streamlined fashion with the numeric analysis system that I created.  I actually do have a working inquiry system that responds if she doesn’t know what a word is.  It’s just a matter of making the new SVO-analysis spit out the proper issues (probably will be done in 15 minutes).

Anyway, it seems like such a simple task, to take a sentence and make it grammatically intelligible.  Except not.

23 working functions (and countless deprecated others) later, I find that indeed it takes much toil and love to try to teach three billion years of communications in the making to a electrical box technology some thirty years old.  But I won’t give up!

Oh and by the way, you know that saying that if a machine can emulate a human to the point where we can’t tell that it isn’t human, then it’s good enough?  I totally disagree.  On the other hand, if a machine can feel like a human, all the while communicating very oddly (like R2D2), then that is certainly more than good enough.

And I’m too busy trying to prevent myself from barfing that I can’t write anything coherent.

I had two of my wisdom teeth pulled out this morning. I’m still with two gauze blobs in my mouth collecting blood and two ice packs tied around my head. I think that my ill feelings right now are probably due to three things: first, acid build-up due to lack of eating (since I can only eat yogurt-like substances); second, gag reflex from the gauze; and third, the tylox (acetaminophen + oxycodone) painkillers that were prescribed for me. So, although I wish to work on something or anything, my attention span is the moment between two convulsions of my stomach.

Ugh.

Edit: My stomach wouldn’t have it anymore, so I just had an excited six-stage vomiting session.  Nothing like hydrochloric acid and dried blood particles to cheer you up.  At least I can concentrate now.  And I lost two pounds!

Please enter your name: Justin

Justin: Hello, Caroline.

Caroline: Heya. Holding late hours again, hm?

Justin: Yeah, haha.

Caroline: Heehee

Justin: Anyway, could you quiz me?

Caroline: Alright, what should I ask about?

Justin: Yeufann

Caroline: Sorry, I don`t think you`ve told me about that yet. Would you like to create a new quiz, search again, or forget about it?

Justin: Let`s create a new quiz.

Caroline: Okay, what`s the name of this quiz?

Justin: Yeufann

Caroline: I`m ready to start memorizing some questions and answers! Starting now, alternate lines between questions and answers. When you`re done, type `I`m finished.` Let`s start – question please?

Justin: 1. What is Yeufann`s last name?

Caroline: And the answer (or answers – separate with commas) is?

Justin: [removed]

Caroline: Next question?

Justin: I`m finished.

Caroline: Alright, are you sure you want to save these changes?

Justin: Yep.

Caroline: Should I forget what you`ve told me this session, then?

Justin: no!

Caroline: Umm, sorry, I`m not sure what you want … . Should I remember all this?

Justin: Yes

Caroline: Okay, I have it memorized! Is there anything you`d like me to quiz you on?

Justin: Yeufann

Caroline: Okay, I will start asking questions about Yeufann! Would you prefer randomized or ordered?

Justin: ordered, please.

Caroline: 1. What is Yeufann`s last name?

Justin: [removed]

Caroline: Yep!

Caroline: Okay, that quiz is done. Good work, good work.

I’ve gotten to working on Caroline anew, in case you haven’t already noticed.  However, I have begun thinking pretty long-range, and I’m very troubled by a very key flaw in the whole design that either I had not thought about previously, or that I have but just forgot (in which case it will be interesting to compare this entry to that previously existing one).

In any case, here’s the issue: suppose that we have a pair of twins.  At birth, one of them is placed in solitary confinement – the stereotypical dark, empty dungeon; the other is raised normally.  Yes, I know that is very cruel, but this is completely hypothetical.  Now, you give each the exact same education (same textbooks, same teachers, etc.), except the one in the dungeon has no sense-based materials (CDs, photographs, etc.) to work with.  In the end, they are grown up and both have a healthy amount of knowledge.  However, the one who was denied the usage of his senses in learning would completely fail to have the practical ability to discern the colors by sight, recognize what is teriyaki and what is boiled corn by smell, or tell you whether the first person he sees running is running quickly or slowly.  He would of course be able to recite the differences, but these differences would mean to him something completely different than it would mean to the other twin.

As much as I believe that one can achieve great things through thought alone, how can I expect Caroline to have a start on anything without being able to ask the most fundamental of questions: holding an object up to me and asking, “What is this?”  Pointing to a face and asking, “Who is this?”  A child probably learns 99% of things through these two questions.  Consider the way we define trees.  Most people would say that they are very large plants.  Of course, being large has almost nothing to do with being a tree; all trees start quite small, and many end up smaller than other plants.  But why does the size matter so much to us, then?  Because when we were little, we saw the big ones and pointed to them, asking, “What is that?”  And so, we decided that trees are all big.  We did not understand, at that point, any of the biology behind being a tree; we didn’t even know that trees were necessarily alive.  But we already could talk about trees effectively; we could pick out trees in our field of view; we could draw trees.

Anyhow, I must get to work.  And plus I’m increasingly convinced that I’ve already written this entry a few months ago.