I spent the past week reading this book titled - Do Ilamas fall in love? by Peter Cave, a collection of 33 philosophical puzzles. I have to admit some of the short stories are beyond my comprehension, but this particular one struck me the most. Which talked about the idea of democracy based on Plato's ship analogy (since GE is around the corner). I will briefly explain the puzzle here based on my own understanding.

(*disclaimer - I may interpret the original story differently from the original so read it at your own discretion).

When we are sick, we will want to see a doctor. If we have a locked door, we seek help from a locksmith. So if we want to look for a leader to run a country, who do we look for?

The previous two examples illustrated that we tend to look for the expert to solve our problems. A doctor has enough domain knowledge to cure us of our diseases, a locksmith can understand the mechanics of a lock to open it. It would not be logical to ask a random person to do this, if we want a certain level of success at the job, so we seek an expert. So when we want to run a country, we want to look for someone (or a team) who has sufficient experience.

In a true democracy, the people are the decision-makers. We use majority votes to decide which bills get passed, which one does not. But here lies a problem. How do the people know which is a better option? Supposed we have high unemployment in the country. In this hypothetical country of 100 men, 50 people voted for reducing pay so that companies can create more jobs (Option A) , 40 vote for reducing the number of foreign workers in the country (Option B), 10 vote for increasing investment in R&D to create more jobs (Option C). Based on the example, option A seem to be the best solution, since most people supported it.

The problem comes from the fact that majority of the population do not have the sufficient knowledge of the consequences associated with each option. Just like Plato's analogy, a group of squabbling sailors does not have the knowledge of an expert navigator in deciding the course of travel. But if we let the expert decide everything for us, is it still a democracy?

Fortunately we have gotten past that stage. Democracies in recent times referred to the process in which the majority of the people vote for an expert to be their representative in Parliament. Thus, we get to pick the person we want, and that person has the ability to make good decisions.

I asked another question here (not in the text). If the representative thinks that option C is the best, but majority thinks A is the best, what should this leader do? Choosing A would meant that he gets the popular vote but that may not be the best solution. Chose C and he might not be the representative the next time.

I don't really have an answer to this yet. But I guess the best solution out of this is to have an educated group who is able to discern the worthiness of the candidates. Yet this is problem by itself, since it is probably equally hard to have a population that well educated enough to come up with good decisions (it would meant the demographics are homogenous).

Breaking Free

Yours is a life destined for success.
I do not belong here, in the same league as you.
My life is not calculated in cold numbers,
in artificial means,
fine-tuned to near perfection,
permutated into another successful story like yours.

I do not have the talent to be like you,
Yours being, a noble aspiration to us all.
I can only follow behind,
tracing your footsteps,
trailing an ardous path,
one which I can never catch up to.

I see a way out.
To sneak from behind,
to take away,
fame, fortune and power.
But this is not what success means to me.

I seek a different fortune,
venture a different route,
partake in a different journey.
Materialism brings no comfort to me,
neither can it fill up this void,
the one that I have been carrying.

You may see pity in my eyes,
That I am such a fool,
for not chasing in the rat-race,
that I have no purpose in life.

I have no wish to join this little game of yours.
That others have tried so hard to win,
only to realise that they are trapped within
another bigger game.

I shall step aside this time,
and watch them play.
Exhausting all their trickery,
only to be outwitted by the smartest,
the one who programmed them,
the puppet-master behind the scene.

My plans for a sojurn has begun,
degenerating my ideologies,
shedding away the many layers of myself,
deconstructing every bit of me that made
me who I am,

until I become nothing.

Then can I truly be free,
out of this pre-destined doom,
the one that had been waitng,
waiting ever since we came here.
For me,
for you,
and for everyone else.

(CP, 10.12.2006)

Reflections of a Thesis Student II

I am done, finally.

In fact, I was lost for words when I first saw the ring-bound copy of my thesis on Monday, at around 1.15pm. This journey hadn't been easy, but I managed to survive it. As to whether it is considered a good piece of work, it really depends on the examiners.

Nevertheless, I considered this my best piece of work at present, given my limited cognitive capacity. 10 years down the road, I might see more flaws in this paper, but that is something to worry in the future.

This 39-page, 9700 words essay is a cumulation of toil and tears for the past year. Many lonely nights and Saturdays accompanied this data collection period. Holidays were spent in the laboratory conducting sessions with many different kinds of students, some with a positive attitude to help, others there for a different purpose.

Yet, all this wouldn't even be possible without months of literature readings, consultations, peer discussions etc. Personally, this was probably the hardest part of the thesis journey. I took around 3-4 months before I finalized the proposal with my prof. During this period, I have lost count the number of journal articles that I have read. That in itself was already a challenge.

Then came the proper writing after everything else, and the section that weighed the most. In fact, I still feel that 100% on a final product does not truly reflect the individual's ability and effort. After all, a student may still end up getting a C if he didn't it write well, even if he spent all his time doing research and data collection.

Nevertheless, I find trouble penning down the many different articles into a coherent piece of work (and some others that I knew have this problem too). Reviews after reviews is part and parcel of thesis writing, so if you who intend to do thesis in the future, It's better to be realistic. There is a reason why papers need 1-2 years (if you are lucky) to be published in journals. The same goes for a thesis. So be prepared.

Minus away the time spent on the actual thesis (50% of the total time), the rest of the time was a mixture of nightmares and sleepless nights. Every night I wondered how I was going to survive the rest of the journey. My mind was preoccupied with thesis; at home, in lectures, in the toilet or even in my dreams. I hypothesize that this may be due to unnecessary worrying and procrastination. But trust me, it probably is true.

There will be times when you feel like giving it all up. That was the time your inner resolve is being tested. But once you survived all this , you will be a different person.

Now that everything is over, a new milestone has been achieved. It's time to look beyond that and reclaim my lost social life =)