THE TOYOTA GT86

Enough said! Forget about the Porsche and get this car.

"42"

 
 
In the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams, an enormous supercomputer took 7.5 million years to calculate the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.  The puzzling answer was "42"! 

If you ask your friends, your family members, your colleagues or even a passer-by on the street, the answer to this "ultimate question" can be highly variable. Some may say the answer lies in having lots of money, diamonds, Ferraris, Patek Philippes, big bungalows and such.  Some will swear it's to eat, drink and be merry. Some find the answer in God or religion.  The social types will list world peace, democracy, equality and freedom from poverty and hunger as their ultimate answers.  Yet others of a New Age temperament may cite contentment, inner peace and self-fulfilment.

The curious thing is that few people will ask themselves what the question was that they were answering. What actually is this "Ultimate Question".  Granted that the answer was "42", Douglas Adams himself wondered what was the question and in his book, a planet-sized computer using organic components was set up to find this elusive "Ultimate Question".  He named this computer "Earth"!

Implicitly, Adams seems to be telling us that earthly life and human existence are all about the search for meaning. It is to make sense of our finite life-span and our short appearance in this whole vastness of space and time. In short, the "ultimate question" is about what's the most important thing in existence. So, after a hundred thousand years, are we closer to uncovering the "ultimate question"?

What's the meaning of life and existence?  How should we live? Is trusting God all we need to do?  Is life a process of perfecting humanity.  Is love the unifying force of the Universe?

Whatever the question, if the answer to it is still "42", it implies that the Universe is an indifferent place with no clear meaning.  If we are string theory physicists, we may conjecture that our Universe is merely Universe No. 42 in a sea of parallel universes, each not aware of the existence of all the others.  In such infinite vastness, it seems silly to even think about such small questions of our life, our own universe and our everything.

Perhaps, all our philosophers, thinkers and spiritualists should drop all delusions of grandeur and return to the position of the existentialist; that of inventing meaning for each of our lives in our own way, however small and insignificant.

THE REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Science

The process of science starts with an observation.  From this, a hypothesis is made as a general statement about the observation. Experimentation and further observations are made to determine whether the evidence contradict the hypothesis or not.  If not, it stands pending further testing and evidence.  Meanwhile, a logical reason or mechanism is offered to explain why the hypothesis is true.  This is called a theory.  The theory will help mankind to better understand the universe and create useful applications. If minor contradicting evidence is later found, the theory may be modified.  But, if major inconsistencies are found, the theory or the hypothesis. or both, may have to be abandoned.  The longer the theory stands, the closer it is to being an established fact; but it is always subjected to change depending on future evidence.  Scientific facts are defined by their tentative nature.  

Science is guided by two underlying principles: probabilistic induction and falsifiability. Simplistically, probabilistic inductive logic implies that if the same result is repeatedly obtained during experimentation under the same conditions, that result is likely to be a real one.  And, if a scientific hypothesis or theory cannot hitherto been proven wrong; that is, there is a lack of falsification, then it stands. 

Religion

Religious beliefs, on the other hand, are borne from absolute and unalterable ideas. Oftentimes, by the nature of the claims made, religious ideas are not amenable to proof or disproof, but consist of bald and permanent statements. It does not need any evidence to back their claims.  If contradicting evidence arise, they can be ignored.  In fact, it is considered laudable to persist in such beliefs in spite of the lack of supportive evidence or in the face of contrary evidence. Such persistence is sometimes encouraged as a sign of strength in religious faith.  

In religion, the guiding principles are that of faith, to ensure belief and adherence; and obedience, lest one risks entailing some kind of penalty, be it bad Karma or a passage to Hell.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, science is the human quest for truth; religions are various efforts to subdue the fears and anxieties of mortality by submitting to the comfort of ready-made doctrines. 

From the foregoing, science and religion seem to be poles apart and it appears difficult to reconcile their differences.  Attempts to heal this apparent conflict culminated in Stephen Jay Gould's idea of NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria).  NOMA divides the magisterium of science which occupies the empirical realm of facts and theory; from the magisterium of religion which provides the answers to the questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria are said to never overlap.

Yet, in everyday life, we know that the concerns of science and religion do intersect but often at a less than friendly angle.  The statement: "God does not exist" is a scientific hypothesis because it is falsifiable. As soon as God appears or is proven to exist, that statement will be falsified.  This is the implicit statement of science about God.

Religion's God statement is: "God exists!"  True to form, God's existence cannot be disproved because you cannot prove a negative: that God does not exist.  This statement is therefore not falsifiable and does not qualify as a hypothesis.  

And so, the chasm between science and religion remains.

BRUCE LEE REVISITED - MY TRUE HERO

In celebration of the Year of the Dragon 2012, this documentary movie was released to pay tribute to the dragon himself - Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee is my hero for the following reasons:

1. He did not only want to be just good in his craft, he wanted to be the best; and he was willing to work his pants off to achieve that.

2. He was often the spokesman and fighter for the weak and the downtrodden.

3. He always used his brains first.  He would not fight you unless your provocations left him no choice.  He was also an original philosophical thinker in his own right.

4. If there ever was an innovator, he was the one. He did not believe in fixed fighting styles. He invented his own moves and was willing to learn from others while thinking all the time how his moves could be improved and adapted to actual fight situations.

5. In our present flap over racism and bigotry world-wide, we will do well looking up to him.  Although he was a Chinese in America, he was full of self-confidence and had high esteem for his own culture. Yet, he was open to teaching this martial arts to students of every stripe as long as they were willing to learn.