One name, different minds

I once saw an intriguing statement that your body atoms change completely every 5 years. I was interested in it and googled for more specific information. It turned out that in just 16 days, around 72% of our body will be replaced, since 72% of our body by weight is liquid water -- H2O. Almost all of the water is renewed every 16 days. Other atoms of different organs take various time. Go here for more interesting fact about atom exchange in your body.

This data, seemingly based on urban legend, was pointed out in a landmark paper and led to a stunning conclusion that every atom in your body will be replaced every year. It evokes a philosophic question that If every atom in our body is replaced each year, who are we if we are not our atoms and we are not our cells?

It is common to argue that as long as your mind, or your soul remains the be you, it doesn't matter that your body is renewed, especially when everything functions the same as it did. However, the presupposition of this assertion is the constant of your mind. It is possible that your worldview and morality remain the same, but things in your brains like information, logic, way of thinking, emotion would have undergone radical transformation every year.

This is especially true for students in middle school who are growing rapidly in terms of knowledge, emotion,  even morality and worldview. It is not exaggerating that they become different people in a year in the most blooming time.

I can not really understand my thoughts and feelings few years ago. Not only because I have a different point of view, but also I don't particularly remember the old days. If I could talk to younger me, we would probably quarrel with each other. I do things that he would find it immoral, while I think he was stupid.

It is true that what I did in the past had a huge influence on me today. My past experience would somehow effect my current thoughts, and my old belief led to decision that formed my life today. Nonetheless, I believe that we are correlated but different. This is how I feel every time I recall my past. It feels like my life is composed of different but kind of similar people who share the same name.

If so, it is important to keep diary, in order to compare different me in different time so that I can know how I become who I am now.

A funny thing for this: sometimes it feels like I have only lived for a year, since my past was lived out by another me who just left a piece of vague memory in my mind.

Why do I hope my friend fail when I fail

When my friend gets an F on a test, I feel bad for him; when my friend gets first place, I feel even worse. This is what Rancho learns from his human behavior class after a test in the movie 3 Idiots, one of my favorite films. What Rancho learns is almost true for me. Sometimes, when I get a bad score on a test, I cannot control to wish that my classmates will get a bad score too. So why does this thought happen to me or even most people.

To explain it, there are three premises we need to know first: 

1. Most people has the motivation to compare themselves to others, in order to gain accurate self-evaluation. (Social comparison theory)
2. Most people has the need to maintain self-esteem by working to perceive themselves positively. (Self-enhancement)
3. People are inclined to use information to arrive at casual explanations for events. (Attribution theory)

When I get an F on a test in calculus class, I will first find out how my friends do on the same test because I want to know if I suck at calculus or the test is too difficult. (Self-evaluation) Because I have already failed my test, the motive to feel good about myself is even stronger. (Self-enhancement) Therefore it is inevitable that I hope everybody gets a bad score on the test, so that I can conclude that the test is too difficult for us and it is not my fault. (Attribution)

On the other hand, if my friend comes to show me that he or she gets an A on the test, my mind will automatically realizes that I get an F because I SUCK. This feeling is terrible, because the need to feel good about myself is not fulfilled. At this point, I will probably be overwhelmed by various negative emotions, such as depression and jealousy. At this point, I will automatically hope that my friend will fail his or her test in another class.

According to Leon Festinger, people will compare with others who are similar to one’s opinions and abilities, because it ensures the accuracy of evaluation. Festiger uses a chess novice who won’t compare himself or herself to a chess master as an example. That’s why sometimes instead of being jealous, I find it admirable that my friend gets the first place in a pencil drawing competition, because I know nothing about drawing.

This is just a simple explanation for what confuses me. Thank you for reading.

Pride

In 1984, Thatcher government decided to shut down 20 coal mines with the loss of over 20000 jobs. Strike led by the National Union of Mine began following the revelation. Pride is a movie about the story between two special groups of people, homosexuals and miners during the longest miner strike happened in UK. Homosexuals at that time faced pressure and bias from the society and government, though in 1984 government shifted their focus on miners due to the strike. Mark is a gay who came out an idea to create an organization named LGSM to help miners. At first the team only contained no more than 10 people. They called the national union which ignored them, so they decided to bypass the union by helping a mining town in Wales picked randomly. The first contact was embarrassing. People in town are prejudiced against homosexuals, and some refused their donation. However, as LGSM gradually brought some change to the town, the bias against them started to fade away. They made a huge change to the life of people in town, though they faced many problems.

I am a little bit amazed by Mark who led the team to do many things seemingly small but hard to achieve by a normal man. I saw how people gave an inspiring speech in front of people who were once alert and defensive without preparation. I realize the importance of cheering any people in any situation at any time by giving an amazing speech.

The process to ask for donation was also a hardship because of their special identity as homosexual. People called them perverts and even threatened them. There are two scenes in the movie so awesome that I hope I can do it one day. The first one happened in the town when people and members of the organization were eating and celebrating. Suddenly, Mark who looked thoughtful stood up and burst out his feeling and promise for the miners. 

Another scene happened in the gay bar where a miner gave a speech to express his gratitude to homosexuals in the bar. People were vigilant against the miner due to the social prejudice against homosexuals. However, the miner gave a normal speech that was humorous and sincere, which mitigate the tension between them. These impromptu speeches were affecting, therefore I want to learn to give a normal but great speech.

Despite of people’s disgust against them, they raised a lot of many money by standing in front of their gay book store yelling “Gay and Lesbian support the miners”, holding a concert to raise money, and sticking their special post everywhere to let everybody know about them.

I dreamed of becoming wealthy and famous in the future, because everybody wanted to do it. I worked so hard on Math, because everybody spent a lot of time on it. I chose my future university according to the ranking of US News, because everybody believes in it. I am proud of what I did, but nothing belongs to me. My sense of superiority simply derives from being part of the majority.

That’s why I have always been embarrassed of doing or being something different from people around me. But in the movie Pride, even those who face most bias from the world are brave enough to stand up for themselves and change the world. The meaning of pride is to be proud of being yourself, because both your “flaws” and “virtues” are unique. I am still trying to understand the meaning of being proud…

What is the color of the dress

Recently, there is a photo of a dress so widespread on internet that I can see people talk about it on Chinese internet.

(Here is the original site of the dress)

The funny thing about it is that some people see blue and black from the dress, while others see white and gold. So what color is it exactly?

Let's talk about the real color of it by standard definition. Here is a photo that shows the real color of this dress, thanks to Jesse Alford II who shows us how to use Photoshop to find out the true color of the picture in his blog.

However, truth is only based on how we perceive the world through our senses. In the movie The Matrix, seemingly living in a normal and modern world, human beings are enslaved by artificial intelligence who feeds neural simulation of reality to brains. This reminds me of a philosophy problem named brain in a vat which raises a question: how can you be sure that you are not a brain in a vat, and the reality you perceive is not a computer simulation created by a mad scientist?

The point is that our brain is easily credulous. Look at this photo and you know what I mean:


This famous picture is known as checker shadow illusion, in which square A is exactly the same as square B. Look at here if you are interested in its explanation.

There are some guys trying to learn how people perceive the dress, and they give a test to collect data on the phenomena. You can see how you compare to others in the end of the test. Here is the result I got on March 6:

Though the specific reason for why people perceive different color from the dress remains unknown, it reminds me that maybe there is no truth in the world, but only the virtual reality simulation that runs on the brain.

I would like to end up this blog with the following cool dialogue from The Matrix:

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. 
Neo: What truth? 
Spoon boy: There is no spoon. 
Neo: There is no spoon? 
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Thank you for reading. Please tell me what color of the dress you see in comment, since I wonder whether seeing gold and white is rarer.