There are many people, especial our elderlies and those with a habit of nurturing strong opinion, like to make subjective comments on others. Many of the comments reflect their concern and love towards us. However, many of their utterance is also mixed with subjectivity and biased views. At times these comments (a.k.a. good advice) create more negative impact than good ones in terms of one's personal psychological burden. Sometimes I have to endure many such comments which I deem lack of wisdom, or based on superficial basis. At times I wonder why many people who can't see far and deep enough care to offer (and impose) opinion on others. I learn to cope and endure these 'kepo' comments. But deep in my mind, I am wishing for wise, penetrative and heart-ouching advice which are rare but precious.
22.8.17
18.7.13
Priority misplacement in our local university
USM is entering its second phase as an APEX university. We was told from the first APEX phase to submit any proposal that could elevate the university status in terms of research output. However bulky bureaucratic procedures and the lack of information channel have not contributed in making the proposal submission by any poorly-contacted academic staff a task worth trying. At the back of this reluctance is the prototypical opinion that any suggestion will either fall into deaf ears or results in lip service responses. I think I have tried to make a few informal attempts there and then some proposals to improve the academic quality in the university, but I do not register any memory that these attempts ever bear results that make a marked difference. Overall, there has been little change in the way how business is done despite the phrase 'business unusual' was the slogan of the day since the university acquired the APEX status many years ago.
As a researcher in the school's academic team I am free to carry out my own research very freely without interruption from the university. This is taken by me as a deep blessing. The university does provide much freedom to their academics to conduct their own research. But on the other hand the university has never been actively improving the academic environment to makes the university a more conducive place for quality research. The primary root cause of the lack of conducive academic environment is structural: that bureaucrats dominate over academicians (not only in our university but in fact in all our local universities). Whenever anyone has a proposal to implement something new (e.g. a new course, a new way to handling things, a new facility, a new system ...), the first consideration by the people in charge is not to think of how to actualise such proposal. Instead their first thought will be: is this allowed by the existing rules? Such an inappropriate priority has a deep negative impact in creating a top class university and an innovative ambiance.
There is nothing wrong about obeying rules. The main issues is people are deeply mired in the lethargic thinking that we must not change the rule but to follow them. People never ask themselves this question: are not the rules created to make things work better? If these rules become counterproductive, should not they be reconsidered, modified or just discarded? No. People don't ask such question. They just follow the status quo, which is the most comforting thing to do, and also the safest.
Most often rules in the university are used as the most convenient pretext to turn down a innovative proposal. For example, can we hire a half-paid researcher and allow him/her to work as an paid researcher in another university? Not so, I suppose, even if he is the first Malaysia having the potential to win a Nobel prize. How about setting up a new course that is deemed most popular in the market? No, you can't simply do that. It takes at least half a year to go through all the necessary procedures before a new course is approved and launched. Can't we just lunch a new course in two weeks time as long as an expert has made all necessary preparation to teach the course? In principle yes, but never in reality. In some overseas universities, as long as an expert in the field wills, he can at anytime offer a new course teaching the most up-to-date findings in his field. So in this specific case, demanding a new course to fulfill all the bureaucratic procedures of getting approval is actually counterproductive. But yet people keep on insisting that fulfilling the rules is more important that delivering new knowledge. If the people in charge is proactive enough it is possible to place academic priority over bureaucratic consideration. I have not seen such thing happen yet.
Giving priority to the rules rather than real productivity has blocked the way for excellence in our local university. Somewhat pessimistically I do not expect in our life time that such bureaucratic-dominated mentality will see any sea change.
As a researcher in the school's academic team I am free to carry out my own research very freely without interruption from the university. This is taken by me as a deep blessing. The university does provide much freedom to their academics to conduct their own research. But on the other hand the university has never been actively improving the academic environment to makes the university a more conducive place for quality research. The primary root cause of the lack of conducive academic environment is structural: that bureaucrats dominate over academicians (not only in our university but in fact in all our local universities). Whenever anyone has a proposal to implement something new (e.g. a new course, a new way to handling things, a new facility, a new system ...), the first consideration by the people in charge is not to think of how to actualise such proposal. Instead their first thought will be: is this allowed by the existing rules? Such an inappropriate priority has a deep negative impact in creating a top class university and an innovative ambiance.
There is nothing wrong about obeying rules. The main issues is people are deeply mired in the lethargic thinking that we must not change the rule but to follow them. People never ask themselves this question: are not the rules created to make things work better? If these rules become counterproductive, should not they be reconsidered, modified or just discarded? No. People don't ask such question. They just follow the status quo, which is the most comforting thing to do, and also the safest.
Most often rules in the university are used as the most convenient pretext to turn down a innovative proposal. For example, can we hire a half-paid researcher and allow him/her to work as an paid researcher in another university? Not so, I suppose, even if he is the first Malaysia having the potential to win a Nobel prize. How about setting up a new course that is deemed most popular in the market? No, you can't simply do that. It takes at least half a year to go through all the necessary procedures before a new course is approved and launched. Can't we just lunch a new course in two weeks time as long as an expert has made all necessary preparation to teach the course? In principle yes, but never in reality. In some overseas universities, as long as an expert in the field wills, he can at anytime offer a new course teaching the most up-to-date findings in his field. So in this specific case, demanding a new course to fulfill all the bureaucratic procedures of getting approval is actually counterproductive. But yet people keep on insisting that fulfilling the rules is more important that delivering new knowledge. If the people in charge is proactive enough it is possible to place academic priority over bureaucratic consideration. I have not seen such thing happen yet.
Giving priority to the rules rather than real productivity has blocked the way for excellence in our local university. Somewhat pessimistically I do not expect in our life time that such bureaucratic-dominated mentality will see any sea change.
19.8.11
C.V. matters?
If you are a student who just completed your B.Sc. and intending to further your application to post graduate course in overseas, people don't expect much of you. If you have an excellent research achievement people will add points to you. Having no eye-catching accomplishment people won't deduct your points. If the professor wishes to take you while you don't have severe competition from others, your c.v. will usually be sufficient to impress him. If there is someone far more outstanding than you, your c.v. won't serve much to help also. This is the way how i see c.v. for the purpose to apply as a Master/P.hD candidature. For this purpose, it does not need you to boast or decorate your c.v.. What you have with you, just represent them on the document.
Some people are very 'good' in making 'excellent c.v'. Often it is rather a fabrication process. However skillful you are in fabricating a c.v., you can't make a stone to float on water. if you have it, you have it. If you don't you can't create one instantly on paper (assuming we all stick to the code of not cheating). People who believe that decorating a c.v. is of utmost importance are usually people from the commercial world. These poeple believe in impressing people by the look. People who believe that the quality of a c.v., irrespective of the information contained, is determined by how fancy it is presented, are superficial people who has no insight for what is essential. I often see advocacy about writing an impressive c.v. Classes are conducted and fees taken to teach people how to produce a c.v. that sells you on the market at good values. But how could you write such a highly valued c.v. if you have not any achievement to write about? It's the accomplishment of your past determines whether your c.v. is of high value or otherwise. It is not determined by the English language you used, the fancy format / font / colourful background / animation of your personal webpage that go in to that document called c.v. Having an impressive c.v. without having an excellent achievement record is a contradiction. One who claims to have an impressive c.v. without actually inheriting any real past achievements renders others to suspect him of faking his own achievement record. You would rather have a mediocre c.v. rather than having one that arouse suspecion.
Overall, what i want to say is that, there is really nothing much you can do to your c.v.. If you already have it, you will have already recorded it on the paper. My assumption is that a conscientious professor who sincerely look for students with competent academic capability will is not like those superficial people. You will get your offers if the condition favours to the happening in that direction. The wording, format, or other cosmetic ingredient in the c.v. is not really a single factor that could possibly effect your chance to be accepted. You are your achievment, but your c.v is not.
Some people are very 'good' in making 'excellent c.v'. Often it is rather a fabrication process. However skillful you are in fabricating a c.v., you can't make a stone to float on water. if you have it, you have it. If you don't you can't create one instantly on paper (assuming we all stick to the code of not cheating). People who believe that decorating a c.v. is of utmost importance are usually people from the commercial world. These poeple believe in impressing people by the look. People who believe that the quality of a c.v., irrespective of the information contained, is determined by how fancy it is presented, are superficial people who has no insight for what is essential. I often see advocacy about writing an impressive c.v. Classes are conducted and fees taken to teach people how to produce a c.v. that sells you on the market at good values. But how could you write such a highly valued c.v. if you have not any achievement to write about? It's the accomplishment of your past determines whether your c.v. is of high value or otherwise. It is not determined by the English language you used, the fancy format / font / colourful background / animation of your personal webpage that go in to that document called c.v. Having an impressive c.v. without having an excellent achievement record is a contradiction. One who claims to have an impressive c.v. without actually inheriting any real past achievements renders others to suspect him of faking his own achievement record. You would rather have a mediocre c.v. rather than having one that arouse suspecion.
Overall, what i want to say is that, there is really nothing much you can do to your c.v.. If you already have it, you will have already recorded it on the paper. My assumption is that a conscientious professor who sincerely look for students with competent academic capability will is not like those superficial people. You will get your offers if the condition favours to the happening in that direction. The wording, format, or other cosmetic ingredient in the c.v. is not really a single factor that could possibly effect your chance to be accepted. You are your achievment, but your c.v is not.
21.5.11
The general features of Science
Science is a rather restricted discipline that is omnipotent and is not suppose to be able to answer every single questions, particularly those that lies outside the domain of its scope. It is then necessary to define what science and what is the operating principle that defines science as science.
Scientific methodology defines what science is: It only treats physical phenomena that are measurable and comprehensible (GOD and consciousness are not included in this category). All physical phenomena are governed by physical laws, which are formulated in terms of physics theory or theorems. Physical laws (a Nature’s attribute) are expressed in terms of physical theories (our conceptual construct). They are formulated based on experimental observations and theoretical construction with the aid of mathematics. The theories formulated must be in principle testable so that one can be sure that they indeed correspond to the physical laws of the real world they try to describe. They must be predictive of some unknown phenomena that is then used as a check of the theory’s validity. To pass the QA procedure, a physical theory must be checked by experiment and observation before their validity is recognised. In other words, a so-called “physical theory” that fail to pass the experimental test, or that can’t even be tested in principle, can’t be qualified as a theory corresponds to our real world.
Physical laws are supposed to be UNIVERSAL: they are invariant in time and space, valid not only here and now but also elsewhere in the Universe and also in any moment in time, be it the past or the future. The laws would remain valid to whoever does the experiments, be it a Nobel prize winning physicist or a primary school teacher from Penang.
Any physical phenomenon governed by the same set of physical laws is repeatable when the same conditions pertaining to that phenomenon are satisfied. For example, when the temperature within the core of a star is larger than a specific temperature, say, 1 million degree, the hydrogen fuel within the stars will initiate nuclear fusion releasing tremendous amount of nuclear energy according to the physical laws that govern the nuclear physics of these reactions. So, any star in the Universe must do so no matter where it is located and when it existed.
For another example, if the physical laws say that ALL pure water boils at 100 degree at 1 atmospheric pressure, then every time you boil the pure water at the standard pressure it must always boil at 100 degree always, no matter when and where you boil it. Such an observation manifests that the laws governing the boiling of pure water (statistical physics and thermodynamics) is indeed universal.
A counter example: if someone claims to have produced cold nuclear fusion on a table top device using palladium, the same result should be reproducible by other people in the other end of the Universe using the necessary described condition. If it is not reproducible by many people with all the right condition it might means the break down of the universality of physical laws. However, most often this means those who made such claim gets screwed up in their experiment. They must be logically self-consistent and preserve causality. They don’t predict things in sharp contradiction, such as the time traveling. Theory that allows time traveling is necessarily a forbidden theory from logical point of view and cannot be correct because it opens up the possibility to violate causality. Hence it can’t be right to do time travel.
The physical laws are usually formulated using mathematics as a tool to penetrate into the logical structure of the theory. The employment of mathematics allows us to probe into the physical system as precise as possible and left little space for subjective interpretation. For example Newton’s law of gravity that governs the behaviour of the Earth-Moon system can very precisely tell us where the angular position of the moon, in the form of theta = (GM/r^3)t, where t is the time correspond to the angular position theta, G a constant, M the mass of the Earth (a constant) and r the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
As a related counter example, there are some kind of ‘theory’ (such as Ying-Yang, Universal Life Force Energy or reiki) doesn’t fulfill the precision and consistent criteria of such, leaving many space of subjective manipulation, resulting in non-unique and sometimes contradicting predictions. Such an unsatisfying feature in these theories is due the reason that they are not built upon any rigorous logical structure (in the mathematical sense), hence we can’t perform rigorous mathematical manipulation in them to obtain result that are logically persuasive.
Science must be falsifiable (at least in principle). This is one of the important criteria of science. One must also propose a way how his theory can be proven otherwise (example: God’s existence is an example of a theories that cannot be falsified) in order to call it a scientific theory. For example in Newton’s theory of gravity, the inertial of any mass is supposed to be independent of the type of material. Hence one can check to see if the inertia of many different objects of the same mass (say 1.00 kg) made of different material do differs. If it does that means the theory is falsified. If not then say that the theory is consistent with experimental observation. A theory that can’t be falsified even in principle can’t qualify to be a scientific theory, such as the existence of GOD).
Science has range of validity. It is valid only in the domain where it’s empirically proven to be valid. Such as classical mechanics that describe our ordinary scale world such as car collision, rocket launching and the dynamical properties of our solar system, is not valid in the quantum domain. Quantum mechanics is verified to be valid up to the scale as small as 10^(-19) m, whereas GR is valid up to the scale of as large of the size of the Universe.
Science is approximate truth; it approaches truth asymptotically. It is always ready to be supplanted by improved versions when better insight or technique or experimental data become available. Such as Newton’s theory of gravity being supplanted by GR as a generalization when dealing with cosmological structures.
Due to the very restrictive criteria imposed on scientific by its methodology, physics can only access the physical aspect of the Universe but not the non-physical things (example: soul, ‘qi’, consciousness).
Due to the employment of scientific methodology physics is very good at telling us how but not why (example). In comparison, philosophy attempts to address the question of why (but not how). Philosopher' methods are purely logical, sometimes intuitive but not empirical (Aristotle didn’t’ perform experiment in finding out if their understanding of nature fits the observation.). At times ancient natural philosophers failed to understand the natural law because not performing experiment to confirm their supposition. In this sense philosophy is not 'scientific', hence can not be directly be compared to science. These is simply an orange and apple comparison. Both addresses different aspects of our universe employing fundamentally distinct approaches.
Scientific methodology defines what science is: It only treats physical phenomena that are measurable and comprehensible (GOD and consciousness are not included in this category). All physical phenomena are governed by physical laws, which are formulated in terms of physics theory or theorems. Physical laws (a Nature’s attribute) are expressed in terms of physical theories (our conceptual construct). They are formulated based on experimental observations and theoretical construction with the aid of mathematics. The theories formulated must be in principle testable so that one can be sure that they indeed correspond to the physical laws of the real world they try to describe. They must be predictive of some unknown phenomena that is then used as a check of the theory’s validity. To pass the QA procedure, a physical theory must be checked by experiment and observation before their validity is recognised. In other words, a so-called “physical theory” that fail to pass the experimental test, or that can’t even be tested in principle, can’t be qualified as a theory corresponds to our real world.
Physical laws are supposed to be UNIVERSAL: they are invariant in time and space, valid not only here and now but also elsewhere in the Universe and also in any moment in time, be it the past or the future. The laws would remain valid to whoever does the experiments, be it a Nobel prize winning physicist or a primary school teacher from Penang.
Any physical phenomenon governed by the same set of physical laws is repeatable when the same conditions pertaining to that phenomenon are satisfied. For example, when the temperature within the core of a star is larger than a specific temperature, say, 1 million degree, the hydrogen fuel within the stars will initiate nuclear fusion releasing tremendous amount of nuclear energy according to the physical laws that govern the nuclear physics of these reactions. So, any star in the Universe must do so no matter where it is located and when it existed.
For another example, if the physical laws say that ALL pure water boils at 100 degree at 1 atmospheric pressure, then every time you boil the pure water at the standard pressure it must always boil at 100 degree always, no matter when and where you boil it. Such an observation manifests that the laws governing the boiling of pure water (statistical physics and thermodynamics) is indeed universal.
A counter example: if someone claims to have produced cold nuclear fusion on a table top device using palladium, the same result should be reproducible by other people in the other end of the Universe using the necessary described condition. If it is not reproducible by many people with all the right condition it might means the break down of the universality of physical laws. However, most often this means those who made such claim gets screwed up in their experiment. They must be logically self-consistent and preserve causality. They don’t predict things in sharp contradiction, such as the time traveling. Theory that allows time traveling is necessarily a forbidden theory from logical point of view and cannot be correct because it opens up the possibility to violate causality. Hence it can’t be right to do time travel.
The physical laws are usually formulated using mathematics as a tool to penetrate into the logical structure of the theory. The employment of mathematics allows us to probe into the physical system as precise as possible and left little space for subjective interpretation. For example Newton’s law of gravity that governs the behaviour of the Earth-Moon system can very precisely tell us where the angular position of the moon, in the form of theta = (GM/r^3)t, where t is the time correspond to the angular position theta, G a constant, M the mass of the Earth (a constant) and r the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
As a related counter example, there are some kind of ‘theory’ (such as Ying-Yang, Universal Life Force Energy or reiki) doesn’t fulfill the precision and consistent criteria of such, leaving many space of subjective manipulation, resulting in non-unique and sometimes contradicting predictions. Such an unsatisfying feature in these theories is due the reason that they are not built upon any rigorous logical structure (in the mathematical sense), hence we can’t perform rigorous mathematical manipulation in them to obtain result that are logically persuasive.
Science must be falsifiable (at least in principle). This is one of the important criteria of science. One must also propose a way how his theory can be proven otherwise (example: God’s existence is an example of a theories that cannot be falsified) in order to call it a scientific theory. For example in Newton’s theory of gravity, the inertial of any mass is supposed to be independent of the type of material. Hence one can check to see if the inertia of many different objects of the same mass (say 1.00 kg) made of different material do differs. If it does that means the theory is falsified. If not then say that the theory is consistent with experimental observation. A theory that can’t be falsified even in principle can’t qualify to be a scientific theory, such as the existence of GOD).
Science has range of validity. It is valid only in the domain where it’s empirically proven to be valid. Such as classical mechanics that describe our ordinary scale world such as car collision, rocket launching and the dynamical properties of our solar system, is not valid in the quantum domain. Quantum mechanics is verified to be valid up to the scale as small as 10^(-19) m, whereas GR is valid up to the scale of as large of the size of the Universe.
Science is approximate truth; it approaches truth asymptotically. It is always ready to be supplanted by improved versions when better insight or technique or experimental data become available. Such as Newton’s theory of gravity being supplanted by GR as a generalization when dealing with cosmological structures.
Due to the very restrictive criteria imposed on scientific by its methodology, physics can only access the physical aspect of the Universe but not the non-physical things (example: soul, ‘qi’, consciousness).
Due to the employment of scientific methodology physics is very good at telling us how but not why (example). In comparison, philosophy attempts to address the question of why (but not how). Philosopher' methods are purely logical, sometimes intuitive but not empirical (Aristotle didn’t’ perform experiment in finding out if their understanding of nature fits the observation.). At times ancient natural philosophers failed to understand the natural law because not performing experiment to confirm their supposition. In this sense philosophy is not 'scientific', hence can not be directly be compared to science. These is simply an orange and apple comparison. Both addresses different aspects of our universe employing fundamentally distinct approaches.
The Universe
We live in a fascinating Universe. There are things we can see with our naked eye. There are also things we can’t see with our naked eye. Scientific equipments, such as telescope, infrared detector, microscope and particle accelerator are employed as an effective means to assist us to probe the worlds lying beyond our naked eyes.
To appreciate the scale of the Universe we are living in, let’s take a look at some pictures that illustrate the sizes of things in the hierarchy of their associated scales.
Scale of things from human size ascending by a factor of 1000 times can be pictured as followed:
A human’s size -> A city’s size -> continent’s size -> Earth size -> Moon’s orbit around the Earth -> Earth-Sun orbit -> Solar system -> Milky way -> cluster of galaxy.
In the descending order, shrinking by a factor of 1000 times:
A human size -> hair -> cell -> cell organel -> DNA molecule -> atoms -> nucleus -> nucleon -> quarks -> ???.
It is amazing that human being could understand the principles and laws that govern the worlds with sizes spanning such a huge range, or order 10^(-19) m – 10^(36) m.
This is mainly due to the ability to probe these structures using equipped that goes beyond our naked eye. Due to the lack of such equipments the Greeks and olden day scientists are hampered in their endeavour to understand the nature of things larger or smaller accessible by their naked eyes are very much hindered.
Since we are talking about the Universe, then what is the definition of the Universe? One of the simplest definitions is: Everything is inside the Universe. Alternatively: nothing can exist outside the Universe.
Roughly, Universe has two aspects: The physical aspect, i.e. matter, energy and interactions, and the non physical aspect, e.g. consciousness and spirituality. Since science can only access things or phenomena that has physical attributes, it can only provide answer to questions pertaining to the physical aspect of the Universe, such as how stars evolve, what are matter made of and how things behave under certain interactions. On the other hand, science can’t answer questions to things or phenomena that can’t be physically accessible, such as the existence of ‘qi’, the existence of GOD or ‘biological field’ that do not manifest themselves physically. If heaven is not accessible to us by any physical means (such as it exist in another dimension that has not any physical interactions with us) then there is no way we can understand them with our scientific methodology. Another example: consciousness can’t be quantified or be measured with any empirical means, hence it doesn’t belong to the convention domain of science.
So, science’s is a rather restricted discipline that is omnipotent and is not suppose to be able to answer every single questions, particularly those that lies outside the domain of its scope.
To appreciate the scale of the Universe we are living in, let’s take a look at some pictures that illustrate the sizes of things in the hierarchy of their associated scales.
Scale of things from human size ascending by a factor of 1000 times can be pictured as followed:
A human’s size -> A city’s size -> continent’s size -> Earth size -> Moon’s orbit around the Earth -> Earth-Sun orbit -> Solar system -> Milky way -> cluster of galaxy.
In the descending order, shrinking by a factor of 1000 times:
A human size -> hair -> cell -> cell organel -> DNA molecule -> atoms -> nucleus -> nucleon -> quarks -> ???.
It is amazing that human being could understand the principles and laws that govern the worlds with sizes spanning such a huge range, or order 10^(-19) m – 10^(36) m.
This is mainly due to the ability to probe these structures using equipped that goes beyond our naked eye. Due to the lack of such equipments the Greeks and olden day scientists are hampered in their endeavour to understand the nature of things larger or smaller accessible by their naked eyes are very much hindered.
Since we are talking about the Universe, then what is the definition of the Universe? One of the simplest definitions is: Everything is inside the Universe. Alternatively: nothing can exist outside the Universe.
Roughly, Universe has two aspects: The physical aspect, i.e. matter, energy and interactions, and the non physical aspect, e.g. consciousness and spirituality. Since science can only access things or phenomena that has physical attributes, it can only provide answer to questions pertaining to the physical aspect of the Universe, such as how stars evolve, what are matter made of and how things behave under certain interactions. On the other hand, science can’t answer questions to things or phenomena that can’t be physically accessible, such as the existence of ‘qi’, the existence of GOD or ‘biological field’ that do not manifest themselves physically. If heaven is not accessible to us by any physical means (such as it exist in another dimension that has not any physical interactions with us) then there is no way we can understand them with our scientific methodology. Another example: consciousness can’t be quantified or be measured with any empirical means, hence it doesn’t belong to the convention domain of science.
So, science’s is a rather restricted discipline that is omnipotent and is not suppose to be able to answer every single questions, particularly those that lies outside the domain of its scope.
3.12.09
The spoil of our highly successful education system
Very few students in my physics class dare to express their thought openly, even in the online forum. It is indeed a very curious fact that, in general, our university students are effectively dump and disappointingly obedient. One who thinks intensively will manifest their mental activities by having much to express. The muteness of our APEX university students must to a certain extent reflects the lack of brain activities going on between their ears. Even if some do have the residue intellectual resource to think, they will dare not opine either in the class room nor privately to their lecturers. Our obediently mute young generation is the spoil of our highly 'successful' education system which produces only high quantity of canned products that excel in nothing but following instructions. Bravo.
There are, however, surprises once a blue moon where some not-so-obedient rare breed turn vocal and make public (mostly via the online open forum) or private complains (usually via email and sms text) about my teaching and my style of teaching. But mostly I live a much trouble-free and peaceful life, thanks to our successful education system and the tradition of authoritarianism among the university lecturers, with approximately zero person-time making `trouble' by voicing out their opinions or querying me during lectures.
As a matter of principle I am always glad to know whenever a student dares to voice out his grumble openly against the apparently silent background. For example, at times I got stuck when performing calculation on the board or making confusing statements during the lectures. What I got as a feed back from the audience is usually indifference, despite constant reminders given to the class to raise questions. Once there was an apparently annoyed student in an online open forum complained he/she is confused by my erratic teaching style. I was made pleased by this complain as finally someone dares to stand out to tell me what they think. As a matter of appreciation for his/her bold attempt I response instantaneously on the forum that “i invite u and the whole class to contribute to our collaboration in this process of mutual learning. this would be a more constructive way to rectify the matter then merely complaining about the confusion i have aroused”. However, such occasion, in which our pampered university students voice out their thought concerning the way a lecturer conduct his lecture is so rare that I can recall it with vivid clarity. As an illustrative gestimate, my experience as a lecturer in the only APEX university in Malaysia shows that on average I hear less than ~ 0.1kB equivalent of statements or questions raised by all the students in the lecture hall per semester.
My constant observation leads me to conclude that our 'highly successful' education system has produce high quality canned-like students who can `learn' only if they get spoon fed. This is a mentally challenged generation who easily lost their way when challenged by any question slightly different from the model answers they memorised for exam. They are like some one who is used to wear only 'Bata' sport shoe daily but turns out to be too scared of making any step when the shoe is changed from Bata to Nike. They get stuck when being asked exactly the same question presented in a slightly varied way.
As it is happening in most of the cases in our university education, genuine academic learning seldom takes place, only blind memorisation. Students may score high marks by answering all those closed-ended problems from lecture notes perfectly. But seldom they have the minimum capacity to explain the simple reasoning behind them. Well, many lectures are to be blamed as well because their mentality and teaching styles are just the university version of the secondary school spoon-feeding system.
Imagine the scenario where all of the APEX university students can only answers closed-ended questions. Further imagine the scenario where all of them score full A's and graduated with first class honours because they all can answer perfectly these closed-ended questions during the exams. And they are our only 'cream' of the Malaysian society. That makes year 2012 to arrive sooner at Malaysia than the Mayans have predicted.
There are, however, surprises once a blue moon where some not-so-obedient rare breed turn vocal and make public (mostly via the online open forum) or private complains (usually via email and sms text) about my teaching and my style of teaching. But mostly I live a much trouble-free and peaceful life, thanks to our successful education system and the tradition of authoritarianism among the university lecturers, with approximately zero person-time making `trouble' by voicing out their opinions or querying me during lectures.
As a matter of principle I am always glad to know whenever a student dares to voice out his grumble openly against the apparently silent background. For example, at times I got stuck when performing calculation on the board or making confusing statements during the lectures. What I got as a feed back from the audience is usually indifference, despite constant reminders given to the class to raise questions. Once there was an apparently annoyed student in an online open forum complained he/she is confused by my erratic teaching style. I was made pleased by this complain as finally someone dares to stand out to tell me what they think. As a matter of appreciation for his/her bold attempt I response instantaneously on the forum that “i invite u and the whole class to contribute to our collaboration in this process of mutual learning. this would be a more constructive way to rectify the matter then merely complaining about the confusion i have aroused”. However, such occasion, in which our pampered university students voice out their thought concerning the way a lecturer conduct his lecture is so rare that I can recall it with vivid clarity. As an illustrative gestimate, my experience as a lecturer in the only APEX university in Malaysia shows that on average I hear less than ~ 0.1kB equivalent of statements or questions raised by all the students in the lecture hall per semester.
My constant observation leads me to conclude that our 'highly successful' education system has produce high quality canned-like students who can `learn' only if they get spoon fed. This is a mentally challenged generation who easily lost their way when challenged by any question slightly different from the model answers they memorised for exam. They are like some one who is used to wear only 'Bata' sport shoe daily but turns out to be too scared of making any step when the shoe is changed from Bata to Nike. They get stuck when being asked exactly the same question presented in a slightly varied way.
As it is happening in most of the cases in our university education, genuine academic learning seldom takes place, only blind memorisation. Students may score high marks by answering all those closed-ended problems from lecture notes perfectly. But seldom they have the minimum capacity to explain the simple reasoning behind them. Well, many lectures are to be blamed as well because their mentality and teaching styles are just the university version of the secondary school spoon-feeding system.
Imagine the scenario where all of the APEX university students can only answers closed-ended questions. Further imagine the scenario where all of them score full A's and graduated with first class honours because they all can answer perfectly these closed-ended questions during the exams. And they are our only 'cream' of the Malaysian society. That makes year 2012 to arrive sooner at Malaysia than the Mayans have predicted.
29.11.09
If i were to have children
We (I am referring to people of around my age) all gone thru different kind of 'early education' experience ourselves. It's good to share it out so that the skill and knowledge we learn from our real life experience can be applied to our next generation, to the children in particular.
We see frequently that there are many different kind of people having different abilities in learning, e.g. an animal … sorry, an animal doctor friend of mine, Cheow Kong, has a photographic memory that he can remember all the jargon in biological textbooks and all the names that he comes across, Someone else like BoX HooX (X = a, b,...z) , another friend has (as legend has it) 'phonographic memory' that he can recall all the details of naked ladies he has come across. for my case personally i don't recall names in detail, but i tend to only grasp the major ideas. remembering name's detail can be helpful when dealing with problem solving issues in commercial line or during exam, e.g., u can impress your boss or customers with all the minor details when doing a presentation or brokering a deal. but this does not guarantee u to solve the problem at their hearts. recalling names or minor detail is more related to things that has to be handled with immediate action, e.g. in exam or in face-to-face dealing with customers or bosses. but some people over do it until they think pure memorisation of such kind of naming details are everything, so much so that they miss the point of understanding the whole picture or the core of the problem. so, if u can't recall all the details, u don't need to take it as a major disadvantage. the advantage that one gains by able to memorise all the name and details aren't that great, despite they can be helpful to a certain extent. for many serious problem solving tasks, the ability to think, reason, to make logical manipulation and being creative are far more essential. u call call up the names and minor technical details anytime 'at a click away', anyway. i read an interesting article in newsweek sometimes ago, reporting the complain of an english professor in a book that youngsters these day has nothing in their minds, and they cant spell correctly, or recall some essential names and common knowledge that everyone are supposed to know in say, 20 years ago. however, the writer of that article argued that the english professor has not taken into account the other side of the story properly. the youngsters may has less memorised knowledge in their brain, or spell words correctly, however, they have developed an even more powerful skill that old generation does not possess: the youngsters these day are much more skillful in finding and organise new information that was previously unknown to them with the knowledge in IT they acquire. in this sense the youngster's power is even greater than the old generation. Old generation, while emphasises on gathering knowledge into their brains, the y-generation prefers to keep these knowledge in the net and 'retrieve' them in the event they need them. Can u see the difference btw these two generations' way towards the way of how to handle 'knowledge'? in a way the y-generation way is more powerful than the old generation's bcos the y-generation can retrieve, in principle, infinite amount of info required, whereas old generation relies too much on the knowledge in their heads. the main difference here is the skill to acquired the required knowledge when needed (e.g use spell check tool while typing with computer). in other words, the y-generation trades the accumulation of knowledge with the ability to retrieve these knowledge from external sources (a.k.a. internet/computer). Well, the above argument on the y-generation may apply only in the context of the western societies, since the article i read was in Newsweek. I doubt that the y-generation in our society, particularly our university students, has developed such kind of information search skill apart from online-gaming/frenstering/face-booking/twittering.
Objectively speaking, i would say one must accumulate knowledge as the old generation does, and at the same time master the skill to retrieve information externally. to me 'retrieval' of information yourself is a very essential skill, which many people, primarily the local university students are lacking. e.g. when someone don't know how to build a webpage, he ought to know how to get the right answer by searching the internet or the right references. these is the kind of skill we all have developed along our career. one of the most important soft skill any student shud acquire is how to search info him/herself correctly. most of the time this kind of skill is just a matter of common sense, but to many, such command sense does not even occur to them, thanks to our spoon-feeding education system and over-caring parents.
if i were to have children, i certainly will do the following: To encourage them to read as much as possible. i read the article send to me earlier by the old mathematician friend that in taiwan the education system forces students to go deep into one phrase or one article or a book, making sure that student know all the details of the grammatical structure, the definitions and details of that article. as a result, students' continuation of learning is interrupted often because they have to check dictionary. but the most serious drawback is the student not having enough time to read more. Whereas, in western countries, students are encouraged to read widely and wildly. the emphasis in the west is not to know a book or an article in depth for exam purpose, but to read as broadly as possibly, and in due course, the students somehow can organise themselves the usage of words and language. i must say i totally agree with this approach. well, that is in taiwan and in the west. in malaysia, i dont think students are encouraged to read, but instead are encouraged NOT TO READ by loading them with exams and homework. During my time in Chung Ling High School, Penang, we are supposed to read a book in a month or per semester (or something like that). but no one cared. students end up not reading, and the school end up not caring whether u read or not. the reading project are just kept as a 'showcase' but never imposed efficiently. i dont think the system has changed much now. here in the netherland i hear Christ, a graduate student in TU Delft, told me that in high school students are suppose to read a book per month or twice a week, and such a reading is a must for the students in high school. in taiwan at least they still make a student to read a book per semester. but in malaysia ...? the school teachers may tell u that formally the school encourage reading and has lots of showcase proof that such encouragement is being enforced. but in practice i really doubt this to be the case.
i recall that when i was around 8 or 9 years old i started reading, and all the details of the all the books i read went into my mind. i can even recall the first and the last chinese character of the book i read 《绿野仙踪》. that shows a child's mind is very powerful. i owe much of my later academic development to reading. i started reading only when i was 8 or 9 years old. children these days are a lot more blessed, as their parents like a loong and wal leong feed their children with book since age of 2 or 3. i recall my mom used to scold me for bringing back/buying books, as these '输' (book, as pronounced in cantonese has the same pronunciation as the word 'lost' in cantonese ) has bad connotation and they collect dusk in our ill-condition living space. and since my family was not financially not wealthy then, spending money on books were considered 'luxurious', hence not encouraged by my mom and grandmom. but fortunately my dad is a wise person, and gave me the money to buy books. i thank him greatly for his generosity and wisdom despite that we were not rich then.
So, let your children read, and deprive them of the opportunity to play video games or watch TV. people thing watching tv makes children to learn, and video gaming train their reaction. i personally do not agree. if the children dont watch tv, they will get engaged in other interactive activities, from which they learn more. the learning outcome would be particularly good if parents spend time teaching them. since we were poor, we dont have tv when i was a kid, nor is the tv program appealing when we bought it later when i was 8 years old. so i did something else at the spare time, and learned to be creative. allowing tv program to teach children language or knowledge is much inferior than what the children can learn by engaging in other interactive activity. people who make use of tv/video game as a major tool to educate their children are those ppl who are lacking of wisdom, or themselves don't have the correct knowledge of how learning could happen. these parents are people who are superstitious in 'high tech' stuff, having no understanding of the long term impact of tv and electronic gaming on their children.
if i were to have children, the most important thing i would want my children to learn would be language and expression power. in fact i would also make encouraging creativity as a major emphasis as well. i would not emphasis on 'what-is-the-capitol-of-Peru' kind of 'by fact knowledge', math or computer skills that they could pick up themselves in school when their times come. i would also emphasis to develop their love to learn and to read. our education system actually makes our children to hate reading and learning. in the west what i see is that all adults love reading, and love learning. in our society, our children generally know much more than their peers in the west, bcos our children must learn hard due to the pressure imposed by the system. once they graduated and no more subcum to the system, no one reads anymore. i would say > 90% of my students in the university do not read other than text book/soft magazine/news paper (prove me wrong and I will be absolutely pleased).
i bet u really don't want your children to be like those students of mine who hate reading and learning. but if u dont take any proper action to educate them correctly, the trends of our society and education system are going to make them to 'flow along the natural course' to become a hate-to-learn person.
We see frequently that there are many different kind of people having different abilities in learning, e.g. an animal … sorry, an animal doctor friend of mine, Cheow Kong, has a photographic memory that he can remember all the jargon in biological textbooks and all the names that he comes across, Someone else like BoX HooX (X = a, b,...z) , another friend has (as legend has it) 'phonographic memory' that he can recall all the details of naked ladies he has come across. for my case personally i don't recall names in detail, but i tend to only grasp the major ideas. remembering name's detail can be helpful when dealing with problem solving issues in commercial line or during exam, e.g., u can impress your boss or customers with all the minor details when doing a presentation or brokering a deal. but this does not guarantee u to solve the problem at their hearts. recalling names or minor detail is more related to things that has to be handled with immediate action, e.g. in exam or in face-to-face dealing with customers or bosses. but some people over do it until they think pure memorisation of such kind of naming details are everything, so much so that they miss the point of understanding the whole picture or the core of the problem. so, if u can't recall all the details, u don't need to take it as a major disadvantage. the advantage that one gains by able to memorise all the name and details aren't that great, despite they can be helpful to a certain extent. for many serious problem solving tasks, the ability to think, reason, to make logical manipulation and being creative are far more essential. u call call up the names and minor technical details anytime 'at a click away', anyway. i read an interesting article in newsweek sometimes ago, reporting the complain of an english professor in a book that youngsters these day has nothing in their minds, and they cant spell correctly, or recall some essential names and common knowledge that everyone are supposed to know in say, 20 years ago. however, the writer of that article argued that the english professor has not taken into account the other side of the story properly. the youngsters may has less memorised knowledge in their brain, or spell words correctly, however, they have developed an even more powerful skill that old generation does not possess: the youngsters these day are much more skillful in finding and organise new information that was previously unknown to them with the knowledge in IT they acquire. in this sense the youngster's power is even greater than the old generation. Old generation, while emphasises on gathering knowledge into their brains, the y-generation prefers to keep these knowledge in the net and 'retrieve' them in the event they need them. Can u see the difference btw these two generations' way towards the way of how to handle 'knowledge'? in a way the y-generation way is more powerful than the old generation's bcos the y-generation can retrieve, in principle, infinite amount of info required, whereas old generation relies too much on the knowledge in their heads. the main difference here is the skill to acquired the required knowledge when needed (e.g use spell check tool while typing with computer). in other words, the y-generation trades the accumulation of knowledge with the ability to retrieve these knowledge from external sources (a.k.a. internet/computer). Well, the above argument on the y-generation may apply only in the context of the western societies, since the article i read was in Newsweek. I doubt that the y-generation in our society, particularly our university students, has developed such kind of information search skill apart from online-gaming/frenstering/face-booking/twittering.
Objectively speaking, i would say one must accumulate knowledge as the old generation does, and at the same time master the skill to retrieve information externally. to me 'retrieval' of information yourself is a very essential skill, which many people, primarily the local university students are lacking. e.g. when someone don't know how to build a webpage, he ought to know how to get the right answer by searching the internet or the right references. these is the kind of skill we all have developed along our career. one of the most important soft skill any student shud acquire is how to search info him/herself correctly. most of the time this kind of skill is just a matter of common sense, but to many, such command sense does not even occur to them, thanks to our spoon-feeding education system and over-caring parents.
if i were to have children, i certainly will do the following: To encourage them to read as much as possible. i read the article send to me earlier by the old mathematician friend that in taiwan the education system forces students to go deep into one phrase or one article or a book, making sure that student know all the details of the grammatical structure, the definitions and details of that article. as a result, students' continuation of learning is interrupted often because they have to check dictionary. but the most serious drawback is the student not having enough time to read more. Whereas, in western countries, students are encouraged to read widely and wildly. the emphasis in the west is not to know a book or an article in depth for exam purpose, but to read as broadly as possibly, and in due course, the students somehow can organise themselves the usage of words and language. i must say i totally agree with this approach. well, that is in taiwan and in the west. in malaysia, i dont think students are encouraged to read, but instead are encouraged NOT TO READ by loading them with exams and homework. During my time in Chung Ling High School, Penang, we are supposed to read a book in a month or per semester (or something like that). but no one cared. students end up not reading, and the school end up not caring whether u read or not. the reading project are just kept as a 'showcase' but never imposed efficiently. i dont think the system has changed much now. here in the netherland i hear Christ, a graduate student in TU Delft, told me that in high school students are suppose to read a book per month or twice a week, and such a reading is a must for the students in high school. in taiwan at least they still make a student to read a book per semester. but in malaysia ...? the school teachers may tell u that formally the school encourage reading and has lots of showcase proof that such encouragement is being enforced. but in practice i really doubt this to be the case.
i recall that when i was around 8 or 9 years old i started reading, and all the details of the all the books i read went into my mind. i can even recall the first and the last chinese character of the book i read 《绿野仙踪》. that shows a child's mind is very powerful. i owe much of my later academic development to reading. i started reading only when i was 8 or 9 years old. children these days are a lot more blessed, as their parents like a loong and wal leong feed their children with book since age of 2 or 3. i recall my mom used to scold me for bringing back/buying books, as these '输' (book, as pronounced in cantonese has the same pronunciation as the word 'lost' in cantonese ) has bad connotation and they collect dusk in our ill-condition living space. and since my family was not financially not wealthy then, spending money on books were considered 'luxurious', hence not encouraged by my mom and grandmom. but fortunately my dad is a wise person, and gave me the money to buy books. i thank him greatly for his generosity and wisdom despite that we were not rich then.
So, let your children read, and deprive them of the opportunity to play video games or watch TV. people thing watching tv makes children to learn, and video gaming train their reaction. i personally do not agree. if the children dont watch tv, they will get engaged in other interactive activities, from which they learn more. the learning outcome would be particularly good if parents spend time teaching them. since we were poor, we dont have tv when i was a kid, nor is the tv program appealing when we bought it later when i was 8 years old. so i did something else at the spare time, and learned to be creative. allowing tv program to teach children language or knowledge is much inferior than what the children can learn by engaging in other interactive activity. people who make use of tv/video game as a major tool to educate their children are those ppl who are lacking of wisdom, or themselves don't have the correct knowledge of how learning could happen. these parents are people who are superstitious in 'high tech' stuff, having no understanding of the long term impact of tv and electronic gaming on their children.
if i were to have children, the most important thing i would want my children to learn would be language and expression power. in fact i would also make encouraging creativity as a major emphasis as well. i would not emphasis on 'what-is-the-capitol-of-Peru' kind of 'by fact knowledge', math or computer skills that they could pick up themselves in school when their times come. i would also emphasis to develop their love to learn and to read. our education system actually makes our children to hate reading and learning. in the west what i see is that all adults love reading, and love learning. in our society, our children generally know much more than their peers in the west, bcos our children must learn hard due to the pressure imposed by the system. once they graduated and no more subcum to the system, no one reads anymore. i would say > 90% of my students in the university do not read other than text book/soft magazine/news paper (prove me wrong and I will be absolutely pleased).
i bet u really don't want your children to be like those students of mine who hate reading and learning. but if u dont take any proper action to educate them correctly, the trends of our society and education system are going to make them to 'flow along the natural course' to become a hate-to-learn person.
The mathematician wrote again
The old mathematician friend wrote again, as a response to an email I wrote to him and Ah loONg earlier. I find what he said to be quite meaningful and worthy of being shared with many others. I reproduced what he wrote here (with some minor modification).
The mathematician wrote:
" The main problem is that Malaysian youth do not understand or know what is "the TRUTH of Life and its MEANING". In general, Malaysians used to think that the true meaning of life is to make their life meaningful and to make good use of it. They judge how good their present lives are by using some kind of 'quantitative standard' vaguely known as 'the Good Quality of Life measurement'. In general, Malaysian standard of acceptable so-called Good Quality of Life is based on (1)Money, (2)Status, (3)Level of Education (4)Job and etc. These are quantitatively measurable things, hence people use these to compare among themselves. For young children, in general, their standard of comparison is simpler. They usually adopt "Performance in School" such as (1)Exam Result, (2)Performance in Sport or others School Activities as their standard references.
These kind of measurement has been long been practiced and is treated as the Golden Rule. In general, a lot of Malaysian adult treat (or think) materialistic life more important than intellectual/spiritual life. So are children care more about their school performance (all kind of results in school) than their quality of understanding/knowledge. When I got an A in Quantum Mechanics in my second year of UM (taught by Tiem Leong), I though I am good in QM. The feeling of getting A was so good (why I feel good ?). However, as a matter of fact I know nothing about QM. I can see that a lot of people is living for the sake of how other people look upon them, and seldom we see people care about the real meaning of life. Imagine that all of a sudden people realise what are the most important things in life. So are the children can realise the importance of reading and enjoying the beautiful moment of their childhood. Imagine our society begins to reduce the habitual practice of comparing among one with another. Imagine we don't feel too disappointed when a child doesn't perform in certain school activities or examinations but treat the failure as an enhancing experience of life. If that day ever happens, we surely will enjoy our lives much better.
I must thank TL again. I lost a piece of Jigsaw Puzzle in my present life when I was a youngster at around 15-25 years. He helps me to find this important part and put it back into my life. Hence, my life is free from a lot of suffering. Thanks again.
Recently, Ah LOoNG gives me an opportunity to meet a good book《专心》. It is a very good book. I would like to seek permission from Ah LOoNG whether I can borrow this book to read."
The above was the opinion by the mathematician friend.
The mathematician wrote:
" The main problem is that Malaysian youth do not understand or know what is "the TRUTH of Life and its MEANING". In general, Malaysians used to think that the true meaning of life is to make their life meaningful and to make good use of it. They judge how good their present lives are by using some kind of 'quantitative standard' vaguely known as 'the Good Quality of Life measurement'. In general, Malaysian standard of acceptable so-called Good Quality of Life is based on (1)Money, (2)Status, (3)Level of Education (4)Job and etc. These are quantitatively measurable things, hence people use these to compare among themselves. For young children, in general, their standard of comparison is simpler. They usually adopt "Performance in School" such as (1)Exam Result, (2)Performance in Sport or others School Activities as their standard references.
These kind of measurement has been long been practiced and is treated as the Golden Rule. In general, a lot of Malaysian adult treat (or think) materialistic life more important than intellectual/spiritual life. So are children care more about their school performance (all kind of results in school) than their quality of understanding/knowledge. When I got an A in Quantum Mechanics in my second year of UM (taught by Tiem Leong), I though I am good in QM. The feeling of getting A was so good (why I feel good ?). However, as a matter of fact I know nothing about QM. I can see that a lot of people is living for the sake of how other people look upon them, and seldom we see people care about the real meaning of life. Imagine that all of a sudden people realise what are the most important things in life. So are the children can realise the importance of reading and enjoying the beautiful moment of their childhood. Imagine our society begins to reduce the habitual practice of comparing among one with another. Imagine we don't feel too disappointed when a child doesn't perform in certain school activities or examinations but treat the failure as an enhancing experience of life. If that day ever happens, we surely will enjoy our lives much better.
I must thank TL again. I lost a piece of Jigsaw Puzzle in my present life when I was a youngster at around 15-25 years. He helps me to find this important part and put it back into my life. Hence, my life is free from a lot of suffering. Thanks again.
Recently, Ah LOoNG gives me an opportunity to meet a good book《专心》. It is a very good book. I would like to seek permission from Ah LOoNG whether I can borrow this book to read."
The above was the opinion by the mathematician friend.
28.11.09
Words from a mathematician
I have a closed friend who is mathematician. We know each other during the orientation week for freshies once upon a time in the University of Malaya. We interact frequently, and maintain a high quality of intellectual and spiritual friendship. He is a typical kind of mathematician who is slightly mad (which is usual among mathematicians). Legend has it that if a mathematician does not has any madness above certain lower bound, he/she is not a good mathematician. He serves as an important figure in my life because he often becomes the target of my cynical comments, which result in the enhancement of the quality of fun I can enjoy. Recently, he started doing some other things beside mathematics. He picks up and reads quite a number of books on early education and the study of how to educate and observe young children. He does so because he has some problem in reading due to the lack of (1) basic vocabularies and (2) reading training since young. He is very well trained in mathematics and logic. However, certain part of his brain is not able to handle some form of passive information. For example, he can remember the location of his car in the car park, faces of people, or music/song easily, but he was not able to remember names of those things. He has this problem since in high school. He didn't understand why he has such a difficulty to remember names. Thanks to recent reading, he finally found out what was the cause of this syndrome: The lack of training in reading which causes him to have no good sensitivity of WORD. His brain used to process SYMBOLS faster than WORDS during the conceptual organization and processing of the input information. This is also the main reason he studies mathematics but not physics. He claims that another reason he does not do physics is because physics is much more challenging than mathematics. According to him, “physics studies the phenomena of the real world/universal, but mathematics just uses logic to study pattern. In other words, physics handles more thing than mathematics, and therefore, it is more difficult”. Well, that was his “logic” in comparing maths to physics, of which I don't really see much “logic” in itself. Anyway, his conclusion was that: We must train and develop our brain at the early age, and the most important training is none other than READING. The reading he meant is the reading just for fun but not for the purpose of examination. Once one is able to read effectively, one becomes versatile in the sense that he/she can acquire any knowledge required for whatever reasons.
Based on the books he has read on how to improve our brain ability, he suggests the following:
1. We should have good quality of sleep. It is even better if we can also meditate regularly.
2. We should have regular physical exercise. He particularly mentioned that I am a good example in this case as I used to exercise on regular basis. He has read many books that show scientific proofs on the benefit of exercising. Now he starts listening to me (finally, after so many years of constant urging) to exercise regularly - walking for 30 minutes everyday.
3. Read regularly on the topics that interest you. This will keep our brain consistently active.
4. Watch less TV and do less online chatting/face-booking.
5. Has a right attitude in life. We should regularly perform self-introspection so that we can get closer to the Truth. With a right understanding of our lives, our bad habit or defilement can be cleared bit-by-bit from day to day.
He thanked me for leading him to be a Dhamma practitioner. My response to him was: Lips service is not pragmatic. Can you give me angpow or treat me with exquisite restaurant instead?
Based on the books he has read on how to improve our brain ability, he suggests the following:
1. We should have good quality of sleep. It is even better if we can also meditate regularly.
2. We should have regular physical exercise. He particularly mentioned that I am a good example in this case as I used to exercise on regular basis. He has read many books that show scientific proofs on the benefit of exercising. Now he starts listening to me (finally, after so many years of constant urging) to exercise regularly - walking for 30 minutes everyday.
3. Read regularly on the topics that interest you. This will keep our brain consistently active.
4. Watch less TV and do less online chatting/face-booking.
5. Has a right attitude in life. We should regularly perform self-introspection so that we can get closer to the Truth. With a right understanding of our lives, our bad habit or defilement can be cleared bit-by-bit from day to day.
He thanked me for leading him to be a Dhamma practitioner. My response to him was: Lips service is not pragmatic. Can you give me angpow or treat me with exquisite restaurant instead?
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