alwyn!
raffles junior college
08 08 '89
leo
star wars fan
Judoka





wishlist :

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume
The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose
The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch
Matter and Consciousness by Paul Churchland
Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett
Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Life of the Cosmos by Lee Smolin
Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
The Sacred Balance by David Suzuki
Star Wars Legacy of the Force: Betrayal
Star Wars Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines
Star Wars Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice

Games:
Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne by Triumph Studios
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic by Triumph Studios
Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood by Spellbound
Myth III: The Wolf Age by MumboJumbo
The Bard's Tale by InXile Entertainment
Dragon Age by Bioware
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir by Obsidian Entertainment
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Places I'd Like to Visit:
Sweden
Switzerland
Italy
France
Thailand
Brazil
South Korea
Japan (again!)
Norway
Costa Rica

click for more =)

"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free.
free to think, to express my thoughts
free to live to my own ideal
free to live for myself and those I loved
free to use all my faculties, all my senses
free to spread imagination's wings
free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope
free to judge and determine for myself
free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past
free from popes and priests
free from all the "called" and "set apart"
free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies
free from the fear of eternal pain
free from the winged monsters of night
free from devils, ghosts, and gods
For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought, no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings
no chains for my limbs
no lashes for my back
no fires for my flesh
no master's frown or threat
no following another's steps
no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.
I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain for the freedom of labor and thought
to those who fell on the fierce fields of war
to those who died in dungeons bound with chains
to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs
to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn
to those by fire consumed
to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men.
And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still."
-Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896

Click to join Atheisthaven

We are part of the universe. Our earth was created from the universe and will one day be reabsorbed into the universe. We are made of the same matter as the universe. We are not in exile here: we are at home. It is here and nowhere else that we can see the divine face to face. If we erect barriers in our imagination - if we believe our real home is not here but in a land that lies beyond death - if we believe that the divine is found only in old books, or old buildings, or inside our head - then we will see this real, vibrant, luminous world as if through a glass darkly. The universe creates us, preserves us, destroys us. We are part of nature. Nature made us and at our death we will be reabsorbed into nature. We are at home in nature and in our bodies. This is where we belong; this is where we must find and make our paradise, not in some spirit world on the other side of the grave. If nature is the only paradise, then separation from nature is the only hell. When we destroy nature, we create hell on earth for other species and for ourselves. Nature is our mother, our home, our security, our peace, our past and our future. Science is inherently materialist. It always seek material explanations. It never accepts as an explanation that some spiritual force was at work - if it did, then science and technology would come to an end. Disease was once thought to be caused by witchcraft. Science gave it a material explanation which allowed us to control it. Magnetism at one time seemed like a spiritual force - Thales of Miletus thought that magnets were full of spirits. But then science provided a material explanation. In the same way scientific pantheism believes that everything that exists is matter or energy in one form or another. Nothing can exist, be perceived, or act on other things if it is not matter or energy. That does not mean that spiritual phenomena or forces cannot exist. It means that, if they do, they must in fact be material. In scientific pantheism, science becomes a part of the religious quest: the pursuit of deeper understanding of the Reality of which we are all part, deeper knowledge about the awe-inspiring cosmos in which we live, deeper knowledge of nature and the environment, so that we can better preserve the earth's wealth of natural diversity. In scientific pantheism, cognitive openness - listening to reality, to new evidence, to all the evidence, to other people's needs and feelings - becomes a sacred duty in all aspects of life from science to politics to domestic life. Of course, we cannot say that science endorses pantheism. Many religions today state their beliefs in ways that no-one can disprove, so they can and do co-exist with science. But scientific pantheism positively thrives on science. scientific discoveries continually underline the wonder and the mystery of Being, the immensity of the universe, and the complexity of nature.

blogger
violation**

the image was not made by violation**.

Monday, May 24, 2004

"The gods envy us because we are mortal"

Hi all! don't think i'll be online for the next few days...or at least until my comp gets itself fixed so right now im blogging with the win98 comp which is absolutely frustrating. but what the heck.

just watched troy! troy was...worth the money spent. if nothing else ive learnt this much:
war does not determine who is right, it determines who is left.

alwyn out!

spacetime rip! by agent quantum , quite possibly at 5/24/2004 12:24:00 am :)



[ + + + ]

Friday, May 21, 2004

*amendment* math is now 43/55. which brings it up to 78%! whee.

spacetime rip! by agent quantum , quite possibly at 5/21/2004 11:47:00 pm :)



[ + + + ]

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

"Perhaps I shouldn't trust so much
Should learn to close my eyes
The sun still shines on wooden bars
The bird that never flies..."
-Excerpt, When All the Tears Have Dried

sitrep sitrep sitrep!!!
gotten summa my cts back. i am not liking what i see...this. is one hell of a clusterfcuk.

Engleese: 24/35*omfg*- 68.6%
Soshure Stardees: 19/30*screams*- 63.3%
Chio-graffi: 31/50*shuts eyes*- 62%
Mattermatix: 42/55*thisisntgood*- 76.4%

Average: 67.6%

liddat how. but then again...there's still chinese and trip science!! chinese juust might pull it up a wee bit...but i'm not betting on that. physics will achieve nothing except to piss me off even more. chemistry- that's the one i'm counting on*nah mo amitabha*. and biology can KMA.

hokay i've got a physics CA to save here byebye! *starts on physics ilearning*

spacetime rip! by agent quantum , quite possibly at 5/18/2004 09:19:00 pm :)



[ + + + ]

Monday, May 17, 2004

"But if I turn away from what I've started
Then will I always wish that I had tried?
By breaking free will I be broken hearted?
What will I see when all the tears have dried?"
-Excerpt from When All the Tears Have Dried, Sing to the Dawn

aloha everyone! im back to blogging (i hope). anyway cts are over which is good and sttd is over which is bad. im not making sense nvm. no idea how well i did for cts larh...think the only one i didn't screw up was uhh chinese? and chinese happens to be my WORST subject so...notgood.

sttd rocked mah socks great i loved evrything the cast the props the string ensemble ppl jubilee hall the story the songs every single fcuking thing. now if only i could write that down for my sttd review for rafflesian times which happens to be pointless since well what's the point of reviewing a play after everyone's watched it -.-

things r pretty boliao now. blehh play comp play comp. sleep in class. train.

that tonight we don't want anywhere, to stick our bamboo poles...

spacetime rip! by agent quantum , quite possibly at 5/17/2004 12:51:00 am :)



[ + + + ]

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Soon we'll draw the water
From the river or the well
And we'll spend our ev'nings scrubbing dirty pots
Then we'll gossip over tea
Bouncing babies on each knee
Before we tell them stories, while we put them in their cots

Soon we'll draw the water
From the river or the well
And we'll spend our ev'nings cooking pots of rice
When we've finished at the sink
And the girls have left to drink
We'll wait for them till midnight, making sure we're looking nice

Chorus:
You can't expect a man to wear the silk
You can't expect a cock to be a hen
You won't find many bulls producing milk
'Cos men are men 'cos men are very good at being men

Soon we'll draw the water
From the river or the well
And we'll spend our evenings wahing dirty shirts
When we've hung them out to dry
We'll pretend we're really shy
And we'll giggle while we chat, about the latest style of skirts

(Chorus)

Soon we'll draw the water
From the river or the well
And we'll scrub the steps and wash the dirty bowls
And at night if we're desired
We'll announce we're much too tired
That tonight we don't want anywhere, to stick our bamboo poles

(Chorus)

You can't expect a man to wear the silk
You can't expect a cock to be a hen
You won't find many bulls producing milk
And the pattern can't be changed
Or the order rearranged
'Cos men are men 'cos men are very good at being men!
'Cos men are men 'cos men are very good at being men!

There! alldone. *brushes hands*

spacetime rip! by agent quantum , quite possibly at 5/15/2004 11:41:00 pm :)



[ + + + ]

Friday, May 14, 2004

"Everything you need to know is here
in this village, in this tree, in this leaf
Everything you need to know is here
It's just a matter of belief
The Buddha found enlightenment under a tree like this
And when you rush about the world, it's trees such like this you'll miss
The world is an illusion, each touch, each taste
It's fading fast, nothing we see will last
Flowers fade, people die, the sun sets
The future always slips into the past"
-from 'Sing to the Dawn'

oh and one more thing...enjoy the "Men are Men" theme :P

spacetime rip! by agent quantum , quite possibly at 5/14/2004 02:15:00 am :)



[ + + + ]

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

You know the world's gone to shit when:

"Iraq insurgents pound U.S. base in Najaf "
-Yahoo! News headline. a sign of the times.

today is the first time in a long time alwyn decides to actually blog conventionally. okok so i shan't blog about training today since tuesdays are not training days. at leats not for people like me.

first lesson was philo! philo is funfunfun. arguably even more fun than PHYSICS i daresay. but only because i have a wonderful philo teacher and a physics teacher who couldn't teach to save his own life. so they sorta...balance out. empiricism and rationalism is suuch a sexy subject.and well to debunk all that unfounded unrational bull puckey about i think-ing therfore i am-ing- you could all very well still be in a dream a la the MATRIX. now who the rusty fuck ever said people don't think in dreams? i for one do. i can even tell sometimes whether i'm in a dream or not (assuming my apparent reality is the actual reality that is :D) how very fun...

so. does all that go to show that people might be, after all, living in a dream which they take for granted as reality? and could reality be in actual fact our so called dreamworld? fuck no.

see, humans aren't infallible. we have an au natural, god-given ability to forget things, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on how you see it. see, everyone forgets their dreams sometimes-even i do! :P hell, people even forget what goes on in their (apparent) reality every now and then- this goes to show how dreams and reality can actually be more alike than you think. so how can we be sure which realm is the true reality- for when we are in our wakefulness state- we consider that to be our reality; on the other hand while we are dreaming- we consider the dreamworld to be reality as well! you can argue that how about in cases where you realise that what you're experiencing is actually (or so you think) all a dream. see, the only reason why we experience that (realising that what you're experiencing is all jut a dream) is because we've been brought up that way...it's been so deeply inculcated into us that it becomes completely natural to say that the wakefulness state is reality. that's why we won't even bother to think about the possibility that you might actually be dreaming while in the so-called wakeful state!

okk back on track. so how do i prove that THIS wakeful state we're all in now as we read alwyn's latest nonsensical (did i say i was going to blog conventional this time? oh no not AGAIN...) blog entry is the actual reality. pretty simple really. but it'll only become really clear to you if you've had the same experiences i've had. for me, i'm able to recall a few experiences where i have actually woke myself up from my own dream- yes, interrupted it flatly and telling myself to snap outta it. and no, i wasn't pinching myself. while on the other hand- as far as i can recall, i have NEVER been able to induct myself into the dreamstate directly from the wakefulness state(tried again during philo lesson, didn't seem to work too well), the only avenue possible so far has been to fall asleep- and hope to hell you start dreaming. or is it hoping to hell before you fall asleep. nevermind. and since the only way for me to get from wakefulness into the dreamworld has been to fall asleep- and so far as i can remember there has only been one instance whereby i woke myself up by actually falling asleep in my dream- which, by rational thought, is the obvious reality here?

so now. see how logical, deductive, and 100% rational reasoning can explain reality and existence more clearly than a cryptic one-liner "i think therfore i am" which imho borders on the very edge of outright mysticism. all you have to do...is just look beneath the surface. whoah.

spacetime rip! by agent quantum , quite possibly at 5/05/2004 12:32:00 am :)



[ + + + ]

aloha dear bloggie!! blogging time!! *walks into spiderweb* *chokes on a couple hundred dust bunnies* *passes out from decomposing organic gaseous by-products*

ok what to blog.

spacetime rip! by agent quantum , quite possibly at 5/05/2004 12:27:00 am :)



[ + + + ]