Belief vs Knowledge

Let's say there is a mysterious room. No one knows what's inside the room, and it has only one doorway as both its entrance and exit. You saw a baby crawling out through the doorway, and not long after, another baby followed. Say you observed eight more babies coming out of the mysterious room. 'Can you confidently conclude that everyone in the room is a baby because you just saw ten of them emerging through the door?' That was the question posed by a guest speaker - a scientist - of the INTEL Science Camp in Nilai which I attended when I was Form 4.

Today, I have to return the three books I borrowed from a local library two weeks ago - one of which is 'Fooled by Randomness' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (which inspired me to write this post). In its prologue, there is a list of items in two collumns, named 'Table of Confusion'. Under the 'general' section of the table, the following items were put in the same rows respectively: Luck vs Skills; Randomness vs Certainty; Belief/Conjecture vs Knowledge/Certitude; Theory vs Reality; Anecdote/Coincidence vs Causality/Law; Forecast vs Prophecy. As the name of the table suggests, these are the things people commonly get mixed up with. Unravelling the confusion was the central idea of 'Fooled by Randomness', which - true to its nature - I've discovered only by chance.

Last weekend I met my best friend and we talked over supper about a rumor going on regarding one of our friends getting married to a rich, much older man. The only verifiable fact is that this friend of ours has just got engaged, as evident by a list of well-wishers, replied with gratitude by this person when she changed her Facebook relationship status to 'engaged'. I told my close friend that as far as rumors go, it could be either true or false. Whatever the case was for this particular rumor (or for any others), I know for sure that it won't affect the taste of my tea on that supper. I took a sip of my tea. Then I asked, "What if the rumor is true?". I took another sip. "My tea tastes the same", I said. "But what if it's pure conjecture?" Then I took another sip. It was as sweet and as bitter as before.

My dad told me yesterday that one of his acquaintance (an engineer) suggested that my father should invest in FOREX after his retirement. That advice came after my dad sought this person's opinion about what he could do when he's retired. I told my dad, sure, people could get rich by getting involved in this kind of investment - at least that is their claim - but knowing very little about its system, risks and legal implications, I strongly advised my dad to flush away his friend's idea of investing in FOREX. The scheme actually sounded good, at first: He invested RM20,000 (borrowed from the bank) to a certain company ('Dan something') and during the course of 10 months, he gets RM2000 each month. After that 10-month period, whatever investment returns he collects will be pure profit. I asked my dad how long has his friend got involved in this scheme - he said 6 months.

Not only did this person still work as an engineer (if his FOREX scheme is so good, why bother having a day job anymore?), he has yet to receive his full investment returns (it would take him another 4 months). Of course he believes that by giving RM20,000 of borrowed money to a certain company, he would make easy money in a long run (he'll start to profit after 10 months), but since he's only 6 months into this scheme, he would never know for sure if that's going to happen, not until August. The same goes for the assumption that everyone in the mysterious room is a baby - you could only believe that's true from your observations, but you would never know for sure until you check the room for yourself. We also like to believe in some rumors because they are so exciting, but until we have the evidence, we could never know it they were true or otherwise. The difference between one's belief and knowledge is perfectly and comically illustrated in the cartoon below:

(taken from http://www.lukesurl.com/)

Although the terrified person likes to believe that he's more frightening to the bear than the bear is to him; the bear knows for sure that it is a bear.

Raihan was inspired by disco tune?!!

I've been staying over at my aunt's place in Singapore since Monday. My uncle here, who's very fond of watching old music videos - especially from the 70's and 80's - on the TV in their living room, played a video of Boney M's hit song, Rivers of Babylon last night. I overheard the song when I was in my cousins' room - with two of my cousins - laughing our hearts out, watching funny clips on Youtube. Hariz, the older of the two, suddenly began singing Raihan's catchy english song, Thank You Allah. And then I realized, what a coincidence this is: Thank You Allah and Rivers of Babylon sound very much alike! Is it possible that perhaps Raihan was really inspired by a disco song; or maybe this song was playing in their subconscious mind when they were writing Thank You Allah?

Why don't you take the challenge and be the judge to decide what are the odds that one day we might hear a nasyid song which sounds like Lady Gaga's Bad Romance?

First, let's listen to Boney M. - Rivers of Babylon.



Here is the song by Raihan, which has a very oddly similar tune to the disco hit above.



After doing some search on Youtube, I've found this video below. It's actually quite interesting.

Finally, here is the video that my cousins and I were watching on Youtube when we overheard my uncle played Boney M in the living room:



Note: It's obviously very bad to laugh at others' misfortunes, but often, the schadenfreude in us is just too hard to resist.

Math Subject and Common Sense

Cikgu Zahari was on TV3 today in the early morning talk show, Malaysia Hari Ini. Along with Wardina Safiyyah and the Bagaikan-Roda-host, they discussed the subject of mathematics in school (I didn’t catch their discussion from the start, but that was what I saw when I tuned in the show). Zahari claimed that our current system of math education – from his observation when he conducted math learning courses in schools – is in need of a vast transformation. In deference to Malaysian math teachers, he asserted that some math teachers fail to make their students understand the principles of math, especially in its application to solve real world problems.

A student caller was baffled by Zahari's idea that learning math is not just about solving equations. The caller asked how could she even try to understand the exam questions, when there isn't even enough time for her to try to solve the equations? Zahari replied, one should have thought about trying to undestand math before any exam, not during one.

The hostess, Wardina and her co-host, both flinched when Zahari offered them an attempt to solve a math question written on a large piece of paper he just uncovered from the coffee table. The hosts promptly denied the offer. Is it that as we grow older, math subject becomes more and more formidable to us? Well, the question turned out to be a very basic one.

If 2/3 of a journey is 400km, what is the total length of the journey?

A student who perceives math as a subject of purely meaningless numbers would certainly find it difficult to attempt the question above - otherwise, deceivingly easy. If the only thing he could recall - when he sees the question - is the lesson on multiplication, then he would mindlessly multiply all the numbers that appear in the question and use the product as his answer (he would multiply 2/3 to 400). “Isn’t that what my math teacher taught me in class?”, he’ll say, if we ask him how he deduced his wrong answer.

As Zahari said, learning mathematics should be about solving real world problems using the equations, and he implied that math classes should promote more thinking process! Instead, some teachers only employ rote learning in their classes; and so their students would carelessly multiply any numbers given in exam questions, the product would then be their answer. Although they may be unfortunate to have been taught by 'rote-learning' math teachers, we can simply assume that these students are brilliant - they did exactly what their teacher taught them in class.

Another talk show in TV3 I saw last Tuesday made me reflect on the competency of its hostess. The setting was a luxury furniture store – where items are priced RM5000 and above. The store manager was one of the panel, while the other was a young artist from Sabah. The artist is fond of spending on luxurious furnishing like those on sale in the store. She has even bought a custom-made couch set – which is unique for its design, as she claimed.

Out of many nonsensical questions posed by the inexperienced hostess, perhaps the one I find most amusing is when she asked the artist what was the highest amount the artist had ever spent on a single furniture. Indeed, the artist felt uncomfortable to mention any specific value. I wonder if the hostess had lost her common sense when she actually asked that silly question.

Who's to blame for the deaths of innocent?

45 killed and 100 wounded - in Lahore, Pakistan - last Friday. The question that I'd ask is not who's to blame for this (series of) tragedy, because surely everyone would have someone to blame for such violence. My real question would be: Are we blaming the right person?

Conspiracy theorists immediately blame - secret societies, governments and sometimes even lizard kings - when bad things happen to innocent people.

When there is poison in our food (or at least conspired to exists), they blame the government for 'population control'. When terrorists attack civilians, they blame the 'secret society' - which control governments - to find excuses to invade others.

Theorizing the cause of tragedies and chaos is natural but when all calamities are somehow linked? That's paranoia.

Consider the following. When Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was trying to fuse a bomb in his undies inside a plane full of civilians last Christmas, I believe he wasn't thinking about helping the United States garner sympathy and support from the Americans (and the World) to justify another invasion of an oil-rich country, possibly a Muslim one. In fact, as what he himself revealed - after his unsuccessful terror attempt - he was simply aiming for Jihad. Let's roll back 40 years to 13th May 1969. Anyone dares to say that the racial riots in Malaysia then were devised by the government to impose more power?

My point is this: Why make a link to only some of the tragedies that happen around the globe, and not all of them? Unless of course a conspiracy theory works better when some chaos - like May 13th - are simply ignored. I haven't even discussed about the good things that happen around the world. Ignore them too? Let's be realistic. Live now. Look at the evidence. The only thing that is arriving is more and more - sufferings and deaths - especially if we choose to believe some facts and ignore others, only to miss the real cause of these innocent deaths.

Now coming back to the bombings in Lahore, we may find that there are several possible causes of these incidents. But like all terror attacks, it all boils down to hatred.  Sunnis hate Shi'ites, Shi'ites hate Sunnis. Boom. Al Qaeda hates America, America hates Al Qaeda. Boom. Malays hate Chinese, Chinese hate Malays. Boom. To borrow from Syed Akbar Ali, Boom Boom and Boom.

What about natural disasters? Are the deaths of innocent lives - in Haiti earthquake, hurricane Katrina and tsunami hit in 2004 - simply the acts of God? In fact, it could be argued that most of the victims could have been rescued more efficiently so that more deaths could have been prevented. Newsweek's Jeneen Interlandi has written about why Chile's 100 times stronger earthquake is not as deadly as the one that struck Haiti. The quake in Chile has a death toll of 120 (until 27th Feb), whereas the quake in Haiti has killed at least 230,000 lives. Two main factors of the dramatically lower death toll in Chile were identified: better infrastructure; and preparedness. Let me add, Chile's 8 times larger GDP per capita - compared to Haiti - might also account for something.

So let's refrain from wrongly blaming secret societies (for terrorism) and God (for deaths in natural disasters). Let's continue with the peace process, develop our nation and promote peacefulness all around.

Sorry for the clandestine operation?

I was quite suprised by a news report 10 months ago that two journalists of Al-Islam (who are Muslims I suppose) went undercover to enter a church and investigate alleged apostasy amongst young Muslim Malays. Well, the Catholics got offended and they have asked for the magazine to offer a public apology or else they would file a police report against the two spies. No such apology surfaced (not until recently i.e. 10 month later), and so a police report was charged against the duo. After investigating and some consideration, only recently, the Attorney General has dropped the charges against these pretenders.

Well, some parties were outraged as the charges were dropped. Meanwhile, the Catholic lawyers have asked the AG to "appreciate the severity" of this incident. To me, this incident should not have been an issue at all, especially to the Catholic church. Here's why:

1. As good Christians, I believe they must uphold good values - love thy neighbour and so forth. So if your neighbour suspects you of proselytizing their young, and you are innocent of that allegation, you would not get offended  by the allegation even if they spy on you - simply because you have no skeletons in your closet to hide from them.

2. In fact, the ones that are supposed to get offended by this incident, if anyone, are the Muslims. Think about it, after taking such risk to conduct this covert operation, these two Al-Islam journalists still haven't found any substantial evidence that Malay Muslim youths are being converted to Christianity! Or have they?

3. Another reason why Muslims, especially those skeptical ones, must get offended by this incident is because no where in the Quran is there an injunction to spy on thy neighbour if thee suspects thy neighbour is proselytizing thy young ones.

So, instead of apologizing to the Catholics, Al-Islam should have made a public apology to the Muslims!

I also wonder, what if the same thing were to happen in a mosque - Christian or Hindu or Buddhist journalists pretend to be Muslims, join a congregational prayer and listen to a ceramah, hypothetically. Firstly, I think the Muslims would not have to demand these hypothetical undercover reporters to make a public apology for that hypothetical incident, because this is definitely not a cause to get offended - unless you are a three year old.

Secondly, aren't these hypothetical spies whom the Quran mentions several times as the hypocrites?

[63:1] When the Hypocrites come to you, they say, "We bear witness that you are indeed the Apostle of God." Yea, God knows that you are indeed His Apostle, and God bears witness that the Hypocrites are indeed liars.

[4:138] To the Hypocrites give news that there is for them a grievous penalty

So you see, their penalty is with God. Here on earth, let us all live together peacefully and harmoniously.

[43:89] But turn away from them, and say "Peace!" But soon shall they know!

BBC's Story of God

From the Tomb of Abraham, to Mount Sinai, a BBC production team had traveled great distances in location and in time, to produce a documentary they call 'The Story of God'. This particular episode was filmed in several places which are of significance to the three monotheistic religion which are explored - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These places include The Western Wall and Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem; Lakhish in Israel; St Peter's Square, San Clemente and Capitoline in Rome; Abalfazl Mosque and Imam Mosque in Isfahan; and Mecca in Saudi Arabia. They've also interviewed several prominent persons in respective religions like The Chief Rabbi and Ayatollah Mahdavi; and of course historians and authors.

Obviously any documentary wouldn't appeal to a prejudiced audience to argue its case and a version of history it wants to present. In this case, I hope we would learn much about what some call the Abrahamic Faiths from the perspective of BBC. At least the message that I'd really hope all its audience would grasp at the end of the show is that we all have to agree to disagree. Otherwise we'd be expecting another 9/11, mosque bombings and holocaust.

Does everyone wants peace? Yes? Well at least now we have a mutual agreement, let's start from there.