Slave of Numbers
Monday, February 05, 2007
Slave of Numbers
At last, my long lost 21 Grams DVD was found a couple of days ago when I wasn't in a particularly good mood. I'm not sure if I have already mentioned it, but I am mentioning it once again anyway. It is after all something to rejoice about, since it is one of my beloved movies. It has been in my computer desk's drawer ever since it left the casing, and it is strange since I actually looked in that pile of CDs before. Makes you wonder just what the hell I was doing while trying to search for the disc. As mentioned, when I am not in a particularly good mood I tend to do household chores like, clearing the room for example. So I was doing that when I found the DVD, what a pleasant surprise. Who knows? If I fall into those depressive mood more often nowadays I might find my kindergarten uniform soon enough.
Eager to watch the film once more, I popped the CD into the computer and watched it all over again. Like before, I was blown away by the acting of the three leads (Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro), and of course the plot of the story. I think I wrote a review of this film in my old blog, but I am reluctant to reveal the URL to that blog because the writing there is horrendous. Hell, it even has a gay blogskin which I am too lazy to change anyway. It has been gathering dust for the longest time I know, and let's leave it as that for now.
I am not going to go deep into the movie, since I have already went through it a couple of times, but there is a part of the movie that struck a bell this time round when I watched it. It was the scene with Sean Penn's character sitting at Lawrence's, with Naomi Watts' character having a nice lunch together for the first time. And as a mathematician he was going on and on about how every human life is governed by numbers. Of course, there are a lot of other things being dictated by the way numbers work and interact with one another, but at that moment he was specifically talking about human relationships with one another.
Like he mentioned," There are so many things that have to happen for two people to meet", and I think in so many ways that is true, even in the context of the film. If Jack hadn't ran his truck into Christina's husband and children, they wouldn't have died. Her husband wouldn't have been able to donate the heart to Paul's dying character and Paul wouldn't have found Christina and fell in love with her. It's just the complexities in life, the way it works with probabilities.
Everything just seems to have something to do with maths one way or another, and it changes our perspective on what our maths teachers used to tell us in Primary School. It probably is to most hated subject in educational history, but at the same time most relevant to, as much as I hate to admit. I was never too good with mathematics, especially after my downfall in JC. I never was great at it in Secondary School, but at least I got help and pulled myself back up. But JC really dragged me down into the deepest pits of self-demoralization, and I found myself being as distant from that subject as possible. But now that I think about it, you can never run too far from the control mathematics has on your life, even if it has to deal with the person you meet on the bus, or the mall or even the existence of yourself in this family.
Of course, we can always argue that numbers were not physically involved in such incidents, like meeting the person that you love and hold so dearly. You claim the effort to fate, you claim it to chance, but of course nobody ever really considers that little chapter in the textbook called 'Probability'. It has got everything to do with it, right down to the timing of the meeting. Of course, after you guys meet there is chemistry and physics involved, but even that has got to do with mathematics one way or another, right?
We are all slaves of numbers, and I don't think we need to deny that fact, or even fear it. Like the man from Waking Life mentioned about the ongoing debate of free will, with us human always fearing the loss of it. It makes us wonder if free will really exists, if God supposedly knows everything that we are going to do, or if he dictates and governs our actions and our thoughts. If some power more superior than ourselves is in control, then what free will are we speaking of now? Of course, that will bring us into a whole lot of religious and philosophical questions, but for now free will doesn't seem so 'free' anymore. We are no longer acting upon our own will and wishes because somebody out there seems to be controlling it, if we believe that He is of course. Even if it is not God that you believe, even fate has a hand in this if you believe in that instead.
Now, the religious theory aside, we can't really look to science to solve our problems either. Like the guy said in the movie, everything on earth is based on fundamental physical laws. And if we examine humans on the atomic level, we are no different from say the keyboard your fingers are typing on right now, the table your computer is resting on right now or the air you are breathing in right now. You might think that the act of reaching out your hand to grab a cup of water might be an act of free will, but think about the process involved in grabbing that cup of water. You have that thought, the brain senses it, sends a signal down your nerves and through your arms, right down to your fingers and then your arm reaches out to grab that cup of water. Everything might seem very normal, but still the act involved a lot of fundamental physical laws. We are still made up of 70% water, and two hydrogen and one oxygen still makes up water. We are still a bunch of atoms placed and packed together, so what is free will when even the most fundamental things are controlled by fundamental physical laws, or even mathematics?
Everything depends on numbers and more numbers in our lives. Aside from the price tags of clothes in a shopping mall, prices of eggs in a supermarket, or HTML codes even, having two people meet in a place takes a lot of intricate calculations to make it happen as well. If not for the Singapore Idols, I wouldn't have visited the Mediacorp forums. If not for that forum, I wouldn't have met her two years ago, and if I haven't met her I wouldn't have been the person I am today. Still, we are slaves to numbers and the so-called fundamental physical laws, but I guess at times these rules and laws of life brings us the most pleasant surprises as well.
Instead of troubling ourselves over such sophomoric questions, we should see the results that it brought to us. Free will or not, she did come along and she did change my life. So why should I care what numbers brought her to me, what mathematical probabilities were involved, or what physical laws? I cannot care less about such philosophical or scientific questions right now, because emotions and feelings governs me, even if I am a slave to all these very physical aspects of one's life. And if I believe in that, then I know that it doesn't matter at all, that I am happy with the person whom I am with. To hell with the numbers, because at the end of the day, emotions rule.
Happy 99th, my love.
*
"...The earth turned
to bring us closer.
It turned on itself and in us,
until it finally brought us together in this dream..."
--- by Eugenio Montejo, from "La Tierra Giró para Acercarnos"
At last, my long lost 21 Grams DVD was found a couple of days ago when I wasn't in a particularly good mood. I'm not sure if I have already mentioned it, but I am mentioning it once again anyway. It is after all something to rejoice about, since it is one of my beloved movies. It has been in my computer desk's drawer ever since it left the casing, and it is strange since I actually looked in that pile of CDs before. Makes you wonder just what the hell I was doing while trying to search for the disc. As mentioned, when I am not in a particularly good mood I tend to do household chores like, clearing the room for example. So I was doing that when I found the DVD, what a pleasant surprise. Who knows? If I fall into those depressive mood more often nowadays I might find my kindergarten uniform soon enough.
Eager to watch the film once more, I popped the CD into the computer and watched it all over again. Like before, I was blown away by the acting of the three leads (Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro), and of course the plot of the story. I think I wrote a review of this film in my old blog, but I am reluctant to reveal the URL to that blog because the writing there is horrendous. Hell, it even has a gay blogskin which I am too lazy to change anyway. It has been gathering dust for the longest time I know, and let's leave it as that for now.
I am not going to go deep into the movie, since I have already went through it a couple of times, but there is a part of the movie that struck a bell this time round when I watched it. It was the scene with Sean Penn's character sitting at Lawrence's, with Naomi Watts' character having a nice lunch together for the first time. And as a mathematician he was going on and on about how every human life is governed by numbers. Of course, there are a lot of other things being dictated by the way numbers work and interact with one another, but at that moment he was specifically talking about human relationships with one another.
Like he mentioned," There are so many things that have to happen for two people to meet", and I think in so many ways that is true, even in the context of the film. If Jack hadn't ran his truck into Christina's husband and children, they wouldn't have died. Her husband wouldn't have been able to donate the heart to Paul's dying character and Paul wouldn't have found Christina and fell in love with her. It's just the complexities in life, the way it works with probabilities.
Everything just seems to have something to do with maths one way or another, and it changes our perspective on what our maths teachers used to tell us in Primary School. It probably is to most hated subject in educational history, but at the same time most relevant to, as much as I hate to admit. I was never too good with mathematics, especially after my downfall in JC. I never was great at it in Secondary School, but at least I got help and pulled myself back up. But JC really dragged me down into the deepest pits of self-demoralization, and I found myself being as distant from that subject as possible. But now that I think about it, you can never run too far from the control mathematics has on your life, even if it has to deal with the person you meet on the bus, or the mall or even the existence of yourself in this family.
Of course, we can always argue that numbers were not physically involved in such incidents, like meeting the person that you love and hold so dearly. You claim the effort to fate, you claim it to chance, but of course nobody ever really considers that little chapter in the textbook called 'Probability'. It has got everything to do with it, right down to the timing of the meeting. Of course, after you guys meet there is chemistry and physics involved, but even that has got to do with mathematics one way or another, right?
We are all slaves of numbers, and I don't think we need to deny that fact, or even fear it. Like the man from Waking Life mentioned about the ongoing debate of free will, with us human always fearing the loss of it. It makes us wonder if free will really exists, if God supposedly knows everything that we are going to do, or if he dictates and governs our actions and our thoughts. If some power more superior than ourselves is in control, then what free will are we speaking of now? Of course, that will bring us into a whole lot of religious and philosophical questions, but for now free will doesn't seem so 'free' anymore. We are no longer acting upon our own will and wishes because somebody out there seems to be controlling it, if we believe that He is of course. Even if it is not God that you believe, even fate has a hand in this if you believe in that instead.
Now, the religious theory aside, we can't really look to science to solve our problems either. Like the guy said in the movie, everything on earth is based on fundamental physical laws. And if we examine humans on the atomic level, we are no different from say the keyboard your fingers are typing on right now, the table your computer is resting on right now or the air you are breathing in right now. You might think that the act of reaching out your hand to grab a cup of water might be an act of free will, but think about the process involved in grabbing that cup of water. You have that thought, the brain senses it, sends a signal down your nerves and through your arms, right down to your fingers and then your arm reaches out to grab that cup of water. Everything might seem very normal, but still the act involved a lot of fundamental physical laws. We are still made up of 70% water, and two hydrogen and one oxygen still makes up water. We are still a bunch of atoms placed and packed together, so what is free will when even the most fundamental things are controlled by fundamental physical laws, or even mathematics?
Everything depends on numbers and more numbers in our lives. Aside from the price tags of clothes in a shopping mall, prices of eggs in a supermarket, or HTML codes even, having two people meet in a place takes a lot of intricate calculations to make it happen as well. If not for the Singapore Idols, I wouldn't have visited the Mediacorp forums. If not for that forum, I wouldn't have met her two years ago, and if I haven't met her I wouldn't have been the person I am today. Still, we are slaves to numbers and the so-called fundamental physical laws, but I guess at times these rules and laws of life brings us the most pleasant surprises as well.
Instead of troubling ourselves over such sophomoric questions, we should see the results that it brought to us. Free will or not, she did come along and she did change my life. So why should I care what numbers brought her to me, what mathematical probabilities were involved, or what physical laws? I cannot care less about such philosophical or scientific questions right now, because emotions and feelings governs me, even if I am a slave to all these very physical aspects of one's life. And if I believe in that, then I know that it doesn't matter at all, that I am happy with the person whom I am with. To hell with the numbers, because at the end of the day, emotions rule.
Happy 99th, my love.
*
"...The earth turned
to bring us closer.
It turned on itself and in us,
until it finally brought us together in this dream..."
--- by Eugenio Montejo, from "La Tierra Giró para Acercarnos"
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on Monday, February 05, 2007 at 8:55 PM.
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