Comments on: Educational Discrimination of a Different Kind http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/ for Malaysia Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:39:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Jeffrey http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-24414 Jeffrey Sat, 02 Jun 2007 17:08:11 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-24414 PG Lim is not necessarily a classic example to the rest of us of 'practical approach to a real situation when circumstances do not give one a choice for work on passion'. She belonged to a different era when it was truly difficult for an Asian to be a successful musician. Then again who knows? You may want to consider some caveats here: Had she pursued her passion, she might have become a world renowned pianist; if she did not become one, then again it might because her so called passion was not true passion. Enjoying the glittering lights, and thunderous applause from the audience does not reflect passion as much (as say) a talent or love of music and joy in sharing it with the world. she had the talent - and analytical skills to become a great lawyer and most important, the pedigree. She comes from a family of Oxford/cambridge trained lawyers. Her brothers were famous lawyers : Lim Kean Chye of Ipoh and Lim Kean Siew of Penang. Whilst she said she had the passion for the piano, she did not say she did not have greater talent and as much passion developed later on as a lawyer. This is not a mere hypothetical argument. I should know. I knew her beyond mere acquaintance. PG Lim is not necessarily a classic example to the rest of us of ‘practical approach to a real situation when circumstances do not give one a choice for work on passion’.

She belonged to a different era when it was truly difficult for an Asian to be a successful musician. Then again who knows? You may want to consider some caveats here:

Had she pursued her passion, she might have become a world renowned pianist;

if she did not become one, then again it might because her so called passion was not true passion. Enjoying the glittering lights, and thunderous applause from the audience does not reflect passion as much (as say) a talent or love of music and joy in sharing it with the world.

she had the talent - and analytical skills to become a great lawyer and most important, the pedigree. She comes from a family of Oxford/cambridge trained lawyers. Her brothers were famous lawyers : Lim Kean Chye of Ipoh and Lim Kean Siew of Penang. Whilst she said she had the passion for the piano, she did not say she did not have greater talent and as much passion developed later on as a lawyer. This is not a mere hypothetical argument. I should know. I knew her beyond mere acquaintance.

]]> By: Kingkong http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-24191 Kingkong Sat, 02 Jun 2007 05:14:11 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-24191 I came across this piece of interesting interview of P G Lim by China Press, a prominent lawyer, our first lady ambassador and UN representative. This interview appeared on 1st June 2007 on the China Press, page A21. Thinking that it might be helpful and relevant for young people who may be at the cross road of their career path, I translated it out for your reading pleasure. P G Lim at the age of 92 is still a very graceful lady and enjoys her good health, between work on passion and work on necessity, she had this to say. To be a musician who enjoyed the glittering lights, and thunderous applause from the audience, this was the passion that P G Lim had and she wanted badly to be a musician. However, when she grew up, she did not become a musician, but rather a prominent lawyer. “In my era, it was very difficult for an Asian to be a successful musician; it was as difficult as trying to climb up to the sky. My father told me if I ever wanted to be a musician, the most I could achieve was to be a good music teacher.” P G Lim also has a master degree in Music and between music and law; she opted to be a lawyer for the sake of better prospect. “ In those days, I was not very willing to do it, but my father was the bread winner, and I had no choice but to read law, but I have no regrets to become a lawyer; I could help people with my law qualification; and if I couldn’t find a job, at least I could work in my father’s law office. “ Time is the best witness, and the passion that P G Lim dropped off in pain proved to be worthy. Based on her intelligence, oratory skill, and broad knowledge of laws, she has become a prominent and respectable lawyer and had helped many people. She enjoyed a very successful career and good life. The interview was carried out in her home and looking at the grand piano, the reporter asked: “Do you still play piano?” “I am now aged and my fingers are not so flexible, and I have reduced my playing time.” as she replied. This is a classic example of practical approach to a real situation when circumstances do not give one a choice for work on passion. One can still, have a successful career, good life and live up to a ripe old age of something over 90 and still enjoy good health in spite of choosing work on necessity. I came across this piece of interesting interview of P G Lim by China Press, a prominent lawyer, our first lady ambassador and UN representative. This interview appeared on 1st June 2007 on the China Press, page A21. Thinking that it might be helpful and relevant for young people who may be at the cross road of their career path, I translated it out for your reading pleasure.

P G Lim at the age of 92 is still a very graceful lady and enjoys her good health, between work on passion and work on necessity, she had this to say.

To be a musician who enjoyed the glittering lights, and thunderous applause from the audience, this was the passion that P G Lim had and she wanted badly to be a musician. However, when she grew up, she did not become a musician, but rather a prominent lawyer.

“In my era, it was very difficult for an Asian to be a successful musician; it was as difficult as trying to climb up to the sky. My father told me if I ever wanted to be a musician, the most I could achieve was to be a good music teacher.”

P G Lim also has a master degree in Music and between music and law; she opted to be a lawyer for the sake of better prospect.
“ In those days, I was not very willing to do it, but my father was the bread winner, and I had no choice but to read law, but I have no regrets to become a lawyer; I could help people with my law qualification; and if I couldn’t find a job, at least I could work in my father’s law office. “

Time is the best witness, and the passion that P G Lim dropped off in pain proved to be worthy. Based on her intelligence, oratory skill, and broad knowledge of laws, she has become a prominent and respectable lawyer and had helped many people. She enjoyed a very successful career and good life.

The interview was carried out in her home and looking at the grand piano, the reporter asked: “Do you still play piano?” “I am now aged and my fingers are not so flexible, and I have reduced my playing time.” as she replied.

This is a classic example of practical approach to a real situation when circumstances do not give one a choice for work on passion. One can still, have a successful career, good life and live up to a ripe old age of something over 90 and still enjoy good health in spite of choosing work on necessity.

]]> By: Lee Wang Yen http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-22686 Lee Wang Yen Mon, 28 May 2007 06:11:13 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-22686 Yes, ultimately everyone has to made her own choice. But that does not mean that every choice is rational. Making a choice without taking into considerations results of serious empirical studies (unless they have been shown otherwise) is a sign of irrationality. A builder is free to ignore the latest findings of engineering science and insists on his own gut feelings and choice. But he risks building something that may collapse. One is free to ignore the results of a careful psychological study and insists on his own gut feeling and choice, but doing so risks losing or failing to attain the well-being that could have been attained by taking those results into considerations. Science and social science are not infallible. But experience tells us that they are reliable. This does not mean that every case of making a choice that ignores well-established theories will lead to troubles. But given the reliability of science and social science, one is more likely to live a better life by taking well-established scientific results seriously. Yes, psychology is still relatively less developed compared with hard sciences like physics and chemistry, but it is the best scientific channel we have in understanding human beings. In any case, it is more reliable than the pronouncement of Kingkong's own gut feelings and what he asserts with certainty. Yes, ultimately everyone has to made her own choice. But that does not mean that every choice is rational. Making a choice without taking into considerations results of serious empirical studies (unless they have been shown otherwise) is a sign of irrationality. A builder is free to ignore the latest findings of engineering science and insists on his own gut feelings and choice. But he risks building something that may collapse. One is free to ignore the results of a careful psychological study and insists on his own gut feeling and choice, but doing so risks losing or failing to attain the well-being that could have been attained by taking those results into considerations.
Science and social science are not infallible. But experience tells us that they are reliable. This does not mean that every case of making a choice that ignores well-established theories will lead to troubles. But given the reliability of science and social science, one is more likely to live a better life by taking well-established scientific results seriously. Yes, psychology is still relatively less developed compared with hard sciences like physics and chemistry, but it is the best scientific channel we have in understanding human beings. In any case, it is more reliable than the pronouncement of Kingkong’s own gut feelings and what he asserts with certainty.

]]> By: Lee Wang Yen http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-22681 Lee Wang Yen Mon, 28 May 2007 05:50:34 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-22681 That a statement is true/false and that an argument is valid/invalid is not merely a choice of word that any language user can decide on his own how he wants to use it. Given that the words 'statement', 'argument', 'valid', and 'true' had already been used to mean what they meant by the English speakers before logicians analysed the kind of evaluation appropriate for a statement and an argument respectively, and given that the logicians could not ignore the previous meanings of these four terms and decide there and then arbitrarily to give completely different meanings to the four terms, the logicians who analysed the appropriate evaluation of argument and statement HAD TO conclude it only makes sense to say that a statement is true/false and that an argument is valid/invalid. It is true that language is conventional, but it does not mean that each and every language user is free to give any word any meaning she likes. A language user can coin new words, but has to use every word that has been used in the past in that language community according to the meanings that have already been given to these words. Otherwise, you would need to give a large number of words in that language different meanings and as a result speak a language that no one understands. This is because, as philosophy of language indicates, language is a systematic nexus of semantic and syntactic rules. A change in the semantic and syntactic rules of one word will result in the corresponding change of the semantic and syntactic rules of many other words related to it. If you change the meaning of the word 'human' by altering its semantic and syntactic rules, then some of the original syntactic rules that link 'human' to other words such as 'man', 'woman', 'Chinese', 'person', 'student' etc will no longer apply and as a result the meanings of these other words will also be changed. GIven that these four terms had already been used before the logicians analysed them, the logicians had to analyse them according to the meanings already given to those words (or risked getting a conclusion that only applies to these few logicians but not to other English speakers) and had to conclude that it only makes sense to say that a statement is true/false and that an argument is valid/invalid. A simpler response: when a physicist tells you that it only makes sense to say that 'A is the velocity of B' and 'X is the speed of Y' and not the other way round, you cannot reply by saying 'whether velocity or speed (or mass or weight), it is my choice of words'. If any language user can 'choose' the meaning of words by his own decision, then Bung-Said can say that they have chosen to use 'bocor' in a way that does not have the connotation other speakers of the Malay Language give to it, and thus have not committed the offence others say they have. That a psychologist who has conducted careful empirical studies on a subject is dead is no good reason to dismiss his claims. Newton is dead. Eistein is dead. And so are many scientists and mathematicians. Of course, I'm not saying that Maslow is infallible or that he must be correct. Even scientists are not infallible. Even Eistein revised Newton's theory. But this (the fact that scientists are not infallible) is not a good reason to reject current theories of science out of hand when you have no competing theories that enjoy better empirical support in place of the current ones. The same could be said of Maslow's theory. To argue against him, you'll have to conduct empirical studies that get a conclusion that contradicts his, and at the same time enjoy stronger empirical support. Alternatively, you should cite another psychologist whose work( which has equal if not more empirical support) contradicts Maslow's conclusion. Some hobbies cannot be careers in our current social setting. None of my previous comments implied that all hobbies can be careers. You must have inferred it from my statement that we'd better relegate our passions that we are not really good at to hobbies rather than pursue them as our careers. But I wonder how you inferred from this claim to the claim that all hobbies can be careers, which you then set up as a straw-man and attacked it by your story about the fisherman. That inference is simply invalid. If you didn't make this inference then one wonders how the story of the fisherman is relevant to my earlier claim. That a statement is true/false and that an argument is valid/invalid is not merely a choice of word that any language user can decide on his own how he wants to use it. Given that the words ’statement’, ‘argument’, ‘valid’, and ‘true’ had already been used to mean what they meant by the English speakers before logicians analysed the kind of evaluation appropriate for a statement and an argument respectively, and given that the logicians could not ignore the previous meanings of these four terms and decide there and then arbitrarily to give completely different meanings to the four terms, the logicians who analysed the appropriate evaluation of argument and statement HAD TO conclude it only makes sense to say that a statement is true/false and that an argument is valid/invalid. It is true that language is conventional, but it does not mean that each and every language user is free to give any word any meaning she likes. A language user can coin new words, but has to use every word that has been used in the past in that language community according to the meanings that have already been given to these words. Otherwise, you would need to give a large number of words in that language different meanings and as a result speak a language that no one understands. This is because, as philosophy of language indicates, language is a systematic nexus of semantic and syntactic rules. A change in the semantic and syntactic rules of one word will result in the corresponding change of the semantic and syntactic rules of many other words related to it. If you change the meaning of the word ‘human’ by altering its semantic and syntactic rules, then some of the original syntactic rules that link ‘human’ to other words such as ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘Chinese’, ‘person’, ’student’ etc will no longer apply and as a result the meanings of these other words will also be changed. GIven that these four terms had already been used before the logicians analysed them, the logicians had to analyse them according to the meanings already given to those words (or risked getting a conclusion that only applies to these few logicians but not to other English speakers) and had to conclude that it only makes sense to say that a statement is true/false and that an argument is valid/invalid.
A simpler response: when a physicist tells you that it only makes sense to say that ‘A is the velocity of B’ and ‘X is the speed of Y’ and not the other way round, you cannot reply by saying ‘whether velocity or speed (or mass or weight), it is my choice of words’.
If any language user can ‘choose’ the meaning of words by his own decision, then Bung-Said can say that they have chosen to use ‘bocor’ in a way that does not have the connotation other speakers of the Malay Language give to it, and thus have not committed the offence others say they have.
That a psychologist who has conducted careful empirical studies on a subject is dead is no good reason to dismiss his claims. Newton is dead. Eistein is dead. And so are many scientists and mathematicians. Of course, I’m not saying that Maslow is infallible or that he must be correct. Even scientists are not infallible. Even Eistein revised Newton’s theory. But this (the fact that scientists are not infallible) is not a good reason to reject current theories of science out of hand when you have no competing theories that enjoy better empirical support in place of the current ones. The same could be said of Maslow’s theory. To argue against him, you’ll have to conduct empirical studies that get a conclusion that contradicts his, and at the same time enjoy stronger empirical support. Alternatively, you should cite another psychologist whose work( which has equal if not more empirical support) contradicts Maslow’s conclusion.
Some hobbies cannot be careers in our current social setting. None of my previous comments implied that all hobbies can be careers. You must have inferred it from my statement that we’d better relegate our passions that we are not really good at to hobbies rather than pursue them as our careers. But I wonder how you inferred from this claim to the claim that all hobbies can be careers, which you then set up as a straw-man and attacked it by your story about the fisherman. That inference is simply invalid. If you didn’t make this inference then one wonders how the story of the fisherman is relevant to my earlier claim.

]]> By: Kingkong http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-22615 Kingkong Mon, 28 May 2007 03:31:02 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-22615 “A statement is true/false. A statement cannot be valid/invalid “Lee Wang Yen. It is merely a choice a word. I can go along with your word true/false. No big deal. Abraham Maslow may be a great American psychologist, but he is dead now. The interpretation of his work depends on how one looks at it from which angle of view one chooses. I assume we are not experts in this field, and our interpretation may not be that correct. A citation of his work does not necessarily mean that it is true. Life is an analogue and not digital as either one or zero. There is a mixture of passion and monetary reward in work or business which one engages. Then one tries to seek a balance between the two whether it is more of this or less of that depending on one’s need. Abraham Maslow emphasized a lot on need, as what he said before one reached the state of self-actualization, one had to get the basic steps of physiological, safety, love/Belonging, Esteem right in that order. But that is his model if my interpretation is correct, however in actual life, it may be deviated as Jeffrey said his was an inverted pyramid and advised people not to follow. The key is personal choice, and I wouldn’t say it is a “should “. If you think you are comfortable with it, go ahead and do it. After all one decides his own destiny. One does not need to check whether one’s action is conformed to the steps of Abraham Maslow before one does anything. Your own gut feeling is the key, and no one could decide for you. As you realize in previous posting, most passion stuff appears in hobby but monetary reward appears in work on necessity. An angler may spend a lot of money, and time to fishing as a hobby, (he could get up in the morning at odd hours fishing in the middle of the Straits of Melaka, but couldn’t get up in time for work). Asked to be a full time fisherman is a no, no. Why? He can’t earn a living on that. The luckiest person is the one who can combine passionate hobby with bread winning as I mentioned in my previous posting, the Yoga teacher with a few Yoga schools to run. Again, this is my opinion and is not a “should “case. “A statement is true/false. A statement cannot be valid/invalid “Lee Wang Yen.

It is merely a choice a word. I can go along with your word true/false. No big deal.

Abraham Maslow may be a great American psychologist, but he is dead now. The interpretation of his work depends on how one looks at it from which angle of view one chooses. I assume we are not experts in this field, and our interpretation may not be that correct. A citation of his work does not necessarily mean that it is true.

Life is an analogue and not digital as either one or zero. There is a mixture of passion and monetary reward in work or business which one engages. Then one tries to seek a balance between the two whether it is more of this or less of that depending on one’s need. Abraham Maslow emphasized a lot on need, as what he said before one reached the state of self-actualization, one had to get the basic steps of physiological, safety, love/Belonging, Esteem right in that order. But that is his model if my interpretation is correct, however in actual life, it may be deviated as Jeffrey said his was an inverted pyramid and advised people not to follow.

The key is personal choice, and I wouldn’t say it is a “should “. If you think you are comfortable with it, go ahead and do it. After all one decides his own destiny. One does not need to check whether one’s action is conformed to the steps of Abraham Maslow before one does anything. Your own gut feeling is the key, and no one could decide for you.

As you realize in previous posting, most passion stuff appears in hobby but monetary reward appears in work on necessity. An angler may spend a lot of money, and time to fishing as a hobby, (he could get up in the morning at odd hours fishing in the middle of the Straits of Melaka, but couldn’t get up in time for work). Asked to be a full time fisherman is a no, no. Why? He can’t earn a living on that.

The luckiest person is the one who can combine passionate hobby with bread winning as I mentioned in my previous posting, the Yoga teacher with a few Yoga schools to run.

Again, this is my opinion and is not a “should “case.

]]> By: Lee Wang Yen http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-22442 Lee Wang Yen Sun, 27 May 2007 16:08:07 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-22442 An argument is valid/invalid. A statement is true/false. A statement cannot be valid/invalid An argument is valid/invalid. A statement is true/false. A statement cannot be valid/invalid

]]> By: Lee Wang Yen http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-22441 Lee Wang Yen Sun, 27 May 2007 16:06:48 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-22441 The verfication/falsification and confirmation/disconfirmation of a general statement is not as simple as citing one counterexample, as you suggested. First of all, strict verfication and falsification apply only to analytic statements, which are what we deal with in mathematics. When you say that the citation of a counterexample should disprove a general statement (this is strictly speaking false, because general statement includes universal and statistical generalisations. You should have written 'universal generalisation', for a statistical generalisation cannot be falsified by a counterexample), what you have in mind is strict falsification, something we can only use in analytic statements (such as mathematical statements). But our discussions are on synthetic rather than analytic statements. When we are dealing with synthetic statements (e.g. emprical statements), strict verification and falsification do not apply. This has already been shown in the bankruptcy of logical positivism/empiricism. What we have are the notions of confirmation and disconfirmation, which correspond to (but is different from) verification and falsification. Philosophers of science have spent plenty of time to develop accounts of confirmation that could be applied to scientific statements in particular and empirical statements in general. One of these theories is Bayesian abduction. According to this theory, the disconfirmation of a hypothesis (making a general statement for example) is not the citing of a counterexample (that is falsification and cannot apply to synthetic/empirical statements), but has to take into considerations various criteria such as yielding the data, scope, simplicity, and fit with background theories. The verfication/falsification and confirmation/disconfirmation of a general statement is not as simple as citing one counterexample, as you suggested. First of all, strict verfication and falsification apply only to analytic statements, which are what we deal with in mathematics. When you say that the citation of a counterexample should disprove a general statement (this is strictly speaking false, because general statement includes universal and statistical generalisations. You should have written ‘universal generalisation’, for a statistical generalisation cannot be falsified by a counterexample), what you have in mind is strict falsification, something we can only use in analytic statements (such as mathematical statements). But our discussions are on synthetic rather than analytic statements. When we are dealing with synthetic statements (e.g. emprical statements), strict verification and falsification do not apply. This has already been shown in the bankruptcy of logical positivism/empiricism. What we have are the notions of confirmation and disconfirmation, which correspond to (but is different from) verification and falsification. Philosophers of science have spent plenty of time to develop accounts of confirmation that could be applied to scientific statements in particular and empirical statements in general. One of these theories is Bayesian abduction. According to this theory, the disconfirmation of a hypothesis (making a general statement for example) is not the citing of a counterexample (that is falsification and cannot apply to synthetic/empirical statements), but has to take into considerations various criteria such as yielding the data, scope, simplicity, and fit with background theories.

]]> By: Lee Wang Yen http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-22440 Lee Wang Yen Sun, 27 May 2007 15:52:44 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-22440 As I said, happiness is not confined to end result (i.e. the achievement of objectives), it has to do (and many people will argue, to a greater extent) with the process before you get to the end result. As I said, happiness is not confined to end result (i.e. the achievement of objectives), it has to do (and many people will argue, to a greater extent) with the process before you get to the end result.

]]> By: Lee Wang Yen http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2007/05/23/educational-discrimination-of-a-different-kind/#comment-22439 Lee Wang Yen Sun, 27 May 2007 15:48:25 +0000 http://blog.limkitsiang.com/?p=261#comment-22439 You point is that, when passion and job satisfaction cannot be had simultaneously, one should opt for the choice that will lead to the satisfaction of the need that he thinks he needs the most (be it job satisfaction or more monetary reward). I think this point is questionable given Maslow's psychological studies that show that, when one's basic material needs have been satisfied (which is the assumption all three of us base our arguments on), human beings are constituted such a way that their real need is higher level satisfaction, the highest of which is self-actualisation (interpreted as job satisfaction in most contexts). I've already provided detailed explanation of this argument, including the crucial distinction between perceived and real needs, which has already cast serious doubt on your point. You'll have to argue against Maslow in order to get your point through. You point is that, when passion and job satisfaction cannot be had simultaneously, one should opt for the choice that will lead to the satisfaction of the need that he thinks he needs the most (be it job satisfaction or more monetary reward).
I think this point is questionable given Maslow’s psychological studies that show that, when one’s basic material needs have been satisfied (which is the assumption all three of us base our arguments on), human beings are constituted such a way that their real need is higher level satisfaction, the highest of which is self-actualisation (interpreted as job satisfaction in most contexts). I’ve already provided detailed explanation of this argument, including the crucial distinction between perceived and real needs, which has already cast serious doubt on your point. You’ll have to argue against Maslow in order to get your point through.

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