Classwork via LiveJournal
Oct. 14th, 2005 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary
I shouldn't be on LJ. But since I'm online anyway, let's put this time to constructive use! Much discussion of schoolwork ahead.
1. Books to read next: Thud!, by Terry Pratchett, Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman, Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami, Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers...
2. After many late nights and much agonizing, I've caught up on all my reading except for MCB 155 (because I still haven't read those two Ptashne texts). Nonetheless, I'm still behind on work, and what's sad is that not all of it is homework for courses. Before tomorrow, I must finish writing that paper (which I said I'd finish yesterday), finish that Powerpoint presentation, finish that microarray analysis and somehow finish that joke of a hanja assignment.
3. Cartesian Linguistics in five sentences. As Descartes and other Enligtenment rationalist thinkers have asserted, human language is different from animal communication because it is not an automatic, instinctive response to environmental triggers but has a creative capacity that allows for near-infinite possibilities of expression. In analyzing language, we must distinguish between "deep" and "surface" structure: the former of which consists of how human reason processes the meaning of a sentence before we articulate it and the latter of which consists of how our minds parse sounds into a recognizable sentence according to the rules of the language we speak. Hence, the need to distinguish between "descriptive" and "explanatory" linguistics, the former of which only describes the grammatical structure of a language and the latter of which attempts to explain what elements of grammar reflect the way our minds translate prelinguistic concepts into words and sentences. In conclusion, there exists a Universal Grammar, regardless of the language we speak, based on some innate mental structure that enables us to acquire language despite poverty of stimulus, etc.
In other words, Kant's synthesis of the rationalist-empiricist dialectic except as applied to linguistics and language acquisition instead of epistemology. (Kant in a sentence, albeit an incredibly simplified joke of a sentence: the substance of our knowledge comes from a posteriori sensory impressions, but human reason provides an a priori "toolkit" by which we are able to make sense of those impressions and form judgments from them. What is innate is the mechanism not the content. Kant too was reacting to the extremes of empiricist epistemology, just the way Chomsky was reacting to behaviorism.)
My summary may be wordy, but can you believe that we had to read more than a hundred pages that boils down to basically that? Can you also believe that Chomsky never really mentions Kant more than twice in the entire book? I actually sympathize with Chomsky's point of view, but I hate the way he writes.
4. My TF asked me to "discuss" a question in section tomorrow, and I stupidly agreed. The question being how does Eliphaz, in the verse dialogues of Job 3-14, compare to the "Friend" in the Babylonian Theodicy. As I said to Daera over dinner yesterday, Mesopotamian literature is really fascinating and strangely compelling, millennia after it was first written. I am almost, almost convinced that if this whole science business doesn't work out, I should go study ancient Mesopotamian history and literature. (I always did want to learn Sumerian! Hahaha...) Of course, for me to abandon science would require identity crisis of catastrophic proportions, but one ought to be prepared for all eventualities.
Anyway, what should I say in section? Eliphaz begins with the same two assumptions as the Friend: (1) that God is omnipotent and just, (2) that this justice is personally reflected in an individual's fortune in life. (The traditional belief that if you live a righteous life, you will be prosperous, and its logical converse, if you are prosperous, you must have lived a righteous life.) Some parallels in the way their argument progresses: comparisons to wild animals, divine will is unknowable, and most importantly, the conclusion that humans are all inevitably sinful in the eyes of God or gods.
Eliphaz: "The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken. The strong lion perishes for lack of prety, and the whelps of the lioness are scattered." (Job 4: 10-11)
Friend: "Come, look at that lion you called to mind, the enemy of livestock,/For the atrocity that lion committed, the pit yawns for him." (VI, lines 61-62)
Eliphaz: "It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance [...] 'Can mortals be righteous before God? Can human beigns be pure before their Maker?'" (Job 4: 17-18)
Friend: "The strategy of a god is [as remote as] the innermost heaven,/The command of a goddess cannot be dr[awn out]." (VIII, lines 82-83)
Eliphaz: "For misery doees not come from the earth, nor does trouble sprout from the ground; but human beings are born to trouble just as sparks fly upward." (Job 5: 6-7)
Friend: "Enlil, king of the gods, who created teeming humankind [...] Gave twisted words to the human race,/They endowed them in perpetuity with lies and falsehood." (XXVI, lines 276, 279-280)
Basically, in order to uphold their notions of justice and order in the universe, Eliphaz and the Friend are caught in this paradox: they pass all blame for injustice in the world to the flawed nature of human beings (hah, the concept of original sin preceded Augustine!), only to end up with a new dilemma of why all-powerful God (or gods) would have made human beings this way. Not that they acknowledge the dilemma, traditionalists that they are. In other words, an answer that isn't an answer.
Eliphaz and the Friend are hardly the eloquent speakers in either of the two texts. It is Job, who cries out in anguish, "What are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on them, visit them every morning, test them every moment?" (Job 7: 17-18) that moves me, and the Sufferer of the Theodicy, who says bitterly, "I will ignore (my) god's regulations, [I will] trample on his rites." (XIII, line 135) that wrings my heart.
5. I've been embarrassed to discover that other Naver bloggers do pass through my blog, which is not only laden with typos and genuine misspellings but awkward sentence constructions like whoa. Also, it reads like a schoolgirl's diary. Why is that? Oh right, because I don't have the vocabulary to do anything else but whine and sound dramatic. Some observations: Korean bloggers don't type in paragraphs but short, chatty sentences. Their posts are prone to consist mainly of photos or copy-pastes of news articles. The near-unspoken taboo on hotlinking/stealing images simply does not exist. Everything is set up to enhance social networking: you are told how many people visit your blog, how many comments they leave, and even which registered bloggers have stopped by (although you can erase your tracks if you're paranoid). Also, the Netspeak! So weird! Sadly enough, we had a discussion on Netspeak in Korean class the other day, and when the professor gave us some examples, I...knew what every one meant. Is that sad or what? All from blog-surfing and a couple of chats. -_- Anyway, you can tell on first sight that I'm from overseas; I write like a Western blogger.
Yours &c.
I shouldn't be on LJ. But since I'm online anyway, let's put this time to constructive use! Much discussion of schoolwork ahead.
1. Books to read next: Thud!, by Terry Pratchett, Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman, Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami, Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers...
2. After many late nights and much agonizing, I've caught up on all my reading except for MCB 155 (because I still haven't read those two Ptashne texts). Nonetheless, I'm still behind on work, and what's sad is that not all of it is homework for courses. Before tomorrow, I must finish writing that paper (which I said I'd finish yesterday), finish that Powerpoint presentation, finish that microarray analysis and somehow finish that joke of a hanja assignment.
3. Cartesian Linguistics in five sentences. As Descartes and other Enligtenment rationalist thinkers have asserted, human language is different from animal communication because it is not an automatic, instinctive response to environmental triggers but has a creative capacity that allows for near-infinite possibilities of expression. In analyzing language, we must distinguish between "deep" and "surface" structure: the former of which consists of how human reason processes the meaning of a sentence before we articulate it and the latter of which consists of how our minds parse sounds into a recognizable sentence according to the rules of the language we speak. Hence, the need to distinguish between "descriptive" and "explanatory" linguistics, the former of which only describes the grammatical structure of a language and the latter of which attempts to explain what elements of grammar reflect the way our minds translate prelinguistic concepts into words and sentences. In conclusion, there exists a Universal Grammar, regardless of the language we speak, based on some innate mental structure that enables us to acquire language despite poverty of stimulus, etc.
In other words, Kant's synthesis of the rationalist-empiricist dialectic except as applied to linguistics and language acquisition instead of epistemology. (Kant in a sentence, albeit an incredibly simplified joke of a sentence: the substance of our knowledge comes from a posteriori sensory impressions, but human reason provides an a priori "toolkit" by which we are able to make sense of those impressions and form judgments from them. What is innate is the mechanism not the content. Kant too was reacting to the extremes of empiricist epistemology, just the way Chomsky was reacting to behaviorism.)
My summary may be wordy, but can you believe that we had to read more than a hundred pages that boils down to basically that? Can you also believe that Chomsky never really mentions Kant more than twice in the entire book? I actually sympathize with Chomsky's point of view, but I hate the way he writes.
4. My TF asked me to "discuss" a question in section tomorrow, and I stupidly agreed. The question being how does Eliphaz, in the verse dialogues of Job 3-14, compare to the "Friend" in the Babylonian Theodicy. As I said to Daera over dinner yesterday, Mesopotamian literature is really fascinating and strangely compelling, millennia after it was first written. I am almost, almost convinced that if this whole science business doesn't work out, I should go study ancient Mesopotamian history and literature. (I always did want to learn Sumerian! Hahaha...) Of course, for me to abandon science would require identity crisis of catastrophic proportions, but one ought to be prepared for all eventualities.
Anyway, what should I say in section? Eliphaz begins with the same two assumptions as the Friend: (1) that God is omnipotent and just, (2) that this justice is personally reflected in an individual's fortune in life. (The traditional belief that if you live a righteous life, you will be prosperous, and its logical converse, if you are prosperous, you must have lived a righteous life.) Some parallels in the way their argument progresses: comparisons to wild animals, divine will is unknowable, and most importantly, the conclusion that humans are all inevitably sinful in the eyes of God or gods.
Eliphaz: "The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken. The strong lion perishes for lack of prety, and the whelps of the lioness are scattered." (Job 4: 10-11)
Friend: "Come, look at that lion you called to mind, the enemy of livestock,/For the atrocity that lion committed, the pit yawns for him." (VI, lines 61-62)
Eliphaz: "It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance [...] 'Can mortals be righteous before God? Can human beigns be pure before their Maker?'" (Job 4: 17-18)
Friend: "The strategy of a god is [as remote as] the innermost heaven,/The command of a goddess cannot be dr[awn out]." (VIII, lines 82-83)
Eliphaz: "For misery doees not come from the earth, nor does trouble sprout from the ground; but human beings are born to trouble just as sparks fly upward." (Job 5: 6-7)
Friend: "Enlil, king of the gods, who created teeming humankind [...] Gave twisted words to the human race,/They endowed them in perpetuity with lies and falsehood." (XXVI, lines 276, 279-280)
Basically, in order to uphold their notions of justice and order in the universe, Eliphaz and the Friend are caught in this paradox: they pass all blame for injustice in the world to the flawed nature of human beings (hah, the concept of original sin preceded Augustine!), only to end up with a new dilemma of why all-powerful God (or gods) would have made human beings this way. Not that they acknowledge the dilemma, traditionalists that they are. In other words, an answer that isn't an answer.
Eliphaz and the Friend are hardly the eloquent speakers in either of the two texts. It is Job, who cries out in anguish, "What are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on them, visit them every morning, test them every moment?" (Job 7: 17-18) that moves me, and the Sufferer of the Theodicy, who says bitterly, "I will ignore (my) god's regulations, [I will] trample on his rites." (XIII, line 135) that wrings my heart.
5. I've been embarrassed to discover that other Naver bloggers do pass through my blog, which is not only laden with typos and genuine misspellings but awkward sentence constructions like whoa. Also, it reads like a schoolgirl's diary. Why is that? Oh right, because I don't have the vocabulary to do anything else but whine and sound dramatic. Some observations: Korean bloggers don't type in paragraphs but short, chatty sentences. Their posts are prone to consist mainly of photos or copy-pastes of news articles. The near-unspoken taboo on hotlinking/stealing images simply does not exist. Everything is set up to enhance social networking: you are told how many people visit your blog, how many comments they leave, and even which registered bloggers have stopped by (although you can erase your tracks if you're paranoid). Also, the Netspeak! So weird! Sadly enough, we had a discussion on Netspeak in Korean class the other day, and when the professor gave us some examples, I...knew what every one meant. Is that sad or what? All from blog-surfing and a couple of chats. -_- Anyway, you can tell on first sight that I'm from overseas; I write like a Western blogger.
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-14 07:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-14 12:47 pm (UTC)Yeah~ especially when he does not translate his cited text into ENGLISH. @_@
Take care!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-14 02:29 pm (UTC)