Axioms of Evolution

We have heard many observations and interpretations on the evolution. It is the time to synthesize them to some ultimate laws or axioms that govern the evolution.

Observation of Evolution
The evolution is caused by Random Events and there is No Purpose involved. Events with long lasting qualities remain. Long lasting qualities depend on the environment. Long lasting qualities tend to accumulate when time goes by. This gives a kind of impression of Direction. If this can be called Direction, it has nothing to do with good or bad, superior or inferior, forward or backward, 進 步 or 退 化 etc. Events with very short-lived qualities extinguish and species disappear from the earth. Here are the Axioms of Evolution.

Axiom 1: Regeneration
In order to last a long time in an environment, a species has to grow and maintain its health. It has to absorb energy to grow, renew or restore. This can be called Short Term Existence.

Axiom 2: Reproduction
A necessary condition for a species to grow in number is reproduction. An organ in the nature will eventually wear out due to constant usage. An individual of a species will die out when time goes by. The only way a species can last long is by reproduction. This can be called Long Term Existence.

Axiom 3: Interest
In order to maintain its long lasting qualities, a species must have a drive or desire to improve or enhance the well being of Regeneration and Reproduction. This Drive or Desire is called Interest. Since the state of well being is affected by the environment, the Interest also changes when time goes by. Without Interest, a species will die out eventually.

Axiom 4: Inheritance
The long lasting qualities tend to accumulate when time goes by. Some of these qualities may carry on to the next generation through Reproduction.

From the above axioms, we can try to explain or interpret the following:

(a) Regeneration and Reproduction lead to "Struggle for Existence (物競)"
(b) Interest and Inheritance lead to Natural Selection (天擇)
(a)+(b) lead to Survival of the Fittest (適著生存)

Regeneration + Reproduction: Matter (物,唯物論)
Interest + Inheritance: Mind (心,唯心論)
Regeneration + Reproduction + Inheritance + Interest: Matter + Mind (心物合一論)

Regeneration + Reproduction: 子曰 "食 色 性 也", "飽 暖 思 淫 慾". To an individual, Regeneration (short term existence) has a higher priority than the Reproduction (long term existence).

Interest: Between countries and business circles, there is no permanent friends and there is no permanent enemies, only Interest matters.

沒 有 永 久 的 朋 友, 没 有 永 久 的 敵 人. 祇 有 利 害 關 係.

Interest: How you stand depends on where you sit. (Your opinion and action depend on your position/status in the environment [society])

"An Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith
Interest governs the economic activities. It becomes an Invisible Hand (冥冥中有一隻不可目見之手) in our society.

World History and human activities are part of Natural Evolution, governed by the Four Axioms of Evolution. Almost all human activities can be explained by the conflicts and interactions among people with different Interests. In order to do Axiom 1 and 2 effectively and efficiently, the people form Interest that generates Political Policy. The execution of the policies forms the History.

On the Writing of Mandarin

The writing of a language is one of the most important part of civilization. Without it, there will be no knowledge or experience to be handed down permanently generation by generation. The unique writing of Mandarin is from top to bottom & from right to left. We don’t know why our ancestors chose to write it that way. With the advance of technology, we find that the Mandarin is forced to make change, some minor & some major. It is a part of evolution, struggle for existence otherwise it will fade away.

Most of us had experienced the changes while we went from primary school to the college. The first is the textbook of mathematics. Suddenly, the writing was from left to right horizontally. The purpose is obvious as the formula & equations are all horizontal & from left to right. The number is written from left to right, not from top to bottom or from right to left. It seems Chinese civilization was isolated for so long that it was out of tune in the world. The event of civilization tends to have chain effect. Since most of the natural sciences are based on mathematics, it is natural all textbooks of chemistry, physics etc are written in the same way. It is inconceivable to write chemical formula & chemical equations in any other ways.

Hieroglyphics might serve the purpose of communication for ancient people. But when the civilization advances, a higher & more abstract form of representation became more important. Phoenician alphabet was created & it was much more flexible & practical in commerce. With suffix & prefix, it is much easier to make new & composite words. But the most important consequence of this is the limited number of alphabet (26 in English). It makes the movable type feasible. In fact, since Gutenberg (around 1450 AD) invented a streamline process of movable type press, the old knowledge was made available to the mass & the new knowledge was spread much faster than that before. In China, 畢 昇 invented 活 字 版 around 1040 AD. But it was a block press, not a movable type press. It was not until last century that Chinese learned to use the movable type in printing. I think the main reason of the difference here is that the hieroglyphics hinders the use of movable type as the number of words is much larger.

The general order of writing (stroke) an individual Mandarin character is from top left to bottom right. For example, “三”, we write it from left to right for each bar and from top to bottom for three bars. With this, we’d think it must be natural to move to the right to write the next character, ie left to right as it is more efficient. Your hand will travel more distance to move to the left to write a new character. The right-to-left direction certainly slows down the writing. Other disadvantage is ink not dry fast enough that hinders the speed of writing as most people are right-handed.

The order of writing from top to bottom may not be that bad as from right to left. But it decreases the reading efficiency. Physiologically, the eyes are designed to move or scan horizontally, not vertically. It is easier to read a book written horizontally than vertically.

The most fundamental problem of the Mandarin writing is the input method to the computers. This problem actually existed when the typewriter was introduced long time ago. The problem gets worse when the technology advances. There is no consistent or unified way of the Mandarin input. The most popular way nowadays is pingying. People use English alphabet to input Mandarin characters. The long term effect of this is that people forget how to write actual characters. Although they still know how to read, they will lose the ability of writing when time goes by. When a language requires English as its writing method, it loses its orthogonality & independency. With simplified characters, pingying input & host other problems, the Mandarin, as a language, is in a state of chaos.

In this age of Internet & hi-tech, the Mandarin is struggling & limping. Will technology make a language obsolete? This is a good question. But we know human civilization is part of natural evolution. It will follow the rule of evolution: Struggle for Existence, Natural Selection & Survival of the Fittest.

I recently visited Taipei & Beijing. I found something interesting & amusing. I’d like to share them with you.

This is a panel written from right to left (中正紀念堂)



This is the panel written from left to right (中正紀念堂, same spot, different time)


This is a panel in the Forbidden City, no idea whether it is from right to left or left to write. The seal is in the middle of the panel aggravates the problem. It seems the original designer purposely tried to make a point here with humor.


This reminds me of one chemistry teacher in my junior high school (建中). He came the first day & wrote three big characters on the blackboard: 會乘車 . We didn't have any idea what he meant as we all knew how to ride a bus or bicycle. It turned out that his name is 車乘會. It was an eye opener, 車 can be a last name.

Reunion-2010

Here are some photos of the reunion, 2010 in Hawaii. Hope you recognize everyone of us & try to match the ladies to the gentlemen. Time flies & these photos of the reunion will become more precious when time goes by.

Soccer and Life

The curtain of the World cup soccer event was finally closed. Here are some of my observations.

Spain deserves the win & championship this time. The way it plays is concise & precise with mix of good defense & effective offense. Their goals mostly look pretty & satisfying. The way they pass & control balls are marvelous. You always see some moving triangles (formation) rolling around the field. Some players even perform some ballet style kicking. It is just amazing to watch the mix of moving triangle & occasional long passing to penetrate defense & create opportunities for goals. 

Asians are underdogs historically in the world cup soccer. This year only Japan (Asian teams) got into the round of 16. South Koreans are tough but without style. North Koreans got zapped 7:0 by Portugal. It was just too brutal to watch. Japanese seem to copy German playing style & do very well this time. It was lost to Paraguay by sudden-death 12-yard kicks. Ironically, Paraguay lost to Spain similarly by missing a 12-yard kick. The fate treats all countries equally after all.

Conspicuously, the Chinese team is completely missing. They didn’t even make to the qualifying matches. It is a shame that the world factory with 1.3 billion people can’t come up with some decent soccer team. I said it sometime ago that one way to boost the morale in China & reduce the grudging emotion toward Japanese is to beat Japanese in soccer games. After that, the next best thing is to beat them also in baseball matches. Chinese government is good in playing pingpong politics. But it is really 小兒科, good for American only. I envision a breakthrough of Chinese-Japanese relation if the Chinese beat Japanese in both Soccer & Baseball. Many Chinese people have inferiority complex in dealing with Japanese due to the frustrations & failure in getting an upper hand in many human endeavors. In near future, it seems not very positive on the soccer front. We heard all bunches of scandals related to soccer in China, 打假球, gambling, embezzlement etc. These soccer players make a lot of money & we haven’t found any star player worth mentioning. It looks pretty misery right now. As to Taiwan, it is also a shame. Holland has 16 million people & produces a good soccer team. Taiwan has 23 million people & a dud in the world stage soccer. The only consolation I can think of is that India looks even worse with its 1.2 billion people & a mute in the sporting world.

France & Italy, two good old European teams failed miserably this time. They lacked of team work & organization are in shamble. Great countries seem produce mediocre teams, perhaps too much freedom or lack of discipline is the cause.

Brazil & Argentine, two good old Latin teams also failed miserably in the field. They were vociferous, loud mouth & lack of respect to other people. They were outplayed by their European opponents handsomely & sure they deserved it.

Netherlands almost pulled out a miracle but failed in some subtle ‘kick’ or ‘臨門一脚’. Their striker Robben failed several times in doing it. It seemed he just delayed a second in his fatal strikes. Opposite to this, the Spanish final strike by Andres Iniesta was timely & accurately done at the right place & right moment. The following link is the reference: (18:00-end)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=587aK8t6noM

Due to copyright issue, the above link on YouTube is not available.

I understand the Dutch’s agony as they got so close. Dutch couch removed the medal (hung around the neck) immediately after the ceremony in front of the TV camera. It was a vivid drama. He was protesting the unfair officiating as most Dutch felt that way. Statistically, there are more arguments or bickering in soccer matches than football or other sports.

Flopping is rampant in the games. Many players seemed to use this to eat up time when they are ahead. You saw some guy held his leg in pain & needed stretcher to carry him out. But as soon as he was outside the field, he sprung up like a tiger, amazing. This kind of tactics is shameful but most players seem don’t feel that way. This gives people a sense of ‘雖勝不武’.

12-yard kick to determine the outcome is never a satisfactory solution, nobody likes it. Soccer has too many obscure rules that restrict scoring. This makes low scoring a norm & very often leads to boredom. I think this is one reason that American don’t like the game. Soccer rules favor the defense & discourages the offense. But the excitement of the game rests on the scoring. The only makeup of this is the last resort, a show case of 12-yard kicks. But this kind of kicks favors the kicker & put goal keeper in a misery situation. Nine out of ten, the ball is indefensible. It takes enormous skill of goal keeper to beat the kickers. Nobody likes this kind of solution. If you win, you feels god is on your side or lucky. If you lose, you just think it is not fair because the outcome can be either way.

The game between Germany & England is interesting. When the score was 2:1, English striker kicked a ball hitting the upper beam of the goal & bounced back to the ground inside the goal. But the referee didn’t or couldn’t see the ball from the low angle. The event happened so fast, it was hard to see the dropping point of the ball. However, the replay by TV camera showed clearly since it was mounted from the above. It is so obvious & you can understand the frustration of the English team. I do think high tech can help referee in this respect. FIFA is behind the time as most tennis tournament already use electronic eyes in helping umpires in the calls.

German team played very well most of games but the one with Spain, they looked so much different. It seemed they played too cautiously & Spain took advantages of it. I found that the match between German & Argentine was a classic one. It shows their skill & play style vividly in the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVym58Szeug

Due to copyright issue, the above link on YouTube is not available.

During the game between Uraguay & Ghana, a Uraguay player used hand purposely to block the ball out of goal. The penalty was stiff, he got red card & couldn’t play the next game & also a 12-yard penalty kick was awarded to Ghana. Unfortunately Ghana’s star player, Asamoah Gyan, missed the goal by hitting the upper beam. Otherwise, Ghana got in the round of 8 since it occurred at the final moment of the match. Subsequently, Ghana was beaten during a battery of 12-yard kicks. Gyan did the 12-yard kick flawlessly but it didn’t matter. In life, you have to do the right thing at the right time & this is just the example. I really feel sorry for Asamoah Gyan since he is going to feel bad for the rest of his life. As to African people, that is the frustration, 失 落 感 & 無 力 感, since Ghana team is the only hope for African people. Ironically, Uraguay subsequently beaten by Spain in a similar manner by missing a free kick in hitting the ball on the upper beam of the goal. Fate intervenes, spooky? Karma? Or just God treats everybody equally.

Diego Forlan of Uraguey is a fantastic player. His chest-high kick with ball hitting ground & get into the goal is marvelous. His ‘飛 燕 轉 身’ kick has a quality of ballet dance. When Forlan was on the ball, Uruguay seemed like a team with a chance. When he wasn't involved, its prospects were far more bleak. He has been awarded the Golden Ball as the World Cup's best player. He was also voted the most outstanding player of the tournament by accredited media after leading his team to the semifinals.

Vuvuzelas, a stadium horn was allowed to use during games. It was noisy & really served no purpose. I found it rather annoyed. I try to picture what will happen if they are allowed in tennis matches. One consolation, Maria Sharapova's shriek will be completely drown out.

Octopus prediction

Octopus, Paul the Oracle, made a big news as it successfully predicted all games of German team & the final of the event. From the theory of probability, it is a remarkable record, one out of 256 chances to be specific for 8 correct tries out of 8 games. How can you explain this? Although the octopus is the only invertebrate that has been conclusively shown to use tools. But it only has one brain & 8 arms. The only plausible explanation is that there must be some one or a team behind the whole show. It is highly possible that a team of soccer experts did the prediction based on the existing gathered data. With some aid of computer, it did a best job in prediction. Then using some high tech device to control the behavior of this Octopus (Paul, the Oracle) to pick the winner of the game. It is not uncommon for those sea world arena or aquarium to train animals to perform some tricks. Using remote devices, they can control or change the behavior of an octopus by some training or conditioning. Of course we don’t know the details of the trick, however, it is not hard to figure out a way to change the smell of the cage or mussels that attracts the octopus. Anyway, it was pretty clever & fun to pull out the stunt like this & made a big headline in the world. Paul, the Oracle (章大仙) was more famous than Obama at least in two weeks time span during the soccer matches. At this time, good & heartwarming news is hard to come by. The octopus prediction is sure one of the most memorable event in the year of 2010. Here was how it picked up the Spanish tank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9lZ2IJocqo

Chopin & Schumann

Both Chopin & Schumann were born in 1810 & so this year, 2010, is their two hundredth anniversary of birth, a bicentennial celebration. It is proper & fitting to say something about them.

Chopin is popular in his piano music. Sometime he is called 鋼琴詩人. In fact he composed no symphonies, operas & very little orchestral work. His virtuoso is in the piano works. He is considered the most non-German of all great composers. Chopin had an interesting encounter with George Sand. 桑女士 , a woman frequently wore man’s clothes & indeed intended to act like a man. She wrote many novels quite popular at her time. Chopin was under her spell until he died. The fortunate things coming out of this perhaps was some of his brilliant piano works dedicated to her. Chopin’s famous music form, etude, is unique. The etude (練習曲) is a piano work written for students. However some of them are very good & romantic. Chopin Etude op.10 no.3, Tristesse (Sadness, 離別曲) is one of them. The title’ Tristesse’ was added later by publisher because of Chopin’s nostalgic mood to his homeland. His another romantic piano piece is Andante Spianato in G, Opus 22. I never heard this one in Taiwan. I heard it the first time on radio several years ago. This is one of his most romantic piano works. There are several movies from Hollywood for Chopin. “A Song to Remember” (中文 title: 一曲難忘, 1945) is one of them. I have seen VHS video released for this movie, but can’t find it on DVD, not in Netflix either. I did find some video clips from YouTube.

Chopin Met Liszt in Paris, a clip from ‘A Song to Remember’
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aDnNJ6aEWc&feature=related

A clip from ‘A Song to Remember’, a performance staged by George Sand & Franz Liszt. It was supposed to be played by Liszt. Instead Chopin played in the dark, a surprise to the audiences.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM-KQc2lJdM

Chopin: Etude op.10 no.3, Tristesse (Sadness, 離別曲), played by Kempf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TR-i4r1BtM

Chopin: Andante Spianato played by Rubinstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l39ZIkyvOJ0

Schumann is considered to be the most romantic of the Romantics. We often heard some of his tunes in the school, for example, the happy peasant 快樂的農夫, tramarel(夢幻曲) etc. He is unique among most composers that he also wrote music critic, encouraged & supported the late comers. His writings about music (in high quality) appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik ("The New Journal for Music"), a publication that he jointly founded. His romantic encounter with Clara Wick was well known. His most popular works include Symphony #1(Spring), #3(Rhenish), Carnaval, many songs, piano work Traumerei, Fantasy in C, concerto in A minor etc.

As a person, Schumann is much more controlled & dedicated to what he wants & what he think is right. He pursued Clara with zeal & dedication is far more respected than the weak & meek behavior of Chopin’s dealing with George Sand. Schumann was also quick in recognition of a genius & gave the approval. Instead Chopin seemed in failure to recognize the merit of Schumann’s work ‘Carnaval’. Hollywood likes romantic story. The movie ‘Sound of Love’ (1947) is for Robert & Clara Schumann. Same as ‘A Song to Remember’, I couldn’t find it in Netflix. However, I did find it in YouTube. Some of the music mentioned above can be found in the following links:

Happy Peasant (快樂的農夫), a tune we heard in the elementary school
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKmpQjjQOBA&feature=related

The beginning of the movie 'Song of Love'
Ironically, the opening theme is the piano concerto #1 of Franz Liszt, not Schumann.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP_iU-lcZ5Y&feature=related

Widmung (Dedication) from ‘Song of Love’
Here we listen to two versions of Widmung, the original one from Schumann & arranged version by Liszt. It seemed Clara didn’t like the Liszt version at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3eOggcKLqk

Waltz by Brahms (for the introduction to the next link ‘Brahms & Clara’)
This waltz is one of the most romantic works by Brahms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcoaIeH3GI&feature=related

Brahms & Clara from ‘Song of Love’
The melody of Brahms’s waltz showed up at 1:54 & Brahms proposed to marry Clara. However, the fate intervened at 4:18. Widmung, the song Schumann dedicated to Clara showed up. Brahms realized that was the end of the affair, an affair to remember. This is the most romantic & poetic moment of the movie. (By the way, from 6:35 to 9:06 is the famous Piano Concerto in A Minor by Schumann. 6:35-7:27 is 1st movement, 7:28-9:06 is 3rd movement.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm-Zh0R6nMY&feature=related

Traumerei & the end of the movie 'Song of Love'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35e5MNjLJI&feature=related

The above links of 'Song of Love' are not available due to the copyright issue on YouTube.

Horowitz plays Schumann Traumerei (夢幻曲) in Moscow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq7ncjhSqtk&feature=related

Widmung (Dedication, Liszt’s version) played by Lang Lang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBdffJHZ2LM

PS: Year from 1809 to 1813 was a fantastic period of Romantic Music. Here is the chronicle (the magnificent six were all born within this period):
1809: Felix Mendelssohn (date: 2/3), 抒情聖手
1810: Frederic Chopin (3/1), 鋼琴詩人
1810: Robert Schumann (6/8), music composer & critic, 嚴肅而又浪漫的作曲家
1811: Franz Liszt (10/22), 鋼琴鬼才
1813: Richard Wagner (5/22), 樂劇之王
1813: Giuseppe Verdi (10/9), 歌劇之王

For some reason, it skipped 1812. Perhaps the year was reserved for Napoleon Bonaparte. He was not born in that year, however, he invaded Russia, an important historical event.

1949

“1949 by 龍應台” is a book for the unknown people get crossfire between wars. It is the most neglected part of the human history. If you read books about the modern history, you always have a kind of feeling that something must be or must have been missing. So a prudent reader searches more information from different sources in order to verify the facts. If you try to find more information about the common people in the history book, you will be very disappointed. Most of the story about the common people instead can be found in novels or magazines. But the stories in novels or magazines are not rigorous in verifying facts. To most Chinese, the modern history (1945-2010) is a giant jigsaw puzzle. You don’t trust the history books written by both sides of the regime. Here I think 龍’s book is valuable in documenting many stories of the common people before they pass away or fade away from the history. When you finish reading this book, you inevitably will have this feeling that wars are hell, terrible, disastrous & better to avoid them at all cost.

PS: 龍 應 台 is a woman. Her ‘野火集’ had a lot of influences to the society in Taiwan. If we rate the most influential women from Taiwan in the pass 60 years, we may come up with the list like this: (note: we are talking about INFLUENTIAL only, not GREAT, not PRETTY, not INTELLIGENT, not ...)

王錦雲 (釋證嚴) (Most influential in the time span: 1966-2010). Religion & Philanthropy
瓊 瑤 (1960-1980) Novel
鄧 麗 君 (1970-1990) Music
龍 應 台 (1990-2010) History & current affairs

Of course, this is subjective. I think everyone should have his/her list.

現 代 桃 花 源 & Choice of Life Style

If you have a chance to visit Philadelphia and Gettysburg, you will follow state highway 340 & go west. Don’t miss one little town called Intercourse. It is an Amish town. In case you haven’t heard of Amish people, Amish is a branch of Anabaptist. Because of their religious belief, they don’t serve in government & arm forces. They were persecuted & kicked out from Europe. They came to America & settled in Pennsylvania & eventually spread among mid-west states. I passed Intercourse twenty-five years ago. I visited the town for the whole day & very impressed what I have seen. It is a unique community and it is so much difference from the outside world. You wonder why & how it can exist in a modern society & keep its life style. Amish people don’t use AC electricity, radio, telephone, car, no bicycle either. But kids use scooter (toy type). They use horse & buggy for transportation. It is almost but not a complete independent society. For example, it depends on outside hospital for emergency & it has to buy gasoline from outside for its tractors. They can use gasoline but not ac electricity. Ironically, dc battery is ok. I can understand their logic. If they allow ac electricity in their house, the authority can’t control the use of radio, TV & a lot of communication gadgets. But if battery is ok, sure they can use transistor radio. In fact, if battery is ok, you can hook up a dc-ac converter to get 120v ac. There are a lot of contradictory & idiosyncrasies in this kind of society. It is like the society in China. The coexistence of communism & capitalism creates a lot of jokes. In fact, there is some similarity between these two societies. It boils down to the choice of life style. In both cases, they are state imposed. We, in this modern time, do select our life style individually (not by state). For example, some people choose not to use FaceBook, iPhone, cellular phone, tv etc. Some choose not to eat meat, beef, pork etc. This leads to the next question: Is religion also a choice of life style?

The Amish society can not survive without the protection of the modern government. The reason they got kicked out from Europe is that they couldn’t defend themselves. They don’t fight for other people & don’t fight for themselves either. We heard a lot of jokes about Quakers & some people resent the double standard they use. For example, in autobiography of Ben Franklin, he described a group of Quakers was on board of a war ship. When the ship encountered a British ship, they all got scared & moved to the lower deck. After the fighting was over, they came out and criticized the whole thing should be resolved in a peaceful manner without firing cannons. The religious belief can be so strong that you forget the obvious logic. Another example is that Jewish people don’t fight on certain days of the year. So the Roman picked the day & conquered them. This might be the reason why Jewish people don’t have their own country for so long. I doubt they still follow that good old habit. Otherwise the Moslem can easily wipe them out.

The western Europeans seem very open & tolerant these days. Perhaps Amish people can move back to where they came from. But they are content here in the US. If you wander around in Pennsylvania next time & somehow you enter some place looks like a 現 代 桃 花 源, it must be an Amish town. Don’t panic, you just look around & enjoy yourself. I guarantee you will get out safely & will not get lost next time either.