Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Could a Fallacy Mean So Much To So Many?

Like the amount of rain Singapore's been getting lately, education is on the rise... No longer can you avoid going to school to 'get educated' (don't mind the inverted commas)... i'm not against education but i doubt it's effectiveness in our society... we singaporeans have long passed the agricultural age (not like we were really able to be in one in the first place) and have advanced into a fast-moving and stressful society... No doubt, some of us may use whatever is taught to us in JC or secondary school but the bulk of us won't... In the end, it's the process of education that really 'moulds future' as MOE puts it... Putting us through stress, classroom/CCA politics and near useless information, MOE prepares us for the life ahead... However, being the cynic i am, i still feel that education is not enough... There are many more important things in life that aren't taught in schools ie. Logic, social science, character, love etc. It's understandable why though... such things are intangible... How can you teach a child how to love? or to have integrity? Of course you can attempt to teach a child to think... Yes, we have been taught to do so by being given math and science problems... We have been taught to rationally arrive at an answer at such subjects, even in english and chinese comprehensions...

Whenever we argue, whether friendly or not, we always come across 'loopholes' that the other party has surfaced... these are called fallacies and we usually exploit of them in order to gain the upper hand... Some of these fallacies include Ad populum (majority wins), Dicto Simpliciter (over-generalisation), Post-hoc (jumping to conclusions) and No true Scotsman... What most of us fail to realise is that many things in life are fallacies too... Take love for example... Such an impalpable thing... nearly undefineable... This is one of life's fallacies that i'm referring to... Collins Cobuild's defines it as 'a very strong feeling of affection towards someone who you are romantically or sexually attracted to'... Oxford defines it as 'a strong feeling of deep affection for somebody/something'... from these two sentences, we may like to focus on 'a strong feeling of affection'... CC's defines affection as 'your feeling of fondness for someone'... so this means that love is just a strong feeling of fondness or a strong liking for someone, which makes sense cos' love doesn't just have to be between the opposite sex and only to one person... you can love many... so what is the love that everyone's so crazy about? the one that gets you attached for life, helps you have kids and makes you wanna spend every single minute with someone? is it, then, romance that spices love up? perhaps... It is defined as 'a love affair'... now, we've come back to the word 'love'... we've gone one whole circle and still have yet to define romance and love (the romantic kind of course) Many people say that you'll only know what 'true love' is when you experience it yourself... In other words, they have no idea what it is or they just can't find the words to express it... But how do you know that you truly 'love' someone? How do you know that you've found the right guy/girl? What if there's someone better for you out there? The answer is 'yes'... there'll always be someone better... but why make love a matter of someone's qualities? Does this mean that the more moral, good-looking person is more loveable? If this is so, then who can explain the large number of married criminals out there? how about those married business man who'd bribe, embezzle and even threaten under the table? Furthermore, does a married couple equate to a loving couple? Marriage can be about money, tradition or just for fun... In other words, you do not have to be married to be a loving couple... Marriage is only supposed to be a public declaration of love and a license to have kids conventionally... It is probable that you love someone because you want to have kids with him/her... This theory is based on the term 'natural selection' coined by Charles Darwin... Nature's basic law :survival of the fittest... it is likely that we choose the person we love based on his/her qualities because of natural selection... we like our partner's qualities and so we'd want those qualities in our offspring... that makes us animal-like i guess... just that mating season is all year round and males don't have to literally fight over females... In this civil society, it is crucial that everyone only has ONE partner... is it due to selfishness? or more of health reasons? if it was the latter, then why aren't the populations of animals dropping due to STDs? instead, WE are the ones killing them off... i guess it's just the ethical thing to have only one partner... Basic rule of 'true love' no. 1: it's not to be shared...

Another reason why i feel that love is a fallacy is because it doesn't exist... just now we came to the conclusion that love is a feeling of strong fondness or likeness for someone.. this means that love is merely an emotion... 'Je pense, donc je suis' which, translated, means 'i think, therefore i am'... It's an argument that states that of all the things in the universe, one can only be sure of his existence... Satan will always be there to deceive us... he can make the sky non-existent and he can make monsters come alive simply by playing with our minds... however, he cannot deceive us if we are not there for him to deceive... as such, we exist... that's the one thing we can be sure of... BUT, the brain creates all else... for your 5 senses pass through your brain before it processes them for you to understand... therefore it has control over all that you see, hear, touch, smell or taste... so you cannot be sure of their existence... similarly, an emotion is created by the brain... therefore, it did not exist till we existed... going by this statement, humans created love (or should i say, God created humans with the ability to love) In the book of Genesis, God told adam and eve to 'be fruitful and multiply'... Humans are meant to populate this planet... and so God gave us 'love' as a tool to help us choose our partners so that we can civilly play a part in natural selection: choosing the best genes to go into our offspring... Ultimately... love is but a way to choose your partner to procreate and to live the rest of your life with... we feel the way we do because God created us that way... We are meant to reproduce but it is not our sole purpose here on Earth... i cannot divulge what that purpose is... if i could, i would have answered the greatest question that human beings have asked but have not answered : what is the meaning of life? I have a few possible answers for that but i shall leave that for another day... All in all... we love for God... not for ourselves... So could a fallacy mean so much to so many? Yes, a fallacy could mean that much cos' we also realise that EVERYTHING is a fallacy if you think about it... the list of fallacies is very very long and everything is linked to something else... if something is a fallacy, then everything else remotely connected to it is one too... we're living a life of fallacies... Live with it