Skip to main content

Exciting Life Updates

by
I know I haven’t been updating this blog because I’m too lazy. Years 2 and 3 have been an exciting flurry of business (both work and busy-ness). I constantly spew bite-sized thoughts that stream into my mind on Instagram Stories anyway, and I am remarkably easily bored and excitable, so longer, more considered pieces on Blogger aren’t sustainable. I digress. Many exciting life updates! I’m now officially done with my undergraduate PPE programme at King’s College London. I loved every bit of it: the depth, rigour and intellectual intensity of the course, the international student community, the bustling city of London and all the travel opportunities around Europe. Words can’t do justice to the profundity of the experience. In typical Quincean fashion, I milked everything I could out of the three years: went to Cumberland Lodge (for free) as a photographer with the Philosophy Department in Years 1 and 3, clinched the Principal’s Global Leadership Award (PGLA) in my second year (spending
Post a Comment

Exciting Life Updates

Image
by

I know I haven’t been updating this blog because I’m too lazy. Years 2 and 3 have been an exciting flurry of business (both work and busy-ness). I constantly spew bite-sized thoughts that stream into my mind on Instagram Stories anyway, and I am remarkably easily bored and excitable, so longer, more considered pieces on Blogger aren’t sustainable.

I digress. Many exciting life updates!

I’m now officially done with my undergraduate PPE programme at King’s College London. I loved every bit of it: the depth, rigour and intellectual intensity of the course, the international student community, the bustling city of London and all the travel opportunities around Europe. Words can’t do justice to the profundity of the experience. In typical Quincean fashion, I milked everything I could out of the three years: went to Cumberland Lodge (for free) as a photographer with the Philosophy Department in Years 1 and 3, clinched the Principal’s Global Leadership Award (PGLA) in my second year (spending a weekend also at Cumberland Lodge), qualified for the Table Tennis men’s second team and represented KCL at BUCS inter-university competitions, and most recently got selected from among 60 applicants to be the King’s Undergraduate Research Fellow (KURF) in Bioethics who will work on controversial philosophical issues surrounding pregnancy and birth with Professor Elselijn Kingma this July.

As I myself like to say, “follow the intrinsic and the instrumental will follow; follow the instrumental and all will be hollow”. Indeed, this has been the case: I’ve topped my PPE cohort in Years 1 and 2, and I am now awaiting the release of my Year 3 results (a Grand Slam would be fantastic). Furthermore, I’ve achieved this unconventionally, through specialising in my comparative advantage: philosophy. It is almost unheard of for a PPE student to specialise in philosophy because of its supposedly lower return on investment as compared to specialising in economics. I’ve made it work and I’m confident I’ll continue to prove the world wrong, thereby showing future generations what is possible and inspiring them. You really have to play hard-to-get with material rewards. Don’t chase them; make them chase you!

I am also excited to be moving to the University of Chicago to do a Master’s in Philosophy this autumn. For now it looks like a perfect growth opportunity: new, yet not unfamiliar; “same same but different”. I have been involved with the KCL Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law for the past two years, attending the regular KJuris jurisprudence / political philosophy series of visiting lectures, taking modules from affiliated faculty and specialising in analytical approaches to questioning normative phenomena such as autonomy, authority, rights, and obligations. I have had the privilege to indulge in countless opportunities to pick the brains of legends in the field: Leif Wenar, Julia Driver, Nomy Arpaly, Christine Korsgaard, and current KCL professors Andrea Sangiovanni, Massimo Renzo and David Owens. I can’t wait to continue this streak at the American intellectual powerhouse that is UChicago.

In passing, I’ll just share a little idea I’ve had for a year now. It is the Heaven Objection to Nozick’s Experience Machine Objection to Hedonism About Well-Being. (A mouthful, I know, but you know I am pompous and dramatic.) The idea is that an experience machine is a non-actual world of pleasurable experiences, so heaven is an experience machine. Since heaven is not objectionable, an experience machine is not objectionable. It is thus inconsistent to reject hedonism by rejecting the experience machine while not rejecting heaven. Heaven and the experience machine stand or fall together. ∎


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

H2 Knowledge and Inquiry (KI): Should You Take It?

by
Choosing your A Level subject combination can be quite a nerve-racking experience, especially if you don't have any strong interest in particular subjects. The stakes are high too: it's the A Levels, the culmination of 12 years of formal education. No one wants to screw up and pick the wrong combination that will lead to 2 years of extra suffering. I faced the same problem after I graduated from the High School section. Physics, Math, Literature and KI was the combination of my dreams, but it wasn't a standard combination the College section offered. I made a compromise and chose the closest combination on the standard list: KI, Literature, Math and Economics (KILME). When I tell people I take KILME, they usually respond with confusion or shock. "Harh, simi combi is that?" "You take KI?!?!?!" These reactions are basically caused by the mystery that is KI. It's a phantom subject: one that has no textbook, no published notes,
2 comments
Continue Reading »

Analysis of "This I Fear Most" by Ng Yi-Sheng

by
When I first found this gem of a poem in "A Book of Hims", I knew it would be my favourite for a long time. The poem is so sweet, it's ridiculous. If Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" was a sonnet, this would be it. This I Fear Most Ng Yi-Sheng That I am not a light to guide you home, No shining beacon and no candle flame. That I am but a ragged burden thrown Against the bony shoulders of your frame, And every path you tread into the night I do encumber. That I do mistake That sunny grin for spirit and delight, Though it is worn to better bear the ache. This I fear most. So I command you: should You tire of me, strip me from your back And burn me like a hecatomb of wood. With raging heat, the heavens I’ll attack Until the dark dissolves away like foam. Then step ahead. My light shall guide you home. Analysis "This I Fear Most" by Ng Yi-Sheng is a Shakespearean sonnet about the selfless nature of love and the re
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Hume on Reason and the Passions — A Reply to Zizai

by
The Awkward Yeti on Facebook I thank  Cui Zizai  — my old friend, former classmate, collaborator and interlocutor — for this opportunity to revisit Hume. Zizai sent me an email (one of his periodic circulars on mathematics, politics and philosophy) regarding his take on Hume, in particular the infamous line “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions” in Hume’s  A Treatise of Human Nature (“ Treatise ”). Sent 1:28 am, 26 December 2020 (UTC+08:00) Zizai has two concerns which I shall attempt to address: Is the bipartite claim “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions” is–ought fallacious? Does Hume offer an argument for his “ought” claim? How can it be justified? Is the bipartite claim “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions” is–ought fallacious? Let us refer to Hume’s introduction of the is–ought problem ( Treatise  3.1.1.27 ): I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance.
2 comments
Continue Reading »