小时候，我就对地球以外的世界深感兴趣。虽然住在城市里，并没有看到满天繁星的机会，但我还是喜欢想象。我买了很多讲人类探索宇宙的努力的书，看了很多这样的漫画（主要是蓝猫淘气三千问）。正是这种憧憬带我走向了科学。

许多年过去了，我现在专注数学（而不是科学）。但是深邃的星空依然对我意味着许多。我不关心金钱、荣耀、名誉或别的什么，因为我相信有些别的东西远比它们伟大——它们只在人类社会生效，其背后的欺骗和伪装，在浩瀚的宇宙中，更是不值一哂。 Continue reading “信念”

When I say “apple” ,an apple will appear in your mind. You can understand it. People may explain it as some correspondence between images and specific signs. And the signs themselves are images so actually we associate the images with sounds and then sounds with signs. Humans have evolved so much that today they can understand written language in silence, not needing to read them out.

The understand of concrete things may be as easy as the above. But what about that of abstract things, concepts and statements? That should be hard to explain because explanation itself is an abstract statement, which I must use my understanding system of abstract things to understand.

I used to guess, the approach to solve this problem is up to science. That is, to study the brain. But there is still a critical obstacle that we still have to think using our brain.

Is that the unreachable acme of human cognition? Do humans have to continue evolving to answer it? Or never?

2010-09-04

Human and Natural Disasters

Human activities are largely involved in the formation of some natural disasters, while not involved in the formation of some others.

As we all know, it is obvious that humans have nothing to do with the formation of volcano eruptions or earthquakes. But some other disasters, for instance, sandstorms, are related to human activities. Overgrazing and overcutting ruin vegetation, in turn causing desertification. When sands meet a windstorm, a sandstorm comes into being. Another instance is acid rain. Waste gas produced in industry activities, mostly in thermal powering, goes up to the clouds. It then blends with the water vapors. As a result, the rain from the clouds becomes acid, doing a lot of harm to humans, animals, plants, etc. Continue reading “A Testing Post”