Come see more

This is to anyone who wishes to continue reading anything I have written. I hope most of all for these to be a conversation: a conversation with me, with others, among us all.


You can go to: http://tsimoht.squarespace.com/journal/

I hope you will come see more.

More to Grammar

It always amazes me how much there is to the smallest things and how little there is to the largest.

I am like many many; I do not write and go back and fix it. I like to fix my writing along the way. Sometimes, however, I have to to finish my thought and then fix it. Often just to catch the words that might be misspelled I will use a spell-check, but the way I learned how to spell is often different than what a spell-check "knows". The thing I never use is a grammar-check. The reason for this is, I find grammar-checks mistaken and never grasping the principles of grammar. The reason for this is the designers of grammar-checks do not grasp the principles of grammar.

So again, I wish to adumbrate things to come. I wish to speak of three things: the voices of verbs, the moods of verbs, and an old Latin saying from medieval times.

For those who have forgotten what the different voices are and the different moods are: of the former, there are active, passive and, in some languages there is a middle; of the latter, there are indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and optative.

The old Latin saying is: Repetitio est mater studiorum. To which I like to add: Et signum stultorum et insanorum est. I add this not because I think the old saying is not true. I know it to be true. I add it because, like all great and true sayings, people repeat it without thinking. They do not do so maliciously. They actually do it out of love.

If you say true sayings without thinking, it is not nearly as bad as repeating false statements without thinking. Nonetheless, there is a responsibility to all true sayings to understand why they are true. Their dignity should be respected and not taken for granted.

These are to be the next subjects.

A Letter of St. Thomas Aquinas to Brother John

There is exhortation by Aristotle that goes something like this: Sometimes one has to say things better than one's predecessors; sometimes one has to say things as well.

This is one of those times when one must say things as well. This a Letter from a teacher to his student. It gives the means necessary to "set about acquiring the treasure of knowledge [and the] way of living as a student..."

Brother John, dear to me in Christ,

Since you have asked how you should set about
acquiring the treasure of knowledge, here is my advice: Do not try to plunge
immediately into the ocean of learning; but go by way of little streams, for the
difficult things are more clearly mastered once you have overcome easier
ones.

Concerning your way of living as a student, this
is my advice:

Do not be loquacious or inclined to waste too
much time in the recreation room. Preserve your purity of conscience. Set time
apart for prayer. If you would wish to drink in the wine of knowledge, spend as
much time as possible studying in your room. Be courteous to everybody, or at
least try to be; but do not be familiar with anyone, for much familiarity breeds
contempt and will involve you in things that will distract you from study. Also,
do not get entangled in the affairs of others, whose way of life is different
from yours. Above all avoid useless conversation and meanderings. Try to follow
in the footsteps of the saints and great men. Do not mind by whom a thing is
said; but rather, pay attention to what is said. Strive to understand what you
read, and clear up any doubts that confront you. Try to store all the knowledge
you can in your mind, just as if you were trying to fill a vessel to the brim.
Know your own limitations; and do not try to overtax your abilities. Learn a
lesson from that Blessed Dominic, who, during his lifetime, accomplished great
things for his fellow men and for the Lord of Hosts. If you will follow this
advice, you will be able to fulfill your ambitions and attain your goal in
life.

Farewell

Just a Model

I wonder if people know that they believe models before they believe their own sight, touch, sense of smell, hearing, taste, or thoughts. Every theory that is held by modern physics, for this is the foundation of science, is a model. Everything that someone says about the world is wholly in reference to this model. The model firstly is believed to be true and more real. Next, what ever is said about the world is tested against this model to help explain the phenomena. The model is more real and more true than the world.

This began ages ago. It is practical. The Almagest by Ptolemy, the theory by Copernicus, Galileo's works, Works by Rene Descartes, The Principia by Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Plank's works on Quantum Theory, and any work on String Theory are works describing models.

If you want to do something with your knowledge, if you want to make something with your knowledge, if you want technology, then this way of model making is good. If on the other hand you wish to understand the world, the way things truly are, you need to remove this intermediate thwart from your-coming-to-know. For all you understand by the model-making is the model. It is like saying I understand women by the model of them given to me in magazines. All I am doing is testing women in the world against this model in the magazine. I am hardly knowing a woman. Likewise with the world.

Freedom of Speech

What speech is has been so confused by us that it seems that it is any expression. Since this is confused by us, freedom of speech is confused by us. But there is something worse than this. It seems that what all mean by speech is an outward sign of any sort that shows some meaning other than the outward sign. For example, a favorite among many, the burning of the flag is considered speech, because it conveys a meaning (in this case contempt, anger, etc.) other than the burning of the flag itself. This confusion shows two things: one, that we cannot or refuse to make distinctions between the different kinds of signs; and two, because of this, that we belittle speech and do not realise its dignity.

There was recently a young lady who embarrassed herself (knowingly or unknowingly). Who she is, is not important, because she is just an example of all of us. We laugh at her thinking that she is an anomaly and not one of us, raised by us, educated by us, and given her values by us. We laugh at her thinking we are not laughing at us. She was asked a question concerning the ignorance of many American children, when it comes to finding America on a map. Her answer was full of irrelevancies and wanderings. She took us around the world to meet different countries and cultures (to places she has never been and to meet people she has never met), and she never answered the question.

She wasted her speech. She could have said, "I do not know", and she would have shown more intelligence than she did. If she said that she did not know, she would have shown two things: one, that she knows that she does not know; and two that she recognises the dignity of speech, for she would not have wasted it.

Of course this video is all over the inter-net; she is being made to look like ignorance itself. What we, who put her out into the inter-net world to belittle her, forget, refuse to see, and do not want to know, is that she is a sign of all of us. She is we. She was made in this country, by her fellow citizens. She is just as ignorant as we are and as we made her to be.

There can be heard on C-Span, NPR, Rush Limbaugh's show, PBS, etc., people everyday that are just as ignorant as she, and just as she never answered the question, so too these people in no way answer the questions given them. In some cases, just as she did not have the ability to hide her ignorance, they cannot hide their ignorance. In other cases, we have "well educated" people, who have learned to hide their inability or their refusal to answer the questions asked of them. In either case, if these plain folk or if these "well educated" just said, "I do not know", they too would have shown more intelligence than they had. They too would have shown their reverence for the dignity of speech. But, instead of doing this, they like the young lady, are wasting speech, and belittling speech.

Here is what I mean by the answers that in no way answer a question. Every sentence, no matter its kind, has a subject and a predicate. A question is a kind of sentence. Therefore a question has a subject and predicate. So, when a person asks a question, the person asks, in some way, whether a predicate can be said of the subject. There are two ways these questions never get answered.

Sometimes, the answerer cannot put the predicate with the subject. The person is simply ignorant and cannot answer the question.

Often, however, so often it hurts, the answerer does not put the predicate with the subject. The answerer attempts to put the subject and predicate together (or take them apart in the case of a denial), but does not. They do this in two ways.

One way not to answer a question is to change the names of the subject and predicate. The questioner has A and B as a subject and predicate, and the answerer changes them to C and D. Change the names of the subject and predicate, and you can change the things about which you are speaking. If the answerer changes the names, he can speak of different things in his "answer". The trick is to change the names of the subject and predicate, but make the questioner believe you are not changing the meanings of the subject and predicate.

The second way is to change the meanings without having changed the names. This is called equivocating. For example, the name bat in one sentence may speak of an animal, and in another a tool of a game. The name is the same, but the meaning is different. This is a simple equivocation, an equivocation by chance. There is also an equivocation by reason. For example we say that a body is healthy, and we also say that a food is healthy. What we mean by "healthy" is different in each predication, but not wholly unconnected. There is connection in the two meanings, a connection made by reason. Nevertheless, there is a subtle difference. This subtle difference is oftentimes an opportunity for the "well educated" to never answer a question.

So the questioner gives A and B as the subject and predicate of his question, and the answerer gives A and B as the names of his subject and predicate of his answer, but he gives the meanings of C and D. If he equivocates by chance, then the meanings will be wholly different and unconnected (and sometimes easily seen). If he equivocates by reason, the meanings will have some connection, and therefore the equivocation can be more difficult to see.

The more practice the "well educated" have, the more skill they develop in fooling others and even themselves. They can become enthralled in the activity of coming up with an answer for a question rather than answering a question. We even have a saying for this: "he loves to hear himself speak". The answerer loves to give some long-winded exuberance of his own trying to show his intelligence. What this does, in fact, show is how well he has fooled himself; how much he loves to fool; how ignorant he truly is (for it is always better to know that one does not know); and, the most criminal of all, how much he does not revere and respect speech.

What I have not done here is show why speech is so dignified. I have assumed it. Here is a clue to figure it out for yourself. Speech is a sign used to signify something other than itself, so like smoke, which is a sign of fire, or a flag, which is a sign of a state, speech is a sign of something other than itself. If one looks at what distinguishes these signs, one from another, the dignity of speech can be seen. The clue is in what it truly signifies, in what speech truly signifies, and from what it comes.

Editing is in part a sign that thought and care has been put into what has been said. It is therefore, in part, a sign of the reverence for and the dignity of speech. Let this be an exhortation, to this author too, to edit. There is a line from the movie The Winslow Boy. I think it goes, "Let right be done" (someone correct me please if I have this wrong). This line is significant. It speaks of justice. Well, I would like to include in this exhortation of "let right be done" speech. Let us be just to speech. Let us recognise its dignity. Let it not be wasted, belittled, and lowered to the level of brutish sounds. Let it be more than smoke.

Teacher Certification

I wish to question certification, especially teacher certification. I am not questioning teacher certification because I wish to cause a maelstrom of anger. I am not attacking anyone. I only wish to look at the idea.

I have found in my experience people, who have certificates, who cannot teach. I have also found people, who do not have certificates, who can teach. It seems to me that the certificate only proves that the person holding it has passed a test made by someone (agreed to I am sure by some committee) only showing that he has memorised the material.

The material has been picked and organised by someone (again agreed to by some committee). For example, someone may make sure that the teacher knows and can use the Pythagorean equation (calling it the Pythagorean theorem), but never asks that the teacher truly to know the mathematics behind it (the theorem and the equation). They pick just enough of it to make it useful, but never enough to be able to answer questions of it, about it, etc.

This certification process is much like the certification process of Starbucks' barista training. There is even a button that each barista, who successfully passes the training, gets to wear. If anyone has had the privilege of drinking a coffee made by someone who truly knows his art and compared this with that cup of coffee made by a Starbucks' certified barista, there is obvious difference in quality, an appreciated difference. This is true of many businesses, such as McDonald's (have you ever had a truly delicious hamburger) and many arts. A truly great carpenter often has no formal training or certification, just a love of his art.

This picking "just enough of it" also may be a source of the squelching of wonder in the classroom. If the teacher only has enough knowledge of it to use it and to teach its use, but not enough to question it, to enquire into it, to analyse it, he may not want to cause a discussion among the students that would accomplish this end, and if a student (naturally) asks any question that would accomplish this end, the teacher may (and often does) put a stop to it in some innocuous manner, so he does not arouse suspicion by the student and among the students. It is just a thought.

I know of two reasons for the existence of certification.

One is to give confidence to those who are putting themselves or their loved ones (truly both) under the control of a person. Bureaucracies love certificates. Bureaucracies rely on them.

The second is to put more people into teaching, to make them qualified, when truly they are not.

The greatest teacher I know has no certificate of teaching. He is a teacher. He needs nothing to make him one, nor to prove that he is one. Everyone knows he is.

What do you think? Is this correct?

Things to Come

In the next two entries I want to talk about these two things: one, teacher certification; two, freedom of speech.

One reason for speaking about the first is because certificates are not necessarily signs of, and the people who are certified are necessarily qualified to do, the activities, of which these certifications are supposedly promises.

One reason for speaking about the second is speech is not necessarily a sign of intelligence, which many are proving daily. A second reason is that editing, both of written and of spoken, speech is a greater sign of intelligence than the speech alone.