Remembering Horace Barlow.

In December 2022, I attended the conference in the University of Cambridge Physiological Laboratory honoring the late Horace Barlow. There was a memorial service at the Trinity College Chapel, and a dinner in Trinity.

I cannot describe in words what I learned from Horace, during the time I stayed in Cambridge from 1995 to 1997, and on many occasions when I visited him.

We are all mortal beings, and our time on this earth is limited. However, we are all touched by universal things, truth, beauty, and goodness. Horace was a person of truth, beauty, and goodness. I miss him dearly. His memory would live on in me as long as I stay and breathe in this strange world.

Witnessing Kengo Kuma go walkabout in the wild.

I went to the island of Yakushima for a few days. Yakushima, in southern Japan, is rich in pristine nature, and is a UNESCO World Heritage registered site. I went there in my capacity as the headmaster of Yakushima Ozora High School, a correspondence-based institution with the main campus on this island, providing a much valued learning experience for students from all over Japan. 

This time, there was something special. The world-renowned architect Kengo Kuma came to see the campus and its surroundings. I came to know Mr. Kuma as a guest of the Professionals program at NHK, where I was the co-host of the show. At that time, I learned that Mr. Kuma would go walkabout, when he visits a site of interest. So when Mr. Kuma started to walk on the school premises, it was as if a confirmation of a long-held view on the habits of the master designer of buildings came to be confirmed.

What Mr. Kuma was capable of, however, was something beyond my imagination. The land in which the Yakushima Ozora High School is situated is rich in vegetation, with threes, shrubs, and weeds rampant, except for, of course, the well-maintained areas in the vicinity of the buildings. Mr. Kuma was like a fireball of curiosity. Wherever he wanted to go, he would go. He was heading the whole group, venturing into the most wild parts of the premises without aid, glancing in this direction and then in another, inspecting how the landscape and the views around would change, with the avid observation of a five-year-old and the mature wisdom of an experienced architect. It was an inspiration and privilege to witness.

Mr. Kuma's family name, "kuma", has the same sound in Japanese as the animal "bear". On that day, Mr. Kuma went walkabout like a wild bear in Yakushima, and it was fascinating to witness the workings of a great mind.

Mr. Kuma and myself in front of a giant watermill in the Senvus Village, an ecological education site attached to the high school.

Mr. Kuma, myself, and the high school staff.

I wish everyday of the year would be Christmas, a season of goodwill.

This is Christmas day. It is big in Japan, a country where a mere 1 percent of the population are self-proclaimed Christians.

The Japanese are incredibly flexible when it comes to the secular adaptations of religious cultures. It is customary to pay a visit to a Shinto shrine on the New Year's Day, to be wed in the Christian fashion, and do funerals in the Buddhist way. Halloween is increasingly popular in recent years, especially in and around the world-famous Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo. Such a frivolous attitude might surprise people from other parts of the world, but for a typical Japanese, it is something very natural. It is so nagomi.

From my early childhood, I have been accustomed to the idea that on the Christmas day you would get a present from Santa Claus, only to learn as you matured that it was actually from the mama or papa or combination of both. When you are a teenager you are constantly bombarded with the ads that suggest that lovers should spend a romantic few hours on the Christmas Eve. I would say that every boy and girl in Japan has been exposed to this idea at some time in life.

So when I went to the U.K. to do postdoc at the University of Cambridge, it was refreshing to know how Christmas was celebrated there. It seemed to be more of a family-oriented affair, not so commercialized, and certainly not about lovers. I was once invited over to the house of late Professor Horace Barlow for Christmas dinner. It was fascinating to wear the paper crown hats popping out of the Christmas cracker. Horace was wearing the hat, just like a five year old, beaming with a happy smile. He must have been over 70 years old then. I was impressed by the general idea that Christmas was a season of goodwill, where people would be kind to each other, giving money to the charity, celebrating humanity in general. Perhaps this aspect of Christmas is still to be imported in any substance to the land of the rising sun.

So I wish everyday of the year would be Christmas, a season of goodwill. I don't want any presents, or romantic hours for that matter. I just wish that people would be civil to each other, all year round, never thinking of waging wars or being involved in cunning plans to take advantage of people. Maybe this is too naive, but it is part of the magic of Christmas, to be naive.

Related video.

Are children an endangered species in Japan?

Japan is a country with a rich cultural tradition focused on childhood. You actually need to look no further than the obvious and ubiquitous anime and manga, but there are many hidden treasures in addition. The Hayao Miyazaki films, My Neighbour Totoro in particular (at least in my opinion), is a great tribute to the magic of childhood. The Japanese are in general very well at keeping the inner child alive, and then at being kind to the actual children.

So it came as a great surprise that there was a high profile case in the city of Nagano, where a playground was reported to be closed due to the complaints of a few residents nearby. Allegedly, the kids were making too much noise.

Well, it does not require much common sense to realize that the name of the game for children is to make some noise. Actually, a lot of noise. They need to play together, to the accompaniment of cries and calls, in order to develop their cognitive skills. When I wrote about this incomprehensible incident on my Japanese twitter account @kenichiromogi, a majority (say, 95%) of people responded with indignation and calls for a better environment for children in Japan, a nation where the combination of aging population and fewer childbirths is perceived to be a serious social issue. Only a minority of people seemed to sympathize with the complaining residents, with less persuasive powers obviously.

So, it appears that the spirit of My Neighbour Totoro, where the magic of the childhood is appreciated and protected, is very much alive, despite the presence of a few impatient people. These complainers would have been children once. It is sad when someone conveniently forgets his or her own past and live in the echo chamber of the present. It would be quite a wrong case of being in the here and now.

Are children an endangered species in Japan?

If the number of people who become oblivious to the magic of childhood increases, the answer to this question might turn out to be an "yes." I do hope that would not come to pass. 

I AM A CAT was a solace for Soseki.

 When Soseki Natsume wrote the first chapter of his debut novel I AM A CAT, he probably did not expect to become a professional novelist.

He was busy teaching at a university and a high school, and the whimsical novella was never intended to be anything more than a temporary sway from his daily routine. 

It proved to be hugely popular, and the general public demanded for more. Soseki wrote the sequel to the novella, completing the voluminous I AM A CAT, and went on to write quite a few masterpieces, and became arguably the most important writer of fiction in Japanese history since Lady Murasaki of the Tale of Genji.

It is quite interesting to observe that the writing of I AM A CAT provided a much needed release of emotion, stress, and joy for the young scholar. It was literally a solace for his soul. It is often the case that something written for the welfare of the writer or those around him goes on to become something of a universal value. A similar example might be Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, written to amuse a little girl that the mathematician knew personally.

I do not make an external to-do list.

I haven't been able to write anything in this space for a week now, due to a hectic schedule involving lectures and travel.

Meanwhile, I was feeling that there was always something in my mind, mostly unconscious, suggesting and urging to write an entry in the qualia journal. This is a phenomenon probably familiar to you all, and I find it quite interesting in terms of brain functions involved.

When you haven't met someone for sometime, there would often a "reminder" in your head, alerting and nudging you to make a contact to that person in question. When there is an overdue homework, you would be often unconsciously reminded of it. Sometimes, things would emerge out of the blue, presenting a case that it needs to be done immediately. It would be interesting to speculate how this is done in the brain circuits, possibly involving the lateral prefrontal cortex

 (LPFC), but it is also quite fascinating to acknowledge that such a cognitive process exists at all. 

I do not make an external to-do list. I have a habit of holding a mental image of what needs to be done in the short, medium, and long terms, and try to do something from that list whenever there are a few spare minutes, hopefully reducing the stack. 

Now that I have written something brief here (this entry), there are other items I need to attend to, and I would try to do so at my next available leisure.

An oil painting of Albert Einstein reaching for a blue earth in the darkness of the universe, sprinkled with pink hearts

This is an artwork that I presented at the Peace Exhibition held in Spiral, Omotesando, Japan, from18th November to 20th November. 

It was actually open-AI's DALL-E which created the image, based on my prompt text:

 “An oil painting of Albert Einstein reaching for a blue earth in the darkness of the universe, sprinkled with pink hearts”

It is interesting to play with these AI systems. In a sense, you are fine-tuning the response of the AI with increasingly detailed and sophisticated text. In order to generate this particular image, I experimented with several tens of prompts, 52 to be precise. 

If you make your own drawing or painting, the narrowing down in the phase space is straightforward, because you are using your own hands. With an AI such as DALL-E, it becomes more of an educated guess work. While your own manual maneuver is sharply directed, negotiations with AIs are more random and full of surprises, whether serendipitous or nasty, and that, I suspect, would be a common defining feature of our lives in the near future with artificial intelligence systems.

A sense of inadequacy in Soseki's works.

I was reading Soseki Natsume again. A few days ago I finished Kojin, and was moved by the impression of the brother, who was intelligent but did not know what to do with the world in general, let alone his wife.

A sense of inadequacy is always a central theme of Soseki. After Kojin, I moved on to Kokoro, another study of the feeling of "not good enough". The protagonist of Kokoro, a young student, is nevertheless attracted to Sensei, who does not seem to be forthcoming in giving advise and mentorship.

In the latter half of Kokoro we learn the tragic event behind the hesitation of Sensei. However, I do feel that the unfortunate events that led to the reclusion of Sensei was only a visualization of much more universal and profound human condition.

In the world today, we see too many people who appear to be confident, eager to give advises to people, whether well-intended or otherwise. Soseki's Kojin and Kokoro are such fresh breaths of air because we all know that superficial people can only help us in superficial ways.

A stone-age anachronism

The alleged falling of Russian missile in Poland is a case of ambiguities.

Whether the missile was Ukrainian or Russian in origin, the larger picture is that it is ultimately the war that is responsible. 

The world is a complex system, and events and intentions are often mixed and dispersed be. Fact-checking is useful, but we should ultimately be focused on the larger picture, in order to see things clearly onto the future.

The gist of the matter, it seems to me, is that the concept of nation states with clear national borders and the claim by the supposed "leaders" of countries to defend the territory no matter what human costs might be is now a stone-age anachronism and has no place in the world today. 

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine is a shameful demonstration of the cognitive vulnerabilities of supposedly cunningly wise leaders, and should be stopped immediately, in order not to allow the merchants of death take advantage of the ambiguities that exist and would surely keep emerging like bamboo shoots after rain.