When I saw the light, I knew that I had come all the way to experience those qualia.

It was my second visit to the Niagara Falls. Last time, I did not go on the boat ("Maid of the Mist") to see the Great Fall from nearby. This time, I did.

I went there with my students and my best friend Yoshi Tamori.

Yoshi has been on the boat trip before, so he apparently knew well what to expect. I did not know what to expect, but could guess the nature of the coming experience fairly well, looking at how Yoshi prepared himself for the big event.

As the boat progressed towards the Horseshoe Falls, the atmosphere changed. Thunderous sounds, the air filled with mist, and the rainbow constantly in sight.

And then we came--as close as one could get safely, presumably, to the fall. Weathering the incessant attack of water drops falling from above, I looked up at the constantly moving great wall.

Then I saw it. Just where the Niagara River's flow on the flatland ends and the massive chunks of water start falling, there, at the spot of a poignant shift in curvature formed by gravity, I saw a shimmering light. It was as if the water was reflecting on the last moment of its calm and eventless existence.

How beautiul the reflections. And how awesome.

When I saw the light, I knew that I had come all the way to experience those qualia.


Maid of the Mist, the Horseshoe Falls, and the rainbow.


Maid of the Mist.


Yoshi Tamori well prepared for the event.


The great water fall.


The Niagara Qualia

In soccer, you have the freedom to feel sympathy for the losing opponent.

In Toronto, where I am currently staying, I see many cars carrying national flags on the streets. Needless to say, they are not for the G20 summit meeting. The drivers are more sensible, showing support for the respective national teams competing in the World Cup South Africa 2010. Some of the countries represented by the flags do not make it to the G20, but they do make it to the World Cup. Both G20 and World Cup are exclusive "clubs". Which club membership is based on a fairer competition, one wonders.

At night, after supper, we were having a drink in an Irish pub. There was a replay of the Denmark vs. Japan match, which Japan won by 3-1.

In sports, we are having a situation where there is can be a symmetry in and sharing of national prides. Although we do support Japan, we also have imaginations for the Danish pride, and how they might feel bad going back to Copenhagen, now out of the competition. The capacity for sympathy has been nurtured, because we are accustomed to losing in a soccer match. Ever since our school days, we have been losing matches after matches. Losing is a part of our common experience. Losing is within the "job description" as a growing up child.

It is quite unlike war, which should be banned in a civilized world anyway. If you lose a war, it is difficult to take it in a good spirit. It becomes a question of life or death. Your life would often mean the opponent's death. What a terrible and silly business.

In soccer, you have the freedom to feel sympathy for the losing opponent. For me, that is definitely the beauty of the sport.

The ordinary processions of everyday life, unsung, unnoticed, and yet so glorious and beautiful.

I am in Toronto now.

Due to the G20 summit to be held in Toronto, the security at the airport was tight.

There was a heavy traffic jam on the way to the city, as police blocked some part of the freeway in preparation for the motorcades.

Once in the city, it was business as usual. I left the baggage at the hotel, and strolled around.

It was evening time, and the sunshine was embracing the city in a vivid and tranquil light. A flower basket welcomed me.

During the next few days, the media might cover what is going on in the great corridors of world power. In my view, the really poignant news is perhaps in the ordinary processions of everyday life, unsung, unnoticed, and yet so glorious and beautiful if you put your heart into it.


I somehow associate Canada with flower baskets.


Just a street in Toronto.

Philosophy and Fashion show.

There are many fashion shows held every year in cities such as Paris, London, Milan, New York, and Tokyo. Some people might have a cynical and "nothing to do with me" attitude towards the cutting edge styles carried by the models, which display instances of clothing quite impossible to be worn in everyday life. Some even point out that the fashion trends are nothing but a cleverly crafted marketing device to make people buy clothes that they really do not need, a convention quite doubtful in today's carbon footprint conscious Zeitgeist. From this viewpoint. it would appear that the truly valuable style is to be found in those unchanging standard outfits. Impressions from my own experience is that such an anti-fashion sentiment is quite strong, for example, among the hard working, no-nonsense businessmen.

However, the idea that fashions are useless appear to be politically and ethically correct on the surface but is ultimately wrong. It is important to recognize that the standard "ensemble" of clothes that a "normal" men from the street wear had to be invented somewhere, somehow, sometime. When the convention of wearing the jacket and the tie was invented in, say, London, there might not have been a well-organized fashion shows like the ones we know. It is probably safe to say that, when these now "normal" manner of clothing was introduced, they were very novel. The very idea of a respectable grown-up man "hanging" a long piece of colorful cloth from the neck! The very idea!

It is not just the jacket and tie. Every fashion had to somehow justify itself and make it into the mainstream of society at the time of invention and reception. Every cultural cliche in the way we dress ourselves used to be one of the "latest" fashions at one time of human history. Those man, who say "I don't care anything more than wearing just a normal clothing" are actually benefiting from innovations in the past.

In this sense, I think that philosophy is something like a fashion show. To claim that philosophy is a "luxury" for people who idle away their time, departed from the realities of society, is quite alluring and on the surface sober. But this is ultimately a very wrong idea. To take philosophy as something alien to the daily living of people is also wrong. The often intractable and enigmatic problems at the frontiers of philosophy would lead to certain sets of concepts and world views after many years of hard work by the leading thinkers. These ideas, in turn, would later be assimilated into the society at large, and become the "common senses" and "cliches" for the general public. These things that become taken for granted in the hearts of people then serve as necessary wisdoms of living for people on the street, in the procession of their daily lives.

For example. the thesis that "I" am here because "I" think and feel various things is something that is taken for granted even by an elementary school pupil today. However, when Rene Descartes arrived at the thesis of "Cogito Ergo Sum", it was far from being self-evident.

Among the intellectuals, the belief in a God with human-like personalities might now be an minority. However, when Friedrich Nietzsche cried out that "God was dead!", he had to fight the phantom of a personified God, who would punish and reward the humans according to their conducts, with a "free transportation" to the heaven or the hell offered as the ultimate verdict.

Today, the idea that the trading of words is essential in the cultivation and maintenance of human culture is wide-spread, something that even a high school student can write an essay on. However, it was Wittgenstein's creative genius which gave birth to the idea of a "language game".

The frontiers of intellect, which haven been opened by the endeavors by leading philosophers over many years, would be appreciated by the people at large only after some period of reception. Conversely, the modes of thoughts that are so familiar to the ordinary people in today's world were once problems at the frontiers of philosophy. Philosophers at the edges of thought sometimes even risking insanity. And then they become commonplace knowledge looked upon disdainfully by the ordinary people as something belonging to a yawning cliche.

Today, many people would think that there is no afterlife. People like Dr. Richard Dawkins have been campaigning for many years for the merits of scientific ways of thinking. Thanks to those efforts, and the trends in the world in general, men from the streets are starting to think that there is no life after death, and all that concerns us happen "here and now" while we are alive on this earth. All our earthly efforts are consequently focused on improving the conditions of our earthly lives.

There are less and less people, who make a point of enduring things while living so that they can make encounter better things in the afterlife, or the "next life" after the "reincarnation".

This modern "mindset" of trying to make better the daily life on this earth would surely have the danger of leading to an overdriven materialism. On the other hand, setting oneself free from the religious modes of thinking which stress the importance of the afterlife was a necessary condition to build a civilization as we know it today. If people are too concerned about the afterlife, practical senses directed towards the development of technologies which make the earthly lives better would simply not be nurtured. In a sense, the establishment of the system of philosophy in which one believes that the earthly life is everything functioned as a part of "infrastructure" towards the development of civilization, just as the invention of steam engine and batteries.

Needless to say, it is not that everything is "cool" from the point of view of aesthetics. There are modes of quite normal clothing for which we need not use the word "fashion" ostensibly. Likewise, philosophers have their shares of "trivial" ways of thinking, not venturing far off from what have been already accepted. Such philosophers, to use the term familiar in the world of fashion, are not "cool". Thinkers who endeavor to open a new intellectual frontier would be "cool" and "sexy".

Once, I read in a U.K. men's magazine an article on how to be popular with girls. One of the advise that the editors gave away for the love hopefuls was "how to pretend that you know Jacques Derrida". The basic assumption is that the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, just like the latest modes of fashion, can be considered as "cool" and "sexy". To encounter and don the ways of thinking and modes of sensitivities which might "descend" to the daily lives of ordinary people in the years to come is tantamount to looking into the future. And nothing is as cool as the future.

"Philosophy equals a fashion show."

However strange this equation might look, therein lies the key significance of thinking creatively about life and death, and arriving at a conceptual solution.

Translated from the original Japanese essay in Ken Mogi, "Ikite Shinu Watashi" ("I live, I die") published from Tokuma Shoten, Tokyo, 1998. Translation by the author.


The cover of "Ikite Shinu Watashi"

The Oze photos.

I have been dreaming of going to the Oze National Park, ever since my graduate school days. Dr. Tokunagawa, who was an associate professor of the laboratory, used to say "Let's go to Oze with many people". (If you have a sufficient knowledge of the Japanese language, you would notice that this particular sentence would work as a pun.) The lab trip never became a reality, and my dream had to wait for some 20 years to materialize.

Well, life is like that.

The Oze district, characterized by marshes and unique vegetations surrounded by mountains, is an idealized image of the tranquility and harmony of nature.

I heartily recommend a visit to Oze for anyone who needs a break from the busy life in civilization.

Even from this short entry I hope you can feel how refreshed I am.

I have been to the beautiful mountain region of Oze overnight. I stayed at the TEPCO mountain lodge.

What a change from my every day. Without an internet connection, off the internet, even without my ubiquitously present laptop. While in Oze, I saw many beautiful wild flowers, a child bear, heard bird songs, and listened to my inner voice.

Have to rush back to Tokyo. Even from this short entry I hope you can feel how refreshed I am.

Become friends and embrace each other, people of the world! This marvelous world cup in Petrusa's country is a very good opportunity.

My long time pen friend (since the teens!) Petrusa lives in South Africa.

And as you may well be aware, things have been getting a bit wild in South Africa recently!

Last night, I was having a drink with my best friend Shinya Shirasu in the Ginza district of central Tokyo. At exactly half past eight Tokyo time, I disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared with a different kind of T-shirt. It was a replica for team Japan at the world cup. It was the kick-off time for the big game.

With much preparation and anticipation we followed the game closely. I love the whole atmosphere of the matches in this particular world cup. The never-ending sound of the vuvuzelas are music to my ears. It somehow reminds me of the beautiful landscape that Petrusa has been telling me. Things resonate. making connections.

Sadly, Japan lost to the Netherlands by 0 to 1, but we had fun. We shouted abuses and obscenities from time to time. What are the world cup matches for without some manifestations of the wild spirit?

As the party went on, the situation became more chaotic and haphazard and culminated in something like this, a photo taken from one of our earlier parties.

The take home message: Become friends and embrace each other, people of the world! This marvelous world cup in Petrusa's country is a very good opportunity.


Demonstrators of the get-together spirit. (From left) Masanobu Ikeda, Shinya Shirasu, and myself.

Life is made of worldly materials.

Things that ever happened in my life, if successfully registered, remains as the connection pattern between neurons in my brain.

On the first day of my elementary school, I recall that the sunbeam was reflected in a white impression on the long and straight road that lead to the school premises. On the very first class room meeting, I was at my desk with my newly found classmates, with my cheek on my hand, looking at nothing, absent-minded. Ms Arai, teacher of our class, took notice and remarked "are you now bored, my little one?"

Parents were requested to remain at school after the entrance ceremony on that day. My mother was at the back of the classroom, too, and laughed with the other parents. I brushed in shame.

There was a large sweet acorn tree near the front gate of the school. When I was in the second year, there was a "boom" of acorn eating among us. As we left the school in the after hours, we would compete to find good the ones, and would eat them on the way, with the school satchels cozily on our backs. At break times, we would play "hand baseball", in which we used our hand as the hitting bat. I remember quite well that the balls were green.

Each remembrance constitutes a "page" in my life, a part of the richness of my humble personal history. All those memories are encoded as patterns of connectivity between neurons. There would be memories long forgotten, but secretly stored in the cortical network pattern. I might happen to remember them sometime, or might never recall them. In any case, when the physical presence of my brain disintegrates, the rich storage of memory of my life would be lost forever.

Memories are integral constituents of my existence. The "self" critically depends on these memories. The removal of them would leave a "self" as a transparent "core", vibrating poignantly in the great nothingness of the universe.

In "In my life", the Beatles sing thus.

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

These words are simple. It is as if a middle aged man is reflecting on his own life late at night, with a glass of whisky in his hand. Freed from the admittedly difficult assessment of what life means, he would recall past events in his life ; that was then, then was that.

The lyrics of "In my life" are elementary in its world view. It reflects the significant fact that an ordinary human being would reflect on his own mortal existence on this earth in such a manner. In the past, such ideas as god, heaven, hell, afterlife, and reincarnations have been regular features of the genre when one would ponder one's own life. These concepts would not find their places in the mannerisms of modern times. That the sentimental musings of an ordinary human being on his own life have become secular is one of the most important features of human spirituality today. For the modern human, how he or she actually lives in "this world" is all that there is, with nothing to be added or subtracted.

The novelist Takeshi Kaiko writes thus in his essay collection "The Last Supper": "Detective and spy novels are without doubt the secreted products of the modern times. To the extent that I came to know, such joys of the human intellect were not produced in countries where modernization has not visited."

A song like "In my life" by Beatles would be cherished only in a world where the "superstitions" about the afterlife, heaven and hell, and God with personality are long gone. A priest in the medieval times is unlikely to enjoy singing a song like "In my Life". An ordinary enough pop song. Behind it, however, are the fruits of efforts by philosophers, writers, scientists, and artists who have been trying to deepen the human understanding of life and death, and the universe that we inhabit. The commonplace view on life has become possible only though the hard-won perceptions of the world we inhabit.

In the universe, there are mysteries about ourselves and the world still out of reach for humans. We would be ill advised, however, to revive the "superstitions" so that we go from the world of "In my life" back to an ancient world in which we chant:

Oh, God, I don't ask much for this earthly life. Just let me have a wondrous life in the afterlife. Please make me reborn as somebody with a higher social status, in the next cycle of reincarnation.

To go back to such a system of superstition would be tantamount to make nothing of the efforts of the human race as a whole over centuries.

Life is made of worldly materials. Whatever we might set out to think about the world we inhabit, we need to confirm this point first and foremost.

Translated from the original Japanese essay in Ken Mogi, "Ikite Shinu Watashi" ("I live, I die") published from Tokuma Shoten, Tokyo, 1998. Translation by the author.


The cover of "Ikite Shinu Watashi"

How would you feel in the autumn of life?

After finishing the job for the day, we went to an onsen (hot spring) place in Fukui prefecture. If you are "vetted" by the Japanese culture, you know what to expect in an onsen ryokan. If you are not, well, you don't.

The meal was superb. We had fun chatting and laughing, and the idea naturally sprung up to go to a Karaoke place.

Matsuoka went around and reserved a table at a Karaoke bar. When we arrived, several senior gentlemen were already having a good time. The bar ladies sang along with them, and danced with them when the tunes came along. One girl, who was rather stoutly build, attracted my attention. I wondered how she would have been at the age of five. The bar ladies danced and flirted with the senior customers with the beauty and mastery of people who knew how to handle drunken men.

Somehow Matsuoka got the idea of dancing all by himself. He held his own shoulders tightly, as if to simulate two people in a passionate embrace, and slowly ventured onto the floor. His mimicry with perhaps a bit of mockery did not attract the attention of the old men, as they were in the blissful amnesia of intoxication.

A job description of singing along and dancing with customers at random every night might not have been a part of the girl's dream at the age of five. However, in a very strange way, the sight of Matsuoka trying to mimic and light-heartedly ridicule the whole situation might have been a transformation of a little girl's idea of a prince on a white horse in the pipedream.
On the morning after, I was in the great onsen bath. In Japan, the idea is always to share a single gigantic bath with miscellaneous people (it is usually NOT co-ed. Don't start getting ideas!). While enjoying the comfort of the volcanic water, I noticed that some gentlemen from the Karaoke bar last night was there.

I noticed also that their hairs were very gray. Their flesh fragile, their movements slow. Once in the bath, they apparently went into an meditative mode. Maybe they are reflecting on the past days. Maybe they are thinking how many more dances they would be getting.

This is the autumn of their lives.

Dance, dance, dance, every living creature.

How would you feel in the autumn of life?

As I start to reflect on what happened the night before in a more mellow and favorite light, the rich enigma of life would slowly unfold in my mind. Everybody has his or her time, and there is after all beauty in miscommunication.

The fair assessment of my performance as an agitator would have to be "an utter failure".

Yesterday, during a lecture I gave at my old university, I tried to make some noise. But I utterly failed.

Observing the flow of students on University of Tokyo Komaba campus, I asked the simple question: Why are there only Japanese people on this campus? Then I went on to argue that Japanese Universities, or Japanese society in general, are failing in the era of globalization. Why don't we have more people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds mixing and fusing and resonating with each other on this campus, or in this country?

That started an agitated discussion, and the scientific materials (social construction of the self, moral judgment) had to be postponed for other opportunities. After having a discourse for 90 minutes, the fair assessment of my performance as an agitator would have to be "an utter failure".

This is a pity. To the best conscience of my rationality, I am still convinced that I had a point. But it simply did not ignite. Maybe my argumental style was wrong. Maybe I lacked the personality. This "volcano", as a result, might become dormant for a while after this.

Last word: The dynamo is still here in my bosom.

I was busy even before the internet.

Yesterday I was talking with a couple of book editors and writers in the heart of Tokyo. One of them, a writer who helped me author several books, casually mentioned how the advance of the new technologies has made us all busier.

"You know, we get all these e-mails, we search for more information on the web, and we are constantly getting busy. Do you think the advance of technology is a good thing?"

Well, I am certainly have heard it said many times, but my genuine puzzlement is whether the internet and other technologies have really made us "busier".

For sure, the quality and sheer volume of things that you can do within, say, 10 minutes have dramatically improved by the advent of internet. Nowadays, when in a conference, I can simultaneously talk and make notes and search for information and read papers and send and read e-mails and tweet and even ustream on my laptop. Yesterdays, I used to just listen and perhaps draw some doodles on my notebook. That's a fact. However, I wonder if we can say that we have become categorically busier nowadays.

When I was a kid, computers and internet were not here with us. And yet, I was quite occupied, from morning till night. I chased butterflies in the field. I read books, sometimes several in an afternoon. I "invented" various games which I played alone, like the "pachinko ball and pencil" baseball games which I hugely enjoyed playing. I painted in oil, I swam, I played baseball (the real thing), I talked with my friends, with my parents, with passers-by. I dreamed, I sighed, I reached, I stumbled.
I think I was busy even before the internet.

"Never say busy!" I said to the writer. "The internet is not the villain!"

She just smiled enigmatically. Because I did not explain in detail my childhood days, I suspect that she thought I was just being diplomatic there.

Towards a more open-ended English education.

Towards a more open-ended English education.

Ken Mogi
Sony Computer Science Laboratories
kenmogi@qualia-manifesto.com

It is a widely recognized fact that the Japanese people are not particularly good at expressing themselves in English. To some observers, this is a genuine puzzle, considering the many hours of study that the Japanese typically put towards the acquisition of English skills.
Here, based on the general view of the human brain being elucidated in the neurosciences, I put forward some ideas towards the improvement of English learning process of the Japanese. These concepts are not necessarily limited to the Japanese phenomenon per se, but could be applied elsewhere in the world.

(1) Open-endedness. Natural language is an essentially open-ended system of communication. Given the sheer number of possible word combinations, it is quite conceivable that an non-negligible part of phrases we use in our daily conversation are spoken and heard effectively once in a lifetime. A person with a mature linguistic ability will be able to comprehend what is being said on the first hearing. Even when an unknown word is included, the listener is often able to make a fairly good guess as to its meaning. Parents and other mature speakers rarely restrict their vocabulary when conversing among themselves in the presence of children. Thus, open-endedness seems to be an essential component of the linguistic ability and its learning process.
Considering the properties of the linguistic system above, it may appear that the current teaching guideline ("shido youryou") put forward by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, Science and Education might be too restrictive in its scope for vocabulary. It suggests that during the three years of English education at the junior high school, about 900 hundred essential English words should be acquired [1]. While it is a good idea to start from the easy pieces, too much restriction on the words to be used in the school texts would inevitably lead to an impoverishment of its contents and a suffocation of the intellect of the curious low-teens, who might be otherwise able to assimilate knowledge at a formidable speed.

(2)　Context of language acquisition. The human brain is very sensitive to the context in which it executes and develops its functions. Cognitive processes supported by the neural circuits including the orbitofrontal cortex identify the context in which the agent interacts with other agents, and coupled with the brain's reward system, reinforces the relevant circuits of functionality [2].
From this perspective, it may appear that the present system of English education in Japan is putting too much emphasis on doing well in examinations, rather than encouraging the pupils to express their views in an open and free environment, where the grammatical correctness and scoring are not necessarily the primary concerns. A change in the context of English learning would be necessary to improve the situation.

(3) Power of volume. It is no hidden secret that the dexterity of language abilities increases monotonously as exposure increases. From this perspective, it may appear that the "volume" of English language materials which an average pupil is exposed to in Japan is simply too small, which, again, is related to the vocabulary restriction problem referred to above.
The brain's memory system extracts semantic significances from the multitudes of episodic memories stored in its circuits. The flexible way in which the various words are employed in the English language simply cannot be acquired by referring to a "lookup table" in the style of a dictionary. The appropriateness of the usage of a particular word in a given context could be judged in a robust manner based on a rich accumulation of episodic memories in the brain. From this perspective, the current English education policy in Japan might be simply lacking in volumes of material. The child's brain is naturally ready to absorb more. It is too patronizing for the educators to restrict the number of texts and spoken materials in the education process.

I will finish by citing two anecdotes. People sometimes have the notion that education at an early age is necessary for the efficient acquisition of English. The life history of Joseph Conrad, who was exposed to the English language only after he was over twenty years old, and yet went on to write masterpieces in English literature such as "Heart of Darkness" is a good counterexample to this notion. Hidekazu Yoshida, a famous and respected Japanese music critic, once told me that in the education system of "Kyusei Kouko" (senior high schools in the prewar Japanese education system), the foreign language education was rather "savage". Mr. Yoshida said that when they learned German, on the first day they were taught the ABC (in German pronunciations) and rudimentary grammar, and on the second day they were made to read an essay of Friedrich Nietzsche on the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer!
These two anecdotes, I hope, will remind those concerned with English education in Japan of the dynamic range in the learning potentials of the human brain. Findings from the current studies in the brain sciences would also suggest the validity of a more open-ended and dynamic English education system, away from the suffocation of too much standardization and an pre-occupation with scores.
There are lots of things that a proper usage of the emergent information technologies can help towards an more open-ended English education. The availability of Michael Sandel's lectures at Harvard [3] is a good example. It is not a far-fetched idea to expose the low-teens to such lectures at some rather early stages of their English learning, in view of the open-endedness of language acquisition.


References
[1] Teaching guidelines given on The Ministry of Culture, Sports, Science and Education webpage (in Japanese) at http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shuppan/sonota/990301/03122602/010.htm
[2] Rolls, E.T. The orbitofrontal cortex and reward. Cerebral Cortex 10, 284-294 (2000)
[3] Harvard University's "Justice" with Michael Sandel, provided free of charge at http://www.justiceharvard.org.

(Abstract for a conference talk by Ken Mogi at LET 50 )

Poetry meets modern technology in Hayabusa reentry.

It was heartening to observe the overwhelming response to the news of Hayabusa reentry yesterday.

Hayabusa, an unmanned space mission to return a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa, made a successful reentry into the Earth's atmosphere last night. It is not known at present whether the capsule, which apparently landed on an Australian soil, contains a sample of the Asteroid. If successful, the material taken back to the earth would reveal important information about the origin of the solar system.

As I monitored the tweets of my friends here in Japan on twitter, some of them scientists, others writers and artists, there was definitely something qualitatively different from the reactions to other science and technology news. I suspect that the very idea of the Hayabusa devise ending its life of service to science in a display of glowing visual apparition stroke a chord in many hearts.

Traditionally, Japanese culture appreciated very highly the transience and fragility of life. Hojoki ("An account of my Hut"), an essay written by Kamo no Chomei (1153-1216) famously begins thus:

Though the river's current never fails, the water passing, moment by moment, is never the same. Where the current pools, bubbles form on the surface, bursting and disappearing as others rise to replace them, none lasting long. In this world, people and their dwelling places are like that, always changing.

(Translation by Robert N. Lawson given on The Washburn College webpage

I suspect that for many of my compatriots, the burning of Hayabusa in the earth's atmosphere was beautiful and moving, because it reminded us of our own immortality, and the very enigma of the passing of time.

Last night, in the public's reception of the news of the Hayabusa reentry, poetry and modern technology met in a deep and unexpected resonance.


The hayabusa reentry. From the Orbiter-Forum.com webpage.

They have in mind a vivid description of almost algorithmic rigor as regards how to move around.

There are certain things that restrict the realization our potentials. The most harm is done when the restriction is imposed on each of us as a system of implicit and often unfathomable constraints.

Although the phenomenon is quite universal, we can start from specific examples. The social enclosure of challenged people, for example.

Recently, I had a chance to converse with a few people who are without vision by birth or through medical conditions, as part of a research for a book project. I found, or should I say rediscovered, that the brains of the visually challenged people are used in a different manner from us. As a consequence, they have developed a unique set of abilities which are a marvel for those "cursed" with visual abilities.

As an instance, when we move around the city, we rely on the visual information so much that our navigation is executed relying on the incessant sensori-motor interaction supported by vision. So when questioned out of location, one has only a very fuzzy idea of the nature of the actual route taken. A blind person, on the other hand, plans and remembers the journey in a very explicit and rule based way, so that they have in mind a vivid description of almost algorithmic rigor as regards how to move around.

Thus, one finds a more logically robust and dense set of abilities in a visually challenged person. There are accompanying difficulties naturally, but if we can find a way to overcome these obstacles, a visually challenged person has a great chance of flourishing in a unique way. Sadly, because of the assumptions and prejudices about what one may do in society, these great capabilities are not tapped to the full yet.

Similar cases of untapped talent resources are rampant in society. Glass ceilings are broken constantly as society progresses.

The real problem is that in many cases we don't even realize the existence of the glass ceiling, and suffocate without knowing the reason why.

Place of the highest concentration of uncertainty.

I went to the Keio University Hiyoshi campus for our "Brain Club" meeting and lecture giving.

It is always so interesting to go to a University campus. There are people with lots of uncertainties in life, who wander on the earth, with their faces full of expectations and anxieties. The sheer ambience of these immature souls are such a joy to observe.
In a society in which on graduation many people search jobs expecting a life employment, the university campus continues to be the place of the highest concentration of uncertainty. Once in the society, there are categorically less uncertainty. Which is a good thing in terms of security, but is also suffocating for the soul.

My personal wish is that the Japanese society in general would become more of a University type place of uncertainty rather than the present system built on an increasingly unsustainable security. After all, uncertainties in life cannot be avoided, and the false presumption of a fictitious security rampant in society does more harm than good to its members.

Penrose does not usually look up what people have already done.

Greg left a very interesting comment on my last entry "The secret is to hide your sources".

Greg: It sounds reasonable that new discoveries emerge from sources that we may not be able to trace directly. However, there appears to be some tension with this idea and the underlying philosophy for academic writing where authors are expected to move from known scholarship to new inferences and discoveries. There is the impression that scholarship moves incrementally from the known to unmask the unknown through sound reasoning, observation, and experimentation. Perhaps, this is an ideal as well and that what happens is something between the two ideas.

Yes, indeed! Thank you for making this good point, Greg!

Academic paper writing is all about continuity and incremental knowledge building. Therefore, when you write the paper, it is necessary to cite all the relevant references, and state clearly what new things your present work is bringing into the field.
(Having said that, it is a fact that the Einstein paper in 1905 did not cite a single paper. I wonder if that was an acceptable mode of writing in that era.)

I remember a chat that I had with Sir Roger Penrose some years ago in Oxford. When I asked where his ideas came from, Penrose answered that it came from nowhere. Penrose does not usually look up what people have already done. He just does whatever he likes, and checks only afterwards whether any others have done similar things before. The order of things is actually opposite to what is normal in academic paper writing. I suspect that it is the case with quite a few people, especially those with originality.

The secret is to hide your sources.

Albert Einstein once remarked to the effect that the secret of creativity is to hide your sources.

Here, the great physicist is showing again his great intuition about the psychology of creativity. Mysterious though the workings of the brain may appear to us at present, one thing is clear. Nothing comes from nothing. When one has a moment of inspiration, one might have the feeling that the new idea came out of the air, without a trace of precursors and origins. And yet, the breakthrough is in fact the result of a continuous experiment of associations and links within the cortical network, where various information obtained through experience and thinking is thrown into the "crucible" and fused.

In reality, when there is a new idea, say X, popping into the mind, there should be an unspecified set of information, say A, B, C, D, ....., that amounted to the forging of X. The intriguing fact is that we are not always, and indeed most of the time not aware of the sources A, B, C, D, ...... Hence the rather surprising nature of the moment of insipiration.

Thus, as Albert Einstein said, the secret of creativity is to be found in a process where the sources are hidden, and the human brain is very capable of such a process.

The ENIAC photos

While in Ann Arbor, there was one thing that I would very much like to see.

ENIAC.

ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, and was the world's first electronic computer. ENIAC was constructed in University of Pennsylvania by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, and was completed in 1946. It was then operational until 1955. ENIAC conducted 5000 cycles of operations per second.

Four of the original panels are now displayed in the entrance hall of Computer Science and Engineering Building at 2260 Hayward, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Standing in front of the legendary machine filled me with awe and inspiration. To think that the evolution of modern computers started here, all the way to the wondrous machines that we so casually use today, including the one I use to type these words, infuses one with respect for the pioneers.

Here's some photos of the legendary machine. Thanks to University of Michigan for preserving and displaying this significant bit of history.



















Ken Mogi (h=172 cm) is standing in front of the ENIAC as a scale bar.

Driving to Ann Arbor, I felt that I was coming back to the United States afresh and with a vengeance, albeit in a different context than yesterday's.

My travel in the United States continues.

A 30 minutes drive from the Detroit airport brought me to Ann Arbor. As the car approached the academic city, memories swelled in my heart.

In the summer of 1986, I participated the 38th Japan America Student Conference. This conference was my first exposure to the American culture. As part of the itinerary, we visited the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

We stayed at the student dorm on campus, and talked late into the night. As the conference was finished for the day in the evening, we strolled into the streets. As I recall, I realize that was one of the prime times of my life.

At that time, I was seriously considering of moving out of Japan and going to the United States. I don't know what made me walk away from that adventure eventually. Possibly, it was a fear of losing my own roots.

At that time, as is the case today, America was a huge crucible in which things got mixed and then melted and fused. I think I was unconsciously afraid of being lost in a ocean of constantly moving trends of miscellaneous unknowns.

At the time of my visit to Ann Arbor, I did not know Yasujiro Ozu, had not visited the Ise Shrine, and had not rediscovered Hideo Kobayashi. Perhaps I was not confident enough in my own cultural tradition to set out to the vast of ocean of contingencies in the United States.

Shortly after the conference, I made a decision to go to the graduate school in Tokyo. My first long-term residence in a foreign soil was then to be the postdoctoral years in Cambridge University, U.K. In this era, my heart was rather remote from the things U.S. To this day, I do not know if I made the correct decision.

Driving to Ann Arbor, I felt that I was coming back to the United States afresh and with a vengeance, albeit in a different context than yesterday's.

Once in the city, I suddenly remembered that there was an Ice Cream place called Steve's. Nostalgia made me curious if that was still there. Memories of the conference in 1986. The walks we took to the Steve's Ice Cream, smiles of my friends, arguing which flavor was best, making jokes, bursting laughter, patting on the shoulder, tasting each other's, exchanging remarks, outreaching of cultures...

When I checked the web in the hotel room, I learned that the precious Steve's is gone. An entry from "Ann Arbor's lost eateries" reads:

Steve's Ice Cream, corner of William and State, now a Jimmy John's; 80s ice cream mix-ins.


So a gem in my past is no more. Gone too is the young I who aspired to be a global citizen, not knowing exactly why or, more importantly, how.

Time flows and flew, and here I am in Ann Arbor again, looking at the phenomenon which is the United States with renewed vigor and bits of educated bewilderments.

Ohio!

I arrived in Columbus, Ohio, and moved to Athens, Ohio, on the road.

We dropped by a roadside restaurant. I got into talking with John. John majored in film studies at University. He said he saw many works by the Japanese masters, Kurosawa, Ozu, and Mizoguchi.

This morning, as I greeted him on the hotel corridor, John yelled to me "Ohio!" I asked him if he meant "good morning" in Japanese (the Japanese word for good morning, "Ohayo", is very similar in pronunciation to "Ohio", and saying "Ohio" in the sense of "good morning" is a relatively well-known bi-cultural joke). John said "yes". "There was a Japanese movie with that title".

"Oh, you mean Ozu?" I said. "Ozu has a lovely piece with that title". "Well, I don't remember exactly," John said.

Back in the room, I started to muse that there might probably be two roads to the universal from the local. One is the internet way, and another is the Ozu way. Before I have time to type down the thoughts however, I realize that it is now time for me to leave to face up to today's missions.