Life Enrichment Club: 2013 to 2014
暢樂人生社
Sung-Peng Hsu (徐頌鵬)
June, 2014
This is the fifth year since the Life Enrichment Club (暢樂人生社) was formed on June 22, 2009, under the Taiwanese American Senior Society (TASS). In the last few years, we had spent quite a lot of time on our DNA and brain. It so happened that on April 2, 2013, President Obama proposed an initiative to map our brain and chose Francis Collins, NIH Director and a leader for mapping our genome, as the project director for the brain-mapping initiative.
Brain Initiative The Milky Way
The first session for 2013 to 2014 took place on April 23, 2013. It was felt that we should at least touch on “consciousness” before moving to another field of science. We chose two video lectures by Dr. Sam Wang, a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University. They are “Consciousness and Free Will” and “Happiness and other Research Opportunities,” both from his Great Course “The Neuroscience of Everyday Life.” According to Dr. Wang, consciousness is “the awareness of oneself and the world in a subjective sense.” He tries to find whether there are correlates between the neurons in our brain and our awareness. These are difficult questions often discussed under the “body and mind” problem in traditional philosophy and religion. Different views also show up among neuroscientists. Whereas Rudolph Tanji and Deepak Chopra, as covered earlier, take the position that we are not our brain but some kind of “Super Brain,” Sam Wang tends to take the position that we are our brain and tries to see how far it can be proven with scientific methods.
At this point, we decided to switch our focus to another field of science, astronomy. We selected one of the Great Courses offered by Dr. Alex Filippenko, an excellent lecturer of University of California, Berkeley. The course is called “Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy.” For the meeting on May 21, we chose two video lectures: “The Rainbow Connection” and “Sunrise, Sunset.” Since many of our TASS members have been very much into photography, especially about rainbow, sunrise, and sunset, these lectures served as an exciting and relevant way into astronomy. The professor explains how sunlight plays its magic on earth through its atmosphere at different angles. In the afternoon, Stephen Hung (洪啟峰) of the Photo Club took this opportunity to show many photos of rainbow, sunrise, and sunset, which he and other members took in the past. In this way, in one day, we covered rainbow, sunset, and sunset from both the theoretical perspective and artistic point of view.
The second topic for the astronomy series is “Our Milky Way and Telescope” on June 25. Again we selected two lectures from Dr. Alex Filppenko’s excellent course. The professor discusses some major objects that we can observe in the night sky, with the emphasis on our galaxy, the Milky Way. He also explains how telescopes have been developed and used to expand our understanding of the universe. The two video lectures cover a lot of ground. They served the purpose of providing a grand overview of the universe in our night sky. After watching one hour of video, Dr. Yud-Ren Chen (陳育仁) led half an hour of discussion. Yud-Ren Chen has Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Sciences and is very knowledgeable in astronomy and optics. He answered many interesting questions from the audience. Though we do not have telescope, we could use our cameras to capture some pictures of the sky. In the Photo Club session in the afternoon, Stephen Hung provided a great “show and tell” with photos of star trails taken by several Photo Club members. It is hoped that some time in the future there are chances to take pictures of the Milky Way at right conditions.
The third topic in the astronomy series was held on July 30 on “Our Mysterious Universe in Time and Space.” We started with Dr. Alex Filippenko’s video lectures. With different scales of space and time, the universe is presented from the smallest to the largest. This universe is very much beyond our limited senses and crude tools. It requires sophisticated instruments and complex mathematical calculations. The professor is able to use fascinating graphs to put abstract numbers into concrete views. How can we imagine that the “observable universe” started about 14 billion years ago at the “Big Bang”? How about the tiniest quarks or Higgs boson? How about the accelerating expansion of the universe? According to recent researches, the kind of matter that we have observed is only about 4.9% of the total. We are still very ignorant about the rest, about 26.8% of “dark matter” and 68.3% of “dark energy.” In order to help understand the whole picture, I wrote an article “Notes about Our Mysterious Universe.” After the video lectures, we invited Dr. Yud-Ren Chen again to lead 30 minutes of wide-ranging discussion.
The fourth topic in the astronomy series was held on August 27 on “Reflection on Life and the Cosmos.” It is the topic of the last video lecture in Dr. Alex Fillipenko’s 95 lectures. Since it is impossible to watch all the lectures in his course, it would make sense for us to learn how the professor views our life in the almost infinitely small and large universe. Even though we are so tiny in the huge universe, Filippenko marvels, “It is almost as though the Universe has developed a way to know itself, through us – the explorers, brains, and the conscience of the Universe.” He also quotes Albert Einstein’s saying: “The most incomprehensive thing about the Universe is that it’s comprehensible.” These words may inspire us to learn more about the universe so that we could better understand the meaning of our life. After half an hour of watching the video, it was Dr. Yud-Ren Chen’s turn again to lead one hour of discussion. With a longer period for discussion, more people were able to ask questions or share their views. We were brought to face the mysterious connection between our brain and the universe. The micro universe and the macro universe must be intersecting each other in our body in some marvelous and mysterious ways!
The sun and planets Comet ISON
After a survey of the almost infinitely large universe, we came back to the most obvious object in our sky on September 24, with the topic of “Our Sun.” After 30 minutes of video lecture by Dr. Alex Fillipenko, Dr. Wei-wen Yu (游蔚文) led one hour of presentation and discussion. Dr. Yu received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and Mathematics and spent his long career in civil engineering and architectural structure. He has had a long history of interest in astronomy. He collected a lot of data about recent research of the solar system and shared them with the audience. To him, the on-going scientific discoveries are more exciting. For example, a giant “dark hole” or “coronal hole” was recently spotted. The sun’s magnetic poles are expected to switch around very soon. Voyager 1 launched 36 years ago has finally passed the border of the solar system and entered the space between the stars. It is the first Homo-sapien-made object traveling beyond the solar system. The sun has captivated human imagination from the first time when humans used their brains to connect dots between the sun and our human life. The sun has been worshipped in different religions in many forms because without it there could be no life.
There are many planets that orbit around the sun with some regularity, but there are other objects that come and go very much unexpectedly. Comets are among them. In human history, they often symbolize bad omens, extraordinary events, or the end of the world. On October 22, the topic for our discussion is “Comets.” As in the past, we started with 30 minutes of video lecture by Dr. Alex Fillipenko on “Comets: Gorgeous Primordial Snowballs.” It is followed by one hour of discussion led by Dr. Yud-Ren Chen and Dr. Rong-chin Fang. An important reason for covering comets in October was the fact that an unusual comet known as Comet ISON would be arriving near the earth and expected to fly by the sun on November 28. After its detection one year earlier, almost all astronomers in the world had been diligently preparing for its arrival. It was believed that Comet ISON would show up for the first time from the “Oort Cloud,” somewhere at the border or outside of the solar system. It was not sure whether it would dive into the sun and thus disintegrated or would survive the close encounter and show up with its glorious light show on the other side. In either case, it could be a great opportunity for astronomers to analyze its layers when it was being heated and burnt by the sun. It might reveal the primordial conditions when the solar system was being formed some 4 billion years ago. As it turned out on November 28, the Thanksgiving Day, Comet ISON was consumed by the sun like a turkey and did not survive the close encounter. Nevertheless, it was an event that many TASS members had followed diligently. To them, it was an event of a lifetime! The audience appreciated the discussion led by Dr. Chen and Dr. Fang.
On November 5, Dr. Rong-chin Fang (方榮震) was invited to give a talk on “Einstein’s View on Time and Space.” An overview of our universe cannot be without some understanding of Albert Einstein’s Relativity Theory. Dr. Fang, now the president of TASS, received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and has had a very successful career. Physics has been one of his favorite subjects. Knowing that most of us do not have enough mathematical training, he explained Einstein’s theory of special relativity on the level we could understand, using only simple logic and middle school algebra. He focused on the idea that there is a way to slow down the clock of every changing process including our aging process. If we want to live longer, the trick is to fly faster on some kind of vehicle, close to the speed of light. The faster, the less we age. Dr. Fang also explained that without the relativity theory, the Global Positioning System (GPS) cannot be accurate and thus would not work. The fact that it works so well proves that Einstein’s theory about time and space is true. After the presentation, many of us are still puzzled. It reflects the fact that modern physics has moved far beyond our common-sense knowledge. Even though we know that the earth orbits around the sun, we still say that the sun rises from the east and sets in the west every day. We are still thinking in terms of our body that is gravitationally tied to the earth.
Albert Einstein Hu Shih
It is impossible to cover every subject of astronomy. We will return to it some time later. We felt that it was about time to move on to some subjects closer to our personal life, about the meanings of what we have learned from DNA, brain, and astronomy.
One way to make the transition from sciences to our life is to discuss the philosophy of life of an important thinker and philosopher, Hu Shih (胡適), 1891-1962. He lived about 50 years before us. His understanding of modern sciences is in many ways different from the current state of sciences, but the problems that he faced are surprisingly relevant. He lived at a time when China was being transformed from its medieval period into the brave new world of modern sciences. He was the pivotal figure in the revolutionary movements of social, cultural, and political changes. One of the big debates in his time was on the question of the relationship between science and philosophy of life. It so happened that I wrote an article on Hu Shih’s thought about 30 years ago. I decided to give a presentation on “Hu Shih’s Philosophy of Life” on January 28. Europe has taken several centuries to transform itself from its medieval period to the modern age. One could imagine how difficult it would be for China to take that step without much time to experiment. Hu Shih lived in Taiwan in his old age. His influences on Taiwan were also very considerable. Hu Shih’s thought will most likely influence both China and Taiwan in the future. For more information on my talk on Hu Shih, go to the following link: http://www.worldreligionsjourney.com/confucianism/
Dr. Sie Ling Chiang (姜西淋) has been obsessed with the issues of philosophy of life for a long time. He decided to follow Hu Shih’s thread of thought and gave a talk on “人生的價值與健康的人生觀” (Values of Life and Healthy Personal Belief System) on February 25. It is interesting that Hu Shih presented a speech at Sie Ling’s graduation ceremony in 1960 in Taiwan. After receiving his Ph.D. in civil engineering, Dr. Chiang had a successful career in state and federal governments. In 2007, he published his “知命開運.” The English version of the book will be published as “Genetic Fate, Environmental Chance and Your Destiny.” In his leisurely time, Dr. Chiang often acted as a fortune-teller as an entertainment, but in his serious moments, he has worked hard to figure out the meaning of life on the basis of modern sciences. Using Abraham Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs, he has developed the ideas of “自我” (self), “大我” (greater-than-self), and “無我” (selfless). The values of life can be found in the various needs in the hierarchy. The goals of life are represented by the processes through which the various goals are realized, from the lowest to the highest. Dr. Chiang’s views stimulated many responses from the audience.
Many questions have been raised after each presentation throughout the year. It is hoped that there would be more discussion time in which various questions can be more thoroughly discussed and debated.
Note: The pictures have been selected from the Internet.