Reasoning

Reproducibility is one of the principles of scientific method. Another scientific method is hypothesis.

Think of this scenario. One day, you saw your dog facing west and barking three times, and then it started raining. A few days later, you saw your dog facing west and barking three times again, and it started raining again. Then you concluded that your dog’s barking three times toward west causes rain. Now, saying “that’s ridiculous” is not scientific argument. Your dog might have sensed the gradual decrease in atmospheric pressure, noticed slight change of the western heavens, and reacted to it. You may need to consider what is the cause and what is the result, and review the reasoning and the logic behind it to relate or separate two sequential events before arguing unscientifically.

As I wrote in the previous post, I like visiting a museum and went to ROM lats weekend. Another weird habit that I do at a museum but did not mention in the previous post is to worship before a statue of Buddha. If you see some of my facebook photo albums like this one, this one, this one, or this one, you can tell how I like visiting Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Since there are few places like them in North America, I visit museums to meet Buddha. By the way, those statues of Buddha are usually called “Buddhism art”, but I do not call them “art” because it is more like religious practice, something people “needed for their daily life of the time”. Anyways, when I visited ROM last weekend, I worshiped before statues of Buddha and read a short Buddhism sutra carved on a temple bell twice.

As I often mention, I do freelance translation jobs now while looking for a full-time job, and as I wrote in another previous post, some clients disappear in the middle of negotiation and I often have to wait passively. In last couple of days after visiting ROM, I’ve got positive messages from some of my clients and got some freelance jobs.

Now you may be thinking “that’s ridiculous, it’s only coincidence”. But think one second. I have not concluded anything. I just wrote about two sequential events in last few days. For now I dare not to attempt any reasoning.

October 8, 2013Permalink