Week 03 Reflection

From: 18 January 2026

I actually managed to get this update out on Sunday, wow! The week itself was rather eventful as classes had officially begun, which now means I am eternally busy. My courseload is kind of intense, which hasn't been stressing me out recently since I am enjoying the content of the classes but I think later on it may be a source of contention. I always want to do more website stuff and do more research into Buddhism, but taking good notes is actually quite hard. I like doing the zettelkasten method but I'm still working out an efficient way to use it; right now I've started just creating the links to notes instead of filling them out and then filling them out later (but the real test is if I will actually fill them out later...). It's really interesting to see the notes come together when I do end up linking them, but as of yet I haven't used zettelkasten for any truly practical applications as I've just never had the time to fully go through and make all of them. Maybe this year is the year! (doubtful)

More excitingly is that on Wednesday my Framework 16 came in! I've been tinkering with it throughout the week and have managed to get it operational. I'm running Arch (btw) with Hyprland, which has definitely been a bit of an adjustment as someone who isn't extremely computer adept. I have really enjoyed Arch, though, as I know everything I see and use on my computer I added with a particular reason. It brings me a lot of joy and makes me understand my comptuer a lot better methinks! With that said, I've had two main problems: Hyprland scaling and Rime traditional Chinese keyboards.

Hyprland scaling I have mostly figured out, except for in Zotero. For whatever reason it tries to fit itself fully in the container which makes it stretch weirdly. Before I got my Framework I was considering switching it out for a CLI option, which may be better. I think a combination of BibTex files and pandoc should be adequate enough, but I'll need to do more research on that front. For the Rime traditional Chinese keyboard, for whatever strange reason trying to get 為 and 什, probably two of the most common characters as they are used for creating 為什麼 ("why") and other grammar, is a Sisyphean tasks. They are always behind a ton of pages and 爲 and 甚 instead. I have no idea why as they are MUCH more uncommon. Looking online it's something to do with the dictionaries they pull from, but the solutions are for the pinyin inputs and not for zhuyin, which is what I use. If anyone knows how to fix fcitx5 Rime zhuyin PLEASE let me know.

Socially, things are also going pretty fine. Haven't met anyone new in my classes (I don't go out of my way to talk to new people), but seeing my friends again has been nice. I had to move a class around due to my Chinese drill section being with a lot of people who frankly aren't that good or motivated, which was good because my new drill class was with all my friends! I have also thought about dating again but I am very busy and it's not something I particularly want to force to happen, as I think that was the lesson of my last relationship (make sure you actually think about if you and your partner are compatible and not obsess over the idea of being in a relationship.)

I didn't discover anything new this week (read: busy), but I want to start talking about what I learned in my classes, since I think they are interesting and it helps me process what I actually did this week. Note that I am mainly copying from my notes for these, which may be worded very similar to the sources they come from. This is not intended as plagarism if this occurs, it's just me rewriting my notes. When I actually turn them into zettels they will have the sources attached in full. For the Chinese and French sections, please feel free to also correct my grammar.

School

Ancient Christianity

The course goes from 30CE (approximate year of Jesus of Nazareth's death) to 325CE (the First Council of Nicaea). We read sections of Galatians, Revelations, and 1 Thessalonians.

The Galatians readings introduced the figure of Paul the Apostle, where he notes that he was once a persecutor of the Church, but was now a member of it, and that he had a high amount of influence in Syria and Cilicia because of that fact. He emphasizes the priority of faith in Jesus over "works of faith" (meaning actions that fulfill the law of the Torah). In Revelations, we see the letters introduced to the various churches of Asia. Apparently the Nicolaitans suck or something. I forgot to take notes over 1 Thessalonians itself.

In lecture, we talked more about the background. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew from Galilee, born around 4BCE to 1CE and died around 30 CE. He was seen as a threat to Roman rule and was crucified. He was an apocalyptical eschatological Jew who believed himself to be prophetic. The term "apocalpytic" derives from the Greek word for "revelation," thus "apocalyptic" referred to someone or some group that believed to have received revelations from God. The term "eschatological" refers to eschatology, which are ideas on the end. In the specific 1st century Jewish context, it was specifically God's fulfillment of history and his plan for the people of Israel. He preached an imminent eschatology, thus that the fulfillment of history was coming very soon, particularly in the people he was preaching to's lifetime. As such, repenting was important.

At the time, Judea was in a very tense place, as it had recently became a client state of Rome. Thirty years after Jesus's death would be the Jewish War that would result in the Second Temple's destruction. As a result, a tradition with a history of eschatological teachings and being under foreign domination makes the idea of imminent eschatology very pleasing. Contemporary Jews would have seen it as more meaning that God would punish the Romans in particular.

Following the death of Jesus, some had come to believe that Jesus was the messiah (meaning "anointed one" and same word as Christ). Messianism was also a common belief in 1st century Judaism, but traditional messianism stated that the messiah would be a political and military leader that would defeat the other nations. Particularly, the messiah would be a human figure appointed by God, but over time this figure became semi-human and semi-divine as we see in the Book of Daniel. Jesus obviously does not fit this role at all, and began to viewed through the minority belief in a dying-rising messiah. In a dying-rising messsiah belief, the return of the messiah is the eschaton (the end).

This "Jesus movement" (titled as such as no one believed they were starting a new religion, just a branch of Judaism) placed importance on proselytizing due to the urgency of an imminent eschaton. A prominent figure would be the aformentioned Paul, who viewed himself as the apostle ("messenger") to the gentiles ("non-Jews"). We see his importance in 1 Thessalonians where he is addressing the people of Thessaloniki. He preached an imminent eschatological message and was known to go to local synagogues to proselytize, based off the language of the Book of Acts. He may have done physical labor in a place in order to gain status. The text deals partially with the idea of retaining sanctification, which would have been important to Paul as a pharasees (Jews who had a focus on purity, both mental and physical). The body was viewed as a source of impurity, which is reflected in the frequent mention of sexual immorality. Since the eschaton is soon, you want to stay sanctified! Paul also mentions the rising of the dead during the eschaton, which would have been important to the Thessalonians who wondered if their dead relatives would also be saved as they would be.

Chinese (Third-Year)

這個星期我學了寫字的習慣，為什麼手寫字被打字取代了等等。語法是:

  1. 不只是A，B（和C）也包括在內。

    2. "not only A, but also including B and C"

    北美洲的國家不只是美國，加拿大和墨西哥也包括在內。

  2. 幾乎只/不

    3. "almost only", "almost never" used for exaggeration to make a point

    現在生子幾乎只是少數的願望！

  3. 不再了

    4. "subj. no longer..." something once possible or true is no longer possible or true

    美國不再有穩定社會了。

  4. 都什麼年代了，還有誰。。。啊？

    5. "Did you forget what year it was? Who still...?" rhetorical question that a behavior/idea is out of date

    都什麼年代了，還有誰買房子啊？

  5. 得/應該（什麼），否則，（不好的事）會。。。

    6. "One has to/should do (something), otherwise..." used to warn a behavior

    學生應該好好學習，否則，你會通不過考試。

  6. V出O來

    7. Directional complement meaing "out (from somewhere)", idea of something turning from invisible to visible

    知道注意，讓你容易地打出字來。

  7. 任何。。。的（名詞），只要。。。，就。。。

    8. "Anyone who..., as long as..., (the subject) will..." conditional sentence, emphasizing the ease of obtaining a goal

    任何學中文的人，只要常常手寫字，就不提筆忘字。

  8. 雖然。。。，但是。。。卻是誰都不能否認的。

    9. "Although..., it is undeniable that..." used to emphasize that a subject may still have problems, but that there are positives

    雖然生活是天天吃苦，但是在世界上是貓卻是誰都不能否認的。

  9. 從這個角度來看

    10. "from this perspective..." used to explain the reason why the speaker has such-and-such opinion

    美國政府很腐敗，從這個角度來看，我們應該有革命。

Contemporary Tibet

Readings for this week included The Tibetans by Matthew Kapstein (2006).

Defining what exactly "Tibet" is depends on your viewpoint:

The class uses a mixture. A brief geographic history states that the Tibetan plateau formed ~45 million years ago when the Indian tectonic plate subducted under the Eurasian tectonic plate, creating the Himalayas, Karakoroum, Pamir,Tianshan, and Kunlun mountain ranges. As a result, the plateau is prone to earthquakes. Human settlement has been relatively recent (no wonder given the average elevation is 12,000 ft.). Population density remians very low, currently at 3-4 people per square mile. Pastoralism also remains an important lifestyle, as urbanism remains extremely low and only 1% of the plateau's land can be used for agriculture. This low amount of arable land made controlling the waterways important (the word for government authority, chapsi, derives from water, chap.)

Tibet is now mainly divided into three historical regions from west to east: Ngari, Ü-Tsang, and Amdo & Kham. Starting with Ngari, it is the least densely populated with only 4-5% of all Tibetans living there, and is centered around Mt. Kailash. Ngari's environment is characterized by its harshness, with winters regularly reaching sub-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Although some agriculture can occur, increasing desiccation has lowered the already small amount of arable land available. Due to it's early inhabitants being Indo-Europeans, it joined the Tibetan cultural sphere later on, at least post-7th century CE. One quote I liked from the reading was "We Ladakhis have never been motivated to visit the surface of the moon because we had it here all along."

Moving east to central Tibet is Tsang, which is centered around the town of Shigatsé, and Ü, which contains the capital of Lhasa in the Kyi River Valley. The Yarlung Tsangpo River runs through here, eventually becoming the Brahmaputra in India. It contains alluvial plains suitable for farming, such as the Nyang River Valley in Tsang and the Yarlung Valley in Ü. The region has a relatively mild climate. These factors promote agriculture as a way of life, but maintains a mixed agricultural-pastoralist economy.

Still within the region but moving north is the plain of Jangtang, which exclusively has drokpa (more on that term later). Within Ü-Tsang is also the Nyenchen Tangla mountain range, which is believed to have the "highest deity of Tibet" (not sure who that is), along with two of the greatest lakes of Tibet: Nam Tso and Yamdral Tso. East within the region are the districts of Dakpo, Kongpo, and Powe, which has abundant natural resources and includes Bhutan and Arunachal State in India. Moving further down is Pemakö, which in legend was called the "paradise of the world".

Moving further east is the regions of Kham and Amdo, which are now divided into five differenct provinces in China (Tibetan Autonomous Region, Yunnan, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Gansu). The region is characterized by its abundant amount of pastureland, but more intensive agriculture (e.g. wheat) can be farmed in the southeast. The region also includes Gyelmorong, whose people do not speak Tibetan but are still culturally Tibetan due to their adherance to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön. This reflects trends of Tibetanization throughout time, such as with the Yi of Sichuan, Naxi of Yunnan, Tu of Qinghai, and the Mingalpa of Chakla.

On the socioeconomic side of things, majority of people are in one of three categories: drokpa (pastoralists, nomads), zhingpa (farmers), or samadrok (mixed agricultural-pastoralists). Although the popular imagination puts the drokpa as the archetypical Tibetans, it is likely that agriculture started first and that nomadism came from moving further and further out for land to graze on. This is reflected by the samadrok lifestyle still being the preferred lifestyle in contemporary Tibet.

Tibetan architecture resembles Middle Eastern architecture, most likely representing the west-to-east transmission of agriculture in the area. Traditional homes are typically 2-3 stories with small windows to preserve heat (although nowadays the introduction of manufactured glass allows for larger windows). The ground floor acts as the livestock shelter and the above floor is for human residence. The roof is used to dry grains, leisure, and to pray to deities. As such, the roof typically has a sangtab, a furnance used for burning incense to the gods.

For drokpa, the typical accomodation is the black felt tent. Despite popular belief, drokpa are not able to wander freely due to territorial rights between families. Migration does occur, but only over an area typically much less than 30-40 miles. Reasons for migration typically result from overgrazing, group splintering, and warfare with neighbors. The majority of drokpa are impoverished, as even the wealthiest of drokpa (meaning those with large amounts of livestock) may be brought down by cow disease, harsh winters, or war. To supplement this income, many drokpa also hunt, do crafts, or beg in cities.

The most important occupation outside of these is the monastic life. Mercantile behavior is close to non-existent in most areas of Tibet and so trading has never been extremely important. Further, older Tibetan texts glorified the spiritual over the mundane and thus little note was taken over what was traded. With this, Dza Peltrül put the three main fundamentals of the Tibetan economy as the tea trade, barley farming, and animal husbandry.

The Tibetan language is incredibly diverse when spoken, resulting in some people preferring Mandarin as a common language ("as every lama has their own teaching, every valley has its own tongue"). It closely resembles Burmese, resulting in the Tibeto-Burmese language family. Dialects are largely divided into four different dialect groups, but many don't fit neatly into one. Despite all this, literary Tibetan is the same amongst dialect groups. Tradition puts it as being created by Emperor Songtsen Gampo (reigned c. 617) after he instructed Minister Tonmi Sambhata to go to Kashmir for this effect. The Tibetan script is thus derived from ancient Brahmi script and resembles 6th-7th century North Indian scripts. Although Tibetans preferred neologisms, words taken from Arabic, English, Mandarin, and other languages shows the large history of Tibetan interplay with other cultures. However, the script has largely remained the same since it's creation, resulting in confusion over how to romanize it (do you use how it is actually written or how it's pronounced?). My teacher recommended that typically the consonant before the vowel is the one you pronounce, although there are exceptions.

French (Second-Year)

Cette semaine, notre sujet était "la francophonie". La grammaire était très facile, puisque nos grammaires était les verbes irréguliers en -cer, -ger, -ier, -eter, et plus encore. Je pense que mon français est très terrible... mais mon cours français est just après mon cours chinois, donc j'ai mal à la tête.

Philosophy of Religion

Reading from this week comes from my professor's unpublished book of the same name. It's first important to define each part of "philosophy of religion". Philosophy is reasoned inquiry into highly general questions, with foundational questions over the nature of reality, knoweledge, values, and sentient beings. Despite this generality, oftentimes progress is made by diving into much more specific questions, e.g. the philosophy of language. Religion is a series of belief that looks at the universal, ultimate nature of things and the roles humans play within it, with religion being a universal of all humans (even in secular contexts as forms of religion still remain). The "philosophy of religion" is thus the assessment of religious claims, differing it from other methods of study of religion which merely describe religious claims.

Starting off is metaphysical naturalism, which views the observable cosmos as all of reality and is fundamentally defined by the physical sciences. First, it is important to look at science at large. The natural sciences do have various problems, but are notably excellent at explaining things and thus there is high confidence in the likelihood of being correct. Noteworthy features are that space began 13.8 billion years ago; space expanded overtime with physical structures emerging from elements combining; the dynamics of expansion governed by physical laws that can be accurately defined via math; there is a causal link between all physical processes; life began at least 3.5 billion years ago with unicellular organisms; all life has physical-chemical composition; and humans are the product of evolution, and thus genetically linked to every living being that has ever been.

However, two central questions lay at the foundation of physics: how can quantum and large-scale physics be reconciled (both are extremely accurate yet contradictory) and whether or not the universe is composed only of our cosmos. Quests to solve the first problem have seen spatiotemporality dropped out of the equation. For the second, some physicists have proposed the idea of multiverses, but this has been deeply contested due to their lack of observationality.

The social sciences are also included, which have put religion as an object of study. In this realm, the prpimary philosophical question is the relation between the nature of the mind in relation to the biology of brains, as the mind seems to be fundamentally distinct from non-minded physical reality. Having a mind lets us be the subject of experiences and not only the object. Along with this, a mind lets us have attitudes toward reality, making us not machines that register and encode information. Further, we have agency over how to act and are not mechanisms purely actioned by physical stimuli. As such, can the mind be reduced down to physical neural processes? If it can, when doe ssubjectivity, cogntiion, and capacity for free will emerge? The mind's unreliability is also a point of concern. Science assumes that our cognition is highly reliable and that the world has a stable nature (e.g. that the past has the same physical rules as the present and that objects continue to exist and be beholden to the same rules when not observed). Arguing for or against these is impossible using science, due to science by necessity having observation.

The focus on natural laws thus means that things that cannot be possibly observed, such as supernatural entities like God, are not in its purview. Metaphysical naturalism thus builds off these facts of science and departs strictly from science's realm via "methodoloigcal naturalism," where only things that can be scientifically theorized about are candidates for study. As such, the cosmos is viewed as self-contained and closed to only natural causes, with random sampling techniques giving good reason to believe that ooutcomes are representative of all occurrences. Since we again can not know things that we can not perceive and that the cosmos is a closed system, other things can only possibly be other natural things, ruling out the influence of divinities. This then means that supernatural revelation is impossible, ruling out all religions that rely on it. This extends to an idea that we must disbelieve, and not merely suspend judgement on, the existence of anything that cannot be possibly known by observation. If we did suspend judgement, we would have to accept plausible but fantastical scenarios, such as Russell's teapot that orbits between Mars and Earth, but is too small to be picked up by a telescope.

Metaphysical naturalism's validity thus depends on whether or not the self-contained nature of the cosmos is true. Metaphysical naturalists cite Ockham's Razor for their cause, but monotheists and pantheists argue it isn't adequate enough to explain propositions we ought to accept. The agnostic position differs here stating that a realistic assessment of our cognitive limitations means that it is impossible, or irresponsible to dismiss supernatural occurences. This can be a weak position, however, as dismissing some supernatural cliams over others means that certain claims are more conclusive and acceptable. Larger objections to the metaphysical naturalist worldview are as follows:

First, problems over unity. Is the universe a collection of small thing with a collection's state being determined by the states and arrangements of the parts? In this case, the universe is only an arrangement of small parts and nothing more (note: I don't really understand this objection.) Or is it a system where the parts are interdependent and whose identities are bound up in each other? On the issue of time, is time fully realized (meaning that the future is as real as the past and present) or is it dynamic (where the present gives rise to a future that was previously only a list of possibilities)?

Second, problems of modality. Are things necessary, wherein subsequent events are inevitable and predetermined, or are they contingent, where small changes can lead to vastly different outcomes? Someone who has a more macroview of the world may see it as the former, each step being a necessary step to the next. This depends on the nature of casual bonds: do inputs strictly determine an output, or do things influence decisions to be much more likely but not inevitable? (note: as a more concrete example, how historical materialism puts an inevitable course of history, or how tragedies portray the fall from grace as being something that could not have been avoided) As such, is the universe itself necessary or contingent? If it is contigent, could there have been an entirely different universe or none at all? Together this is the problem of the "modal character of reality", with the modal truths being contingent, necessary, actual, and possible.

Third, problems of value and normativity. Value is if something is good or bad and normativity is if something should or should not be pursued. For metaphysical naturalists, there are three positions: eliminationist, reductionist, and anti-reductionist. The eliminationist sees science as the only complete guide to reality, and since reality dues not confirm nor conform to the existence of values and norms, they do not exist. The reductionist sees science also as the only guide to reality, but that values and norms have a place by being constituted by or identical to natural phenomenon. A popular relativist idea is that values and norms are created by consensus value judgements in different communities across the world. A more objective alternative sees a unified values and norms being an end goal as various value judgements come together. The anti-reductionist accepts that values nad norms can not be plausibly reduced down to natural phenomenon, but thus must accept that they exist alongside natural processes and that something has to govern them, which is incompatible with the metaphysical naturalist worldview of only physical processes. The first two also have a hard time dealing with epistemic norms, which govern how science operates and eliminating them or claiming them as relative undermines their standing.

Finally, problems on abstract objects, which are entities without spatiotemporal location (e.g. mathematical units; propositions, which are shared beliefs and desires; properties that reoccur across space and time, such as "square" or "made of wool"; and possibilities). Assuming that abstract objects exist, they are defined by:

  1. Appearing to be important to how we understand reality
  2. Do not appear to be material or spatiotemporal
  3. Positive characterization is restricted to only how they play a role in our thinking.

The nominalist strategy sees these objects as apparent and are artifacts of natural language that can be eliminated by wording changes, which can work for some, but not all, abstract objects. Accepting abstract objects as additions to reality thus weakens the argument of the metaphysical materialist.

Taiwanese

This one maybe doesn't count as it's not a class, I am taking, but my school started doing a Taiwanese conversation table and I decided to go since I want to learn Tâi-gí! I only know how to input the PoJ system, but I want to write in zhuyin-- except I don't think there is a Taiwanese Phonetic Symbols keyboard out there! I strongly dislike the PoJ system since I don't think it accurately romanizes Taiwanese at all, plus with how complicated Taiwanese tone sandhi is I think it's better to just learn the characters. Regardless, I learned the words of:

For resources I'm using Bite-Sized Taiwanese, Taiwanese Made Easier, and the dictionary from the Ministry of Education.