おは異様ございます！
It has already been one month into my exchange, and I am only in Week 3, while UCSD is already in Week 6. The semester system is slow, but time moves fast. On my Fernando Mendoza, I had to update my LinkedIn and make a post. Go connect and like it for me real quick:
Cliché to say, but I blinked, and now it is May. It’s strange how the same time passes, but our experience and perception is different. In La Jolla, every day was long, making it to Friday or let alone the end of the day felt so far, but here in Kyoto, it’s all a blur. I have been in a month-long fever dream, and before I know it, I am going to wake up, and it’s back to square one. I am scared and worried when that happens, but I have no choice and must go through it. There has not been a more accurate metaphor than “Life is a roller coaster.” A series of ups and downs, and sometimes upside-downs. Japan is inexplicably beautiful and despite not speaking the language fluently, I find a little more each time I come. That last sentence sounds so filler, but you have to come to Japan to understand. When the 2022-23 hockey season ended, going to Japan or Tokyo in particular became my "go to Cancun" in NBA terms to start the off-season. If I did not know what Amanohashidate looks like, and you told me the photo below is in Cancun, I would believe you:
Amanohashidate is such a breathtaking place, but there was little to no waves and the water was quite cold. Given it was still late April to early May, I will give some grace to the water temperature because I know when June comes, Japan is insufferably hot and the water will be much warmer not that it helps. It is pretty funny how we only wish things that are convenient to us at the moment. When it is hot out, we wish for cold, when it is cold, we wish for heat, two months ago I wished for time to go faster, now I wish time moves slower. Human nature and psychology is quite fascinating. I am taking an intro to neuroscience class right now, and we are studying motivation right now. Motivation is funny because it serves as the catalyst and sparks the fire to get us going, but fades when we do not stoke the flame. The stokes are discipline and building that is the hard part. Living in an age of instant gratification, our brains are hard-wired to take the path of least-resistance. We built Social Media and the algorithms designed to trap us in the never-ending doom-scrolling loop. Developing discipline requires rewiring of the neural connections in the brain to new pathways. The more that pathway gets used, the stronger it gets, thus forming a habit. A habit takes 65 days for an average human to form, which then becomes discipline. I am not that knowledgeable in Neuroscience, so take my opinion and what I said with a grain of salt. There are so many questions I have and want answers regarding the human mind, I am just very interested.
This question was brought up in the first lecture of my Fundamentals of AI course:
"Is AI intelligent? What does it mean to be intelligent?"
My Professor and I both agreed on "No" primarily citing John Searle's Chinese Room experiment. The TLDR is the Chinese Room is a thought experiment showing that a computer can follow rules to process language perfectly without actually understanding what any of the words mean. It imagines a person using a Chinese dictionary to swap symbols they do not recognize, proving that "looking" smart on the outside is not the same as having a mind on the inside. Basically, it argues that AI is just a very fast book-looker, not a conscious thinker. Then that brings me to the next question I have "what does it mean to be or have a conscious?" Does it mean "to be or feel alive?" A lot of people including myself do not feel "alive" at times, does that make us knuckle draggers? Or is being or having a conscious mean being "human?" What does it mean to be "human?"
There is no definitive answers to these questions as they are subjective, but if we equate being "human" as the basis for intelligence than AI is intelligent because of this:
Minimal ball knowledge required to understand that joke.
It is Golden Week right now, which is pretty much Japan's Spring/Early-Summer Break, so there are no classes. I am currently back in Tokyo “spending time” with my grandparents and aunt. The “spending time” is going out and about Tokyo, constantly commuting to Shinjuku giving my new international and study-abroad friends a tour of the “city.” Tokyo consists more of “cities” than one singular city. There are plenty of downtowns in Tokyo such as Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ginza, Marunouchi, Roppongi,Akihabara, etc. When you think of busy cities, Tokyo is the flagship city, and if you ever have made or will make the pilgrimage here, you would not disagree. All the people that commute to Shinjuku station at any given moment is enough to fill like 2-3 Sofi Stadiums. I think the actual number of commuters there is 3,000,000 million per day, it is extremely efficient. The efficiency of Japanese public transit alone is a key reason why so many of newfound international and study-abroad friends are looking to move and work here full-time. There is no need to drive anywhere, there are no food desserts, groceries are inexpensive, and the "quality of life" here is all around better.
There are quotations on "Quality of life" because we say we are visitors that do not actually have to live, work, and pay taxes here. This pretty much piggybacks to what I said earlier about we only say things when they are convenient to us. For example, back at home in the States, I would complain about inefficient about public transportation and having to use a car everywhere, but being in Japan for a month now, I do miss driving. I miss having the luxury of a car too like when you are about to miss the last train going back home, you get pretty anxious. There were a few times were that almost happened to me. It is just something so liberating about driving, feeling the vibration of the wheel, and the thrill of the gas pedal.
I will talk more about it in the next video, tlee's times #2. That video should be out along with the week 4 log. I apologize for the lack of depth and the next to nothing week's reflection. I am not trying to sound so pretentious, but just by looking at my IG stories, you could put together a lot more happens in a week abroad than at San Diego. There is a difference between "existing" and "living." I am working on choosing the latter. As always, stay safe, and Godspeed!
See you next week! じゃね！