Chaos: no longer Theory

Warning: Heavy on spew. Low on proofreading.

So scratch everything I wrote in the last entry about classes. I have no idea what I'm doing. I've decided that there's basically no way to take classes at Reed next year because they're all at the wrong time. I just hope that I get into Lewis and Clark. My new strategy is to engage in some carefully-worded begging with the director of special programs at L&C in order to take two classes there next fall: both calc III and E&M, and then just one in the spring. I could then apply for the second half of the year to the program at Portland State that lets high school students take college classes. Such a move would greatly expand my options, opening the doors to differential equations, linear algebra, and group theory--all at convenient times. I talked to a professor at Reed, and they would place me into Introduction to Analysis instead of Multivariate Calc, which I need to take E&M. Math at Reed is very pure and very formal, so they tend to do things in an unusual order that is not very convenient for my interest in physics.

In other news, now that I have finished my year of American literature, I can officially become interested in fiction again. It may come as a surprise to the reader, but I really don't like American authors all that much. There are a few palatable ones, but by and large, I really am and always have been bored to death and completely uninterested in American literature for some strange and unfortunate reason. Anyway, I've finally had the time to really start getting into The Idiot, and it's really good. Myshkin is essentially, at this point in the novel, the character of moral perfection, yet his perfection arouses such mistrust. It actually does seem to make perfect sense that moral perfection cannot exist in an immoral world, because morality (at least in the Christian sense of the word being investigated here) implies a complete and total absence of jealosy, pride, selfishness, etc. In an immoral world, these qualities merely lead to the morally perfect individual's destruction because they render him/her completely defenseless against the immoral exploits of other members of society. The traits of immorality may actually be defense mechanisms against exploitations; to exploit or to be exploited, that is the question. Now that I think about it, this is essentially the reason for the failure of utopian societies. To achieve the completely selfless and "moral state" is inhuman, and immorality triumphs in an immoral world. But I think that society can put bounds of immorality. Our society today certainly has a feel of "bounded immorality", which may arguably be the best state of being. Selfishness is an inherent human trait--the law of natural selection may even suggest that it is an inherent trait of all life to a degree. It can give rise to innovation, technological development, and other achievements through the profit motive, ego motive, will to power, or other impulse. But unbounded it is extremely destructive. So perhaps the greedy, imperfect, yet free society is the best compromise.

And one last thing. The senior prank this year finally pulled through at the last minute, and it was a gorgeous display of wit and taste. They built a rather large Trojan horse out of wood (our mascot being the Trojans), put it in the courtyard at 2AM, and hid in it all day, only coming out just before lunch when several reporters asked to interview them. It was quite impressive, holding at least 15 people, almost all of whom were from our calculus class. What a bunch of nerds. They come back to school after they graduate. What nonsense.