Chrysalis [ 04. It's Raining Outside -- and Inside ]

[See entire]

Alphonse is a ghost.
He appears and disappears as he likes. Come to think about it, I've never seen him in the university grounds. Sometimes it's as if he's transparent. There, but not there.
Sometimes I would not see him for a few weeks. "Where did you go?" I would ask, but in response he would mumble something inaudible. Transparent words. I never press the issue, but somehow I could sense the change in him after such disappearances. He is more talkative. But the kind of talkative that is sadder; like a cover, a distraction from the cause of the sadness itself. This repeated quite frequently.
Repetition.
I don't like the sound of it; its meaning, either. Rinse, lather, repeat. Like you are stuck in a vicious cycle, a never-ending loop, a snake eating its own tail, a downward spiral into oblivion.
This happened to me quite a few times: sometimes you consider a word, repeat it several times, say it aloud, spell it out on a paper, dissecting the syllables. Suddenly the word loses its meaning; suddenly the word becomes foreign; suddenly it is disjointed from the rest of the knowledge inside the head.
Isn't it ironic? Maybe you intend to repeat the word endlessly, its variations, visiting every possible meaning, considering every nuance, like Edgar and his bastardy soliloquy. But in the end the meaning is exhausted, the meaning is thrown into nothingness -- after that, nihil ex nihilo fit, nothing comes out of nothing, my fair Cordelia, so speak it again, again, again, spiralling to the selfsame nought.
Like a droplet of rain, coming down, coming up, stuck in the eternal cycle. "But, Jake," Alphonse would say, in a manner that always tries to neutralise my dour philosophy, "Every droplet of water is different, just like every snowflake is."
"As a big drop of rainwater condenses from the cloud, it plunges down. When air resistance is so great due to downward acceleration, the drop bursts into numerous droplets. The explosion of this water bomb goes to every which way. Jake, the water may be stuck into an eternal cycle. But it's not grumbling. Once in a while it goes parachuting. It must be feeling really happy."
I chuckled. As usual, I'm no match for Alphonse.
As I'm looking out of the window, it started to rain lightly. A runner ran past, droplets off his back, like a choreographed slow motion; like a dancer, gracefully, solemnly.
A boy and an old lady on a bench. A fountain nearby. The lady put down her newspaper and took off her glasses; something must have been caught in her eyes. The boy had his cheeks on his knees, shivering? The downpour was getting heavier. But the pair on the bench stayed, perhaps, it was not very clear, my vision obscured by layers of rainwater curtains.
I closed my windows.

Physics Limericks

Space
Seven steps each ten million to one
Describe the whole space dimension
The Atom, Cell’s girth
Our bodies, the Earth
Sun’s System, our Galaxy – done!

Time
The Creator, seen as Army Sergeant Major, barks out his order for the week.
First thing on Monday morning, Bang!, Light
Sun and Earth, form up, Friday night
At a minute to twelve
Eve spin, Adam delve
In the last millisecond, You, right?

Speed
A child cycles ‘round the schoolyard
Which lies on the Earth turning hard
The Earth rounds the Sun
As Sol does “the ton”
And our Galaxy flies – Gee! I’m tired

– Tim Rowett, Three Limericks – On Space, Time and Speed

Note:
Space
10⁻¹⁴ m : Atomic nucleus
10⁻⁷ m : Cellular nucleus
10⁰ m : Human body
10⁷ m : Earth's diameter
10¹⁴ m : outer Solar System
10²¹ m : Galaxy's diameter
10²⁸ m : Universe, and a bit more
Time
A week is 7 days,
Each day 2 billion years
A minute is 2 million years
A millisecond is 23 years
Speed
7 mph : A child cyclist
700 mph : Earth's rotation speed
70,000 mph : Earth's revolution speed
700,000 mph : Galaxy's turning speed
1,400,000 mph : Galaxy's speed through debris of Big Bang

I think it's really amazing that if you downscale the age of the Universe to one week, then we humans would only occupy the last minute of it (and of course Earth itself only formed on "Friday night").
Such displays of logarithmic leaps never cease to amaze. And of course, if we are talking about space dimension, the classic documentary Powers of Ten (directed by Ray and Charles Eames) comes to mind. Even though it was produced back in 1977, it is still a wonderful sight to behold. This is so famous that one of The Simpsons' episodes featured a parody of it. Sadly, it has already been removed from YouTube because of copyright issue.

Again, we are reminded of the very long scale of space, time and speed; and our tiny, insignificant place in it.

"Facts"

Connections

Since words are containers of meaning, it is not difficult to imagine that some containers are bigger than others and some containers are small enough to fit inside others. That's right, in other words, some words are subsets of others. This hierarchy is usually referred to as hypernymy/hyponymy. For example; maroon, vermillion, crimson, scarlet, magenta are hyponyms of 'red'. Conversely, 'red' is a hypernym to them. Moving up the hierarchy, 'red' is a hyponym of 'colour'. Note that hypernym/hyponym doesn't mean anything if a word is not viewed relative to another.
Now, imagine this colossal tree of word hierarchy, its branches numerous, branching to finer branches still down and below. I always wonder, what is at the top of this tree? In other words, the ultimate hypernym, the word that include every possible meaning?
The answer is probably different for every person, but to me almost everything can be summarised as 'connections' and 'information':
Language is a means of transmitting information, connecting a person with another.
Science is the study of the laws governing observed systems. Information gathering; connecting hypotheses and observations.
( Basically all -ologies are all about 'information' or more appropriately, knowledge, since the etymology itself suggests logos [λόγος] )
Philosophy is literally 'love of wisdom', which means it is about, again, 'information'. It goes without saying that epistemology, which is a subset of philosophy, is also all about 'information' or knowledge.
Love is all about relationships, people say. Love itself is already a massive hypernym, considering its vast meaning. But then, 'connections' is still a bigger one.
Metaphors are all about drawing parallels; making connections. More about that here.
If you think about it, it is only natural for everything to be distilled into knowledge and relationships. Our brains themselves are networks of information, linked in numerous permutations. Our memory is triggered by things associated to that particular memory.
The worldwide web itself has garnered the current level of success because it's all about connections and information, acting like a global brain, each of us its neuron. Note all the hyperlinks on this page, enabling you to view related pages with a click.
Update: There is a really nice diagram to see: The Internet. It is also good to depict the aforementioned colossal tree of the word hierarchy.
And now, when the world is more interconnected than ever, it is important to make use of it. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown talked about confronting "the challenges of poverty, security, climate change and the economy" in the recent TEDGlobal2009. Watch it; and be aware of what we can do that was impossible only several years back.

Spirit of the Law

Think about it this way. Language is conveyor of information, but it is, of course, imperfect. You have ambiguities, misinterpretation, definition issues, and so on. For this reason, rules are also imperfectly conveyed. You can try writing down every single restriction and define every word, but this is impractical. The consequence of this imperfection is that people can always find loopholes in the written law, questioning proper definitions of ambiguous words and make use of them to get around the law.
For this reason we differentiate between the letter and the spirit of the law. To follow the law "to the letter" means obeying it according to the literal interpretation; while following the spirit of the law is obeying it according to its intent, which may not be identical with the literal interpretation.
Example? Now that's difficult because formal laws are worded as such that loopholes are very difficult to find. Let's talk about grammars instead.
"You can't begin your sentence with a conjunction."
"But, I don't understand, Sir."
"Mr. Finn, you just begin your sentence with a conjunction. Stand outside."
I remember red markings on my English composition papers highlighting the offending conjunction-initiated sentences. But, of course you know that this rule is broken all the time in all kinds of writing. Why so? This is because conjunctions are supposed to conjunct clauses in a sentence. And then, why is it alright to break this rule? Remember that we are concerned with the spirit of the law. The purpose of grammars is ultimately clarity.
Compare

I remember red markings on my English composition papers highlighting the offending conjunction-initiated sentences but of course you know that this rule is broken all the time in all kinds of writing.

and

I remember red markings on my English composition papers highlighting the offending conjunction-initiated sentences. But, of course you know that this rule is broken all the time in all kinds of writing.

The first sentence is too long and this obfuscates the meaning. It is better to put a period to give the reader a break. The use of conjunction to precede the sentence indicates that the sentence that follows it still continues the idea from the sentence before. A good writer does this: giving the reader bite-sized information and not confusing him/her with long-winded sentences; he prioritises brevity and clarity.
You can see how are letter and spirit of the law different. Otherwise you can see it as the rule of clarity overrides this rule.
If you know a little bit of jazz, you may know that jazz is a genre that doesn't obey the rules. Before jazz came about, there are certain ways melodies sequence and group together. In jazz, however, improvisation is imperative. This means there is no one fixed way to play a piece: a performer is free to interpret and tweak melodies, harmonies and time signatures. The spirit of the law? To produce nice sound; it's that simple.
In forensics, there is a principle called corpus delicti, which is translated as 'body of crime'. A British serial killer, 'Acid Bath' Haigh, infamously mistook this principle. He thought that he could not be convicted with murder without the bodies of the victims, so he dissolved their corpses in acid bath. But of course corpus delicti is not to be taken literally. It refers to evidence that the crime has taken place. Corpus delicti is not even necessarily tangible. Circumstantial evidence is often enough to convict. This is not really about the spirit of the law, but it illustrates how laws should be understood clearly.
Lastly, there is a reason to break rules. In the grammar example, you have to be clear about the big picture. That grammars exist as a guide, and occasionally breaking them for the sake of clarity is alright. In the same way, if you encounter rules that don't make sense, stop and think about what the spirit is; see the big picture.
I recommend reading How to Break All the Rules by Dustin Wax down at Stepcase Lifehack:

There's a scene in Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard that sums up perfectly this approach to the rules. Rabo Karabekian, an artist reknowned for his giant canvases covered with single colors of household latex paint applied with a roller, is talking with his friend Slazinger in his studio:

"Tell me, Rabo," said Slazinger, "if I put on that same paint with the same roller, would the picture still be a Karabekian?"
"Absolutely," I said, "provided you have in reserve what Karabekian has in reserve."
"Like what?" he said.
"Like this," I said. There was dust in a pothole in the floor, and I picked up some of it on the balls of both my thumbs. Working both thumbs simultaneously, I sketched a caricature of Slazinger's face on the canvas in thirty seconds.
"Jesus!" he said. "I had no idea you could draw like that!"
"You're looking at a man who has options," I said.

For the "wild child" who just can't be bothered to learn the rules, because they were meant to be broken anyway and because his or her creative spirit is too strong to be held down by rules, man, there are no options. There is only a string of broken rules and all the misunderstanding, chaos, and incoherence that goes along with them. The master, though, knows that the rules are not only options, but usually the best options. And when they aren't, s/he knows. S/he has in reserve what Karabekian has in reserve: true mastery.

Culture and Language

There is no doubt that culture and language are somehow, but how exactly? Of course the answer isn't going to be very simple. For me, I think it is perhaps as complicated as nature and nurture.
Most will find this familiar: phenotypes, or expressed traits, are usually attributed to genotypes, that is, genetic make-up. So, if you are tall, people might say that you inherit that trait from your tall parents (nature). Or they may say that as a child, you were given excellent nutrition and you are a swimmer (nurture). So far, so good. Nature and nurture appear to be independent forces that both influence particular traits of a person, so the combination of the two somehow causes that particular trait to be expressed, right? Well, not quite. There are several reasons for this. First, the journey from genotype to phenotype is not as straightforward as it appears to be. Genes are transcribed to proteins. The proteins are involved in cascades of biological pathways which can be very complex. For this reason geneticists talks about having certain genes pre-dispose one to have certain disease with certain level of probability, since having those genes does not mean that you definitely will get the disease. Exceptions to this, among others, are diseases caused directly by protein defects, like sickle-cell anaemia. Second, nature and nurture are not mutually exclusive, as people tend to think. Certain genes are expressed in response to environmental signals.
So, language and culture. The detour above is necessary to picture the complexity in more concrete notions.
If you think about it, language can be seen as a subset of culture. But this is getting complicated if you consider that language is the only medium of communication. Consider language as categorising things under different labels, then perhaps you will wonder: perhaps the way people categorise things influence culture in some way? In fact, linguists have something along this line: linguistic relativity, a.k.a. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which suggests that language affects cognition. A famous example of this is the large number of words that the Inuit have for snow. It has been suggested that since the Inuit, a subset of the Eskimos, live in the Arctic, somehow they need more terms to describe different kinds of snow that an average English speaker doesn't need. Sadly, this example is not factual, but it gives you some kind of idea on what linguistic relativity means.
Update: Language Log highlighted the a lot of occurrences of this here and here. The latter links to here, here, here and here.
In Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Party is enforcing a language called Newspeak. As Winston realised, the vocabulary of Newspeak is getting narrower instead of otherwise. This aims to limit. Rebellion against the Party would be ultimately impossible since the words are not enough to convey the idea. By controlling language, the Party controls thoughts. This is the very idea of linguistic relativity.
If you remember, the Greeks have at least 4 different terms for love. I am not going to say that the Greeks have more expertise in the area of love, but it seems that they have thought about it a little deeper. It is really difficult in concluding based on whether there are too many or lack of certain words, as discussed at length here. So give it a little thought yourself.
Speaking about the Greeks, you have probably heard that Greek has numerous number of tenses, a lot more than English. This suggests that their notion of time is very different. Indeed, you will be surprised to know that the time element is secondary in their tenses. The primary consideration is 'kind of action' (aktionsart). Not to say that time is not important to them. They have two distinct terms for time: chronos (quantitative) and kairos (qualitative). And don't get me started on their philosophical embellishments.
On the other hand, Malay/Indonesian and Mandarin languages do not really have proper tenses. On a related note, do you know that English does not have a future tense? No, no, will is a present-tense modal, my friend.
Another big thing that I notice is English pronouns. Why does 'I' has to be capitalised? How come there is only 'you' for both singular and plural second-person pronoun?
(By the way, there used to be a singular second-person pronoun. That would be 'thou'.)
I have a certain crazy hypothesis for these pronoun phenomena, i.e. the West tips more towards individualism than socialism. Well: singular first-person is capitalised; third-person pronouns are distinguished based on genders (note that they aren't in some languages); second-person pronouns no longer need to be differentiated (presumably because outside 'I', it doesn't matter whether whether it is plural or singular). To put some contrast, in Malay/Indonesian language, there are two kinds of 'we'. Consider there are three people in a room: A, B, C. A is talking to B. When referring to himself and C, A would use 'kami'. But when referring to all of them, A would use 'kita'. Both would be translated to 'we' in English. Sticking to my hypothesis, the East values togetherness much more that different collectives need to be differentiated.
Finally, I'm taking example from another language that I'm familiar with: Javanese. This language is really unique because it also has something like English verb irregulars. As you know, irregular English verbs typically have 3 distinct forms: infinitive, past and past participle (eat, ate, eaten). But in Javanese, it is not only the verbs, but almost all words have 3 forms, categorised under different levels of politeness (of course this is a nightmare for any linguist, since you have to learn thrice as many vocabularies -- only the language syntax is the same, thank goodness for that). It is very easy to see what culture the Javanese has, isn't it? Obviously, the Javanese hold societal hierarchy in high esteem, just like the Japanese, which manifests in their extensive usage of honorifics. As if that's not enough, the Javanese also has different words for fruits, their trees and their seeds. There are also another set for animals and their offspring. For example: mango, mango tree, mango seed, right? The Javanese would call them: pelem, mangkono, pelok, respectively. This one is also easy to understand why. Agriculture and raising livestock are vey much part of their livelihood, thus their need to have very specific terms.
Certainly, if you know more than one languages, you would also have noticed that language and culture are indeed intertwined. So don't take idiosyncrasies of a language for granted.
Notice them. Ask why.

Stirling Engine

Stirling engine is a heat engine. In other words, it converts heat to mechanical energy. So you can see in the above that it converts heat from my coffee to rotational motion of the discs.
The principle is very simple. First, let's take a look at the components. There is a shallow cylinder directly above the cup enclosed by two black metal plates at top and bottom. There is a big opaque piston inside the cylinder, connected to the front pedal. At the back of the disc, there is a back pedal, which is connected to a diaphragm, which looks like a membrane.
The cylinder is airtight. As heat is transferred to the bottom plate, the air expands and pushes the piston up. This sudden increase in pressure also forces the diaphragm, which in turn raises the back pedal. Since the disc, back and front pedals are connected rigidly, when back pedal moves up, front pedal moves down, which in turn, push down the piston. Repeat.
The front and back pedals are 90 degrees out of phase so that the up and down movements mimic legs pedalling a bicycle.
So, how is that more interesting than, say, a steam engine, you ask?
The physics mechanism described above works as long as there is a temperature gradient. So it works using ice as well, as you can see below:

I'd say my spending a weekend to work on this is totally worth it.
Cool! Literally.

Correlation

Consciousness and (again) dimensions

Reading this comment, I recall a very good description of pure consciousness that is independent of any platform.

"Look yonder," said my Guide, "in Flatland thou hast lived; of Lineland thou hast received a vision; thou hast soared with me to the heights of Spaceland; now, in order to complete the range of thy experience, I conduct thee downward to the lowest depth of existence, even to the realm of Pointland, the Abyss of No dimensions.
"Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the on-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy. Now listen."
He ceased; and there arose from the little buzzing creature a tiny, low, monotonous, but distinct tinkling, as from one of your Spaceland phonographs, from which I caught these words, "Infinite beatitude of existence! It is; and there is nothing else beside It." "What," said I, "does the puny creature mean by 'it'?" "He means himself," said the Sphere: "have you not noticed before now, that babies and babyish people who cannot distinguish themselves from the world, speak of themselves in the Third Person? But hush!"
"It fills all Space," continued the little soliloquizing Creature, "and what It fills, It is. What It thinks, that It utters; and what It utters, that It hears; and It itself is Thinker, Utterer, Hearer, Thought, Word, Audition; it is the One, and yet the All in All. Ah, the happiness, ah, the happiness of Being!"
"Can you not startle the little thing out of its complacency?" said I. "Tell it what it really is, as you told me; reveal to it the narrow limitations of Pointland, and lead it up to something higher." "That is no easy task," said my Master; "try you."
Hereon, raising by voice to the uttermost, I addressed the Point as follows:
"Silence, silence, contemptible Creature. You call yourself the All in All, but you are the Nothing: your so-called Universe is a mere speck in a Line, and a Line is a mere shadow as compared with —" "Hush, hush, you have said enough," interrupted the Sphere, "now listen, and mark the effect of your harangue on the King of Pointland."
The lustre of the Monarch, who beamed more brightly than ever upon hearing my words, shewed clearly that he retained his complacency; and I had hardly ceased when he took up his strain again. "Ah, the joy, ah, the joy of Thought! What can It not achieve by thinking! Its own Thought coming to Itself, suggestive of its disparagement, thereby to enhance Its happiness! Sweet rebellion stirred up to result in triumph! Ah, the divine creative power of the All in One! Ah, the joy, the joy of Being!"
"You see," said my Teacher, "how little your words have done. So far as the Monarch understand them at all, he accepts them as his own — for he cannot conceive of any other except himself — and plumes himself upon the variety of 'Its Thought' as an instance of creative Power. Let us leave this God of Pointland to the ignorant fruition of his omnipresence and omniscience: nothing that you or I can do can rescue him from his self-satisfaction."
-- Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott was published back in 1884, so it is available at public domain because the property rights have expired. I mentioned it a few times, here and here, when discussing about dimensions.
This was written because Abbott wanted to introduce the concept of higher dimensions, more than three, but of course we as the denizens of Spaceland (3-D world) find it difficult to imagine. So what he did was to go down one dimension and took the point of view from a being in Flatland (2-D world), a Square. Later in the story, Square is visited by Lord Sphere, a 3-D being from Spaceland. Of course, at first he is skeptical about Sphere and dismissed him as simply a Circle, but in the end he realises that his world is simply a flat plane. To make his point, Sphere actually brings Square to Pointland, which is 2 dimensions less, that is, no dimension. Sphere then asked Square to convince the God of Pointland that the world is not zero dimension. So that's the part in the excerpt above.
And why are higher dimensions important, you ask? Perhaps Abbott already foresaw a future research in Physics. You would have heard all the buzz of superstring theory by now, what is it all about? It is a promising Theory of Everything, but there's a catch: the equations only work out if we have 10 dimensions of space. So we imagine that our world may actually have extra dimensions, albeit tucked inside the fabric of space-time, curling and intertwining upon them themselves. Physicist Brian Greene offers the analogy of the power cables to make sense of these extra dimensions. Cables, from afar, look like they only have one dimension, i.e. length. But if you go down the scale as an ant, you would notice that the cables have thickness; an existing dimension, but often too small to observe. Similarly, our world may have 7 extra dimensions that are too ultra-microscopic to observe. This is why the concept of higher dimensions is very important.
This is also one of the purposes of the Large Hadron Collider: to detect the extra dimensions. When particles collide in certain manners, some of the energy may be ejected to the hidden dimensions. We can measure the energy of the particles before collision and compare it to the energy after. If there is energy loss, we may be able to conclude the existence of the extra dimensions.
I highly recommend watching the TEDTalk by Brian Greene on superstring theory (2005), embedded below:

The Question of Identity

When I researched about The Recursive, I came across Ship of Theseus, thanks to Wikipedia effect, as aptly summarised by xkcd's Randall Munroe here. To be fair, they are not entirely unrelated.
Basically it's like this:

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned [from Crete] had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.

— Plutarch, Theseus

The question is, if the ship is recursively fixed until all parts have been replaced, is it still the same ship?
This reminds me of the famous notion about a man stepping into a river. The second time the man steps into the river, the river is not the same river; the man is not the same man. I always thought that this was said by a Chinese philosopher, but apparently it is Heraclitus.
Which brings us to the question: what defines identity?
Perhaps I should reiterate here how Heraclitus' man is not the same man. While the river is obvious for not being the same because of the continuous water flow, it's less obvious for the man. From biological point of view, some of the man's cells have died and have been replaced with new ones. He also has new memories, perhaps new ideas. And so on and so forth. In fact if we modify it a little, it can become close to the Theseus' paradox: if every one of a man's cells are replaced with a new one, is he the same man? Cloning debate.
The Wikipedia article poses a few solutions to the question, and to be honest, some of the solutions make my head spin. But in essence, we usually define what "the same" mean first. Aristotle differentiates between four causes: formal, material, final, efficient. Now the question is how identity is defined. According to design (formal, efficient) and purpose (final)? Yes, it is the same ship. But if the definition of identity includes material cause, then it is not the same ship. Perhaps the Japanese culturally exclude material cause as part of identity, since they can see no paradox in Ship of Theseus, as pointed out by the article.
I will skip "qualitative-numerical differences" and "four-dimensionalism" explanations. You can read them in the article. To me, those explanations are too pedantic to the point of being not useful. I prefer Aristotle's simple solution.
Perhaps by now you will have thought "What has identity of a ship got to do with me?". Then read on:

A: Who are you?
B: Huh? You mean my name?
A: See? Your eyes immediately turned right, using "the conscious side" to answer...I want you to answer what you feel. Who are you?
B: I don't want to say my name.
A: Not your name. I'm not asking the title your parents gave you, to distinguish you from other people. I mean, who, are you? Who?
B: A high school student.
A: Tsk, tsk, tsk. When you remove the status of "high school student", who are you?
B: A 17-year old... girl...
A: Not the labels of age or gender...Those are the labels that surround you yourself. Who?
B: A... human
A: And when all the labels are removed?
B: ... People, are all... labels.
A: If all the labels are removed from people like layers of an onion... Does that mean they disappear in the end? If you take off all the labels that surround your front with... Is there nothing left in the middle? Are you something that was created and molded...by your parents, society, the world?
B: No...
A: Then who are you?
B: I am...
-- Yamamoto Hideo, Homunculus v.4

So indeed, who are you? Remove all those layers of the proverbial onion, who are you at the naked core?
As for the girl's answer, you have to read the manga for yourself.
As for my own answer, I'm afraid that my own core at the middle is nothing much. I have to say that those labels imposed on us or otherwise, are undeniably a part of us, like our own limbs. But of course we are unique. We all have our own idiosyncrasies not found in other people. But that alone doesn't define who we are. It's like we need a foundation for it, like truth that cannot exist outside context. I'm human, I'm a student -- I need those labels otherwise my quirkiness means nothing.
Your answer?

Dualism Paradox

The deeper that sorrow carves onto your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

 -- Khalil Gibran

"If we want have an utopia, we have to have a dystopia first". This thought occurred to me in passing although I didn't pursue it further. To my knowledge, this kind of notion doesn't have a name, so let's call it dualism paradox for convenience.

It is a paradox because the ideas are contradictory; and it is dualism (not Plato's dualism) because, well, it involves binary oppositions. Enough with the difficult words. I think Jason Mraz sings it quite succinctly:

It takes some good to make it hurt
It takes some bad for satisfaction

It takes a night to make it dawn
And it takes a day to make you yawn, brother
And it takes some old to make you young
It takes some cold to know the sun
It takes the one to have the other

And it takes no time to fall in love
But it takes you years to know what love is
And it takes some fears before I trust
It takes those tears to make it rust
It takes the rust to have it polished

Ah la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la life goes full circle
Ah la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la

It takes some silence to make sound
And it takes a loss before you found it
And it takes a road to go nowhere
It takes a toll to show you care
It takes a hole to see a mountain

-- Jason Mraz, Life is Wonderful (abridged)

I think not many people understand this blatant thing: it takes pain to gain; it takes hardship to know happiness; and so forth. This is what I mean by "there is no utopia without dystopia". You have to know what are lacking, what are corrupt, what needs to be rectified, to build a utopia -- dystopia is the means to the utopian end.

Of course, picking from the vast expanse on the meaning of love, tough love is a good example. This is the kind of love that is strict and disciplined, which may not appear as loving, but is ultimately for the good of the person being loved.

It is really no wonder that Pandora found Hope at the bottom of the jar. It takes all those evils to have hope, doesn't it?
Update: In retrospect, antonymic paradox sounds more awesome.

The number system is like human life

"The foundation of mathematics is numbers. If anyone asked me what makes me truly happy, I would say: numbers. Snow and ice and numbers. And do you know why?"
He splits the claws with a nutcracker and pulls out the meat with curved tweezers.
"Because the number system is like human life. First you have the natural numbers. The ones that are whole and positive. The numbers of the small child. But human consciousness expands. The child discovers longing, and do you know what the mathematical expression is for longing?"
He adds cream and some drops of orange juice to the soup.
"The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you are missing something. And human consciousness expands and grows even more, and the child discovers the in-between spaces. Between stones, between pieces of moss on the stones, between people. And between numbers. And do you know what that leads to? It leads to fractions. Whole numbers plus fractions produce the rational numbers. And human consciousness doesn't stop there. It wants to go beyond reason. It adds an operation as absurd as the extraction of roots. And produces irrational numbers."
He warms French bread in the oven and fills the pepper mill.
"It's a form of madness. Because the irrational numbers are infinite. They can't be written down. They force human consciousness out beyond limits. And by adding irrational numbers to rational numbers, you get real numbers."
I've stepped into the middle of the room to have more space. It's rare that you have a chance to explain yourself to a fellow human being. Usually you have to fight for the floor. And this is important to me.
"It doesn't stop. It never stops. Because now, on the spot, we expand real numbers with the imaginary ones, square roots of negative numbers. These are numbers we can't picture, numbers that normal human consciousness cannot comprehend. And when we add the imaginary numbers to the real numbers, we have the complex number system. The first number system in which it's possible to explain satisfactorily the crystal formation of ice. It's like a vast, open landscape. The horizons. You head towards them and they keep receding. That is Greenland, and that's what I can't be without! That's why i don't want to be locked up."
I wind up standing in front of him.
"Smilla," he says, "Can I kiss you?"
-- Peter Høeg, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, pp. 101-102

After hearing that kind of that beautiful metaphor, I think I want to kiss her also. The excerpt is my favourite among others in the TOK textbook. It's a very good example of an allegory, an extended metaphor.
Why post this now? Because I just finished the book and the movie. The former is highly recommended, the latter not at all.
Despite that, this is the scene from the movie, although it is significantly different from the book:

Chrysalis [ 03. Chrysalis ]

[See entire]


"Jake," he said, eyes fixated on his dancing fingers across the black and white ivory keys. Even I was amazed by how much progress he had made. Innate talent, which I didn't really have. Soon he would surpass me.
"Jake," he repeated. "Do you know how a caterpillar morphs into a butterfly?" His hands stopped moving. He stood up and gave up the seat. My turn to play.
A non sequitur. Of course I know. I studied a fair bit of biochemistry in my course. But as I saw his eyes growing larger with enthusiasm, I knew he wanted to answer it for himself, so I let him.
"Metamorphosis is really a trickery of nature. The term itself is a misnomer because there is really no transformation occurring. The pupa simply has another set of embryonic cells in its body cavity, remaining dormant throughout the larval stages. Inside the chrysalis, everything disintegrates except those embryonic discs. They consume the nutrients surrounding them to develop into a new structure altogether. New organs, new exoskeleton, which are vastly different from larval stages."
"I detest the butterfly." I interrupted. "It is a parasite inside the pupa, waiting to consume it from within." I stared at the ceiling, my fingers on the sombre, black keys.
"I prefer to see it as being born again. The pupa and the would-be butterfly are the same organism, carrying the same genetic code. They are not separate entities. Think about it, the pupa has chance to be reborn again. To change its appearance. To gain the ability to fly."
I felt as if something inside me was disintegrating. Would it develop into something that can flutter its way up to the blue sky as well?
"Alphonse," I stood up. "It's a pretty picture, but as you said, it's still a trickery." I walked away.
"We'd like to think that we have been deceived. But in fact, nature has always been that way from the start. Humans were the ones who decided that the pupa must somehow have transformed into the butterfly when the butterfly struggle to get out its wings to break free from the chrysalis."
Alphonse's words echoed in the common room. I felt it echoing many times in my mind, too.