truth or dare - readers' answers

1/Oct/97

Economy collapses if the future is predictable. True or false?

2/Oct/97

Using recyclable paper for CD packages is useless. True or false?

False. CD is a mass product and the method to dispose has to be carefully considered.
Kenji

3/Oct/97

You can be guilty even if you did not do anything. True or false?

True. For example, you can be guilty for ignorance or not trying to help people's lives, depending on the laws of each nation or district.
Kenji

4/Oct/97

You are an episode. True or false?

True for most people who know me.
Kenji

5/Oct/97

Capitalism is unlikely to fail. True or false?

True, as it is the system of the nature and it has been here since before human arose.
Kenji

6/Oct/97

A coloured judo costume is a good idea. True or false?

False until people get used to it.
Kenji

7/Oct/97

Your saving is alive. True or false?

True. It is distinct from other people's savings (boundary), and never consists of the same set of bills or coins (metabolism). Plus the number of the savings keeps increasing (duplication). These three properties have been considered to define life in biology.
Kenji

8/Oct/97

There is an integer yet to be discovered between 6 and 7. True or false?

False. If such a number existed and 8 was divided by 2, we would get 4 with remaining 1, i.e. 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, x-7, 8.
Kenji

9/Oct/97

Sex is a commodity. True or false?

True. A commodity started as a medium for communication, and that is exactly what sex has become.
Kenji

True. Sex is rewarding even though it's not exchanged with money. Children resulted from sexual intercourses will give their parents mediocre happiness. They would even insure their lives when they are aged.
One other thing is that each sex gives certain privileges to its members.
(translated from the original Japanese text)
Mayumi. M

10/Oct/97

Nine out of ten, the nature pulls one way and humans do the other way. True or false?

It seems like to be the trend. The human nature is against the nature.
Kenji

11/Oct/97

Nothing can travel faster than light. True or false?

False. We can conceive a printed text on a huge LCD screen (something like filling the distance between the Moon and the Earth) moving faster than the speed of light. No matter is breaking the physical law which says nothing can travel faster than light, but information is free from such a law. Because information is an evaluation in our brains.
Kenji

12/Oct/97

Being a stone is better than being a human. True or false?

False. No one can express his or her opinion when they are stones, and we cannot know if the situation is better than being a human or not. Therefore the statement cannot be proven to be true.
Kenji

13/Oct/97

Your life has nothing to do with that of your ancestors. True or false?

False. I think we share the same fear, worry and happiness with our ancestors. People have not been changed a bit.
Kenji

14/Oct/97

Your life is meaningless compared to that of the sun. True or false?

False. The sun is meaningless to me if I don't exist.
Kenji

15/Oct/97

Cassini should not have been powered by decaying plutonium. True or false?

True. There must have been alternatives. If the Saturn is too far from the sun to use solar batteries, why not use tidal force of the planet to generate power? Am I too naive?
Kenji

16/Oct/97

Sometimes, you have to tell a lie. True or false?

true, people lie all the time: "Your hair looks lovely", "I am fine, thank you", "I've tried to call you several times, but yuo weren't there". That kind of lies, I tell them all the time.
sabine

We deceive ourselves in order to escape from the truth which our perceptions or value systems don't allow to be. Therefore, often we tell lies to deceive ourselves. (However it is likely that they themselves believe in the lies then.) Nine out of ten, deceiving someone else is just an extension of deceiving oneself. (Because most people try to justify themselves. It applies to me also.) The question is how much of the lies we recognize. (also a question of when or how well.) Yet when we realize our deceiving ourselves, lies to the self cease to be lies, and things plausible to others become lies. But however we try to reveal our self-deceiving, some will remain, and therefore, this must be true.
(translated from the original Japanese text)
Mayumi. M

True. When you stumble on a street, many of you would try to conceal the fact. Some would jog for a few steps, others would pretend that it didn't happen. By this you can remain calm, without hurting your pride too much. Is this not deceiving oneself?
Kenji

17/Oct/97

Japanese people have bad manners. True or false?

False. They have a different standard.
Kenji

18/Oct/97

The civilization started with a mischief. True or false?

Perhaps true. A mischief involves a careful planning, execution and evaluation, all of which are key ingredients of a civilization.
Kenji

19/Oct/97

Science is a form of art. True or false?

True. It is to present one's own idea in a form everyone can appreciate following the same evaluation procedure. The manner is very important in this form of art, which makes me think it resembles haiku or flower arrangement.
Kenji

20/Oct/97

The human race is a fast-breeding animal. True or false?

False. It's just that babies are unlikely to die in the so called developed countries due to "advanced" medical treatments.
Kenji

21/Oct/97

All possible applications of the Internet are already out there. True or false?

False as long as there still is a notion of a nation.
Kenji

22/Oct/97

More actual colour means more real. True or false?

False. Our mental pictures don't have a flat reception of colours. The details should be left out where one doesn't have a focus on.
Kenji

23/Oct/97

Euthanasia is liberating. True or false?

True for the ones surrounding the dying person.
False for the dying one because he or she won't feel anything any longer including the liberated feeling.
Kenji

24/Oct/97

All of human senses can be digitized. True or false?

True. The world as perceived by human in its essense is digital, as explained by quantum mechanics.
Kenji

25/Oct/97

Having a gun helps protecting oneself. True or false?

False. Having a weapon is always a risk. It is a declaration of readiness towards wars, not a peace.
Kenji

26/Oct/97

Stupid people can get even with clever ones by pulling them down. True or false?

False, so don't let it happen again.
Kenji

27/Oct/97

There is always goodness at the centre of our souls. True or false?

False. There's no centre in our souls.
Kenji

28/Oct/97

Before the naked singularity, every law of physics is meaningless. True or false?

False. Before the naked singularity, every human law of physics today is meaningless. This simply means that we cannot understand it now, or in other words, we don't have a good abstraction to fit the situation.
Kenji

29/Oct/97

The night sky is dark because the universe is expanding. True or false?

false
skye

Perhaps it's true. The night sky becomes dark if there is not sufficient light from the stars visible from the Earth. Since the night sky is indeed dark, the universe can either 1) have insufficient number of stars, 2) be overly sized or 3) be too young (for the light to have arrived). The fact that the universe is expanding doesn't contradict any of the above, because it limits the size of space observable from the Earth (which happens to have relatively small number of stars), and tells us that the universe is still a baby.
Kenji

30/Oct/97

The number of computers will exceed the world population in the future. True or false?

True. If it hasn't yet, it will certainly will. It's rather difficult to see why anything in your surroundings cannot be computerized.
Kenji

31/Oct/97

The world is still a baby. True or false?

You wouldn't say it's mature, would you?
Kenji