the truth about truth: an inconvenient truth

We all had a time when we argue with someone about thing or two in our life. Sometime, it ended with a happy ending where the two understand each other and maybe a romance can grows from the arguments or it could end in a bad ending where the only chance for further interaction is when a sharp object is involved in someone stomach. Just try to stay away from the bad ending as much as you can friendo

Yes, we as human always fighting for what we think is right, for what we think is justice, and for what we think is the truth. When a human truly believes in a truth, you can see the true quality of a tiny little human existence compared to the universe and how his/her faith can change the fabric of reality itself. The power of faith is real and it is a positive quality about human morale that rarely seen in this modern age. But still, I guess deeply in every human heart, everyone wants to save the world defending what is righteous while wearing cape and super thigh spandex like superman defending the earth with his underwear outside. But before you strapped that C4 to your body and planning to die with the others members of Al-Qaeda, maybe you should know that the things you believed as the truth might be not the truth.

Philosopher, scientist, spiritual teacher, myself and maybe yourself (if you are not too busy opening porn site right now) had seeks for the meanings for truth for centuries and nobody can perfectly say what is truth. Every single brain in this earth had a different definition about truth and how they feel it in this life is also different. Nobody had the same exact opinion about truth and reality.

So, to help you understand what truth is we should start by looking in the dictionary first. According to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, truth is a state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character. As you can see, even in one dictionary there could be three meanings for truth so it might be better if we don’t speak about the meaning of truth in Japanese and Mandarin dictionary because I wouldn’t  want to burn my fingers to death typing all those meanings. In easy way, truth had a very strong bond with reality like a Siamese twin that glued with super glue. We can say something is a truth because we believe it was a part of our reality, something that truly existed right in front of you and there’s no way you can deny it. 

Now that we get the most common understanding about truth, let’s take this article into the higher level about truth. If you are not a heavy thinker type, you might be thinking that it’s useless to understand the deep meaning of truth because Truth is exactly what you see and what you feel, simple and absolute. Well, guess what Sherlock, have you ever thinks that what you see and feel isn’t exactly as you see and feel it? Let me give you an example. Do you remember the time in the kindergarten where you draw the sunrise between two mountain and color the sky with blue and the suns with yellow or orange? Well you are wrong about the color of the suns. The sun is supposed to be white not orange and before you think that I am colorblind or mentally retarded, I can give you the reason why the sun is supposed to be white rather than orange.

The exact color of the sun is actually #fff5f2. For those who are not a graphics man or web designer, that number is not a car registration number from Papua Nugini. It’s actually a code for white in HTML color code because if fire became very hot it will turn from orange to white. The reason the Sun looks yellow to us on Earth is that our atmosphere scatters light from the Sun; so the apparent color of the sun changes. This same scattering effect is why the sky looks blue in the day time instead of black, like at night. So, the point is even the sun that you see everyday glowing in bright orange or yellow is lying to you since its actually glowing white. The sun just lied to you, friendo.

 

"ha...ha"

You see, even something that you see everyday when you go out from your home isn’t exactly as you seen it. Perception, assumption and experience can deceive you to see another possibility that you can’t or you think you don’t want to see it. It is why truth is actually a complex concept which hard to understand as an objective matter which makes some intellectuals believe that truth is a subjective matter and it doesn’t objectively exist, it is our self that creates truth in our life.

The Buddhist also had some interesting way to see the truth and reality. For them reality is emptiness, life and all the content of the universe is just an illusion created by the mind, feeling and perception of human feeling. The surprising things about the way Buddhist see the truth is that it had some correlation with how modern science see the truth and the Buddhist already figure it out thousands years ago.

It’s hard to explain the theory without being sound like I just got escaped from Batman from taking me to Arkham mental asylum but I will try my best to do it.

Back to the time where Einstein messy hair rules, he and his colleagues discovered that there is a problem with his theory: The laws of physics didn't seem to work once you got on a subatomic scale. In fact, even today, no one has been able to marry Einstein's theory of relativity with quantum physics, and that was not because the scientist is too lazy to figure it out. One attempt to figure that problem is a theory called string theory, which simply suggests that once you get smaller than an atom, everything is a string. Specifically, a 2-D unit called a quantum string. So far, it is quite easy to understand isn’t it?

So, String theorists think that everything we see, feel, hear, touch, taste and screw is nothing more than the vibration of those strings. Those who believe in this theory took that theory further by suggesting that maybe everything we feel, hear, touch, taste and screw could be a 3-D projection of cosmic data encoded on a 2-D surface. You know, Kind of like the hologram you see on a credit card, if that hologram had you, your mom, your city and the entire universe inside it. 

 i can see my house from here

I knew that it is still a theory and it could be wrong or it could be right. But if this theory is true, it meant even our existence, our reality and every truth we believe is just a lie just like the Buddhist said, nothing more than a mere illusion. It seems like even the universe is lying to us now and it make the concept of truth we used to know sound like the biggest prank God made for humanity.

 

who said God didn't had sense of humor?

 

            Still, we all had a right to have faith in a truth, no matter how stupid your truth is. Believe it or not, faith can changes the fabric of reality and it is scientifically proved by the way. One example for the power of faith that I could give is the placebo effect where, in a nutshell, if you have faith that you will going to be well soon, even if you are deadly ill, you’ll be healthy for sure. It said that our body had the best medicine that can cure almost every sickness in this world and to get that best medicine go to work is by having faith in your self. It has been tested by a doctor that gives his patient an empty capsule where he lied by saying that it was a super medicine created by a team of super scientist that could heal even superman when he was in fever and it work. The patient healed from the illness by himself. In extreme case, noetic science even shows that human mind had the capabilities to affect solid matter like ice and maybe it can affect something bigger than we can imagine.

            Truth is an important aspect in our life because it defines our world and how we live in it. Every human lives with his/her own believe in truth and that believes creates a reality in his/her life. If you can understand truth meant you understand reality, to understand reality meant you understand the universe, to understand the universe meant you understand yourself.  I think it’s really important to open our insight about truth and share it to others so we can learn more about truth. If you had an interesting insight about truth I would really appreciate it and f you don’t you could always go back watching those porn video.

           

portal 2 review

Gaming industry this day sure had turned into the race of who can makes the grayest graphics, the bloodiest game and the biggest explosion available in games. I don’t know about you, but i think peoples should had a break and stop playing a games with a rule where what you need to do is aim at something that you don’t like to make it disappear. It is not because i hate generic main stream action or shooting game but because it makes you missed some of the greatest game ever made, which is not a generic action or shooting game.

I do realize that the indonesian gamer prefer a game where complexity is thrown and stay at the dark side of pluto since most of them is casual gamer who play games for simple quick fun but if you want to try something that didn’t involve blowing organic or non-organic things, then i could recommend you to play portal 2.

If you never heard about portal series, then i could assume that you didn’t had internet  or you only used it to open porn site because that game really cause an internet sensation and its still leaves an impact in the internet until now. The game premise is the portal gun, a gun that shoot a linked portal which you can use to solve spacial puzzle and the game also introduce one of the most sarcastically funny robot villainesses in video game, GLaDOS which every line she spokes is hilariously funny. The first portal itself its actually more like an experimental game bundled together in orange box, a pack of  game that contains the half life 2 episode 2 and team fortrees 2. Peoples didn’t expect much from seemly a short bonus game like portal at first but after they played it the games explode with praise and created one of the most famous internet meme, the cake is a lie  and also one of the best song in video game history,  still alive.

To be honest, I didn’t play the first portal even though I heard about it a lot in the internet since I think the game is way too short (about 2-3 hours). But after Valve announces that the sequel for portal will be coming, I am quite intrigued and planning to play it because it is going to be a full retail release so the game will be longer with more content in it and it will be worth my money. Some people quite worried the sequel won’t maintain its original charm through full retail release, but personally I don’t think that portal 2 is worst than portal, because I think portal 2 is one of the best game I ever played.

Portal 2 is the continuation of portal 1 where you played as Chell, which is pretty much the female version of Gordon Freeman from half life series, where she had been kept for maybe a hundred years in stasis after the event in portal 1 as lab experiment in a science facility called aperture science. Chell awakened by the robotic AI called Wheatley who told her that he can get her out the facility with his help and so does the game begin. I can’t tell you more about the story because if I told you more it will be a spoiler and trust me, you want to learn the rest of the story by yourself because the ending of portal 2 is one of the best ending you can have in every video game you ever played.  The story of portal 2 is really shining with a great twist and the writing for every line spoken in this game is downright hilarious and clever. Portal 2 is a rare game that could deliver its every spoken dialogue with an impact to the player. I often laugh out loud when Glados sarcastically insulting me or when  Wheatley spoke about an obvious moronic comment and then there’s also the former aperture science founding father, Cave Johnson who I swear his southern American accent make me laugh every bloody time he spokes.

As you may notice, every voice acting in this game is brilliant and memorable. Ellen Mclain who voiced GLaDOS win a spike video game award in the category "Best Performance by a Human Female" for her voice acting as GLaDOS in Portal 2, unhindered by the ironic fact that GLaDOS isn't actually a human female. Stephen merchant,  a comedian who voiced Wheatley also delivers every single line he spokes with a great british accent that will make you laugh and lets not forget J.K Simmons, a movie actor ( the guy who played Jameson in spiderman the movie) as Cave Johnson who also did a great performance.

The core puzzle in portal 2 didn’t changes much compared to portal 1 in my opinion.You still shoot a blue portal hole that can be linked with the orange portal hole to wall or floor to solve the spacial puzzle but an extra tweak like light bridges, a gel that make you run faster or jump higher, and tractor beam really add some challenges and variety. There’s a great feeling of satisfaction every time you succeed in solving a puzzle and it make you think that you might be the reincarnation of Einstein. The puzzle is really creative and makes you feel really smart without being frustrating at all even thought there might be a time where you got stuck trying to figure how to solve the puzzle before you can move on, but that moment only adds the feeling of satisfaction of solving it for me. Unless your IQ point is below 10 point, i'm sure you won’t had a hard time solving this puzzle.

As for the graphics, valve still use the source engine which is old for today standard because its been used since the day of half life 2, You know, about 9 years old, and the funny things is it’s still look good even for this modern gaming day. The visual style of portal 2 is unique with its huge environment, and bright  puzzle room that it can even makes u forgot that the engine which runs this game is already 9 years old. It is one strong aspect in portal 2, you didn’t need a super computer to play it since My old computer which came from the stone age can still run this game quite well. After all graphics isn’t everything that make’s a game great ( i am looking at you crysis).

The first portal also manage to create one of the greatest song in video games history, still alive from Jonathan  Coulton. The songs is so funny and catchy at the same time and the songs itself now reached 14 million views in youtube which is a rare achievement in video game industry. Sadly, this is where portal 2 didn’t catch up with its predecessor. The end credit songs called want you gone isn’t as great as  still alive  and this is kinda dissapoint me since i expect something better from Jonathan Coulton.. but fortunately, there’s also another songs from the national called exile vilify and robot FTW from Mike Morasky which i personally think is quite good.

Portal 2 also pack with a online cooperative puzzle mode. In this mode, you and your friend can play as one of two robot named atlas and p-body.  The two of you must cooperate each other to solve even bigger puzzle than the single player mode because now there will be 4 portal avaible to mess up with. Cooperation is everything in this mode since if one of you act like dennies the menace, there’s 0% percentage that you can solve the puzzle.  It’s too bad that i could not check this mode since i can’t play this game online in my pc and i find it hard to find someone who wants to play a puzzle game here.

As I said before in my oldest review, I love everything that is unique and portal 2 is definitely in this category. At its core, portal 2 is a puzzle game with a great pacing and dialogue in the story department but I know some of you heard the word ‘puzzle’ in gaming  is as scary as you heard the word ‘shemale’ in real life, but I can guarantee you that this isn’t the cases. Portal 2 puzzles is great and even if you hate every puzzle element in video game this is a great time to try something new. Portal 2 will be one of the best gaming experiences you could had.