Quo Vadis Hisham

Just before our trip to Iskandar Puteri, my other half asked me when will I 'dispose' off the tons of papers that I had in the house and I was reminded that people will no longer 'hire me' to work as my age approaches 64 years by the end of the year. While I understood what was meant, it still gave me 'a slap on the face'. To the usual comment of my other half that I should attend more classes at the mosque and surau, my lame excuse has always been that I always prefer to read books. But on the question when I should stop working (as a theorist), I really have no idea. Sometimes I would 'use' the Prophetic tradition that if you have the opportunity to plant a tree but the Day of Judgment is the next day, then one should countinue to plant it (see here). Note that the "Day of Judgment" for one individual is essentially one's own day of death. So, I can 'pretend' to work as long as I am able. Indeed just few weeks back and as recent as last week, I was asked to look into a few rhings. First, there was a questionare that an international colleague gave but the questions about how one approaches research were too deep for me answer without putting longer thoughts into it until it went past the deadline (another failure on my part). Then there was a 200+ page draft of a book for me to look at (and I am still reading it). Last week, my former PhD student gave me a draft of a paper to read and I hope to finish this soon. Also last week, a former departmental colleague (who is now with a private scientific company) contacted me on some news on quantum computing and quantum artificial intelligence and I just cautioned the person that things are not as well understood as people would like it to be. On top of all this, I always do my daily updating of arXiv material just to be aware of what is going on. So how's that for work?

Back to the question of work, all my reading materials are in the store, my workspace in the bedroom (perhaps the main concern of my other half) and of course on my laptop.

With respect to my daily arXiv updating, I have a new workaround that puts lesser reading burden in me me without necessarily missing (being aware of) current topics of research. But with the papers? The option suggested by my other half is to recycle them and I will only do this with a heavy heart. I still hold the fantasy of reading as much as I could but someday I will have to snap out of this fantasy. Reminded me of what mys supervisor was telling me, I don't have to read evrything. The little voice in me however said that there are so much more that I do nt understand ... 

The last weekend was a busy one for us as we had visitors: Dr. Arif (and family) who was on his way back from his hometown in Rompin stopped by before going to his place of stay in Sepang. We did some shopping to prepare some meals. 

Today, my other half relapsed into her previous fever caught from seeing some patients before this. Myself, I'm still struggling with the abovementioned tasks. I had to do most of these on the laptop (not wanting to print anymore articles - too expensive and taking too much space). With my deteriorating eyesight, I had to put my eyes closer to the screen causing a bad posture and hence aggravating my back pain (often leading to more rests). So be patient for those who are awaiting my response.

Celebrating Birthday At Iskandar Puteri

All this while, when it comes to holiday gathering, it was Ihsan who will drive up to Seremban to meet us. Thus, my other half suggested that we should drive down to Gelang Patah to meet Ihsan on his birthday. Thereafter, we made plans to travel south and Ihsan booked for us an apartment in Teega Suites (costing him a few hundred ringgit).

Before travelling, we send two of our cats (Melli and Boboi) to Catzonia on Thursday for lodging since they are less well-behaved (actually this costs us more than the apartment as they also provide food for the cats plus there were extra days to be counted).

We travelled to Iskandar Puteri, the next day and along the way, we picked up our youngest son at Jasin. We arrived at Teega suites around 4pm and met Ihsan there. The room that we were in is on the 35th floor (topmost).

The view from the balcony is shown below (day and night):

We went out in the evening to celebrate Ihsan's birthday. On the way, my eldest captured the beautiful sun setting.

The place that we went to is Der Cabin Bistro and our eldest gave us a treat. The service was really quick and the food is good; it seems to be a favourite among locals and visitors. Here is a group pic (without Izhar who stayed back at the apartment).

For the next day (Saturday), our programme is to visit my other half's sister.

Thereafter, we visited a relative (Umar) near Gelang Patah.

Early next morning, we checked out from the apartment. Thereafter we went to have breakfast at Kopitiam W.R. Rosse (plenty of choices) and we said goodbye to Ihsan after we had our meal. On the way back to Seremban, we dropped our youngest son at UiTM Jasin. We arrived in Seremban around noon.

End of Shawwal 1447 Visits

Last Saturday is the last day of Shawwal 1447 and my wish is that my life could be extended for another Ramadhan at least to better myself before I depart.

We had a few Eid visits to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law's place n KL during the Saturday before the last. Here are some photos:

Essentially my other half drove us there since I have problems with my right leg. Our trip back was met with traffic jam and our gps directed us to an inner highway that we have not passed through before but it led to a highway exchange for the Lekas hisghway. The news that we heard is that there is a massive traffic jam at PLUS highway.

Last Saturday, we went to my other half's nephew place somewhere in Sepang. We avoided the highway altogether and went through inner roads near Ainsdale. Some photos here:

Our son Izhar drove us there; first time we ever had our trip together since last Ramadhan, alhamdulillah. My other half nephew is also a doctor in Putrajaya (I think).

Our conversations then were on the rising cost of living and affordable homes. The zillenials (between millenials and Gen Z) have greater problems to overcome and indeed there seems to growing mental health problems. That is why I get really turned off when older generations (including mine) tend to say that the younger generations had it easy. I wished they will just stop saying that because the challenges they faced are simply different. I have great concern of the future that my sons are living through and pray that Allah grant them an easy life. Alhamdulillah that our sons Khair and Izhar are living with us (Ihsan is in JB and Izzudin is in Jasin) and our house (and cars) is the only property that we have and it will be their 'kampung' to go back to.

The past few days, Malaysia had Sneako visiting us. He had an interview with our PMX (see here), and later with Dr. Zakir Naik (see here) and Ust. Hussain Yee (see here). I thought that Sneako is doing well with his interviews.

Sneako is currently in Indonesia and I'm curious who would he interview there.

Jiang and Al-Aqsa Prediction

Update: One can watch the following video.

I'm pretty sure, with this post, some probably would say why I am getting so interested in Jiang's work. A simple answer is that his interviews frequently appeared in my YT feed and I'm curious on what else he has to say. A longer answer is that I've learned quite a few things from some of his interviews and lectures but at times I find myself cringing. No, I'm not turning into a conspiracist. Perhaps what I wanted to do is to explore his ideas and sieve the ones that I could use. In one video, he was telling that Isaac Newton's work include occult studies besides his more well-known work on classical mechanics; he even go further to say that his work on classical mechanics became more of a side study. I was not aware of this and it seems that there are books written on this matter (one even entitled Newton - The Last Sorcerer). Newton's own writing can be found in his book "Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John. So, in a way, what I wish to do with Jiang's ideas is a reverse process of what Jiang did with Newton's (occult) work i.e. stripping essentially certain speculative ideas from Jiang's work to make it more scientifically palatable.

Let me put down here some YT links just for my record. First, the Mehdi Hassan-Jiang full interview is now available. Despite Mehdi's aggressive jibes, Jiang seems to be able to react and answer questions pretty well. The one question that I was interested in how Jiang would react (see this post) is Mehdi's retort to Jiang's reservation of academia for being overly based on facts and rigour; Jiang simply explained the difference between facta and truth with the latter having an explanatory power. Given Jiang's popularity, some resort to attacking him. Some even accused him as teaching an empty class and his YT lectures are more of pretense. To this, some might want to listen to Kim Iverson-Jiang interview and also an old YT post where he introduced his students. Another interview that seems to be interesting is Patrick Bet-David-Jiang interview. Before that interview happened, Jiang expressed reservation in responding to the invitation for the interview, thinking it may be a trap. In a sense, there were a lot of questions for Jiang on China's stance, which can be problematic if Jiang is not careful. Finally, I will just say that Jiang has an interesting personality and he has undergone many difficulties. In some interviews, he had revealed his personal side on how he rexamined himself and tried to reinvent himself several times; he had tried to be a cook, a stand-up comedian (imagine that), rock-climbing, parkour and even sky-diving (which he himself do not recommend).

The main reason, I wanted to do this post is to 'push-back' a little on one of his 2026 prediction, namely the destruction of Al-Aqsa mosque (God forbid), I was wondering how such event would fit in a game-theoretic scheme that he conjured becaue such event could actually backfired. First, threats on Al-Aqsa mosque are not new. I remembered from several years back, Al-Aqsa mosque came under attack almost every Ramadhan. But in the last Ramadhan, Muslims were barred from performing congregational prayers until the 9th of this month (amounting to 40 days - anything to do with numerology?). There was certainly fear of some mischievous plans. Indeed there was a video clip of a Rabbi's desire of false flag operation in destroying Al-Aqsa mosque during the war with Iran. In addition, there are already excavation works under Al-Aqsa compound, that is susceptible to mischievous plans. Thus, it is not at all surprising to have extrapolated destruction plans of Al-Aqsa (God forbid).

It is interesting to observe that Jiang's prediction is mostly based on non-Islamic eschatology and there was little reference to Islamic eschatology. This is perhaps due to the fact that no sane Muslim would want to hasten the end times as it is considered the Age of the Great Fitan with the appearance of Dajjal (Anti-Christ). Indeed, from the Holy Qur'an, Luqman (31:34) 

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عِندَهُۥ عِلْمُ ٱلسَّاعَةِ وَيُنَزِّلُ ٱلْغَيْثَ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِى ٱلْأَرْحَامِ ۖ وَمَا تَدْرِى نَفْسٌۭ مَّاذَا تَكْسِبُ غَدًۭا ۖ وَمَا تَدْرِى نَفْسٌۢ بِأَىِّ أَرْضٍۢ تَمُوتُ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌۢ ٣٤

Indeed, Allah ˹alone˺ has the knowledge of the Hour. He sends down the rain, and knows what is in the wombs. No soul knows what it will earn for tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land it will die. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.

— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran

Thus, Muslims tend to be 'passive' with respect to the Major Signs, or as Jiang remarked, 'Islam is too simple'. Another observation on this matter made by Sneako from Jiang's universal law of game theory (see this post), Muslims probably have quite a large weight on the mass factor but for coordination, the weight is probably very small.

As far as I was able to check, the Prophetic traditions are silent on what would happen to the Al-Aqsa mosque during end times (though there are traditions saying that the Dajjal will not be able to enter the mosques in Makkah and Madinah). Note: There are some reports about the 4 places that Dajjal could not enter which includes Al-Aqsa and Mosque of At-Tur (besides Makkah and Madinah),  but I could not trace the hadith that states this. If there is such a hadith, then Al-Aqsa will still be there during End Times. We need to note however another matter, physical impairments/modifications of the holy mosques can happen and even the Black Stone (Hajar Aswad) of Kaabah had been stolen before (for over 20 years) and the stone has been broken. Rather than the physical buildings, it is their locations that are considered sacred. For Al-Aqsa, its holy ground is shown below within the green rectangle (source: Abu Muhammad Ridwan ibn Dawood's "Al-Aqsa, The Past, the Present and the Future')

May Allah protect Al-Aqsa and the people there. For the Muslims, suffice for us to recite in our prayers the following to soldier in these end times.

Allah Knows Best.

Back To College and A Quiet Birthday

Last Sunday, we send our youngest son back to college in UiTM Jasin. Knowing this, our eldest son brought us for a dinner treat at PnC Kitchen on the night before (after cooming back from work). Actually, he intended to do simultaneously a birthday celebration for our third son, but that did not happen. Here are some pics.

The next day, we (me, my other half and our youngest) travelled to Jasin. Actually, the semester had already started in the previous week with the lectures conducted online (noting that it was still the second week of 'Eid). So when we arrived at the Jasin campus, it was bustling with students and their accompanying parents or family members. The room that my son got this semester is now in a different block situated at Level 4 (no lifts) and his room mate is a third year student of a different program. After bringing him out for lunch, we said goodbye to him. Had given some pocket money eough for at least two weeks. Could not give much more as we had to pay for the semester fees (costing more than a thousand ringgit).

On the highway, I took over the wheels as my other half was tired; it was my first time driving a relatively long distance since I've stopped working. I avoided long distance driving because of my bad back and that my right leg is weaker. Due to this, I may have a slower response and at one place, almost got myself into an accident due to emergency braking from the jam along the highway.

Yesterday was the birthday of our third son, Izhar. We bought a tiramisu cake for this and for dinner, we ordered some food from A&W. Despite the desire to celebrate, I had to rest early because I was experiencing some chest pain. So it was a quiet celebration and there are no pics. Hopefully today will be much better.

Understanding Events and Contexts

Love him or hate him, Prof. Jiang (as he is commonly called) has become an internet sensation in recent weeks. I first discovered Jiang sometime in January as mentioned in this post. In that post too, I have mentioned my own reservations about his opinions (secret societies etc.) but it was his lectures and the E*stein files that made me come to realise about the shadowy world. Some would probably say outrght, he is a conspiracy theorist and he could have done better if he does not allude to secret societies that 'influence' the events of the world. Indeed within the Muslim psyche, humans are not that all-powerful and that only God is Omnipotent, leaving unaccoutable degrees of freedom for the (unexpected) events of the world, but yet events that are subject to human agency.

In Jiang's predictive model, eschatology plays an important factor (if not the most important) and this makes his model non-scientific (and hence subject to criticisms and even ridicule). Jiang however has described eschatology as an inter-generational script that many human agents play out to. As such, it becomes an extremal factor (parameter) that Jiang uses for his game-theoretic approach (see here; the coordination part of the universal law of game theory). At times, I wonder how he comes up with such formulation (creativity?). Today, for instance, I kearned abut his three rules of geopolitics:

• The strong (nations) respect each other and they prey on the weak.
• One must 'fight' to prove that 'one' is strong.
• The weak (nations) do not work well together and that the weak must ally with the strong.

Now these seems to resonate with what we observe 'naturally' in the world but they do not necessarily follow a particular 'logic'. Are these phenomenological rules and if so, what makes up its fundamental theory?

While maintaining some scepticisms on his predictive history theory, I am actually more sceptical with those criticising him. Targeting him as non-white betrays only bigotry. Today, I stumbled onto an interview of Jiang by Jay Shapiro, which I think is more level-headed and I would recommend it for people to watch.

Disclaimer: By making this post, it does not mean I am obsessed with Jiang. I do listen to many other podcasters and commentators.

Breathe

Yesterday evening (around 6.30pm), our youngest son experienced difficulty of breathing and caused a slight panic at home. Ihsan, who was still at home immediately brought him to a nearby clinic in Centrio, S2 (Klinik Al-Ansar). Me and my other half, moments later, went to check on his treatment. He was given an inhaler to help him breathe. The doctor told us his oxygen level had dropped to around 95% and it had slowly increased to 97% (when we were there). My other half told me that earlier his feet was bluish showing the lack of oxygen. He was still having difficulty breathing after the inhaler treatment, then the doctor gave him a steroid injection as further treatment.

(Source: https://www.cosinuss.com/en/measured-data/vital-signs/oxygen-saturation/)

Our youngest son Izzuddin was having a slight fever before this but his difficulty in breathing began after he ate some Raya gift cookies that had bright purple colouring. There was a suspicion then that it might be an allergic reaction due to the food dye but it was rather immediate I thought. His breathing had not improved when we reached home. Thus, we decided to bring him to Columbia Hospital for a closer inspection. Over there, he was given an adrenaline shot and he was put under observation for a few hours. Blood samples were taken to run some tests (e.g. Covid, influenza) and X-ray was also done (to check blockages). We were tolf that he might be warded if his condition did not improve (I was already thinking of the hospital expenses).We waited until way past midnight when the doctor called us back. His blood test results mostly were normal apart from white blood cell count i.e. there is certainly bacterial infection. We were asked whther if we want him to be observed at the hospital (warded) or we can do that at home. We opted for the latter. The bill comes to excess of RM700 but if warded, it would easily be a few thousands.

I was still puzzled by what happened because he was breathing fine in the morning (apart from the fever). I thought about what other food he has taken besides the Raya gift cookies. Then I remembered that I bought him some food for his lunch since we were fasting that day. I pulled up this article just to check but of course nothing is confirmed, just mere suspicion. Showed this to my family just to let them know. If that is the cause, then it would have been my fault (and serves me right in paying the hospital bill). As I said, nothing is confirmed and my son is still resting. The suspected raya cookies? Well, I have it in my room for me to eat ....

Added mischievous note (just to add the mystical element): Today, just before Ihsan went back to JB, one of our teapot (another one?) broke a hole on washing ...

... probably due to thermal stresses.