Re: American soul

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

On Fri, 25 Apr 1997, Thanh Dang Nguyen wrote:

> > I am interested in trying to express MY feelings and thoughts about
> > America, and share them with those interested. This is in no way different
> > from doing the same with music, literature, painting, film, etc. So I
> > don't understand why this would be an "extreme ambition".
> 
> First, I was not serious when I talked about your ambition (see the smiley
> I put after the sentence just like this :-) 

Hi Thanh, thanks for the answer. I perfectly understood your writings. 
Just wanted to "tease" you a little bit to hear more from you on this 
topics :-). Sorry.

> But to define a soul for this land with its people in it, it's hopeless to me
> who has been here for less than two years. I certainly can tell you
> my feelings about this country, or even whether I hate it or not, but I'm
> afraid I will tell you lots of prejudicial nonsense due to my short-sighted
> mind (incidentally I'm *really* short-sighted :).

There is a saying "If you visit China for only three weeks, you can write 
a beautiful article summarizing up your experience, if you stay there for 
three months, you can write a book, if you stay there for three years, 
you will never be able to write anything." I think there is truth in this.

So I don't buy the argument that because one has just been here for two 
years, one doens't know enough to express one's feelings about America. 

> BTW, I didn't advise you to read Vonnegut for understanding the American
> sould if it ever exists. 

It is not the question of *understanding* American soul, which is more 
or less a moving target, meaning different things for different people, 
it is the question of *feeling, and defining* it for you.

>What I want to say is
> I could not say anything about this country before I have enough life
> experience and an unbiased mind. 

I respect your decision. It is good talking to you on this topics.

However, there is a well-known theorem in machine learning (a subfield of 
Artificial Intelligence): If you don't have a bias, you will never be 
able to learn anything.

I think this theorem is true not only for machine learning.

Cheers, Hai.