September readlog!

by Yoyo Yuan • 10-01-2025 #readlogs


Moving to Tokyo. Flowers for Algernon. Medea. Chinese history. Epic exiles. Quantum chemistry.

Source: feralscholars.substack.com/p/september-readlog — Yoyo is defocusing ultrasound

Major update: I have moved to Tokyo and resumed university! There's all of a sudden time to just read for no reason and (thankfully) no more death threats. A huge thank you to all enthusiastic nerds who have funded my passion projects this month!

So here is a readlog! It contains: Flowers for Algernon. Medea commentary. Moving to Tokyo. Chinese history commentary. Quantum chemistry.

Flowers for Algernon

Flowers for Algernon notes

My rant on Goodreads:

Charlie's intelligence speedrun seemed like a direct manifestation of psychometrics and 1950s stage psychology potpourri!

First up, we have WISC! Consisting of: verbal intelligence — split into grammar and vocabulary, spatial intelligence — Charlie could see things with his mind's eye, working memory, as well as processing speed (not emphasized). Additionally we also had developments in interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, self awareness and regulation and so on.

Stage psychology theories were popular around the time of writing — 1959. It was funny to read it from 2025, when they are out of fashion!

There's Kohlberg's moral stages: When the pregnant woman was propositioning to Charlie in the park, he instinctively called her a degenerate (pre-conventional morality). The next time was when he saw a dull boy being bullied in a restaurant. Charlie subconsciously used the Golden rule (post-conventional morality). Later he also argued for his own rights in addition to means to an end as an experimental animal. Kohlberg developed his theories of morality in the late 1950s.

Look, we also have Piaget's stage theory:

Sensorimotor (seen as Charlie regresses near the end)

Pre-operational. Especially egocentrism as Charlie flips between first and third person for the first time.

Concrete operational. Reasoning about himself and the mouse, Algernon.

Formal operational... This is brutal

Alice rages at Charlie: "All I can do is listen and nod my head and pretend I understand all about cultural variants, and neo-Boulean [sic] mathematics, and post-symbolic logic, and I feel more and more stupid..."

Charlie, criticizing other academics. "Physics: nothing beyond the quantum theory of fields. Geology: nothing about geomorphology or stratigraphy or even petrology. Nothing about the micro- or macroeconomic theory. Little in mathematics beyond the elementary level of calculus of variations, and nothing at all about Banach algebra or Riemannian manifolds. It was the first inkling of the revelations that were in store for me this weekend. I couldn't stay at the party. I slipped away to walk and think this out. Frauds — both of them."

Minor note, I was expecting to see more of Dabrowski's overexcitabilities which were also developed in the late 1950s but they weren't explicitly applied. That was when the label "exceptionally gifted" was coined. I feel the author didn't seem to like giftedness labels. "[Dr Strauss] says [psychology books] will confuse me and make me think about psychological theories instead of about my own ideas and feelings."

Other topics. Charlie dissociated, particularly around women. "Even a feeble minded man wants to be like other men. A child may not know how to feed itself or what to eat, but it knows hunger." Why does the author like dissociation so much? Why do gender dysphoric people particularly love dissociative psychological horror?! Minds of Billy Milligan was also about DID. The way Charlie talked about relationships reminded me of Qiaochu Yuan archetypes, and I won't be one of them.

Fay, speaking to Charlie: "And boy did you act queer-I don't mean fairyish or anything like that but strange." Why did the author specifically used the word queer here?

Freudian jokes: "Does an idiot have an id"

I absolutely adored the narrative quality, however, considering it's 2025, I'm disappointed by the author's imagination. Just when the Charlie's intelligence approached near author levels, Charlie… regressed! To become intelligent and deteriorate again is like vector operation. Even I felt vicarious frustration when Charlie explains to his mom the intelligence changes. It definitely seemed like pre-planned rather than hypothesis-driven sci-fi, right?! "Algernon Gordon hypothesis" says you can artificially inflate intelligence but it must fall down later. If intellectual arc loses it's spark, then I'd expect emotional arc to be much stronger. There was a nice tripartite soul-like balance throughout. However, the falling action was a bit abrupt. But overall, highly rated.

Pictures

Tokyo A

Tokyo B

Some places I hung out at

Ancient Chinese history: 夏 · 商 · 周

Watching the earliest 夏，商，周 dynasties with dearest Adelaide!

Phrases I took note of:

三年不飞，飞将冲天，三年不鸣，鸣将惊人

i.e. If you don't fly for three years you're gonna soar! If you don't chirp in three years, everyone will be surprised!

It seems like in ancient China three years of silence is associated with brewing greatness! This contrasts a lot with the build in public culture on X, but arguably this is just stealth mode in ancient China.

春秋后期，社会上有这样一批人，他们有着高贵的世系、受过教育，可以被称作贵族，但却很贫穷，实际的社会处境和普通平民差不多，这样的破落贵族后裔组成了贫困的士阶层

i.e. In late Spring and Autumn period, there was a group of highly educated people "士阶层" with noble lineage, but these people are broke (do they resemble broke grad students?) Yet in two centuries, many Shi became high status.

伊尹 (Yi Yin), the legend that originated from a kitchen. 伊尹 was the primary intellectual behind overthrowing the Xia dynasty ruled by 夏桀 (Xia Jie). Xia dynasty is the first recorded dynasty which also engaged in slavery. 伊尹 was discovered twice in a kitchen which reminds me a bit of Eigenlucy.

Now I can complain in Chinese. I can just steal some Chinese literary containers to express my deep dissatisfaction, whereas, there's a lot more sarcasm in English before expressing anything!

Epic exiles

Exile sticker

Nowadays, many talented engineers and friends are being hurled out of the United States. But being exiled is the commonest thing in history, there's no need to panic. I looked at epic 10 exiles, calculated distance and clustered them.

One interesting cluster was Su Shi (苏轼) and Dante. Su Shi was exiled for writing satirical poetry about the ruler Wang Anshi's new policies. He complained how loans and state monopolies on salt superficially, helped farmers, but were practically abused by local officials to squeeze more revenue. He spent 12 years in exile and produced ~800 poems during the time. Dante was also a writer-activist type that was reported for corruption, exiled and wrote the Divine Comedy. Their works circulated among thin, regional networks and were memetic in themselves, and probably sounded cooler due to their status.

For Aristotle, he died 1 year after exile, there's not much original stuff. He just focused on docs, and having strong students extended his reputation for millenia.

The most disappointing exile was Ovid. During Augustus' moral reform encouraging righteous marriages, he wrote a … seduction handbook. And after he was exiled to the middle of nowhere Ovid continued to write laments. My guy! This doesn't really work!

Medea

Theme: talk is cheap

So now, am I a tiger, Scylla? — Hurl at me whatnames you please I I've reached your heart; and that is right. But Scylla still wins."

Creon, exiling Medea: "You're wasting words; you'll never make me change my mind!"

The janitor from the modern version of Medea: "She say, trouble with you Marta, you think words is worth something. But words ain't worth a thing. Words is just women's money, that's all. Only thing it buys you is scraps from the man's table."

Cynic's not-really-wisdom

During the argument Jason ironically expresses "I am sane now; but I was mad before". This sounds just like false cynic wisdom. When cynics pick us apart, we (especially young people!!) can mistake corrosion with care ... seek to be affirmed and, all of a sudden go up in flames! Am I falling am I sinking what the hell have I been thinking! Modern Medea rewrite pokes at this: "All that anger disguised as if wit was like sugar-coated hate."

Depressing quotes

Jason is a prisoner in a princess's bed; And Medea is in her room Melting her life away in tears; No word from any friend can give her comfort… She will not eat; she lies collapsed in agony, Dissolving the long hours in tears.

The dark cloud of her lamentations Is just beginning. Soon, I know, It will burst aflame as her anger rises. Deep in passion and unrelenting, What will she do now, stung with insult?

Medea gazing at her children:

Strong reason forces me to weep, old friend. The gods, And my own evil-hearted plots, have led to this. Dear sons, why are you staring at me so? You smile At me — your last smile: why? Myself? I won't do it. I won't think of it again. What is the matter with me? Are my enemies. To laugh at me? Am I to let them offscot free? I must steel myself to it. What a coward I am, Even tempting my own resolution with soft talk. Boys, go indoors.

Quantum chemistry

I learned about some chemistry theories from the 20th century and ran an approximation technique on a few molecules. Namely, Hartree-Fock, which calculates molecular orbitals by treating all electron movements as one, averaged out electron, and also assume the nuclei being still. Then the computer tries to solve a 1-electron Schrodinger equation. They collapse the infinite dimensions onto a finite basis set, rewrite equation as a big sparse matrix and find some eigenvalues.

Also


Related links from Yoyo's bookshelf

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