美国大学申请的DEADLINE快到了。这里贡献一篇ESSAY。本文发问：世界本质上是偶然规律定的，还是必然定的？还是一切都是偶然？
Uncertainty vs Certainty
As the rhythmic crackling of stiff leaves under my feet blurs into the edges of my consciousness, I confront my long-held confusion towards my personal philosophy. I examine my seemingly paradoxical value system, my innate desire to rationalize clashing with what is best described by Keats as “negative capability...when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” The former has led to my pursuit of mathematics, physics, biology, my constant searches for not only the how but the why behind natural biological processes and moral philosophies, while the latter has allowed me to embrace that which partially derives its beauty from mystery and uncertainty–music, poetry, art.
While a work of art, a Beethoven's Sonata or a Van Gogh painting, is intrinsically linked with mathematics and science through the common thread of order and beauty, it differs in that its beauty is heightened by a sense of unawareness. As my fingers sit upon a keyboard, they take on a life of their own, guided by intuition and emotion. I can never play a Chopin nocturne the same way twice because I do not understand the inner workings of my unconsciousness that control the performance. Oddly enough, I am content with this state of unknowingness, for it only enhances the beauty of the experience.
But at the same time I feel a need to understand the natural world around me by pursuing scientific truths. From childhood, I was the student who, unsatisfied with formulas and concepts teachers taught me, treated everything I learned as a theory to proven. I remember how, when I first learned the quadratic formula many years ago, I spent all class trying to prove it algebraically and continued my pursuit at home, where a spark of inspiration presented both the solution and the concept of completing the square to me. I yearn to know answers to overarching questions like how life, with all its intricacies, originated from chaos, and whether complex biological processes can possibly be purely expressed by the elegance of mathematics one day.
It is this curiosity, this desire to find definite answers to my questions, that drives me to pursue a career as a scientific researcher. Yet even modern science has confirmed that nature possesses an element of randomness and uncertainty.
"God does not play dice" Einstein once said, denouncing the idea that the universe is governed by inherent randomness and probability. He believed that the universe is guided by natural laws, precise with mathematical beauty and simplicity. A younger me agreed with him and his ideals; however, with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, quantum mechanics has shown us that Nature is inherently, at the fundamental level, random. Still, it is my own nature to be always reaching for certainty, for higher truths that enlighten and benefit lives.
For now, I make peace with the internal conflict between my identities as both searcher of answers and appreciater of uncertainty, both scientist and artist. I can cherish the beauty of this moment of confusion, the moment before the curtains open to reveal perhaps the answers I'm searching for, or perhaps more unanswered questions.
