Eugene Yue-Ching Ho

(1960-1997)

Maintainer's Note

Mr. Eugene Yue-Ching Ho died at a tragically young age, in an accident at his home in Hong Kong, on 18th July 1997. This page is left as a lasting memorial to his work, ideas, and aspirations. It has been edited only to include revisions he had requested just a few days before his untimely death. I never met Eugene in person, but came to know and respect him through correspondence in relation to his interest in Karl Popper's philosophy. I will remember him especially for his sincere advocacy of the values of an Open Society in a place and time in history when this was a very difficult--and correspondingly important--thing to do.

-Barry McMullin, Dublin, 7th August 1997.

Intellectual Background

An electrical engineer by education, I received my B. Sc. and M. Sc. degrees from Syracuse University, New York, in the 1980s. As I was mainly interested in communication systems, my Master's thesis was, quite naturally, on a related subject, namely, the analysis and synthesis of a digital phase-locked loop for FM demodulation.

I also have a wide interest in the humanities, since I am strongly against the present academic fashion in which people working in one particular field of study know very little, if at all, about the developments of some other fields of study. It was through the reading of Sir Karl Popper's works after I graduated from university that I discovered a whole new world of knowledge, problems, and solutions, and I have since aspired to be, like him, a well-rounded Renaissance Man. I later came to know him very well and visited him several times in England. He impressed me as a kind-hearted person, very knowledgeable but at the same time totally unpretentious.

Academic Affiliation

I have been a member of the Hong Kong Institute of Economic Science since 1989. Although the primary goal of this Society is to promote the study of economics through a critical scrutiny of its first principles, members have never intended to delimit their intellectual resources to a single field of inquiry, or confine their interest to one discipline alone. Instead, they have endeavoured to create a milieu in which they can benefit from the cross-fertilisation between the first principles of different compartments of knowledge, and consequently are encouraged to adopt a transdisciplinary approach to their academic or intellectual pursuit.

Selected Publications

(All works written in English unless otherwise specified)

• Does the Unobserved Moon Exist?--A Critique of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory (1990; in Chinese)
• A World of Propensities (1991; Chinese translation of Sir Karl Popper's work of 1990, with a Foreword by the author)
• Festschrift in Celebration of the 90th Birthday of Sir Karl Popper (1992; in Chinese and in editorial collaboration with Robert Lee)
• "Evolutionary Epistemology and Sir Karl Popper's Latest Intellectual Interest: A First-Hand Report" (1990)
• "Fallible Popes and Fallible Church: A Brief Survey of Papal Iniquities Throughout the Ages" (1991)
• "Death by Crucifixion in the Ancient World" (1992)
• "F. A. Hayek: In Memoriam" (1992)
• "At 90, and Still Dynamic: Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" (1992)
• "IES Visitors Presented Festschrift To Sir Karl Popper" (1992)
• "The Mathematical Beauty of " (1992)
• "The Galilean Affair: A Historical Reinterpretation" (1993)
• "Easter as a Pagan Festival" (1993)
• "Two-Valued Logic, Many-Valued Logic, and the Problem of Pluralism, Toleration, and Criticism" (1993)
• "The Influence of Logical Positivism on the Copenhagen Interpretation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle" (1994)
• "Edward Gibbon, Historian of the Roman Empire. Part I: The Man and His Book" (1994)
• "Edward Gibbon, Historian of the Roman Empire. Part II: A Closer Look at the Decline and Fall" (1994)
• "Sir Karl Raimond Popper: In Memoriam" (1994; in collaboration with Pui-Chong Lund)
• "Did Isaiah Really Prophesy the Virgin Birth of Christ?" (1995)
• "  and the Philosophical Doctrine of Esse est Percipi" (1995)
• "Commemorating Francisco Goya on the 250th Anniversary of His Birth" (1996)
• "The Position of Women in Ancient Egypt" (1996)
• "Does Curiosity Really Kill Schrödinger's Cat?" (1996)
• "Is a Liberal Interpretation of the Creation Story Compatible with Science?" (1997)

Other Link

• http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~zimm/passage.html (selected quotations from Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

Interests and Hobbies

Reading, writing, music-listening, piano-playing, weight-training, and travelling.

Last Updated: 7th August 1997