Tooth fairies, fantasy and dasavatharam

I know I haven't been writing for a while. Blame it on a super hectic month followed by an India trip followed by an even more hectic month and then the holiday season. Anyway, I wrote this post before leaving for India, but couldn't get around to putting it up. So here it is.. Also, hope to write about the India trip soon.. We'll see when I get around to doing that..

I read this post on Hallucinations about a conversation between 2 six year olds about tooth fairies- one girl knows they do not exist and the other doesn't. It made me wonder what I really thought about fairies and stuff when I was a kid. Very early in life, my mom told me Santa Claus was just someone I know dressed up with a fake beard. And my dad told me that the people you watch on TV are just acting (that was because I would get way too depressed seeing characters die or get hurt on TV!). I remember reading way too much Enid Blyton (I think I read everything from the Red story book to the Book of pixies) and trying to imagine that my toys could talk at night. It was fun to imagine, but even then I knew it wasn't true.

The fantastic things I truly believed in then were quite mundane. Like the fact that there is a supernatural power watching your every move and waiting to restore the balance in the world. Or that good begets good. That if you keep hoping, everything will turn out alright. They are nice to believe in as a kid. Sometimes, even as an adult. It is nice to do your part and assume that "there is somebody who made you and cares for you, and who will help you if you do the best of what you can".
But as I grew older, I decided that these ideas were as fantastic as the idea that tooth fairies exist. That the reason to do the right thing is not because you will be rewarded in the end, but because the doing is itself the reward.
Funnily though, I admit that the made up sentences(or ideas) work. Telling yourself not to give up because all that hard work has gotta pay back does give you enough confidence to last the last mile. (You see what I did there? :P) When you have been back-stabbed or are generally cynical, telling yourself that good begets good motivates you to go on doing good. So you see, even though I think these sentences are made up, I use them all the time. 

Then, the truly amazing thing about all this is not the fact that I realized as I grew up that these ideas are made up, but how these conflicting ideas can co-exist in my head (and in the head of the kid about whom that author was writing). I can drown hours in imagination, I can tell myself confidently that it will all work out in the end. And yet I know these are just sentences I am making up. (To some people, this might smell of hypocrisy. But maybe I will write about my justification for it some other time).Anyway, that reminds me of the Tamil movie Dasavatharam. There is this conversation in the end which beautifully sums up all I have to say about the co-existence of rationality and fantasy.
 
The translation goes this way-
Asin: Why do you say there is no God?
Kamal: I am not saying that God does not exist. I am just saying it would be wonderful if he did.

Let them be

(Statutory warning: This is one of the posts that I warned you about on the other page. Long and serious- so if you don't have the stomach for it, go eat a doughnut instead.)

The day I wrote this Today (I actually wrote this post a couple of months ago, but never got around to publishing it), I was reading an article about women and forced parenthood when I came across a line that sums up pretty much 90% of my beliefs. I suddenly realized I have never written about my core philosophy so I thought this is a good time to write it down. I am sorry if it ends up sounding like I am moralizing or advising- by the very nature of this philosophy, I can't be.

The idea is:
"People are different and need different things. Society (and we, as a part of it) should support this premise without judging them on it. But only as long as their 'needs' don't harm other human beings".

To me that much is obvious. But just to explain, think about what you would do in the following scenarios..

Infinity

"Oh, what does it matter? It is like infinity + 1" , I said involuntarily.
"What do you mean- infinity + 1?" 
"Well, infinity +1 would still be infinity. It's an incremental change. Doesn't change a thing in the world", I went on.
And then my friend stumped me by quoting one of my own favorite lines- "But it made a difference to that one!"
"Inspiration story wise, I love that line. But mathematically speaking infinity+1 cannot be bigger than infinity. It just doesn't work that way."

Sparing you the rest of the conversation, let me get to my point. Infinity is really a fascinating idea. When somebody tells you- we are in an infinite cycle of birth and death (theologically speaking, or speaking of physics), I immediately think "But when was the first time you were born?" It's a chicken and egg problem- if I want to tell myself the universe is infinite I wonder how it all started. But if I try to reconcile that it is in fact, finite- then my mind goes "But what was there before it all started?" Well, it looks like I'd never get it. Maybe it is not just unknown but unknowable (ya, now I am an infinity agnostic :P)

Anyway, when I spoke of infinity+1, I spoke like it's any other number. Which, of course it isn't. When someone says God has infinite powers, they don't mean he has 9^(9^9) powers or something. They usually mean endless. There is just one infinity. And it's endless. All-encompassing. At least that's what I thought of infinity until yesterday... Yesterday, I happened to read a little about Modern Set Theory and cardinal numbers, and then I realized, infinity is not just a concept of endlessness- there are infinite infinities in this world. 

Wait, whaaa? 
(Click on Read more for more)

Free will and all that

(This is the 9th post in the one-month challenge series)

Ya, I know I am back on the boring philosophy track. I don't know why I am a big fan of philosophical questions. Maybe because of this (-that comic was just awesome!)
But anyway. Getting to the topic.

Think about what makes you do what you do. If you never thought about it, it might be a hard question. For eg., I know I love coffee. But why do I love it? I might say it's because all the adults in my family drink start every single day of their life with coffee. So much that, in my mind, waking up is inextricably linked with smelling coffee and hearing the tap-tap on the filter. Followed by a family ritual of drinking coffee and discussing different things. If I think back, some of my earliest memories involve morning coffee. I remember it used to be quite a tantalizing thing in my childhood because my mom wouldn't let me have it and yet all grown-ups could. But I digress. My point is that I can trace my liking for coffee to something in my childhood- Positive reinforcement* from people I implicitly trust as a kid and a lot of Pavlovian conditioning.

Au contraire, I could ask my myself why I am an atheist. This might be the millionth time I am mentioning this but I grew up in an orthodox household. Religion is everywhere in our home. God is mentioned about a million times daily. And I was never sufficiently disappointed with my life to give up on God (like many atheists I know did.) Considering I think of life on very promising, cheerful terms, it is a wonder I ever changed my mind. In fact, I distinctly remember arguing with my atheist friend on why believing made sense. Also, almost all of my friends are theists. Not particularly religious. But theists. Almost all the people who have inspired me- my parents, teachers, relatives, famous people- are again theists.So, you see- almost nothing in my environment could have led me to stop believing. And yet, with some help from the 'God Delusion' (and myself) , I changed my mind at some point.
But if you look closely, you might say it's because I used to read a lot (not so much these days) and am influenced by good books. I am also quite interested in science and biology and debate. For each of these I could again go down a track of why I am interested in that particular thing, but you get the idea. You can pretty much nail down my supposedly contrary behavior to something in my environment.

"Wait", you tell me. "Not everything I like can be traced back to the past. It is too naive to do that. Taking your own example, there are many households with a morning coffee ritual but not all their kids become coffee addicts. Surely there is something innate in me that makes me like some things and be good at some things". Obviously. There is your genetic makeup which plays the other big role in making you who you are. Kids who grow up in the same family often turn out to be complete opposites. (Though there might be SOME influence on environment also there!)

Fine so far. Most people would agree until this point that most of their behavior comes from the genetic makeup or their environment. And as you might have guessed, the real question is- is there something beyond all that? (I am not even going into the argument of religion here- even when I was a theist, I never thought God would bother with the everyday minuscule details of trivial human lives.) If there were another individual who had the same genetic and environmental conditions as you, might he/she act differently? Or, as individuals, do we act completely based on these two factors, or is there something we can choose to do randomly beyond all of our past? In short, is our fate predetermined or do we have free will?

I hate to end abruptly, but because this is a long topic for discussion, I leave you today with just the question and a small note- I used to be a big fan of free will before. However, a course with one of my Top 5 teachers ever, a book by Baum and this amazing man made me change my opinion...

Hope to continue on that later..

*I use the term loosely here.

1984

Can a book be simultaneously brilliant and nauseating? Can you ever reach a point in a book where reading the next word takes an excruciating amount of effort and yet, you cannot put it down? The last Thursday, I started reading a book like that and that's why I did not blog on Thursday and Friday. I know that's the kind of thing I was supposed to avoid when I took the one month challenge. But then, I simply couldn't put the book down. Not even to blog about it. The weekend I happened to go out and so couldn't find the time to blog either. I hope that doesn't happen in the future.

The book in question was '1984' by George Orwell. It's supposed to be a classic book (I was prompted to read it by a 'list of 10 books to read before you die'!). I remember reading 3-4 pages of a pdf copy sometime during my college days and like all other pdf books I have begun, I didn't get any further. So, the last time I visited India, I got a hardcopy.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead!) The book is about a dystopian communist society set in the future (the book was written in 1950) and a sort-of individualist who is unable to bear the communist regime and tries to break out. He also falls in love with a woman (in a world where marriage for love is banned) and eventually gets caught by the system. Whether he fights or loses forms the rest of the story.

If you have read 'The Anthem', you would realize it has the same outline as above. In fact, as I read on, I found so many elements to be the same- a society with no technological progress, one that glorifies obedience, one where all individuals follow the same routines and are forced by the government not to express their opinions, and so on. Even the fact that the party controls marriages. I tried to look up if 1984 had been influenced by The Anthem, but couldn't find anything. However, the more I read the book, the more I thought that both are simply extensions of reality in communist societies.

That being said, I definitely think 1984 is a lot more realistic. The Anthem is an inspiring novel but it assumes an almost stupid ruling class.1984, on the other hand, brings up the scary possibilities of smart people being evil and in power. It builds a world that is complete and makes sense within itself. A society where everyone is being spied on all the time, and any small breach from the expected conduct can lead you to 'vanish'. 

And the best part is this- a society where any piece of evidence about the past that contradicts with the government views about the present is destroyed and falsified. (Eg: If the government wants to prove  production has increased by 5% but had predicted it to increase by 10%- they just change all existing records of the previous announcement and replace it with ones that predict 5%). This brought up some very interesting questions about the past- does the past exist only in records? In fact, an even harder question- if a set of people refuse to acknowledge reality by consensus, is there any reality at all? (Eg: if everyone in the world see something falling down but refuse to admit that the thing has moved- has the thing moved at all?) While we are tempted to say 'obviously it has', in a  world where that reality is not accepted, for all practical purposes the thing might not have moved at all. (I find that idea mind-blowing!)

The last part of the book was haunting. The protagonist is tortured so much that he converts from the reality-acknowledging, sane-thinking, individualist to the typical party-supporting, communist with too much double standards. He doesn't just say what the society wants him to say- he actually believes in their ideas. It made me think- 'Until what point of adversity would I hold on to my ideals and values?' And if you do give up your values in the face of the worst torture imaginable to you, would you be considered moral? (Something about which I hope to write later)

As I said earlier- this was one book which was simultaneously brilliant and nauseating. There was a point I reached in the book where I did not want to read another word. And yet, I could not keep the book down. 

And 3 days later, the book still haunts me.

For anyone who reached this far without having read the book- I might have spoilt the best of the book's ideas for u, but I have not half-conveyed the details. So, highly highly recommend you to read it...

I hope to read 'Animal Farm'- the other popular title by Orwell- some other day..

Theists and checking up facts: an oxymoron?

First- this post is not meant to offend anyone, but of course, as all articles that start with such a line, it just MIGHT end up offending some people. I hope it doesn't because the people that it might offend have a lot to gain from this post. Secondly, when I say "religion" in this post, I mean both religion and Hinduism. More often, the latter. Third, as usual I started out with intention of writing a much shorter post but like Mark Twain, found I didn't have the time to, so I wrote a longer one :P Lastly, I have included some interesting references at the end, if you are interested in looking up and decided not to plod through this entire post. Now let me start at the beginning.

As I might have mentioned in the blog before, I come from a very orthodox family. At least within my circles, I sometimes feel that our family could serve as the Oxford dictionary definition for orthodox. I don't find anything wrong about it per se, but that is worth mentioning because it partially explains why I am interested in religion (interested in, not a believer of). Because I grew up in such an environment and because I was also taught some excellent reasoning skills by the same orthodox people and because I am a big reader, I spent a substantial portion of my childhood reading stuff related to religion. I also spent quite some time listening to all kinds of arguments FOR religion- how great God is, why we gain from believing, the millions of miracles he has performed, why it "makes sense" to believe and so on. I must admit it was not that difficult to 'believe' before I knew Google.

Anyhow, with all that background reading (which was pretty interesting, admittedly, and a lot of it quite reasonable) I learned that- unlike what many people in the outside world think, orthodox people are very intelligent. I think I should re-emphasize this point because much of my audience consists of people who grew up in so-called neutral families. Such people often think that religious fanatics and fundamentalists are complete idiots. Let me break this to you right now- they aren't. In fact, I can almost say that I know many more sensible yet orthodox people than I know sensible secular people. Talk about irony.  
Anyway, because of such a background, I continued to read stuff that religious people say long after I stopped believing. You see, I want to be able to pit myself against the best of the other side. Anyway, so far, so good.

The problem arose when I started having unlimited access to the internet and started checking up stuff on Google. When Google is your friend, many of your facebook friends might unfriend you. No, seriously. There have been times when I have verified stuff put up by some of my valued friends (not necessarily related to religion) by simply typing the title on the Google searchbar and found that they were plain false. Then, goodnaturedly, I comment on their post saying this is false, and said friends get angry. (Ok, nobody unfriended me as yet, but you can imagine how things went after that point.) Anyway, I digress. The point I wanted to make was that I have this instinctive thing to look up stuff before believing in them. So from then on, (and back to religion  now) whenever someone used a religious anecdote or any other anecdote that I could verify, I did. In fact, whenever they quoted anything I could note down and check, I did. In the process I learned a lot- but sadly 90-95% of their anecdotes were hoaxes. Except the ones from their own lives. Even worse, this was not limited to anecdotes. Many of the "facts" that they used to substantiate their claims were fabrications from propaganda magazines. I will give two examples here, but trust me, there are hundreds more. (Click on "Read more" below for more).

What can an atheist look forward to?

I must admit that sometimes being an atheist is hard. (The only thing harder than being an atheist is being an agnostic- and I hope I will write about why that is so sometime.... ). Especially when things go wrong. You cannot believe that ultimately good will triumph- even if you have put in all your efforts into something, nothing really stops anything from going wrong. No, I am not trying to be defeatist here, but the truth is that believing something good will happen out of the blue, or that there is something that rewards hard work is still belief in the supernatural- just without the baggage that God is forced to carry around most of the time. Anyway, when things are going bad for you, you cannot simply pray to some supernatural power and hope that he will set things right. You cannot believe in any sort of essential fairness in the world. If there is any law that governs life for you- it is survival of the fittest (which is a different form of fairness, in my opinion.. But anyway..) and then maybe the laws of physics. But these laws cannot provide solace- you simply cannot hope that Newton's third law will slap that guy who was mean to you at the store this morning. 

The other problem is- what ultimate goal do you have? Most religions advocate some kind of heaven or salvation- something to look forward to. To work towards. There is no such goal in atheism. We are simply insignificant chemical specks in a vast universe that may or may not have its own agenda. We are products of our genes which are simply fighting for their own "selfish" reasons. (Yes, I am oversimplifying things here- but the details aren't particularly comforting either..) We do have some role in modifying nature- we can and have affected it in many ways, but that is not something you can work towards. Nor is it something you can look forward to, because many of these changes will have a sizeable impact only long after you are gone. Yes, many atheists find joy in serving the poor and improving life conditions of the underprivileged- so much as to say that service is their God. Unfortunately, not everyone can feel that. Some atheists can work for improving life conditions of others, but cannot see it as their goal (Objectivists, for example). It is like saying- "I like making people happy, but I cannot live for it". So then, what CAN an atheist (like me) look forward to? Is there anything at all that can be labeled the "joy of being an atheist"? (Click on "Read more" to continue..)

The right, the wrong and the relatively...

There is some pleasure in listening to your own thoughts expressed by someone else. Most of the time, if not always, we are pleased when someone agrees with us. Or believes in something we believe in. Especially so, if it is for the same reasons. Maybe it is some sort of ego thing in human beings. Or maybe it is the selfish meme at work. While I am not generally a fan of people who always agree with me (which is obviously impossible), it does give me pleasure sometimes when somebody thinks the exact same thing that I do. And when that someone has put it down on paper many many years ago, it is a real pleasure for me to read it. More so, when that someone is already one of my most favorite authors.

And even more so, when what he has written is something related to what I wrote on my blog earlier. So, today when I came across this article by Asimov about the "Relativity of wrong", I was very happy when I reached paragraph 17 ("Now where do we..."), because this was so related to one of my previous posts. (This one!)

While you are reading the post, one warning though. At first glance these two links might not seem related at all.. But here is how they are related, at least in my perspective. 

My post is about why we do not always have the right answer. About the need for us to realize that many answers in life are not clearly 'right' or 'wrong', unlike the spelling of sugar in Asimov's example (paragraph 19). And Asimov's question "Where do we learn that right and wrong are absolutes?" is  a very pertinent one. It is surprising how we always think that 'right' is something fixed or static (and we do that all the more when we become engineers, what with all the emphasis on mathematical precision...). But if we look at it, it is just a notion we get in our childhoods. And Asimov does a brilliant job of explaining how this is not so; how there are degrees of right, for example.

The other reason I find the article relevant is because, it makes a good addendum to mine (Ya right! Asimov writing an addendum to "my" post! What arrogance I must possess!! ...  Anyway..). While it is true that right and wrong are not absolute, and that there are questions for which we might never know if our answers are right, there is some room for hope. Maybe our answers shall never be 100% right. But they would still be more right than our previous answer. Even though our answers may be wrong, what gives meaning to our journey is the fact that "each tomorrow finds us farther than today"*. And that, to me, is the whole pleasure of science- the unending quest of  unraveling this mysterious universe, little by little, each day...

* This line, by Longfellow, is part of the same poem from which the "Bottomline" of this blog is taken.. One of the most amazing poems ever written...

Random Thoughts

After that last post, I have had quite a vacation. Though it was far from perfect, I got to read a few books (didn't finish them all), and also watch some movies that I should have seen long ago, but never did! Books include "The Extended Phenotype" which I am reading at worse than snail's pace, but hope that changes soon. So far, I think it should have been titled 'The Evolution MythBuster' but maybe when I am done with the book, that idea might change. Still, an incredible book (as always)! I was also rereading "Pride and Prejudice", but done with that now and started on "Sense and Sensibility", which I haven't read before and which is making me rediscover the joy of reading that I was sorely missing in my previous post. As for the movies I saw quite a few, including, "A 200 pound beauty" (Korean), which sent me on a train of thought about how and why should beauty be important, "It Happened One Night", which was plain Clark Gable, "The Message", which was good (though I am still not sure of its credibility), "Jodha Akbar", which was simply awesome, and a few more.

For some reason, all that reading and movie watching led me to this debate about what we regard as ideal, and whether it really exists. For a long time, I used to be a fan of the ideal, in the sense that I believed it to be possible, but maybe a little difficult to attain. (Ideal here, refers to the "perfect"- in any aspect or domain or context). But the more time you spend with science the more you encounter usages of "ideal" in the context of the non-existent. Maybe, that influenced me, or maybe it was something else, but I have ended up with a not-so rosy picture of the world in general. Most of the time, it appears stupid (or at least over-optimistic) to pile too much hopes on something ideal.

But then again, there is this whole notion of 'everything is possible if you only strongly desire for it'. I remember APJ's autobiography talking about how desire possesses electromagnetic energy that makes the cosmos conspire to make it come true. While I don't know about the electromagnetic part, I have often seen near-miracles happen to people who strongly believe in them.

Which leaves me in a quandary. So does the ideal exist and is my desire for it not strong enough to see it? Or is what I regard as perfect simply a fantasy of my imagination and there may be no point believing in it? Is it better to hope for something and be disappointed (so you at least gave the cosmos a chance :P) or is it better to be sensible and keep your expectations low? What if you were too sensible and so missed the miracle? Maybe it is a mixture of both. Maybe I shall never have an answer for this question....*

One of the other things I have been thinking about is the very stupid NCERT cartoon ban thing going on. Maybe I will do a post on it later, but knowing myself, most probably not. So let me just say what I think about it here anyway. It is unbelievably stupid, but quite unsurprising, considering the intelligence of our elected members. (I hope that statement doesn't qualify as contempt to the constitution). I just want to ask all who find it incredible- "What did u expect of the people in the Parliament? Sense? And you think they are irrational?" I can't even hope that the government will see sense in this issue. If someone was stupid enough to take offense at a political cartoon and to consider it something that will corrupt young minds, how can you expect them to understand that a cartoon is simply an alternate viewpoint on the issue and with the necessary critical thinking skills, a student would be able to still appreciate a great leader while acknowledging his mistakes? That you don't have to paint an all-white picture of a leader, however great his contributions to the nation? It is such a subtle balance, especially in a culture where we insist on never identifying the gray and do not encourage questioning, that I doubt a government like ours shall be able to get it at all. Maybe I am too pessimistic in this, but I can only think of Roark saying- reason is something that people most definitely don't want to have on their side when they enter an argument. Which brings me back to an idea I mentioned a few paragraphs before- "The more sensible you become, the more bleak the world appears" (Interestingly it applies to science as well. The more I learn about processors and complex systems and human brains, I just can't imagine how anybody got them working at all!") There should be a moral somewhere in that sentence about pessimism and knowledge, but for the life of me, I can't see what it is... 

Well, that's it for now. Let's hope I find time to post better and more stuff during the semester....  

*Couldn't help thinking of a recursive question here- Is it too hopeful to think that I shall find the answer or should I take the sensible route and say that I might never find it? :P

The right answer....

A few days back, I was in a situation where there was a problem in my project team, and I had a choice to make- which would affect whether we would remain a team or not. It was the kind of complex situation anyone would hate getting into, because all the alternatives in front of you are equally good and bad. And I was thinking this through so much, with the desire to make the "right" choice. The choice that I wouldn't be guilty about later on. The choice where I would be fair to everyone concerned. And so on...

I was just wishing there would be someone in this world who would resolve that issue for me. Who would give me an answer- the "right" answer and with the reasons it was right.

It reminded me of the school days when- whenever you had a question, you could just  ask your mom/dad. And they would always have the right answer.. From why do aeroplanes fly to what should I do if my best friend stole my pencil. ("Tujh ko sab pata hai na ma"). And then the stage when I had an implicit blind belief in my teacher. If the teacher wrote a 'z' with a line across it, that was the only right way to do it. I remember having argued with my mother over such things (though I don't remember exactly what). But the idea was that the teacher ALWAYS had the right answer. And it was unthinkable that she could be wrong.

Of course, by the time I was in secondary, I realized that a lot of primary teachers had had no clue what they had been talking about (Especially with respect to some serious questions in science). But I thought that maybe "they" did not know, but somebody else did. Somebody else "should" know the right answer.

Why soliloquies?

I am taking this psychology course called "Experimental Analysis of Behavior". (Interesting to note that I haven't found any Indians in the class - maybe Indians are too "brainy" to study something like... um.. well... the "science of the mind" :P) Anyhow, it is an awesome class because we discuss a lot of interesting questions and there is so much to debate about (ya, totally my kind of thing and I'm LOVING it!). Add to that an amazing professor who is very sensible and makes the class so much fun etc etc... Anyway, what usually happens is we discuss some questions in class and often they are too deep for me to think about in an hour and a half with someone else voicing his thoughts about them as well. So I thought I should think about them later again, and maybe write my thoughts down- and that's how I ended up writing this post. Hoping I have enough time to do this, I intend to discuss some questions from my class and put down my thoughts on them and maybe let you wrestle with them yourselves too....

Disclaimer: A lot of the theories/concepts mentioned here are just based on my own readings of these topics and may not be the latest scientific view on the matter. In fact, if you know of new scientific evidence against any of this, do let me know in the comments section. 
Also please view this article as a purely biological/objective discussion of the topics and do not read any religious/other belief-oriented interpretations in it.

So, one of the things we were discussing in the first class was "What is behavior" Sounds simple enough, but when you think about it- you end up with questions like- Is questioning behavior? And is thinking behavior? Apparently, they both are, and so, any pattern of actions, covert or overt can be considered to be behavior (and maybe I will let you wonder whether that is valid or not, and why so).

But what is more interesting is- How come we came to have covert actions in that first place?? And here, I don't mean actions like secretly looking at your neighbor's answers or stealing his pen. By covert actions, I mean actions that cannot be observed, like thinking and deciding and.. ya, you obviously guessed it ... soliloquies.

Let us think of just the last- a soliloquy. How did it happen that man, of all animals developed a tendency to talk to himself and that too, as a part of thinking... (Clearly, I am assuming here that the crows cawing outside your window are not really saying "To be or not to be" in crow language! :P) In fact, how did it happen that man alone began to think and theorize and debate and philosophize and ask questions from "How to cook food" and "How to build homes" to "Why am I here" and "Who brought me here"  and "Is there a God"? How did it happen that man alone started to make these grand theories about a master creator and complex rituals to please him? And mathematical models of economic theories of an abstract theoretical concept called "money"?  (Click Read more for more...)

AFL? - Part 2

(Continued from part one)
And a long break later, I am back. For all those people who I disappointed in the first part, there are some clarifications I need to make on why I started this article and what evolution actually means. So I am making my Part 2 into a Part 3, and putting this up first. 
 
There are 3 reasons I started this article. One was because of the way that particular argument was presented in the particular book I read. It sounded quite convincing in that context. Also, if you have read enough of evolution, you would understand that many human behaviors do actually rise from simple behaviors designed to hunt or kill in animals. That does not mean what you do today is to hunt or kill- just that that’s where your behavior started. So it is very well possible that many of current human behavior be an evolutionary consequence of lust. The third reason is that- in a country like ours this kind of argument is very easily accepted in private and seldom in public. People secretly relish any theory that moralizes the very acts they find immoral. And that is precisely why someone needs to bring out such a theory in public and list exactly what the flaws are.

However, I need to clarify what I call flaws.
Many people told me this theory is obviously wrong, because we can’t all be motivated by a low carnal desire. Now, THAT is not a flaw! Just because something does not “sound” nice or consoling does not mean it is not true. If science proves humans are selfish (for eg.) by nature, so we are. There is no point in saying it is not valid because it does not fit in my optimistic view of life. But, note the IF.
 
Anyhow, EVERY theoretical argument deserves to be examined and argued about. The arguments for or against may be obvious, but there must be LOGICAL reasons to accept or reject a theory. Anyone who says “I refuse to argue about this” is simply giving in to blind faith. Of course, if the question were something like “Can cows fly?” there isn’t too much to argue about because the arguments against it are obvious: a) cows are not light enough to fly b) cows don’t have any faculty (like wings) to fly with c) cows are not an advanced enough species to devise a mechanism to fly, and so on. But note that there MUST be arguments. If someone told me without thinking cows can’t fly because that’s how they are or God willed them to be so, I might someday find a genetically engineered cow which can fly (long-shot, but still!). Point being, I cannot and will not reject ANY theory without sufficient arguments against it. This theory is also being looked at from the same angle- with an open mind to see its for’s and against’s and then decide.
Another thing people tell me is something of this sort-- “I don’t accept this theory. I am not playing counter strike out of lust” or “I am not doing charity work out of lust” and stuff like that. “Of course you aren’t”. The theory didn’t say YOU as an individual magically transformed all your lust into your other motivations to study, work etc. What it said was that most of human action arises from an essential desire to impress other human beings (especially the ones who have impressed you!). And the desire to impress itself is evolved from the desire to impress a partner. Please read the last 2 lines again. THIS is the heart of the AFL theory. Go back to a list of your long term goals and see if you did not have any desire to impress anyone other than yourself at all throughout. Some of us might be able to say that, but more than 90% of humans work with an overt or covert, conscious or subconscious intention to impress. All that the AFL theory says is- since impressing someone itself started out as a side-effect of the impressing-your-partner gene, most of your actions are a by-product of this primitive behavior.
 
Second. I think I missed out a little on explaining what evolution actually means or implies. Most people look at evolution the same way they look at transformation. But there is an essential difference between the two. Evolution happens bit by bit. Piece by piece. Transformation happens drastically. Besides, evolution works in a scale of thousands of years on thousands of individuals. So a behavioral trait to impress could become a behavioral trait to lie to impress only in thousands of years. The reason this is so is because evolution is NOT metamorphosis. It is not as if early man was very truthful and 1000 years later one man started hiding the truth and another 1000 later some men started saying white lies and then they grew into grey lies. That is NOT evolution.
 
Evolution is like a sieve. Hundreds of humans would have lied and hundreds would have spoken the truth. Assuming lying helped some survive (or impress the partner better in order to survive and reproduce) and always speaking the truth didn’t, more and more humans who lied would survive and pass on their lying genes to their children while the truth-speakers would not survive and not pass on the genes. This would happen for thousands of years until no truthful gene was left out, or very few truth speakers remained or everyone evolved into a state midway between the two, which optimized the chances of survival. What this means is that for the lying gene to spread, millions of humans have tried to lie and succeeded and millions have spoken the truth and failed. All this hypothetically. (Please don’t comment saying there is no gene for lying :( )
In a similar way, when one says the desire to impress a female evolved into a desire to earn more- what it means is- more and more humans that earned more found it easier than those who didn't to impress others and especially a woman, and hence more and more of their genes survived and eventually, the male biological system optimally had genes that prompted men to earn more (so that they could impress a woman).* Once such a gene was created, there is actually no need for the man to really impress a woman. His biological setup (mental/physical/whatever) would still make him want to earn more, independent of his desire to impress a woman.

That being said, is there still a catch in the theory? If not, do I agree with the theory? Answer is- No. I don’t agree. But what’s the reason I refuse to agree with the theory? What was the real catch? Part 3 coming soon! :)

*Remember it is called "Survival of the fittest". It may be cruel, it may not sound nice, but so it is.

All for Lust?? - Part 1

“The world runs on lust”, Alex said. At this point I put down the book Resident Dormitus which I have been reading since yesterday (and which will be my next review candidate) and started thinking whether Alex’s theory is really true--  do people really do everything only for lust.. This post is a product of this particular mental aerobics session of mine. (This post became quite long, so putting up the first part here. Part 2 coming soon! And ya, I know I don't usually write adult stuff and this might not go well with some of my readers- you can still read on.. This post is very much in the style of "Love is in the air"... )

 Ok. So the theory here is that everything that men (or women) do is with the intent of finding a better partner to bed. Actions like trying to find a better job (better job = better salary= higher chance of finding a more desirable spouse), or having spikes in your hair (looking cool= being more desirable to opposite sex) quite obviously substantiate the theory. But what about actions like becoming the CEO of a company? In the book, the guy argues that wanting to become a CEO is a product of the desire to earn respect, which is itself born out of the desire to find a better partner. He goes on to argue that in every action a person does, he/she seeks to differentiate him/herself from the majority in order to increase his/her chances of finding a better partner.

Looking at it from an evolutionary standpoint, this theory looks like it makes sense. As all animals, humans started out as a species whose ultimate goals were to find food and to reproduce, while staying alive, where there was always competition in finding food and sex; evolution would naturally lead to a set of humans whose every action would optimally lead them to both. To some extent, the act of reproduction is more important to a species in evolution than finding food, once the animal has passed on its own genes to an offspring (selfish gene point of view*), and hence we could hypothesize that the incentive from food eventually wanes out and all actions are intrinsically motivated by lust.

You could think of it as a game and some actions you do increase your HP (Hotness points!), where HP is a measure of your desirability/eligibility in terms of finding a partner. If the goal of the game is to get maximum HP and keep yourselves alive, and if you had a time limit or an energy cost for doing any action, with time you would end up doing only those actions that increased your HP, such that you might reach a time where all your actions shall increase your HP in some small way or the other. (Rather, you would stop doing anything that doesn’t give any HP). So with a game theory-like argument, it is quite logical that humans might have ended up as a species whose every action is essentially motivated by the prospect of finding a partner.
 
If you are like me, you would stop here and ask- wait, isn’t there a catch? Yes! Yes! Of course! :)

Imagine a society of people who value celibacy. The most desired man in such a society is the one who can resist the most irresistible of temptations and who remains single throughout his life. This is purely hypothetical, of course, but there is nothing to stop such a society from existing in this world. Men in such a society might still go after power and money, and they might also style their hair into spikes, but their motivation might be to become the best looking celibate ;) From an evolutionary standpoint, one might argue that such a society will cease to exist since of course, no one is reproducing. Again, not quite true. Such a society could have a small subset of its population, say about 10-20% of people who are not “allowed” to be celibate, and who “must” reproduce. The children might be adopted by the rest of the population. If anyone wonders how this arrangement would work, one can imagine it as a type of caste system with the upper caste being celibate and prestigious, and the lower caste delegated to the menial task of sustenance! This kind of arrangement can survive for centuries, if backed by the proper belief systems and religious approvals. Again, all this hypothetically.

But I hope you do see there is a catch in the “All for lust” theory we talked about. So, forgetting the hypotheses, what’s the catch in reality? Which loophole in evolution allows humans to develop into a society that values celibacy?

(To be continued...
 Part 2 here. )

*Selfish gene point of view: Not going into the theory, here I mean that all organisms act in a way to ensure their genes' survival. Since after reproduction and sufficient growth of the offspring the gene does not require the organism to survive, the effect of food can be ignored.

ECE

I was reading this math post. It is about puzzles and one simple method of solving most math puzzles- thinking of an extreme example. What he means is that you can assume some extreme values for the variables involved, and deduce the answer by logic. (I like the puzzles listed as well!)

Admittedly, this is a very useful method. Especially in your competitive objective type exam scenario (Though for this scenario, I personally think "Inky Pinky Ponky" is undoubtedly the method of preference!)

Few things I want to highlight though. One- You should think of the 'right' extreme example. Some extreme examples might not lead you to any conclusion at all! I remember how, in schools, teachers used to start explaining proofs by saying "draw perpendicular AD to BC" or "AM to NP" or some such thing. And immediately I would think how was I supposed to  know which perpendicular to draw? Later on I realized that if you understand geometry well enough, actually rephrase- if you know well enough to think from a geometrical angle (Pun unintended!) you will know exactly which perpendicular to draw. But point remains that you need to choose the "right" perpendicular (Oh! Again, pun unintended!) In the same way, one does not always know which extreme example to choose. And if you don't choose the right one, you might end up a) getting a long and roundabout proof or b) not proving anything at all!

Anyway, why I brought this up here is that this method is not only useful for mathematical problems. I find it a good tool to understand human behavior. For eg: When someone says I value money but I value family more, one easy way to verify it is to ask the question- "if you had to give up all your money so you could retain your family would you do that?" or something of that sort. Basically pick an extreme scenario and check your statement. In fact, this method helps even if you are simply trying to understand your own selves.

Anyway, I have used this method before, and though not mine, I thought someone should give a name for it. "Extreme Case Evaluation" sounds OK by me. Maybe I should publish a paper on it someday...
 

P.S: I hope people found out why the title is ECE... Ya ya, I know I am wicked .. :P

Perspective

Statutory Warning: This post is actually the result of one small MOSFET in TH-1 fluttering its gate- followed by a lot of chaos theory. It is weird, incomplete and random. Author not responsible for any brain damage. Or any other damage, like your company falling down 100 points on the market, because all of you are lost in deep thought after reading!

Warning (2)- If you clicked on the link for gate, and found the wrong one: I told ya, this post is random. Chaotic. Now don't start.

Perspective. It is one of my favorite words in English. (Most of you might have heard me say my standard "depends on your point of view" or "depends on what you want from it".)

I think sometimes that almost everything is a matter of perspective. No reality. Only shifting points of view and manifestations.

I remember the times in college when I realized there were a lot of things I had never even thought about while I was still at home, and suddenly they seemed weird from an outsider's point of view. And I keep claiming that my perspective has widened. Yet, when I say the "Indian junta is like this only", all I know of it are the few people I have met- maybe a 1000 odd. And we writers think we can talk about "mankind in general". Funny, huh?

Each time I think of the Big Bang and Big Crunch and Evolution (Ya. Selfish Gene remains on the list of posts "coming soon") and Bose-Einstein Condensates and Bhagavata Purana and F plasmids and DX 11 and 22nm , I am awestruck. 

Maybe because "the sound perception of an ant does not include thunder"

Maybe in reality, each universe is just a giant petri-plate we are on and someone is just testing us all in a big lab. And after thinking of that, all of religion, politics, movies, small fights, pj forwards, technology look minuscule. Insignificant.

And yet again, when I look at my weekly status reports and deadlines and quarterly plans,  nothing seems as important as hitting those targets. And I just can't help getting excited about the 3-d transistor. Until I remember the petri-plate, that is.

And I continue to wonder, what is the point of it all........

P.S: Actually, I changed my mind. Perspective, I mean. I can't help getting excited about the 3-d transistor. Even after the petri-plate! Maybe, that excitement IS the point of it all.....
P.S 2: I didn't know that I would write about the 3-d transistor thing when I started the article. The TH-1 and the 3-d tsr are unrelated. :P

Fast- II

I didn't intend writing this post really... I wanted to write about my New Year vacation, but then I think that will take some more time.. So thought will do a "quick post" instead... (And before I start, Happy New Year! :) )

This is about fasting.. (Somehow this every year around this time, I end up writing about this huh?) But really, this is a more serious take on fasting...

Right now, I am listening to a phone conversation in Tamil... (not sure if it is eavesdropping, but then this person is clearly loud and also knows others might be listening-- so not my fault you see ;) )

"You must treat me man... Come on, you got married"

"You didn't even treat me for your birthday"

"Just one rum will do da... "

......

 and so on. (translated, of course!)

Whoever it was at the other end was trying to escape, and as I type the conversation is still going on...."Wait a second.. this post was about fasting", you tell me, "and you are writing about some useless phone conversation?!"

Robot

Ok. This is not really an Enthiran review, though I do have a few things to say about Enthiran. I saw it a while ago, and it was ok. But what made me write today is, as usual, reading something. As can be expected, this time it is Asimov. For a real Asimov reader, I had been scoring low, because I hadn't read any of his novels till today. Of course, I have read MOST of his short stories (primarily thanks to Padmini, whose collections lured me out of studying before cycle tests in 1^st year!! :) ) Anyway, today's reading brought me back to this whole debate (which explains the length of this post :D). And I am keeping the Enthiran review at the end- so you can read it only if you really want to know my take on it :)

Anyway, one thing good about Enthiran is that it brought some really important debates to the masses (and gave me something to start with)- what would happen if we had a robot that could act as an independent entity? Can we be sure it won't turn against us? Can we make it understand human emotions? Will the robot become the same emotional, sentimental failure that men sometimes become? Or will it show some yet unknown characteristic or emotion?! Will it end up having psychological disorders? Will the randomness that is so part of life on Earth, play a role in robotic development as well?

These are the questions Asimov asked in his stories, and they are as relevant today as then. While we are building bigger and better computers and Japan is speeding with artificial intelligence- someone should ask the question- Do we really understand what we are doing? Do we know enough of the human brain and human emotions to understand what an object equipped with a similar (if not better) brain is capable of doing? I am not trying to be pessimistic here. I am a big fan of technology alright, but these questions are a little inevitable.

Humans believe in a lot of abstract things like spirituality, justice and ethics. Do these laws that seem to apply to us, apply to the objects that we create as well? (Aside, as a reverse question, I wonder if the laws that apply to us, apply to God- it is tricky because if they do- then it means the laws are supreme and not God himself. And if they don't, it means we have an unfair God in our hands! :D) Will the factors that motivate us motivate our robots? Or will they be motivated by things that we shall never understand?

Even further, we have observed that with knowledge competency and talent comes the desire to be independent (it comes even without, but at least some amount of submission is possible in an ignorant man)- will a computer with almost infinite knowledge be able to choose to be independent? Will it choose to prove to us that it is better? And the question that was lurking behind all along- will we become slaves of the robot? Or will we be simply destroyed eventually?

I know you are saying the day is far off when we will leave the computer with such a choice. I know we are not there yet today. But aren't many of us really living our lives for the sake of the computer- spending our lives designing it, testing it, feeding it, enhancing it- or maybe I should say breeding it?! If half the world can be addicted to facebook today, and a piece of code called Farmville can create an extraordinary experiment on living neurons- with just today's compute power- what might happen when we really have humanoids?

It probably sounds a little overstated. And anyway, I am digressing.The point is do we know the impact of our machines on us? Or whether thinking machines will obey us at all?

An even more interesting question is- do we really have a say in this? I know Steven Rose says each creature has its say in evolution- he is possibly right in the fact that we have a choice. But we have constraints limitations on our choices. And we don't have complete knowledge of the consequences of each choice. Maybe, maybe like Asimov postulates in his story, we shall never have a say and ultimately machines shall rule us. Or maybe they won't. Or maybe the question just needs a positronic brain to find the answer... And until then we just have the cliché- "Only time can tell"....

(Click read more for Enthiran review)

In one word...

I discovered something today morning, Nothing like gravity or relativity. Just a small observation.

That every person has a basic flavor. Or essence (as Jonathan Stroud would have it). By this I mean each person can essentially be described by one word. Just one word. To describe all actions, thoughts, principles- literally everything- about the person.

I had tried to do this long ago- just to see if I hit upon anything- tried to describe each person I know in a single word. A word to describe what impression I had of that person. I wasn't all that successful at that time, but today's task, I think, should be possible. The difference here is that this one word should not be what that person reminds you of. It should be a word that explains his complete nature. 

For example, I know someone whose nature, in all its totality,  can be described as "Argument". This person would not listen to half a sentence of yours without arguing. In fact, even when he is talking, or writing a program, or any other such thing, you would see how his mind falls back to "argument" in every step.

Another person I know can be described by "I-don't-want-to-be-blamed".* This person, while having a lot of attributes, is always trying to ensure he is not wrong in anybody's eyes. I am not saying he tries to portray himself as good etc, he really is a good person as far as I know, but even while simply talking, or maybe even thinking his mind always goes back to this precept. Any stand he takes on any issue and any example he might give can be derived from, or at least, traced back to this.

I have a lot more examples- but the last I will mention here is someone I talked to yesterday. And I must mention this person because yesterday's conversation was what triggered my discovery itself. His word was "Action". Whatever you spoke to him, his mind would automatically go to what could be "done" about it. You could talk to him abstract philosophy and still his mind was continuously asking "anything to be done here?" However much u tried to divert it to concepts or theories, it always leaped back to action.

So, what do you think? Can all attributes of a person be described in one word? Try thinking of someone close to you... Or someone you know very well... And try to describe them in one word... You might discover a lot about their nature. And maybe even yours!!

*I know that's not really a single word... Writers' license u see ;)

P.S- Someone just asked me what word best describes me. I have found the word, but I don't think I ought to reveal it. Like they say, some mysteries of the world are better left unsolved! ;)

Are you significant? -Part 2

Before I begin- link of the day. Makes me nauseate and I don't know what else :( (Got it from Shruthi's blog)


(Continued from Part-1)

So yes, I am back after quite a few months with that same nagging question- Are you significant?

To value or not to value?

I read this post some days back… Are Indian values simply habits??


[ 2 answers to this question---- value systems are in general inherited, whether we like it or not. Second- read on...]

Before I start let me admit I have no interest whatsoever in correcting the writer. In fact, apart from this post, his blog is simply one of the best I have ever read. However, wrt this post, I think he is partially correct (which implies partially wrong), but I don't think it necessary for me to correct/convince him. I am posting this only because his article triggered an interesting thought process in my head)