Bigger Brother

The brain is the engine of thought and action, and the brain is entirely physical. Imagine that our understanding of the laws of physics evolves to a state that we can accurately predict how people's brains will react, and thus how people think in response to events in their environment. Such a machine is Pierre.


A brain scanner maps the brain states of a person. Then the supercomputer Pierre, monitors the various stimuli the person is exposed to and will then predict what their future behavior will be. But there are limitations. This technology works best in a controlled and enclosed environment akin to a lab experiment. And therefore the predictions can only be made a few moments ahead, since tiny errors in predictions escalate to large ones. But the computer can nonetheless predict how the person will react for the next few moments. In a sense we will be able to know the person's mind better than they do themselves. (Source: The deterministic thesis of the French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace)


When I read this scenario in the chapter, I was unsure of what the main questions/issues it dictated for discussion. The possibility of such an evolution in the world of science? The ethics behind using such a powerful technology? The implications on what the mind is, if it could be dissected so clearly by science? Is it a violation of some sort? Does it mean we humans are reduced to machines who can be predicted through their inputs? Is our free will, or ability to act as free agents, being threatened in some way if such a machine could exist?


To begin with, do I concede to the possibility (at least theoretical) of such a machine? Well, my knowledge of quantum physics is little to none, so I don't think I'm qualified to argue either ways. So for the purpose of this thought experiment let me assume that there can be such a machine; I take Laplace's word for it :) . Well then if the machine could predict our next state based on the physical states of our brain and environment, then does it mean our thoughts are no more random than physical causal events in the universe? Does it imply our actions are not entirely free, they are obvious consequences that we follow through with?


Well, I was thinking of the difference between prediction and freedom/free will, and the relationship they have between each other. It took me to astrology... then to destiny... and then to a wall :). An age old question again. Are we in control of our lives, or is everything "predestined", "meant-to-be" and hence subject to prediction based on our physical states? I seem to be asking more questions than try to answer them :)


Ok for one, the machine can only predict the next state lasting a few moments into future, not more than that....and that too in a controlled environment. Life is not really a controlled environment. And I don't know what sort of predictions on future actions/behavior the machine can make. Is it something as precise as "the person will now occupy the red chair, five seats from his right?", or something with a tinge of conditional probability stating "the person will likely drink water since it was hot out". If it were similar to the latter, then I don't see it as a threat to free will. All of us can predict and judge our close ones on their likes and dislikes, behavioral patterns, and can make predictions on the food they would order, the clothes they would buy, their reactions to situations etc. It doesn't mean they are stripped of their free will, their freedom is intact. They eventually choose to do what they want to. There will be a margin of error in our predictions. But if the prediction were as precise as the former, then it is surely unsettling. If it were based on behavioral and psychological patterns then it's not as alarming... for that's what psychologists aim at (although they would still account for a margin of error)


Why is it unsettling - 1) one is the fact that all these predictions were made not based on psychological attributes, but on physical states, 2) there is probably no margin of error in the prediction lasting to the next few moments, 3) there is seemingly no logic to some "random" actions... we ourselves wouldn't know why we decided to sit on that specific red chair to the right. It was random, yet a machine could attribute some sort of "causal link", 4) there is no real uniqueness to our thoughts and actions. It all would depend on neurons firing away based on the physical state of our brain.


So yes, I do see ourselves as predestined agents with a disillusioned sense of free will if there could be a machine predicting even our seemingly random actions with a high degree of precision, all based on physical brain states. It doesn't matter if the prediction is only valid for the next few moments; if there were some feedback loop, then the machine can continuously predict our next states in consecutive small intervals. But if the environment were too controlled so as to drastically cut down the choices normally available in real life then the predictions have a higher chance of being mathematically accurate, and they seem to lessen the severity of the threat on free will; not convincing enough to disregard the threat.


Now taking a slight detour - I am curious about what one's belief in destiny is. There are some who take comfort in the knowledge that their lives are destined and set. Failures are not seen as harsh since they resign that no matter how hard they tried there was a greater force that they couldn't alter. Their actions are hence not blamed as much, they seem to cope up with changes in life, and are resilient to adapting since they accept each turn of event as the work of destiny. On the other hand, are those who can't accept that their lives are being controlled in some manner. They want to be in charge of their lives, and cringe from the possibility that their actions are not entirely their free will. And some in the middle, who view a little of both happening. I sometimes think Life is a game similar to Monopoly. There is an element of chance/luck due to the throw of the die. But once we reach the spot, what we choose to do at that juncture is up to us, our free will.... although our choices are very limited due to the rules. Who framed the rules of Life? Many times society, many times we ourselves.


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Update: I just came across a wonderful post here: http://pritigem.blogspot.com/2008/08/does-god-play-dice-excerpt-from.html where the author has done a good job of bringing in the perspectives of determinism from the standpoint of Laplace, Heisenberg and Einstein. It adds the much needed physics-dimension to the discussion.

Good God

And the Lord spake unto the philosopher, "I'm the Lord thy God, and I'm the source of all that is good. Why does thy secular moral philosophy ignore me?"
And the philosopher spake unto the Lord, "To answer I must first ask you some questions. You command us to do what is good. But is it good because you command it or do you command it because it is good?"
"Ur," said the Lord. "It's good because I command it?"
"The wrong answer surely, your mightiness! If the good is only good because you say it is so, when you could, if you wished, make it so that torturing infants was good. But that would be absurd, wouldn't it?"
"Of course!", replieth the Lord. "I tested thee and thou hast made me pleased. What was the other choice again?"
"You choose that which is good because it is good. But that shows quite clearly that goodness does not depend on you at all. So we don't need to study God to study the good."
"Even so," spake the Lord, "you've got to admit I've written some pretty good textbooks on the subject...", (Source: Euthyphro by Plato)


This has been the age old debate - the role of religion in morality. And it somehow seems all the more fitting when in today's world morality is being blatantly violated in the name of religion. This chapter also questions one's faith and belief in a supernatural being - God. Being a very sensitive subject, I hope to not offend anyone with my views. This is my little disclaimer :).

My views on God and religion have been evolving for many years now and they continue to evolve and change with every passing year. I have also come to realize that some phenomena in the universe are beyond the comprehension and reasoning of my current state of mind, and I'm ignorant of how to train my mind sufficiently to stretch its limits of comprehension. Be that as it may, I gave a whole week to ruminate on this chapter; to collect my views, question them again and arrive at some conclusion.


In my view, religion is one form of judicial system to keep society in order. It holds the strength to be a robust form of judiciary, because the one who framed the laws is a supernatural power - God (or so it is claimed). One who is omnipresent and omnipotent, unlike us mortals who try to frame laws on morality. It's ironical that a principle which tries to keep society in order, now wreaks havoc. Morality derived out of religion is called the "Divine Command Theory". There are no questions, no confusions... the laws are in the scriptures.


God is our collective belief and faith of everything positive and good around us. A belief in a supernatural being who looks after us, who knows how and when to punish the bad and reward the good. In that sense, since we attribute every possible good attribute to God, God is a personification of everything Good...


When I was young I believed in an actual God sitting up on His throne and looking down at earthlings and engaging his messengers to ensure good wins over evil. I had no doubt that if someone did something wrong, they would be punished. As I grew up, I realized there is no such clear line between good and evil, and the good did not always win over the evil; especially if the Divine Command Theory were followed. What is good in the Hindu moral code is bad in another religion and vice versa. This confused me. This, in my opinion, is the reason why Religion cannot guarantee good; it enforces morality that is not absolute. As the universe comes together and populations and cultures get homogenized, we are in need of a moral code that is more absolute and objective. But, this is one part of the argument.


If there were no God associated with good, would that work? I have my doubts. I started with a spiritual/religious grounding that perhaps is at the bedrock of my decisions. There have been many many times when I have succumbed to disregarding my faith in God and the balance of good and evil... and it threw my world out of focus. There was no more any meaning to existence, to life and our decisions. It seemed to pluck away the meaning of Hope. I no longer understood why some babies were born blind and some healthy, why some "good" people were put through horrendous tortures while the "bad" thrived.  The explanation of randomness playing a role, did not appease me; it further confused me. I didn't understand why one had to do good if life was just a matter of survival. Isn't the lion hunting the deer for it's survival justified? Why then should I be the deer in my society, why can't I be the lion? Why then should I try to be moral all the time when there are those who play a wiser game?


And therein comes the belief system that seems to restore order, serenity and comfort. A common thread of spirituality across religions that begs us to look into ourselves, search for our true peace within ourselves and to detach from the mundane of the material society. It is a tonic for the tortured mind... be it true or not. Not every person on this earth is blessed with a good family, a good upbringing, a good exposure to knowledge, intellectual stimulation and hence a clear mind to reason with clarity on morality for the sake of society.


If there were no rules from scriptures, no belief systems in a higher authority, a mind that has gone through violence in tender ages and abuse to intellectual growth, cannot be expected to reason with clarity, or be expected to apply absolute moral codes that asks one to be good for the sake of the society. For such millions, good can rarely exist without a spiritual grounding, and a belief system to hold on to. In many ways, it's a tribal culture. Fear is instilled in the name of religion and God, Hope is infused through inspiring mythologies, Peace is brought about through rituals like prayers that try to discipline the mind.


Sadly, this is also one way for people to stop reasoning, to stop applying their minds. Every situation in life is looked at through religious codes... most of which tend to be heavily misinterpreted. Wisdom fails to grow, barbarism is festered. Herein lies the responsibility of religious leaders to clarify the principles and ideologies. But sadder it is, to realize many such leaders lack openness of mind. And therein lies the flip side of religious fanaticism.


I still don't know enough about spirituality to claim the real presence or absence of God. But I do know that while good can be studied without God, applying moral decisions at all times without a grounding of God is only possible for a mature, strong and pure mind. Such a mind is found in every one in a million of us.


To me, religion and God are belief systems to reinforce wisdom, sort of like training wheels on a bike to help us balance.. but something from which we all should graduate, as our minds mature....

Stifling Expressions

"The student watched his brother with surprise. He did not know, he who wore his heart on his sleeve, he who observed only the good old law of Nature in the world, he who allowed his passions to follow their inclinations, and in whom the lake of great emotions was always dry, so freely did he let it off each day by fresh drains, he did not know with what fury the sea of human passions ferments and boils when all egress is denied to it, how it accumulates, how it swells, how it overflows, how it hollows out the heart; how it breaks in inward sobs, and dull convulsions, until it has rent its dikes and burst its bed. The austere and glacial envelope of Claude Frollo, that cold surface of steep and inaccessible virtue, had always deceived Jehan. The merry scholar had never dreamed that there was boiling lava, furious and profound, beneath the snowy brow of Aetna.", Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

Beautiful words from a stirring book. I'm yet to read another book laden with precious literary and philosophical gems page after page...so deeply moving are the words, that I truly revere the book. This post is not part of the series on the book I'm currently reading. Just a little venting of my own...

Why is it that we have culturally evolved to stifle expressions - especially positive ones? In a "civilized" gathering it is always frowned upon to openly express true happiness, joy or love. Many of us have been strictly raised to be stoic, to not let our emotions seep through our behavior and facial expressions- be it good or bad. I can understand why it is better to calm or repress negative emotions such as anger, jealousy or hatred.

Unbridled expressions of anger tend to result in heat-of-the-moment passion crimes which are mostly regretted when the red film of anger tones down. And it's most certainly "uncivil" if we heard Obama and McCain exchange honest expressions of anger through rude insults, that held the potential to escalate to a physical fight if the parties involved refrained from maintaining the decorum. It is also signifies each others' level of tolerance towards different view points, and their maturity in being able to open their minds and reason passionately, yet fairly so.

But why try to stifle the "good" ones? I realize it's tricky to define good. Aren't all emotions natural? Then why label them as good or bad? In my definition (restricted to this article), "good" implies no harm done; psychological or physical to anyone who is a recipient of the expression. Why then are there hushes when we want to jump up with joy, or yell our throats out to vent our happiness? Why is it looked down upon to see open expressions of love? Why are such open expressions associated with being undignified?

How many of us can freely articulate what we feel, through simple words or gestures? Not me, I know. I can feel the heat from the stern stare of my mom looking down at me with disapproval writ large on her face when I "giggle too much", or I lose myself to share a hearty laugh. I guess the words to focus here are "lose myself"... getting us to vulnerability.

It's sad to realize how many people around me keep stifling their expressions to guard their emotions from "leaking through". This only results in unspoken words, unexpressed gestures that are struggling to be released, yet tightly leashed. Is it only because we are so afraid of being vulnerable if we exposed our true emotions? It's almost like watching all those sci-fi robots and monsters that are seen struggling to exhibit emotions like sadness and love (Kong-Kong for one), when they can so freely vent their violence and anger. Deep down are we all like those monsters struggling to freely express our gentler emotions, when we don't flinch to show our anger and distaste?

Well, in the case of King-Kong he struggled to even realize he had such emotions... their expression is another category I guess. But we humans keep building walls to maintain a stoic exterior that is deceptive of the person's true emotions - just like how Victor Hugo describes Frollo. And I don't understand why culturally we have been taught and conditioned to stifle expressions as pure and refreshing as happiness, love and joy. Does this tie to the philosophy of moderation? Is unbridled expressions of pure happiness really undignified?

When no one wins

This chapter is along the lines of a horrific Holocaust story that always leaves me with the utter shock at how humans could ever be so cold-hearted.


Private Sacks had been ordered to rape and kill a prisoner whom he knew was a perfectly innocent civilian who happened to be from the wrong ethnic background. He knew what he was ordered to do was entirely cruel and immoral. But he thought of the situation again and surmised that if he didn't execute the orders, not only will he be killed, but the prisoner will also be invariably put through the torture by someone else. If it were him, he would at least make sure the prisoner faces a "bearable" amount of abuse and be killed as quickly and painlessly as possible, rather than be cruelly tortured by another agent. He reasoned this would be the best course of action given the circumstance. Is he justified? Can this mean that sometimes it is inevitable for even the best course of action to be grossly immoral?


This situation echoes the use of the Utilitarian principle again. If Sacks decided to preserve his integrity, he loses his life and the prisoner gets killed and abused, probably more violently. So there is no "win" here. If Sacks went ahead with the order, he saves his life and is more "considerate" in ensuring a far less painful and violent, albeit inevitable death to the prisoner. This seems to ensure "greater good". But it is still immoral beyond doubt. Or is it? If Sacks goes ahead with it, how will he face such a guilt, how will his conscience punish him for the rest of his life?


For the purpose of not circumventing the severity of such a situation, we will assume that Sacks is not as adept as Batman or James Bond to try and do something miraculous to save the prisoner and himself.


All of us face similar dilemmas (similar in principle but not in magnitude). There are often crossroads when we're torn between which road to take, knowing that either one will end up hurting someone, or yourself. It's common for us to consider ourselves first and go ahead with a choice that leaves us searching for ways to assuage our guilt, and we end up justifying our ends through the means...probably how Sacks tries to convince himself of providing a painless death to the prisoner, to save his own life.


But when we do take the road of self-sacrifice in an attempt to do the moral thing, it still results in consequences that are dire. If Sacks decides to take the bullet and honor his integrity, in what way is he helping the prisoner? Does he then resign to his fate and that of the prisoner? Is it better to resign ourselves to the uncontrollable forces of fate than commit an immoral act?


Obviously there is no solution or right answer. But I know that people like Sacks are much needed in the world. If he remained alive, he could probably help in preventing more such crimes because of his heart and head being in the right places. There are surely many more prisoners and innocent people whose fates could be altered, if a genuine agent were still alive. If Sacks is confident of saving the lives of at least two other innocent people in his lifetime, then for that reason alone he is justified to stay alive to commit his crime. If he knows he can't help the other prisoners anymore than what he can with the current, then he has no option but to resign, and at least save his integrity.

Wheel of Fortune

Marge is an ordinary woman; she is no genius or a mathematician and she would love to earn some easy money. She had been observing how roulette was being played at the casino and she had discovered an apparently foolproof system of getting rich playing it. She noticed that it was quite common for the ball to fall into only black or only red slots during consecutive spins of the wheel. But the ball falling into the same color for 5 times in a sequence was unusual, and rarer it was for the ball to fall into the same color for six times or more in a row. As a matter of fact, she observed this happen only a couple of times in an entire day.


Hence her plan was to observe the ball falling into the same color for 5 times in a row, and then bet the next spin of the wheel on the other color, confident that her chance of winning was very high than losing. Can Marge afford to believe so?


I wracked my brain for a bit, struggling to find a flaw in her reasoning. You see I'm no mathematician myself, and as much as I tried to recall my classes on Logic and Probability, I really couldn't find anything amiss. And when I finally resigned and read what Baggini had to say, I still didn't get it!! Call me hopeless with Math. So I read it again, carefully, very carefully, and then the bulb finally glowed.


Since I've essentially not been successful in cracking or reasoning this puzzle myself, I don't want to merely repeat Baggini's reasoning. I will leave this as a fresh puzzle to anyone who chances by this article. But a little hint : we often miss out on subtle details of a problem due to our inevitable urge and selective processing, to look for what we want to find...

The Pig that wants to be Eaten

Ah... finally the book's title is uncovered. The chapter is no euphemism, it means exactly what it reads :). What if you meet a pig that wants you to eat him?

Charles has been a vegetarian all his life, for not wanting to kill or hurt animals. But he had always wondered how meat tasted, and of late he'd been craving to try and have at least one meal of meat. Of course his principles forbade him, so he stopped himself. Imagine you're in a world where animals can talk. Or perhaps Charles just happened to meet one special pig that could talk. The pig tells Charles that his/her life time's ambition is to be eaten by someone else. The pig was reared comfortably and was not ill treated in any way. As a matter of fact, the pig has been looking forward to his day at the butcher's place. Oh so crushed would be the pig's soul if no one ate him.... and Charles wondered if it's unfair to disappoint such an animal's lifetime wish....

If that's not enough, Charles comes to know of a genetically modified chicken that was born in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). The chicken was no much aware of itself than a carrot would be of itself. Eating the chicken was no different than eating a carrot. Charles argues if it's against his principles to eat such a chicken. (Source: The Restaurant at the the end of the Universe, Douglas Adams)

If Charles's principle is towards saving the animal from trauma, and nothing more, then I guess both the animals will face no trauma (the pig will go through painless execution, and both animals were not cruelly reared). If I did meet such a pig or a chicken what would I do? Well, to make matters a little more interesting (and weird) why not consider this - what if Charles meets a man who wants to be eaten? I think I've heard of such a man/case somewhere sometime in an article. Cannibalism is frowned upon, because we humans associate value and dignity to our lives even if we lose all state of awareness and get into a state of PVS. Therefore meat is not just seen as meat. So herein comes the main question -- how different do we consider animals from humans? Animals can't think as much, lack a lot of human emotion and behavior and many many more characteristics due to the current state of evolution. What then are the principles behind our principles on ethical treatment of animals?

I'm a vegetarian myself, so this puzzle is a good one for me. The reason why I don't eat meat is because I consider animals to have a certain dignity. They are living beings who can feel pain, have the right to live, and who obviously don't want to be killed. With all the vegetables and fruits around, why try to kill an animal? I also like pets, and I think all animals are alike. Why be prejudiced against salmons and chickens when I would treasure a gold fish in the tank and an adorable doggy play mate. But as I write these sentences I'm aware of all the "prejudices" within me, and I know I don't act completely true to all those statements.

If I really considered animals to have a certain dignity, then I shouldn't be using any animal product -- milk, cheese, eggs, leather, fur, silk, certain oils, gelatin etc. Although I do abstain myself from leather, fur, gelatin, animal oils, I can't say the same about the rest. For half the time I don't realize what goes inside packaged foods (which is another issue by itself) and I have NO IDEA about how the cows and chickens were treated to get all the milk and eggs.... they are probably kept in miserable conditions.

I also am aware that I wouldn't mind getting certain animals killed --- rats for one (especially if they try to pay a dear visit to my kitchen), lizards for another, cockroaches (the numerous ones I have swatted through my life...), spiders, bees and others that fit into the subset of pests. If I were cornered by a cobra, and I had a spear in my hand, I wouldn't worry about saving it. And if mice were used for cancer research, I don't complain.

So why these "prejudices"? I would take on a Utilitarian stance on this problem. The law of "greater good". If I were to form an equation of the consequences of each scenario, from two different perspectives (if the animal is spared, and the animal is used) and I weigh the outcomes in terms of the "good" generated by the two, I will be convinced if I picked the one that led to the greater good to the majority. I can therefore argue killing snakes, tigers, bees, spiders and bugs for self-defense, rats and cockroaches to ward off diseases, and using mice in experiments to help save millions from cancer. I can argue that milk and cheese provide necessary nourishment for me, which is otherwise very hard to be substituted with. If one day, chickens became endangered, then eating them will be clearly forbidden to save the ecosystem. But today, killing a cow/chicken that never did any harm to me, and will likely do no harm to me, when I can eat other things, is an unbalanced equation. But I do see loopholes... what is "good"? Can we really quantify suffering and good to balance out such equations? It's not something that can be clearly defined all the time.

Everything said and done, will I substitute humans to be used in such an equation of "greater good"? This borders on issues like euthanasia, capital punishments, wars, abortions etc. So the truth is, we do consider animals to be lesser than us and hence assume rights over them, which we probably shoudn't... but oh well it's the survival of the fittest.

The pig that wants to be eaten, will invariably be consumed by so many other people, if not by Charles; and the same holds for the chicken. So Charles is not obliged to eat the pig to save it's life-long wish. If his principle is centered only on ethical treatment of animals before execution and a painless execution, then he does not violate his principle in any way by eating the animals. But If he associated some amount of dignity to the animals, then eating them for the only "good" of satisfying his temptation and hunger violates his principle.

A Byte on the Side

Richard has been happily married for several years. Unfortunately he has reached a stage in his relationship wherein he is "bored" because of the lack of passion. He hardly sleeps with his wife and doesn't seem to find her sexual anymore. But he does love his wife and thinks the world of her and knows that she makes a wonderful mother for his children. He doesn't intend to leave her or hurt her by falling into an affair to satisfy his other "needs". He also realizes that his wife will not agree to an open relationship.


At this point, Richard comes to know of a company that provides a virtual-reality experience of having a passionate time with a simulated agent. It's akin to cyber-sex except that there is no real person on the other side of the internet. This is a virtual environment wherein Richard's mind will be stimulated into thinking he is sleeping with another woman, but in effect there is no third person involved. Should Richard succumb to this?


To be honest, this chapter made me feel low -- I don't know why. Maybe it's because of all the numerous movies and stories and real life incidents I have witnessed. This was one such a case where you can either think with your head or think with your heart. My gut response to this question was to say it's OK for Richard to go ahead and try this new experience, and I don't know if it came through my head or heart...


Monogamy is a concept that is formed out of the premise that human relationships are far too complex to be trifled with. This is what I think. As much intelligence as we are proud to have acquired, we have as much of emotions. We can theorize that a man can have several partners and yet love them equally. Hell, with just one woman, a man has to deal with the possessiveness between his wife, his mother, his sister, sometimes sister-in-law... lol :). Practically speaking, polygamy is very hard to exist, with all partners feeling equally secure and happy in the relationship.


That being said, infidelity is viewed as betrayal. While a man can argue that passion and love can be separated, and that he can have his wife for love and affection, and mistress for others, somewhere in the line of this argument I find the mistress being exploited. Maybe the mistress would claim that she is well aware of what she's in for and she is ok with it, but still after millions of years of evolution, one thing still hasn't changed - it is the need for a female to want off-springs and look for a suitable mate, and for a male to want to procreate as much as possible. Given modern times and our evolved minds, this might not be a primary goal anymore, but it's hard to refute that these instincts are really dead... after all, it's man's caveman-instinct that makes him fantasize for more women, bores him of one woman, and makes him venture down this road, in the first place... So it's natural for the wife to get threatened by introducing another woman into the picture. Infidelity therefore is a break of promise to nurture, love and provide exclusively for the mate and offsprings.


I can think of two ways to fix this problem - 1. Let Richard indulge in this virtual experience, and he ends up being happy and hurts none. Well... this seems more like a band-aid on the wound. Probably Richard having stopped sharing his intimacies with his wife is an initial symptom of problems in their relationship. If this is not directly addressed, would there be more symptoms that would crop up soon, resulting in deeper problems? Although there is no third person involved, Richard's wife might still be upset because he has stopped sharing these experiences with her.


If so, then a long term solution is - 2. Talk and discuss about this with his wife and see how this can be remedied. Honesty is good, it might hurt the wife, but it's a good sign that Richard is trying to work it out with her. Whether a solution can be reached, and how happy both Richard and his wife are at the end of it all, is uncertain. It might make Richard more frustrated, the wife more insecure and could probably result in more problems.


I pick 1... he is not cheating on her or breaking his promise, he is going through a virtual experience to satisfy his curiosity and temptation. My guess is he will tire out of it at some point, or may get old enough to stop it (whichever comes first). Most often, this just a phase, some form of a mid-life crisis, and hopefully this experience will give Richard the much needed anti-boredom tonic and his relationship will be fine.


If I were still 16 years old (sigh) and was still wide-eyed and bambi-like, I would have picked 2. Both lines of reasoning cannot guarantee a solution. They are both crafted in such a way so as to not hurt the wife and that is the focus. If Richard really loves his wife and wants to make the relationship work , then he should address the problems that surface due to pursuing course 1., or try to compromise, if the outcomes from course 2 don't really meet to his satisfaction.


This question makes us ponder on our expectations from a relationship. How exclusive and 1-1 should a relationship be? Are there different boundaries for infidelity?

The Indian and Ice

An Indian lady, Lata has lived her whole life in a village in Rajasthan, close to the Thar Desert. Among many things, India is commonly known for it's hot and sultry weather. And if one lives near a desert, you can be certain to have faced nothing but high temperatures and severe water depravity. We assume that this tale happened in the early 1800s, when many countries didn't know of a refrigerator or freezer. Lata had never heard or seen one. Lata's brother Raj was a traveler and he was adventurous to venture out into the world, meet different people and interact with different cultures. Raj returned from one such a long trip to the West and was regaling Lata with all his stories, full of wondrous things and novel experiences.


In his tales, he mentions about this curious thing called "Ice". A fascinated Raj was trying to explain to his sister that in some countries, temperatures went so cold that water turned into solid, called Ice. He was intrigued that there wasn't a drastic change in temperature between the transient states when water turned solid. Lata nodded quietly with a sad thought that her brother had turned into one of those pompous travelers who weave tales and talk of mystical creatures just to gain popularity and superiority among their naive villagers.


Lata did not believe that water could turn into solid. She refused to be gullible to her brother's tales. Was her reasoning right? (Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume)


On one hand, Lata's skepticism must be appreciated. She was definitely not as naive as the other women and relied on her judgments and experiences. On the other hand, was she being overly cautious and narrow-minded? I believe that while Lata was truly a strong woman who was shrewd enough to not believe everything that someone as close as her own brother would tell her, her beliefs were probably too rigid to let her open her mind and question the possibility.


I would have appreciated her reasoning, if she had considered the possibility and tried to find reasons as to how it could not hold true, and then tried to refute them... she only used her limited experiences and beliefs to refute that it could not hold true. If a person has not won an argument from both sides, then there is a hole in the reasoning. Having been in a hot place, she must have seen water evaporate - i.e., water changes to another state (steam) when the temperature is increased. Could it then change state when the temperature was decreased? She has surely not tried it.... so can she be sure?


Obviously, she doesn't have the capacity to perform such an experiment. Neither can anyone demonstrate it to her in the middle of a desert. But sometimes we accept certain things without question. When I was young, I didn't question when I was taught that sun rises in the east, we breathe in O2 and exhale CO2 etc. Those were accepted as being true since everybody around me believed so. I didn't have to perform experiments to accept them. I trusted my sources.


Could Lata have trusted some sages who came down from the Himalayas and said they had seen ice and snow? Could she have trusted it if the idol of Shiva showed the snow capped mountains, or if the vedic mantras mentioned them? My guess is yes.


In this particular scenario, Lata could not have accepted this statement as the truth, unless it was proved to her, or it was stated in a context in which she believed in. Lata's reasoning was incomplete - good that she did not readily believe her brother, but she didn't let herself question the possibility of it because of her intractable belief system of her world around her.... and that's not a good sign of reasoning. This is commonly called as the frog-in-the-well syndrome :)


Baggini's question is - how do we draw the line between trusting someone, and being judicious enough to not get fooled? Thoughts?

Beam me up...

Again, I have heard of this question before and I was beaming :)... Interestingly, I heard of this problem from the character Dr. Sheldon Cooper, from the sitcom, "Big Bang Theory". The original source is from "Reasons and Persons", by Derek Parfit.


The question is this - Stelios has come up with a teletransporter that can transport a person within minutes to Mars. Sort of like the phenomenon of Apparation, from Harry Potter. The teletransporter scans every cell of our body and brain and stores this information. Then it destroys the current form, and recreates the person cell by cell, in Mars. So you fall asleep and then wake up in Mars. The question is - is Stelios actually killing a person and then recreating their clone on Mars? Will you be the same person on Mars, or is it only your clone?
People who have used it, don't lose any of their consciousness. They still know they are themselves when they land up in Mars, and they could continue with their life as if nothing happened. But wasn't their physical body destroyed on Earth? For a few brief moments, they did not exist... so doesn't that mean death?


My thoughts - I have wondered what the difference between sleep and death really is. Death is when someone never wakes up, and probably doesn't dream when they don't wake up, and continues to "sleep". In addition, the physical body degenerates. BOTH these criteria need to be satisfied to call a person dead.... their consciousness is dead and so is their physical body. I know for sure that the teletransporter destroyed the body, but the consciousness seemed to be intact, for the person "woke up" remembering who he was. Or was consciousness also destroyed and recreated?


Our clone is not the same person that we are. A clone may physically and biologically be identical, but not mentally. If you're psychologically "the same person", then you're not a clone. So far, Baggini's views resonates with mine. But for those brief moments, I don't know if the person's consciousness also ceased to exist. What was the person going through when he was teletransported.... did he have visions and dreams or did he have nothing? Well... some people don't have dreams when they sleep, so what is my rule to understand if consciousness did exist when the body was destroyed... can consciousness exist without a physical body or a brain?


I don't think the teletransporter can scan the "mind and consciousness". They are not physical entities to have shape, or structure or properties to be stored. Yet the person on Mars did not lose his consciousness, which lends me to think of two possible explanations for his consciousness to have been retained:


1. "consciousness" is indeed a property that emanates out of the unique composition of our physical brain. When a jar of jasmine perfume is opened, one smells the scent of jasmine and not rose. So, when the chemical structure of jasmine is scanned and recreated, it will emanate the same smell, although the scent by itself was not stored. If we were to imagine the brain to be a hard disk, and the transporter scanned the hard disk, then the data is preserved and hence the "program behavior" is preserved. If this is the case, then, when the brain was destroyed, the "scent" or program was also destroyed, because it doesn't exist without the physical structure. And hence the person was dead for those brief moments. The person on Mars is not a clone... just a recreation of the person. Sort of like waking up from being dead, like we've heard of some patients in surgery whose heartbeat stops for a few seconds and then revives.


2. "consciousness" is probably the soul. A soul exists without body or mind. If this is the case, despite the physical body being destroyed, the soul was not destroyed. Since this soul took up the same body and remembered everything and retained the identity of the same person, the person was not technically dead. In Hindu beliefs, when souls take on another body and lose their memory of past life, it is called Re-incarnation of the dead. Here it is not re-incarnation.


I don't know which of the two explanations is true, or rather which one I tend to believe more :). "Logically", 1 seems more appropriate to me at this point, for 2. has a lot of unaccounted questions themselves - what is the soul, is there a soul, is re-incarnation possible? I don't have answers to 2., but I tend to not dismiss it just because I don't have the answers. So I'm undecided between the two....


Baggini argues that the person is not dead, since by the theory of "psychological continuity", the consciousness was continued, and as long as consciousness was intact, the person is the same person, not a clone. Hence he was never dead, for the dead cannot come to life.

The Evil Demon

The basic question posed in this chapter is taken from Descartes's, "Meditations". When I saw the source, I was as happy as a child that I was aware of this discussion and what Descartes had to say about it :).


Descartes tried to explain the working of the human mind, and to understand what goes inside our mind. The first question he poses is - how self-evident is everything around us? Is it true that the grass is green as seen by you and me? Or am I just led to believe that we both see the grass to be green, yet what I call green is actually seen as red by you? Can we believe everything that we perceive in the world to be the truth, or is there some "evil demon", or God who has programmed us to view, act and behave the way we do. Are we living in a dream? To a hypnotized person who has been "programmed" or "instructed" a certain way, two plus two is five and that is the truth to him. If hypnosis is possible, are we all then "hypnotized" by such an evil demon? Can we really trust what we see and believe as facts, to be the truth?


"Matrix" series is what springs to my mind. When I started reading a few paragraphs by Descartes describing and reasoning about this, my head started to ache. According to me, one of the reasons why Philosophy is probably taken to be such a dense and hard to reach science is the way the philosopher communicates. The paragraphs are riddled with dense and complicated sentences, and almost all views are expressed in such a seemingly convoluted and lofty style. I will try my best to not sound so.


So here is what I have thought - As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have sometimes felt like I am a third person looking at a movie of this character (me) and experiencing what she goes through, just like how one would get engrossed in a movie or a novel and start associating themselves with the character. I really cannot fathom what will happen when my consciousness ceases to exist, or when my character exits the stage. I may be living in a movie, dream or be hypnotized. But in whatever state I am in, people around me seem to share the same belief on many aspects of this world, making me be harmonious with my assumed-reality. I may be led to believe so, and I may never know. Using Fodor's principle; my mental model of the world is nothing but rules and representations of my beliefs of how the world is, as perceived by me. In which case, there is probably no absolute truth, which is why I see everyone of us trying to solve the mystery and have our own interpretations based on our beliefs and perceptions of the world.


So is there anything that can be trusted as being true without a doubt? To this Descartes says, our ability to doubt and reason, is probably the only thing that is self-evident without doubt. And I agree. I don't know if the grass is indeed green or if the sun does rise in the east, but I do know I am questioning their truth and validity... and hence I'm certain of my ability to constantly doubt and reason. I am also certain that IF I am programmed by certain rules to view the world in a certain way by the demon, THEN my belief, representations, and actions hold good and are true. If I am led to believe that I cannot walk on water, then me trying to not walk on water is a true logical consequence and is hence Truth to me. If I have been programmed that 2+2 =5, and I believe that the answer to 2*2 must then be 5 as well, then given the belief system, my ability to reason is the only thing true here, although both answers may be False. How good my ability to reason is, and whether it helps me reach the right conclusions every time, given the premise... I don't know.

The Pig That Wants to be Eaten

Quite an intriguing title isn't it? :). I noticed this book with R and I had to get it. I finally bought the book last evening and I couldn't wait to read it... Ah..how long has it been since I read a good book? When I read the preface, I smiled all the way through and felt like calling every other person who has accused me of over-analyzing situations and ridiculing the concept of discussing abstract ideas.

And just today I came across a blog where the irate author rants about Internet Poetry, and the uselessness of silly fools who write, appreciate and try to decipher them. I was amused :). I hear plenty of such statements, "Of what use is it to talk of such useless stuff?", "There are no answers to this, it's so silly", "What a waste of time", "I am a lesser soul, not an intellectual"... and many more comments. And I tell all of them the same answer - I am no intellectual myself. I strongly believe that these puzzles jog your mind and stimulate your thinking. They help us crack open our minds... a teeny tiny bit at least, to consider problems and situations in different perspectives, and to sharpen our ability to reason. It makes us realize how mundane our day-day grievances are and how solutions are simple, if only we opened our minds :).

And here's what Julian Baggini says, "Imagination without reason is mere fancy, but reason without imagination is sterile. The purpose of such "thought experiments" is to strip away the things that complicate matters in real life in order to focus clearly on the essence of a problem.... like scientific experiments, they aim to isolate key variables, the specific factors under examination, to see what differences they, and they alone, make to our understanding of the world.... the experiment is a tool to aid our thinking, it does not pretend to describe actual life... sometimes they make us see problems which don't seem like problems until you follow through their implications... Many lines of thought can be started from this book. But none ends in it."

Beautiful!! It feels good when someone expresses my views in such a coherent and delightfully beautiful manner. Baggini presents 100 philosophical questions inspired from a myriad sources; Descartes to Plato to Hume to Spielberg. He presents his own view of the problem, ending with a statement to provoke the reader's thoughts. So I have taken it upon myself to write my own views on each of the 100 puzzles discussed in the book, and I would love to further the discussion.

I am, as the book says it, a mere armchair philosopher. I admit to having lots of half-baked thoughts and I am trying in earnest to bake them to perfection :). So try to be tolerant if you find this page a drivel :)...

Truth is Beauty, and Beauty is?

I was taking a random trip down memory lane due to my utter lethargy to complete the last question on my last assignment for the semester (wow time does fly!). I often fall into this numbing hole of procrastination when I reach very close to completing a tedious/laborious/plain uninteresting work. It could be the last paragraph to write, the last chapter to study, or the last question to answer, and I become restless to finish it, equally excited that I am almost done and become complacent to put it off for a while and laze around. I have reached that state.


Enough of that boring intro... so what I started to think about was the teddy bears I had when I was young (since I happened to glance at the fat white bear sitting on the shelf... a stimulus to my thoughts if you will). I got them when I was around 6 or 7 and I was very attached to those two that even after reaching my twenties I would possessively hide them when young cousins and kids visited my place. No, no, I don't need therapy...I was just reluctant to let a precious part of my childhood be chewed on, torn apart and dragged on the floor by all those adorable kids :). Being the only child, and mostly a loner, these dolls formed a huge part of my childhood... being my pals.


A barbie doll was one among them... although I was never attached to it, for the main reason that you couldn't cuddle one. Almost all my friends and cousins had one at that time. These days there are talks on how perfectly pretty barbies could instill an "unhealthy" body image on young girls, laying ideas on perceptions of beauty. Well, I'm really curious to truly investigate this... talk to a few young girls or probably read more about how valid the fear/hypothesis is. When I was young I really don't remember noticing how pretty a barbie was. I'm stumped if that doll probably had some impact on my image of beauty.


Cambridge dictionary defines beauty as, "the quality of being pleasing, especially to look at, or someone or something that gives great pleasure, especially by being looked at." I'm surprised at the heavy connotation of physicality in the definition, and something predominantly experienced by our sight! I beg to broaden the definition....


They say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, but what makes the beholder view something as beautiful? There are a few people/things/aspects in life that most people will unanimously agree as being beautiful, and this is probably an objective measure of symmetry etc. But what about the rest?


As Keats said, is beauty just truth? Well... there are some truths that are ugly when revealed, I can't find a trace of beauty in them. Is our perception of beauty just emotional bonding? I don't know, but I know I loved a ragged 2 rupees doll in comparison to a barbie and I loved my two teddies that were patched up and kept together with stitches, and I still search for a bear that resembles those two. Maybe I'm in search of memories but I would still call the bears cute, pretty and use other nice adjectives (or am I using the adjectives on my memories?). There is a saying in Tamil that I'm inadequately translating as, " To the mother crow, her young one appears like a golden chic." Crows are supposed to be "ugly" since they are black, but a mama crow thinks its little one is a pretty golden bird. Of course "golden" is a metaphor...it could signify physical appearance, and other general characteristics.


Beauty by itself then becomes a metaphor. A metaphor to symbolize and probably qualitatively assign our appreciation in response to positive feelings and emotions that get evoked. Most times, these feelings are evoked through people or objects and we place our appreciation on them, thereby making them special and seeing them as beautiful? Sometimes it's an event, a phase of life, riveting memories, and we often scrounge around to find an object to pour the sense of beauty we want to treasure in an effort to make the memories as "real" and "physical" and as alive as possible.


I don't know why I end up relating everything to emotions and sentiments... I sound sappy. But really, a challenge that AI faces is in simulating these emotions in order to "program" a computer to recognize or subjectively categorize an object as being beautiful even though it fails all the objective measures of beauty.

The Consequences of Technical Education

I started this blog two or so years back and I am ashamed to see the few posts, and worst of all the lack of creativity in my writing. Those so-called abilities of mine have either rusted or just gone. I am sad. There was a time when I couldn't stop writing, and used to easily fill pages and pages out of mere nothing. Now I struggle to get through a page :(.


I blame it on my technical education. Engineering started and it left me with hardly any time to read good books. I was caught with the necessity to read technical books, non-fiction-course-related-jargon-laden books. And then there were two years of my Masters during which time I had impeccable training on technical writing, with a perfectionist of a professor not happy with 18 pages of my writing when a conference paper was only supposed to be 8 pages long. I have imbibed tricks and tips to shorten sentences, to avoid adjectives, to use as minimal words as possible, to be careful of the choice of words, to be precise and to the point, to eliminate speculation and just state facts. And I am now reduced to a creativity drained "scientist" who starts to reason about statistical validity and logicality of statements, who even reasons while watching animation movies :( (How can a giraffe be attracted to a hippo?!). I am extremely saddened.


I should probably shift focus from training just one part of my brain (whatever that is) and start using both sides of my brain...Interestingly I have just realized from one of the papers I read, that one cannot really demarcate the left and right sides of the brain and attribute them to talents. It's true that some modules (that help us draw for example), are located on a distinct side. But every activity is such a complex amalgamation of various modules of the brain spread in so many domains that one cannot really call a person right or left brained. And that shows you how I have started viewing everything around me in terms of facts and experiments.


I cringed away from biology and medicine because I was too idealistic to see the human body as mere flesh and bones, and to talk and study about it like a machine, in a matter of fact. Now I am studying the human brain/cognition, and day by day I realize that I am studying the mind as a machine.... far worse. But if there is one thing that I am all the more intrigued about, it is the complexity of living beings. Each branch of science has been struggling to discover the ultimate mysteries and is ventured in the quest for truth. We all stumble upon one major block that is almost impossible to be answered or unraveled. All branches of science seem to assemble at this junction where they each have a question - a single question that holds the key to many fundamental questions. This question seems to be the borderline between Science and Spirituality. For example, consciousness. Some scientists have written proofs as to why it is impossible to study, let alone figure out consciousness. "What is it being like a bat?", is a popular phrase. "What is it being like me?"... is it the same as being like you? Can I experience what is it that you are?


I tried to answer that question to myself... What is it being like me. And it led me to this weird state of feeling, where I felt like a third person looking at this girl and what she was going about doing. It gave rise to a whole lot of interesting, albeit creepy thoughts about who I really am, where I came from, where will I go in the end, is consciousness nothing but my soul... etc. Half way along I realized that those questions are precursors to lead one on a spiritual quest... a quest for self-realization. It's not surprising that most renowned scientists were also philosophers. It almost seems inevitable. I am not equating myself to a good scientist, let alone even a scientist, but it's a wonderful revelation to reach this juncture where I am humbled by Nature and its creations. It has opened my mind to questions that I merely dismissed a few years back; it has made me question those "facts" of life that I took for granted.


So yes, it is a curse that I have become too inquisitive about life and I have already started doing crazy things like placing my phone in the fridge and running around in circles, but I hope I haven't lost all of my idealism and insane imaginations.

The other side of Parenthood...

I got a very funny email about the most challenging and rewarding aspects of being a parent. The first half of the email was about the different ways to get prepared. A few snippets:

"Can you stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish finger behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?"


"Men: to prepare for paternity, go to the local pharmacist, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home. Pick up the paper. Read it for the last time."


Of course, the last half of the email painted a much prettier picture of the joys of parenthood and how wonderful it is to relive being a child, with your child :). It's interesting that couples who want to adopt a child are made to go through a rigorous training and questioning and monitoring of their skills as a parent, whereas those who get married/pregnant never go through such rounds of questioning to be assessed of their skills as a good parent. Is it because it's assumed that people implicitly know to take good care of their own child as opposed to a child that was technically born to someone else? There is no doubt a stronger bond of love is implicitly born when you give birth, and the bond is arguably unique. But how much you love a child and how effective you are as a parent are not necessarily the same.


Having a baby is like getting a fresh batch of wet clay in your hands that is extremely impressionable with the most minute press of your fingers, and that hardens every hour, and you have only so many years and only so much time before you can mould it in "good" shape. You also need to know the and what defines a "good" shape. You don't want to shape them based on how you are shaped and later on hear your child complain that you are responsible for how they are today :(.


Bringing another being into this world carries such a thick tag of responsibility. It is true that no one can specialize being a parent before deciding to have a child, but it irks me to see babies being brought into this world just because two people are married, regardless of whether they are at a stage to provide for the child. At this current age, we have no pressing need to populate the Earth, so why not put some thought into what it requires to be a parent before plunging into it.


There should be an underlying meaning and reason to our decisions than merely following the routine, especially in a case where we are responsible for another being's proper growth and welfare. It is extreme to have a qualifying exam on parenthood before a wedding or childbirth, but I feel it is realistic if one sets some rules and engages in some form of introspection to evaluate how equipped and prepared they are.

U? Genes? Yikes!

Eugenics -- the concept I've been pretty intrigued with lately. Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. [Wikipedia]

Since I was old enough to remember, I've heard my mom say, "Our ancestors weren't fools. There is a meaning behind everything." But it's only now that the ingeniousness of such ancestors is slowly dawning on me. When parents talk of the ideal "match" for their children and go about digging into details such as caste/sub caste/the complexion of the bride/the education/the "family status"/the height/the "health" of the family/"bad" habits/not wearing "specs"/long hair/... (and substitute a million other such details), it is for a REASON. And the underlying reason being, "Can my daughter and your son successfully mate with each other to produce the best possible offspring/s to carry on the proud torch of our family tree and hereditary and thus improve the overall quality of human kind?"

Crassly put, but that's the philosophy that our ancestors started with and after a while people "forgot" why, but as is our custom, continued to blindly follow them. The basic core instinct of animals is to procreate and survive - Male instinct being to procreate and the females' to nurture and help survival. It is extremely interesting to take on a more "objective and intelligent" approach to making sure evolution works right and the quality of the human race is improved through Eugenics.

Therefore, a handsome man marrying a not-so-goodlooking girl causes a serious threat to the next generation being either not good looking at all, or mediocre - this is a setback to the race that begins with this new human being. A more serious concern for us is intelligence. A smart person marrying a dumb person causes a mediocre output. Whereas if the smart married the smart the output would be super smart!! And if such a super smart guy married another such super smart girl then the output would be Super dooper smart!! And so on...



Of course I have my opinions on this match making logic again... and it's a debate many intellectuals and scientists have been having. If only the smart should marry the smart, what about us dim wits? Are they doomed cruelly because of "survival of the fittest" rule? I would think it makes more sense for smarts and dim wits to be paired so the outcome would be relatively smart, than getting a pool of super smarts and an equal pool of dim wits struggling to survive and not contributing much to the progress the "super smarts" want to make. Such a huge disparity would be much worse to progress (my belief, with not much proof for now).

That said, it's not much of a surprise when our parents try to quantify "intelligence" with academic degrees and want to match a person with equal or higher number of degrees as compared to their girl. Why is it mandatory for the groom to have an equal or better degree? This could be seen as perpetuation of patriarchal ways of society, but looking closely a better "degree" translates to a "good job", and a good job translates to ability to "bring in more food" and provide a nurturing environment (the job the male hunter). Family status is again a measure of the family's ability to provide the right nourishment, opportunities and education for the child to cultivate the traits we look for.



I wonder if we humans still act on such core instincts. In reality human relationships/marriages are intended to last much longer than just bringing in the new generation, and it wields a complicated web of emotions and needs. Making a relationship work demands a whole new set of criteria, than relying on those deemed fit for the offspring/s that are born. I choose to believe that we have evolved to a state (after all these centuries) where our concern for procreation is probably being replaced by the need for companionship.



Yet, I'm not sure if at some level, our attractions to certain types of people whom we consider as good partners are related to the essential traits we want to pass onto our kids (the core female instinct of caring for the unborn offspring). Each of us have some basic requirements for choosing our life partner. Although it's not as explicit as us thinking of a child and then validating our partner's traits, subconsciously it may have seeped in. Do those core instincts still determine such decisions... as subtle as their influence is?



For example, I suck in Maths. I am so bad at it, that all through my life it has been my greatest sorrow and disadvantage. I have always thought that being good at maths/science was a great boon, you could excel professionally and comfortably take on a well paid job, as opposed to those of us who need to struggle and get used to their technical positions. And during these challenging times, I've wished that if at all I had a kid, s/he should be smart in Mathematics.



I'm not sure if that's why I undoubtedly get impressed with people who are good at Maths/programming/Science. I don't know if it's because I'm impressed with people who can do something that I struggle to, or if it's some other common quality that is the primary reason. But it's interesting nonetheless to ponder if subconsciously we take into account both the aspect of "companionship for a life time" as well as "how effective can the next generation get."

Chaos Theory

Of late, the meaning of life and the course of our destiny all seem to apply to Chaos theory to me. I would like to yell "Eureka" but not so much. This little bolt of enlightenment only left me anxious.

We are involved in playing the fate of so many people, and little do we realize the impact and the gravity of it all. Each person's tiny act starts like small ripples in a pond that grow bigger and bigger, until it is big enough to turn a person's course of life.


For example: A car mechanic is working on a car, he has removed its old parts and is assembling the new ones. His wife then comes in and nags about a family issue. They argue and yell and the mechanic forgets to tighten the brakes as properly as he should have. The car owner Y comes and gets the car and rides it. X usually takes the bus to go to school. He missed the bus since he woke up late. He woke up late since he came home late. He came home late because his colleague needed help. Since X was taking the bike to work, he took the same route as Y. Y realizes he can't use his brakes properly when X is in front of him. X is in front of him because the auto guy cut him, the auto guy cut him because he lost concentration thinking of something else.


So who are all to be blamed? The mechanic's wife, the reason why the mechanic's wife was upset, the mechanic, the colleague at work, the auto guy, or Y? Amazing how each apparently random act culminates and weaves into something huge. The consequences/impacts are endless, starting from the point of the accident... it affects Y, X, X's family, and the chain continues.


In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says "I am the beginning and the end." Can we trace back to the beginning of the afore-mentioned accident? No, not possible... its roots of origin are truly infinite. And the consequences of this impact, truly infinite. There was a Big Bang and the consequences still persist...


Amazing how all of us play a part in some stranger's life. In the above scenario, will all the involved people share a blame on the accident? Is it even possible to understand who all were involved?


My school friend passed away in a very tragic manner recently and hence the philosopher in me decided to wake up and talk to me. Each of us makes plans for the next 20 years of our life, not realizing what we have done today. Our mortality is one which pulls us back to ground state, drilling in the fact that we are transient and whatever materials we accumulate are as good as nothing.


I have started to believe that orienting myself towards positively affecting the life of another person everyday, is one step towards initiating a positive change that carries the potential to swirl into a tornado of good fortune in the course of time. Random acts of kindness integrated with the job one does, is as simple as our share gets.


Life is short and we need to live it responsibly, not just for our good, but to try and avoid initiating negative turns of events in another person's life. May my friend rest in peace.


P.S: July 2008 - One year later Kamal comes up with Dasaavatharam, a movie based on my ramblings :-). Wow, Kamal thought of it too, or did he snipe it from my post? ;)...

Anthropomorphism

I was planning on having a nice debate in the class I am teaching on Usability Engineering. Anthropomorphism is the quality of human beings to attribute human-like emotions, behavior and thoughts on other objects. For example, imagining your car to be a person who can feel and think. In user-interface design there are many instances of this - having cartoon characters and fuzzy little virtual agents running around in the interface creates a sense of comfort, and minimizes intimidation. Icons that can smile, a word processor that greets you etc., create quite a psychological impact on the users. But there could be disadvantages as well... so my intent was to have a nice debate in class. But then, less than half of the class turned up, with more than half of those who came, yawing and struggling to stay awake. Either I'm a bad teacher, or it's plain Karma.

So anyways, this made me think on anthropomorphism in everyday lives and the advantages and disadvantages of it. As an extension to my previous post, it's always wise to not attach emotions on everything around us... it just leads us to further pain. And Vedanta preaches the same. But what could be the advantages? Apart from being cute and personal in naming our computers, cars and cycles, the main advantage comes in the way we take care of them. This is something I have seen with my father.

My father is passionate about electronic gadgets, and he views each gadget as a person with emotions. He doesn't name them, yet he treats them as if they were animate. I've been yelled at several times for not handling them the right way. I once heard him lecturing my mother, and that's when I understood his theory. For a while, my mom had been wanting a new fridge that had automatic defrost, and kept complaining about the old one. My dad said, "Technology changes with the day, and we can't keep affording to replace everything. More over, just because you think something is not good enough, you can't throw it. If you imagined the fridge to be your son, you wouldn't just throw it would you? Despite its faults and shortcomings, you try to fix it and do your best to keep it running. If you started seeing everything as being personal to you, you would be much devoted to fixing them and living with their faults, than trying to throw them away. You just wouldn't give up on them that easily. Once you learn to accept that nothing is perfect you are much happier and much satisfied."

It was like an eye-opener to me. No wonder he brings home old computer parts from the junkyard and tries to fix them. My home is an extension of my father's lab... we have around 10 telephones (each 10-20 years old), because they were cast away in his office for not working properly. And my father huddles them back home saying, "Just because one functionality doesn't work you cant throw it away! Who needs the call-waiting feature for domestic use? It's perfectly working, so lets use it". And there are some terminally ill gadgets at home still being fought hard by my father to revive and make them functioning again. His radio from the 1970s is one example. We can set up a museum of radios, telephones and computer spare parts. He literally feels bad and upset when a gadget fails to work... kind of like a doctor-patient relationship. My mom and I dread to inform my father of any gadget that stops working. The worst period was when our backyard tree was struck by a lightning and all plugged electronic gadgets died. Well, money was one aspect, but the pain my father felt was way deeper.

Jokes apart, I think it's a healthy concept, nevertheless. For example, who would have ever thought that a fridge from 1978 that completely failed to work, could still be used as a cabinet and cupboard! My father did, and it's quite handy in the kitchen to have one more cabinet holding spices :). Any emotional attachment in excess is of course going to lead to misery. Setting a balance is necessary...as the philosophy of the Golden Mean preaches.

Gruesome fairy tales

Adam, his friend (whose name slips me) and I were having a different discussion over lunch. His friend made a casual comment on how kids should be monitored even while watching animations, cartoons and fairy tales... Hold on there!! Did he say fairy tales?? I quipped in with an emphatic WHY? His reasoning was that fairy tales were actually gruesome, and Adam joined forces talking about Snow white and poisoned apples, the witch in Hansel and Gretel who ate kids, and how the witch was pushed into a burning furnace at the end, Hansel and Gretel's parents who abandoned their own kids in the heart of a jungle!! Hmm.... I admit I never thought of them... they are sort of gruesome when you actually think of the story.

This reminded me of the lawsuits that were against Tom and Jerry, claiming that the cartoon was getting far too violent with Tom treating Jerry in the most cruel, violent manners possible (trying to roast him in an oven, trying to skin him with a peel, dropping him into boiling water, trying to squash him with tables and bowling balls... ). The prosecutors were nervous that these animations portrayed the exact opposite of what kids are always being taught (i.e., to be nice and courteous and not to chase other kids with bowling balls). When these animations actually cast them in the light of humor, it seems to dispel the severity of such acts. Although Jerry is fine after being roasted in the oven and being squashed, that's not reality and we can't be sure if kids can discern between surrealism and reality. We don't want some bully to drag some child into an oven, thinking he will be fine.

When I first read about the lawsuits I was quite surprised. I mean, when I was young, my friends, cousins and I grew up watching Tom and Jerry and Walt Disney, forming the core of our childhood (at least for me). How come we managed to grow up ok? Was it our parents, the spiritual grounding we had? Or perhaps we were far too innocent (aka dumb) to try and replicate the acts, or we were far too smart (Of course!) knowing such acts were to be forgotten after the show.

But looking at contemporary cartoons, I am flabbergasted! If there were lawsuits against Tom and Jerry, where are the lawsuits now?? Cartoons have become far too violent and gross these days! Humor has become twisted - humor is constantly being equated to somebody else's misery, and in a far too vindictive manner than in Tom and Jerry. This gets us thinking of violence in everyday life.

Video games are another prime source of violence, becoming gorier by the day. I remember my cousin getting so involved in shooting and killing the bad guys that you could see him getting angry and worked up. Aren't such media only invigorating the baser violent instincts? After the shooting at VT, there was so much news and hype about profane essays the killer had written. The vocabulary and gruesome violence portrayed in his plays are something almost every guy I see around is capable of thinking... perhaps they don't have the guts to submit it to a professor.

There are many well educated and cultured people out there using gruesome video games of killing people and animals in the most gory manner possible, to vent out frustrations at work or just for pure fun. When these well educated, well mannered, apparently non-psychopathic people can display such traits, one wonders how acute should a warning be, to identify the ones in trouble.

The fact is that it's so easy for the mind to snap, and when it does, we call attention to so called "traces of evidence that led to the catastrophe". We see PLENTY of evidence and red flags among many in our everyday lives, but we literally don't do anything about it. A person is not born a killer or a psychopath... each of us have the potential to snap.

Violence has been encouraged as being part of our life and we mercilessly expose kids to violence from the very tender ages. And it's quite disturbing to realize that even cartoons and fairy tales are not spared...