Dei Mundus

Synesthesia – Seeing The World In An Interesting Way

2014-12-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

When people hear the word Synesthesia they automatically think of associating colors with numbers or musical notes. Well, that is one form of synesthesia, two actually– grapheme-color synesthesia (color with letters and numbers) and chromesthesia (color with sound). Feynman had the first kind, the photographer Jaime Ibarra has the second. But there are other types of synesthesia too. Spatial sequence synesthesia (SSS) is where you see things (usually time in hours, days, months etc) arranged in a particular order. People with SSS also have extraordinary memory. Another is Number-form synesthesia where you see numbers arranged in space. Francis Galton is said to have had number-form synesthesia. 1 in 23 people have some form of synesthesia.

For example, when you think of a day or date, this week or next week, or you set up an appointment or receive an email with a date/day on it or someone calls you about an event later in the week, what do you see? I have hand drawn some of these images that exist in my head (mind?) but I'll describe it here in words. I see a ribbon. Well, it's either one circular ribbon or two flat ribbons pasted together at the ends to make them a loop. It's not exactly circular though. The curvature at the ends are a bit abrupt. The ribbon stands on its edge, sometimes it lies flat too. Sometimes part of it stands up and part lies flat and it twists back up again. The two abrupt curvatures at the ends are the weekends. And the smoother parts are the two weeks. The ribbons have segments or panels corresponding to days. A lot of the times I am usually closest to the current day. Sometimes I am hovering over it (if the ribbon is flat) and sometimes I am standing next to it (if the ribbon is standing on an edge). And I always see two weeks at once. No more, no less. I cannot think of today without seeing the corresponding day next week, or last week. I cannot see one Friday without the other one or one weekend without the previous or the next!! Fridays are right before the sharp bends at the ends. Saturday goes into the bend and the bend ends on Sunday. The ribbon flattens after that for the rest of the week till it comes up to Friday again. I am not sure if the panels for the days are colored. Sometimes they are. I think Wednesdays are green/greenish and Mondays are ashen. That's how I see days/dates in the near future. That's also what weeks look like to me at any mention of a "day". Names of days, events or dates coming up in the near future, the mention of weekend and a host of other things triggers this image in mind.

How about time? It's also a ribbon or tape but instead of lying on its edge or flat, this one is vertical and hangs down. It has panels as well, corresponding to the hours, of which there are twenty-four, of course–twelve for each half. This one definitely shaded, night hours being dark and morning hours being lighter or white. The darker shading starts around 6PM even though where I live may have daylight way beyond that. However, not all panels are the same size and since they are grouped by shade, the individual hour isn't visible to me unless there is a specific time that I need to heed. Oh, and unlike the week ribbon, there is no relative motion between me and this time ribbon. It simply hangs there and my _attention_ moves from segment to segment as needed and that segment gets magnified with all kinds of detail.

Then there is the circle of the year. This looks more like a circular strip or ring than a ribbon where January and December go seamlessly from one to the next. I have no awareness of the actual year, just the relative positions of the months on this circle. Not all segments/months are the same size: some are large, some small. And I am usually stuck somewhere in August/September. Well, not exactly in it, but right next to the ring. This makes other months further from me. My birthday is in February so I don't understand this placement! Stuck isn't the right word, rather let me say, I find myself in that part of the year a lot of the times. I am free to move to or hover over any month, but it's easier for me to go to the current month. Each month has a matrix of dates, but they almost never emerge to my attention unless there is an event (like birthday) associated with it. Every year when December is over, I just start over at January again. I see one single year. I do not see the passage of the years. To do that I need to look at an entire century which brings us to the next point.

The only way I can see years (plural) is in the context of a century. I see one hundred years on a matrix. And there are different slabs for each century. The centuries themselves start in antiquity... I actually see mist and fog. Some parts are closer than others and often I seem to standing somewhere in the rows of 80s and 90s in the beginning of those rows. But I also see the current year. Right now that's on the next "slab" compared to my usual position.

Lastly, I not only see centuries like this, but numbers in general. I don't see a number line, but number slabs starting from 1 to 100 in a square matrix. Since this aren't years, so I am actually stuck near the early 80s and 90s and see everything from this vantage point. 101 is on the next slab to the right and up near the top. Zero isn't a number but a corner and negative numbers go backwards in slabs to my left.

So it appears that I have both SSS and number-form synesthesia. I do have very good memory and people are either surprised or incredulous about it.

What do you think of all this? Do you have any kind of synesthesia? Do you have any such experiences? If so what kind?

The Honest Atheist

2014-10-29T03:40:00.000-07:00

Atheists are known for what they don't believe in: they don't believe in god, or ghosts, or souls, or magic. Seldom are they asked, and seldom do they tell, what they do believe in. After all everyone has to believe in something. A person who truly believes in nothing, absolutely nothing at all: neither god, nor ghosts, nor his own body, his mind, feelings, senses, comfort, discomfort, the sun, the stars, light, darkness, good, evil, and even thoughts and words ... that person becomes silent. He no longer cares for the world, or himself and recedes from it as a hermit. A person like that is an atheist of the highest order. Indeed I would travel far to pay homage to him (or her). But to my knowledge no such person exists. However, what this means is that the atheists that we do encounter are not as extreme and therefore believe in something. I know the obvious answer some would like to scream to me: Atheists believe in science! That may be true, but science cannot stand on itself. Science is a tool, like a hammer. A hammer without anything to hammer it with is useless, pointless even. There has to be something that a tool can be used on. I am trying to find out what it is that the hammer of science hammers.

But before we proceed let's first look at the word believe. "Believe" is a loaded word and it is burdened with multiple meanings. What does "believe" mean in this context? When someone says "I believe", it can mean:

"I know it for a fact"
"I can deduce it logically"
"I take it for granted without proof"

In this context, belief is not a statement based on facts, nor is it a logical deduction. For this argument, belief is something that is taken for granted a priori. It is an unspoken axiom. Something that you cannot question, and something you cannot deduce. Something you must accept to proceed to the next step. Now, with that in the background: what does an atheist believe in? Let me venture an answer to that: the atheist believes that matter (and/or energy, since they are interchangeable, but I'll just use the word "matter") is all that exists. Pause to think about that for a minute. When you discard god, ghosts, spirits, ghouls and all manners of supernatural phenomena, all that remains is matter. To the atheist, matter is all there is. This position cannot be disputed, queried or deduced. The universe is simply a giant soup of matter. In philosophy this belief is called materialism. Hence, and I am tempted to say, as a matter of fact, atheists are materialists.

Now, as long as you are consistent in your beliefs and arguments, there is nothing really one can complain about. So why am I writing this? Because I find a lot of atheists are not aware of their belief and therefore are inconsistent with their arguments. They haven't examined their position. They haven't looked at it hard enough, or long enough, to realize the logical conclusion of their position. And I am going to do it for them.

The basic underlying doctrine of atheism, materialism, says that everything is matter and matter alone. All that we see arises out of matter interacting with itself: moving, moulding and modifying. The natural laws we discover are just the ways matter behaves, or our understanding of the ways matter behaves. Matter can neither be destroyed, nor be created. Matter simply IS. It changes form: from an indescribable condition to a uniform spread to tiny globules which can stick together to form bigger chunks, from palpable bulk to ephemeral waves, forever changing form, but never going in or out of existence. The galaxies are matter; the stars are matter; the planets are matter; all living things: the cat on the couch, the fish in the aquarium and the potato in the microwave are matter; you are matter; I am matter. Matter flows in from outside into the shape of my body and flows out again, like a leaky bucket. Right from birth, indeed even before birth, matter has been flowing into the shape of this body. It stays there for a while, and flows out again. At least for the bucket, the bucket itself never changes, but for the body, the shape changes too.

Indeed if that is the case, that this body, and yours too, is simply matter and not the same matter either, but a flow of it (can't step in the same river twice) then who am I? Who are you? What is my mind? What are the thoughts that arise in that mind? It can be said that the mind and its thoughts are like the circle drawn in the darkness by a swinging light–there is no circle. The light alone is real, the circle an illusion. The brain, made of matter, is real and the mind and its thoughts are illusions. For how else would a materialist describe it? And how real is even the brain? At least the ship of Theseus† retained its form, but here both the form and substance undergo change, making the brain itself illusory. And that makes the mind an illusion on top of an illusion! And the products of the mind: identity, self, ego, thoughts, feelings... all become illusions riding an illusion on top of another illusion! Then who is it that perceives the illusion? And why is the illusion of the wise any better than that of the fool? And if the same matter makes both of them, what is going to decide which one is wise and which is not? Matter is all there is: the wise and the foolish, the atheist and the theist, the saint and the murderer, the living and the inanimate. How do you differentiate? The you is an illusion. There is no you. Who is going to differentiate? There is no who. Matter is all there is. Matter interacting with matter. There is no mind, there are no thoughts, there are no words. No good, no evil. And no god indeed. Matter is all there is.

This materialist revelation is no less grand than the bodhi† of the Buddha, and it probably is the same. The honest atheist, if he pursues his argument to the unfaltering end, also becomes silent.

† Ship of Theseus refers to the logic problem where the substance of an object is changed but its form stays the same. The question then becomes, is it still the same object?
† Bodhi–awakening, illumination, enlightenment. Buddha means the one who is awake. Bodhi is the awakening.
§ I realize that my arguments here may be similar to Jainism which is an atheistic "religion", for lack of a better word, with roots in India.

The Nature of Scientific Theory

2010-07-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

What exactly is an electron? What is it made of? How about a photon?

The Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman is said to have mentioned that calculus is the language that God speaks. Students of science tend to believe that scientific theories are undying eternal truths. Apparently both the masters and the students of science have forgotten an important word that appears over and over again in science: model. In physics (which happens to be the most basic and foundational of all natural sciences) we encounter terms such as Newtonian model, general relativistic model, Bohr model, Sommerfeld model, cosmological model, big bang model, standard model. Model? But isn't a model a mock-up of the real thing?

Newton's theory of gravitation explained attraction between two massive bodies with a force that could act at a distance and make its effects felt instantaneously. The attraction part was the only real observation. The rest came from Newton's head. He imagined that there was a mysterious force that pulled the two masses together and proposed a formula to measure the force. This was a hypothesis. The name of the method used by Newton was induction: from specific to generic. Given the accuracy of the measurements that could be made in Newton's time, his formula predicted the force and its effects very precisely. But not precisely enough by the time Einstein came around. The ability to observe and measure had significantly improved in three hundred years and Newton's law needed a replacement. Similarly, classical electromagnetism, based on experiments and measurements made by Faraday, Ørsted, Ampère and others and codified by Maxwell had to be replaced by quantum electrodynamics after new observations (photoelectric effect) were made half a century later. Of course, that gave rise to quantum mechanics which in turn replaced or modified other models including Einstein's gravity and atomic physics. Atomic physics itself had several models: cubic model, Rutherford model, Bohr model. I think I've made my point: models are aplenty in physics. Models are how physicists model the universe. And if nothing else, then just the fact that model after model has been thrown away to accommodate newer models should make one wonder about the nature of scientific theories: are they really accurate depictions of the world or are they simply guesses about the universe?

Just because a model matches observations and measurements does not mean the model is the truth. The universe is a like a black box (or many black boxes, if that's easier) with lots of wires going in and coming out. We have built meters to measure the signals on these wires. We measure the inputs on a set of wires, measure the outputs on another set and then we guess what could be inside. With time our meters have grown more sophisticated and we can measure with more precision. We can also measure signals we couldn't measure before. And as we get more details, we keep modifying our guess of what's inside that black box. We derive relationships between the various wires, we slice and splice them and come up with fascinating theories. But we don't really know what's inside that box. I don't think there is any serious scientist worth his or her weight in salt who would want to debate that point. Sorry Professor Feynman, God probably doesn't speak in little squiggly lines. Calculus is a tool that contemporary terrestrial scientists use to model physical phenomena. Ironically, Newton, who invented (or discovered) calculus, didn't use calculus in his models at all. He used geometry. In future, someone might invent (or discover) yet another clever way to model the universe.

How does an electron behave? How do photons behave? Or to back up even further what is an electron? Is it spherical? What is it made of? What shape is a photon? What is gravitation? What is matter? What is energy? I don't believe there are any definitive answers to these questions. In fact even these terms are not definitive. We merely experience the world and attempt to model it. In our model, we introduce several items that we call by different names. Furthermore, the models are just guesses based on our current ability to observe this world. What is a galaxy after all? It is merely a name we give to a shape: a shape filled with stars, planets, dust... What is a star or a planet? It is merely a name we give to shape filled with atoms. What is an atom? It is merely a name we give to a shape filled with electrons, protons and neutrons. What is a proton? It is merely a name we give to a shape that is filled with quarks. What is a quark? We can't see that far yet. Just like three hundred years ago we couldn't see at the level of atoms.

Scientific theories are not absolute truths. They are models and frameworks that we create or guesses that we make to understand reality. The true nature of reality is unknowable through the methods of physical science.

Science and Incontestability

2010-05-15T13:12:00.021-07:00

There is this misperception that science is somehow superior to religion because scientific theories are modifiable. Why is modifiability equated to superiority? When people say that science is open to questions and that scientific hypotheses, theories and laws are open to change, what do they really mean?

As I have posited previously, science begins with the presupposition that there are some laws governing the universe, and then sets out to discover those laws. That presupposition is absolutely necessary for science to even survive. All our scientific efforts are attempts to find out what those laws are. Scientific process is iterative and uses trial and error. We look at the world, make observations, take notes, make some guesses, build a model, make further observations and compare the model with these new observations to see how accurate the model is and then if needed we modify the model and do it all over again. As our ability to observe becomes keener and more precise, we keep overhauling our theories to encompass details we didn't notice before. For instance, Newton proposed a model of gravitation. After three centuries Einstein overhauled that theory to match new observations and proposed a new understanding of gravitation. More recently scientists have proposed yet another way to explain the phenomenon that we call gravitation. Now these are all attempts to understand and explain the same mystery. The phenomenon in nature where everything attracts everything else hasn't changed at all. Only our model for it has changed from a hypothetical force to a hypothetical curvature of space-time to an exchange of a hypothetical particle. Gravitation is just one example, but there are many others. Sometimes one theory merges in another, sometimes one replaces another. But always, it goes from less precise to more precise, lesser understanding to greater understanding, less perfect to more perfect. This progress obviously begs the question, is it ever to end? Can we ever come up with the final theory or theories? Or is it an infinite progression to a never achievable goal?

Let's see what happens in either case:

First, take the case where such a final theory is indeed achievable. We know scientists aspire for a Theory of Everything. One fine day in the not-so-distant future one or more scientists might actually discover that theory. It would describe the entire universe in exact detail. It might be a monolithic theory or it might have separate parts pertaining to different natural phenomena. But either way the theory would be perfect. Science would reach its pinnacle: no more groping around, no more approximations, no more iterations. But if you stop to think, at that moment science would also become unchangeable. With that achievement its reputation for being modifiable would be forever ruined. How do you modify a perfect theory? Why would you?
Let's take the other possibility where a final theory is unachievable. In that view, science can forever update its theories but will never reach the end. The theories will always be partial, imperfect and approximate. No matter how many times they are modified and rewritten, they'll always miss something. While such a fate of science would keep its reputation of modifiability intact, it would also greatly weaken its reputation as a truth seeking tool. Why rely on something that is doomed not to succeed?

Unfortunately, those are the only two directions science can go. It can either find the ultimate theory, as many believe it can, or it can't. But no matter which one is true it does not bode well for science as it is right now. If you believe the first option is how it will end then you must agree that there exists a peak and science hasn't reached that peak yet. It's theories are still imperfect and its vaunted openness to change is not so much an evidence of superiority as it is a warning of incompleteness. So if your biggest argument against religion is that it is incontestable and impervious to change, then your argument is slightly hypocritical, because the moment science finds that Theory of Everything it too will become incontestable and unchangeable. On the other hand, if you believe that a final theory can never be reached by science and while it shall always remain flexible, it can never actually get to the bottom of the mystery then you are acknowledging that you are working with an inadequate tool. Note that none of these two conclusions are forced upon science from outside.

Scientific Faith

2010-05-14T09:58:00.014-07:00

There are people who ridicule religion and extol science because science is logical and cerebral whereas religion is, according to them, devoid of logic, based on faith and entirely fantastic. Science accepts nothing on faith and religion accepts nothing but faith. But is this characterization really true?

Science strives to find an underlying order in the nature of things. If things were truly random, or at least if people believed that everything was random then seeking universal laws would be futile, since no law would ever hold, if one could even formulate one. But even if things were utterly random (e.g. gravity on today, off for the next three days, back on at 17.31% intensity for eight and three quarter days etc. with even the length of days varying completely unpredictably) scientists would probably still try to find a pattern to the randomness. Pattern finding is at the heart of science, because seemingly, patterns point to an underlying commonness, a natural law. That, in fact, is the first faith of science: the belief that there are some laws which govern the universe. You cannot participate in the scientific dialogue if you think that there are no laws and everything is completely unpredictable and transient, much like a dream (which is why dreams are outside the realm of science). Of course, you can say that it's not mere faith, patterns actually exist in the world: there are cycles such as days and nights and seasons, water always freezes to ice, fire always burns, rainbows look the same, all drops of water take a spherical shape etc. Therefore, patterns exist in nature whether we seek it or not. Alright. But so what if patterns exist? Does the occurrence of patterns prove anything? The scientific argument, as I mentioned, is that patterns point to the existence of underlying laws, that repetition can be explained by a common cause. Now that's another point of faith! What reason is there to believe that repetitions of an observable fact in nature is caused by the same underlying cause? There could be two (or three or infinitely many) completely different circumstances that gives rise to the same observable effect! Yesterday's rainbow could have been caused by some thing entirely different from what caused today's rainbow. And tomorrow's could be caused by a whole new principle. Just because the manifestation is the same, the reason behind it doesn't have to be. (In all fairness science actually acknowledges this last one, but in a limited manner e.g. both acceleration and gravitation can produce the same effect. But why stop at two?)

Therefore the primary postulates of science are:

there are laws that govern the universe causing patterns to appear and,
there are only a finite number of underlying laws for all observable phenomena in nature.

If you do not believe that is an accurate depiction of science, ponder the pursuit of a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) or Theory Of Everything (TOE).

The two postulates are interdependent, like two sides of a coin, and neither takes precedence over the other. They cannot be proven by any means known to science and are therefore, fundamental beliefs no matter who argues to the contrary. Without them science cannot exist as a discipline. Of course, there are other beliefs that also go into the making of science but this is good for a starting point. As far as I know, this view is quite different (if not diametrically opposite) from the one we are taught: that science is a tool to uncover and understand the laws of nature. I can almost anticipate the counterargument: that modern science proves the existence and underlying unity of natural laws. But that is a circular argument and many renowned scientists have committed that fallacy. Science does not prove the existence and unity of natural laws, science presupposes it. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are several other instances of faith in science to be examined in later posts.

How is then science so much superior to religion?

Intellectual Dishonesty of "Scientific" Atheism

2010-04-07T15:03:00.015-07:00

There are several varieties of atheists and agnostics. The ones described here are the "intellectual" atheists who say there can be no God because it cannot be proven by logic or science and cannot be seen (or heard, or touched etc). Unlike other types of non-believers these people have no personal or empathetic grievance against God. They are atheists simply because they are proud. They are proud of their alleged intellectual superiority over people of faith and they resort to mockery of believers for their feeble minds. These are the people I want to talk about here.

Of all the criticism that is leveled against religion by these atheists, the most common is that people of belief lack the ability to think clearly (or "scientifically", "logically" etc). This basic criticism, however, can be broken down into several components. I think these components are:

1. Religious belief is not supported by facts, or in other words religion is based on unproven hypotheses,

2. Religious doctrine is not open to questioning and verification and/or experimentation,

3. Religious doctrine appeals to the authority of scriptures and,

4. Religion also appeals to the authority of personalities (prophets, incarnations...)

Atheists proclaim the superiority of scientific reasoning (and of their own intellect) by pointing out the stark difference between scientific method and the four points above. Perhaps no one has held a mirror up to them.

Not too long ago I visited an online forum of atheists. I was surprised at the wanton abandon with which terms like "quantum fluctuations", "Higgs Boson", etc. were being thrown around. I was curious to find out how many of these self proclaimed "scientific" people had any real grasp over any of these concepts. So I asked (a) if anyone has carried out or witnessed an electron diffraction experiment and (b) if anybody would explain to me the difference between Fermions and Bosons. Most of them said irrelevant things and didn't even attempt an answer. One person said she had dyscalculia so quantum mechanics was clearly beyond her ken. Another said her husband was a physicist with a PhD from an Ivy League school and a solid understanding of quantum mechanics. The husband himself popped up later to quote a technical bookish answer†. It was precise but utterly useless. I am not sure if he was trying to merely show off or if he didn't actually understand the concept very well. (I am not really in awe of Ivy League schools, as you can tell.) However, the issue here isn't whether the physics doctorate knew his stuff but that even if he did, assuming he did, he still could not explain it in terms which a lay person could understand. However, to be fair it's not all his fault. It is also the nature of the subject.

In order to understand some of the most sophisticated concepts of modern science, physics for example, you have to devote about twenty-three years of your life to education (school, college, grad school, PhD), of which half should be spent studying physics. And to be an expert of any repute you may have to spend many years even after that. I can say with absolute certainty that not only the person with dyscalculia, but the vast majority of atheists (on that forum and elsewhere) haven't spent anything even close to eleven years studying physics. But they invoke quantum mechanics and general relativity all the time. They talk of the Big Bang as if it was an event they witnessed in their backyard. They talk of baryons and leptons as though they have seen them with their own eyes. I use physics and science interchangeably because it happens to be the most fundamental of all the natural sciences, but the argument is true for any other branch of science as well. So this is the first problem of "scientific atheism". Most atheists ridicule persons of faith for believing something blindly, but they are guilty of the same fallacy.

Let's examine the example and compare it with the four arguments above:

1. Religious belief is based on unproven hypotheses.

I submit that so is science. Without hypotheses science cannot progress. Newton didn't arrive at the theory of gravitation by proof, but through insight perhaps even inspiration. That is why it is called a discovery. Discoveries are stumbled upon. And as regards the adjective unproven, well, look at gravitation, for instance. Is there a final theory of gravitation? During Newton's time it was explained by an instantaneous force, action at a distance, a field. Einstein's theory dismissed that idea and replaced it with the idea of a space-time continuum curved by the presence of matter: no longer a force. With the advent of quantum field theory, now the prevalent idea is that gravity is caused by the exchange of gravitons. And gravitons have never been detected. Over three centuries, gravitation, something we experience everyday, has had multiple explanations. Each new explanation has used a new paradigm. There is no finality to any of these theories and none can say for certain that there will not be another explanation which will use yet another heretofore unheard of paradigm. We have gained the ability to measure the effects of gravitation to a greater detail than ever before but we have not gained a better understanding of how gravitation works, and certainly not what it is. Those of you who disagree with my statement, tarry, I will preemptively address your argument. Why does a newer theory replace an older one? Because the newer theory can more accurately predict the results of a measurement of something. It is still an approximation. We are looking at a black box with inputs and outputs. By observing how the outputs and inputs behave with respect to each other we are trying to guess what is inside the black box. And as we gain the ability to measure the inputs and outputs more precisely, we must keep modifying our theory of what is in the box. And so it is with every theory of science. Just like no one has detected gravitons, no one has seen an atom. No one has seen an electron. Is it a particle? Is it a wave? A wave of what? Mathematics is the tool one uses to understand physics. But mathematical models are still models. Models of reality. We can build better models, but models are not reality. They are unproven hypotheses and that is why they are replaceable.

2. Religious doctrine is not open to questioning and verification

One of the strongest criticisms of atheists is that religious doctrine is not verifiable, but scientific fact is. I refer back to my question in the forum: how many atheists have actually carried out or even witnessed an electron diffraction experiment? That is the starting point of wave particle duality. If you haven't done that experiment, do you still believe in wave-particle duality? If you do, you are not scientific as you think you are, but let's say you are indeed interested in setting up the experiment and observing the results. Can you? Do you have the necessary equipment? Do you have the instructions? How easy is it for you to independently verify the truth of that theory? In case experimentation is not your cup of tea, and you are more inclined to theory, how easy is it to understand quantum mechanics? Have you tried classical mechanics first? Science is in plain view only to those who have spent years upon years in the pursuit of it. The tool of mathematics that is used to model physics is an extremely specialized language. You are better off reading the Vedas written in ancient Sanskrit: it would probably take less time to master Sanskrit than to learn tensor calculus, which you will need to understand general relativity. So you see scientific fact is not independently verifiable by just anyone. To be able to verify you first have to be able to understand the models. To understand the models, you have to devote many years of dedicated study. I am not convinced that the ordinary atheist who huffs and puffs and invokes high physics all the time has spent a decade in its study. Therefore the claim that science is independently verifiable is only a fantasy. One needs special training to be able to follow the language of modern science, and that training is not open to all. Modern science is arcane, more arcane than most religions. That brings us to the next point.

3. Religious doctrine appeals to the authority of scriptures

Students of science don't go about discovering the entire body of scientific knowledge from scratch. Instead they build on what others have done. And in order to start from where the previous person left one has to have deep faith in the work that has already been done. Didn't a famous scientist once say that he could see so far only because he stood on the shoulders of giants? Where would modern physics be without the Principia? It strikes me as interesting that it was written in Latin and most of us have to rely on a translated edition. But that's just one book, and there have been many others. Some very technical, some not at all. Even non-technical, popular science books like A Brief History of Time or The Emperor's New Mind are nearly unreadable without an extensive background in science. But it is remarkable how often atheists quote from popular science books such as these. This really rolls back into the previous argument: these concepts are difficult for most people even in their "non-technical" forms. And usage of terms and concepts that are not clear to one is nothing but an appeal to authority. Just like the physics doctorate who couldn't explain the difference between Bosons and Fermions and therefore quoted the book definition.

4. Religion also appeals to the authority of personalities

That's the other kind of appeal to authority. And it is known by a more popular phrase: name-dropping. Atheists quote scientists left and right and often without context. "Einstein didn't believe in God", "Feynman was an atheist", &etc. First of all they were great physicists, but their knowledge was also specialized in a particular realm only. These scientists spent their entire life in the study of physics, but how does that make them an authority on religion? It is like quoting an economist while arguing against the current theory of gravitation: Professor Shilling says "Money is the ultimate gravitational force" therefore general relativity is wrong. Well the professor would have about as much authority on gravitation as Einstein has on religion. Second, we don't really know the lives of these scientists. While they may have said something at some point that may make them look like atheists, their personal lives and beliefs may have been different. Without knowing them in person it is impossible to say what is it they believed. And third, for all the scientists that may appear to have been atheists, there are those who were evidently spiritual. Newton was no atheist. Schrödinger was deeply influenced by the Vedantas, as was Tesla.

These are just some examples of the intellectual dishonesty that atheism perpetrates. There are others that I will examine in future posts.

† The paraphrased answer from the physicist, if anyone is interested, was that Fermions are half-integer spin particles following Fermi-Dirac statistics and Bosons are integer spin particles following Bose-Einstein statistics. It's like if the question was what's the difference between an apple and an orange and someone says that an orange grows on an orange tree and an apple grows on an apple tree!

Economics III – Conclusion

2010-03-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

Physics deals with the same underlying substance no matter what level it is being studied at. An experimental particle physicist deals with the same universe that the relativist or the quantum theorist deals with. The equations may change, the paradigms may change, but the real universe being studied doesn't. Of course one could question the nature of reality itself, but that's a different matter and for another time. The act of studying the universe, or the different theories for it doesn't change the actual universe in any way. It is just our description of it that changes. We are looking at the same thing just from different angles, different perspectives. However, economics isn't a science like physics.

Although economics, too, has many manifestations, unlike in physics, the differences between them are not merely skin deep. The economics at a larger scale is very different from the economics at a very small scale. Economics driven by one set of principles and ideologies is very different from that driven by a different set of principles and ideologies. These differences are not the result of looking at the same thing from different perspectives. They are the result of looking at entirely different things altogether. Thus economics, largely, is not a science where one discovers hidden relationships, but more of a craft where relationships are created.

Don't agree? Let's revisit the premise. Human existence, for the vast majority of people, serves one single need: preservation of the species. Yes, we have made computers and mobile phones and rockets and what not, but for what need? What purpose does all this serve? Before humans had made any of this, they were feeding and breeding, and that's exactly what they do even now. So we do it a little differently. Instead of foraging, we farm. Instead of living in caves, we build houses. Instead of hurling stones as weapons, we hurl other projectiles. The difference is only superficial, "lipstick on a pig". All our endeavors simply serve to dress up a primitive instinct in pretty packaging. Now, there are a few occupations that seem to rise above these primitive purposes and people in those occupations perhaps believe there is some greater purpose to human life than merely eating and reproducing. They ask questions like "why does the universe exist", "where did the universe come from", "who are we and why are we here" and so on. But the practical world is as unconcerned about them as they are about it. So I'll leave them out of this as well. This is about the rest of us.

Every other species survives and breeds without the knowledge of economics. They don't barter, they don't trade, they don't manufacture. Yes, I know nearly all of humanity will be offended by my constant comparison between humans and animals. However, I also know that nearly all of humanity will be unable to show me a better, higher purpose of human life. Ironically, the only people who could point to a loftier goal for humans are the ones that humanity disregards, as I mentioned earlier. The reason I say this is to point out that the laws of economics do not exist in nature. They are not natural laws, unlike, for example the laws of gravitation or electromagnetism. Although the wolves, the deer, the sparrows and the tunas do not know those natural laws, they are still subject to it. However, they are not subject to the laws of demand and supply. They are unaware of the concept of "price" or "elasticity". There is no money in the wild, and scarcity in nature (natural scarcity?) is very different from scarcity in our markets (artificial?).

The laws of economics are man made laws. Just like the laws of governments. And like the latter, the laws of economics can change from nation to nation, from society to society. They can be different at different places and different times. Not only that, it is also different for different structures in society. There is economics of the nation, economics of the firm and economics of the family or individual. A nation can print more money. A firm can sell more shares. But individuals must cut their coats according to their cloth. Just like administrative laws, laws of economics are merely whims of those who are in a position to enforce them. It is a curious fact that economics is even called a science. It is no more a science than politics is. Economists who fancy themselves to be scientists should send in their papers to their elected representatives for peer review. As a side remark I must say that numerical analysis of people's behavioral data isn't quite economics either, although some modern economists like to think so. People's behaviors are the results of the laws of the societies they live in and behavioral economists are missing the forest because of the trees.

Therefore to say that economics applies equally and universally to all humans and is necessary for human existence is incorrect. The argument that all progress we see around us is the result of economic thought may be true but that does not mean that the progress we see around us is the most optimal outcome. Progress compared to what? What we see around us may very well be the worst case. Or perhaps we made all the progress despite economics.

Economics II – More Questions

2010-01-14T22:43:00.015-07:00

One can argue that scarcity is a fact of nature and undomesticated animals do not really have an abundance of food and water as I claimed earlier. One can further argue that wild animals, without the knowledge of economics or by just plain being unable to reason, cannot successfully negotiate nature. As a result some over consume their food and become extinct, some fall victim to the changes in the environment and so on.

Unfortunately, both of the above are incomplete arguments. To say that there is scarcity in nature does not make economics any more meaningful. (Not for most people, but I'll get to that later.) Despite our knowledge of economics there are still millions of humans who do not have food and water. And for those who want to raise the argument of national boundaries, well, even within the boundaries of every nation there exist groups of people who face no scarcity whatsoever and groups of people who live in extreme abjection, facing scarcity of every sort. The animals of a region, at least, either flourish together or suffer together. In most instances they migrate together to greener pastures. And as for the second argument, well, it seems humans, for all their ability to reason, also over consume their natural resources and frequently fall victim to changes in the environment. In some cases the change in environment is brought about by their over consumption!

But there is yet another answer to both points of view. Modern humans didn't appear over night, and economics didn't always exist. There was a time when humans were more like wild animals and didn't know economics. Somehow those creatures who couldn't reason (well, not like us modern humans!) and didn't know economics, survived. And not only did they survive, but they survived well enough and long enough, as a species, to develop the methodical study of economics over the past several centuries. However, during the early stages of development of this species, perhaps the roughest time of all, when economics would have probably made the biggest impact, it was absent. If this science is so essential, that without it the species would be plunged into danger of extinction then why did it develop so late? Unlike, for example, hunting, or fishing, or agriculture? Perhaps even other sciences and technologies, like fire making, weaving, boat making? And even if we accept that some species may have become extinct due to lack of knowledge of economics, that doesn't explain the existence of so many others that also don't know economics (or can't reason, for that matter). If anything, humans, with their knowledge of economics, may be a bigger danger to many species, than those species' inability to formulate economic theory.

So,

Economics hasn't really removed scarcity for humans,
Economics wasn't really necessary for the survival of the human species, certainly not other species, and,
Despite having developed all these sophisticated economic theories, humans have actually become a threat to their own survival, by over consuming their resources, and also threat to other species.

My question remains: what justification, then, for the study of economics?

Economics I

2010-01-14T11:20:00.005-07:00

What is the more important concept in economics? Value or scarcity? To me it seems the only thing of value in economics is scarcity. If a certain thing doesn't have scarcity then it doesn't have value.

Take the example of sunlight or air, for instance. There is an abundance of both of these and therefore in an economic sense they have no value. But as we have started to realize that air: clean air, breathable air, good air is becoming scarce we have started to attach economic value to it. Thus the various arrangements for cap & trade, pollution taxes etc. No one needs to be told how badly we need air. How much would one pay for a breath of air? Yet as long as it is abundant, not scarce, it has no value in economics! A perverse science indeed.

With that in mind I would like to examine how economics plays a part in human life. The classical definition of economics is of course the study of human behavior with regard to ends and means which are scarce and have alternate uses. That definition is almost taken for granted by all students of economics. "Means", "ends", "scarce" and "alternate uses" are like the cardinal directions on an economist's compass. But let's start at the beginning and ask, why are means scarce? Did not humans start out as most other animals? Much like deer, antelopes, wolves or lions? What ends do these animals live for? And what ends did the early humans live for? The only end for animals seems to be procreation. I doubt the early humans strove for something much higher. And most humans of these days don't strive for much else either. Behind all the struggles and achievements of modern humans that is one stark truth. There are few, very very few might I add, that strive for a higher or even different purpose. But for the vast majority the purpose of life is to procreate: to keep the individual genes and the species going.

The animals: the wolves, the antelopes, the lions and the deer, manage just fine without any knowledge of economics. Food is abundant, so is water and air. Sunlight is abundant. All conditions that were necessary for life to first begin are still there. For these animals and others, there is no scarcity. And if there is, it is part of nature. The natural scarcity that they faced is different from the economic scarcity modern humans are accustomed to. If the water dries up in one lake, there is yet another. If the leaves have all been eaten from one tree, there are still other trees. If one antelope gets away, there will be another to prey on. Nature, that gave rise to these animals, takes care of them. The territorial behavior of animals that we see is limited to only a few species and is not only temporary, but is also related to procreation. Outside of that animals share resources. If resources become scarce in one area, perhaps due to flood or fire, these animals move on to another area. I have little doubt that early humans behaved no differently from the other animals they shared their habitat with.

Early humans were not so different from animals in regard to both behavior and the purpose or end they were living for: they lived to procreate and they lived off the land. Modern humans have pretty much the same purpose they live for as well. And the means of meeting that end is still the same: we get all our resources from the land. So, if the means have remained the same and the end is the same too, where did economics come from?

The Unavoidable Death Penalty

2009-11-11T06:03:00.004-07:00

We all have a death penalty hanging over our heads. We were sentenced to die the day we were born. The killer was sentenced to die, and so was the saint, and the doctor, and the professor, the thief, the businessperson, the priest, the adulterer, the lawyer, even the judge. No defense in this world can prevent that sentence, and we all will die.
So what is this absurd argument of imposing a death penalty? As if you are bringing about something that wouldn't have otherwise happened? As if the murderer would have lived forever? Is that the case? For if it is, then the death penalty is a punishment indeed. But if it is not, then what have you done that wasn't already destined to happen?
A penalty is imposed to teach the perpetrator, and others contemplating it, that there are consequences for a wrongful act. The cost of the penalty has to outweigh the benefits of the crime: that's how you deter people from committing a crime. For example, the benefit of driving drunk and speeding on the highway must be outweighed by the penalty imposed: a hefty ticket and perhaps time in jail. The benefit of stealing a piece of clothing from a store must be outweighed by the punishment for it: imprisonment, fines, stigma. Also, the penalty should be reserved only for those who have committed the crime and must be avoidable, merely by not committing the crime.
Not so with death. Death is not avoidable and the death penalty does not outweigh the crime. Nor does the murderer learn anything from his punishment. So who does such a penalty benefit? The victims? No, they are already dead. Society? No, because life imprisonment can achieve the same public safety. The murderer, then? Yes, because by hastening the inevitable you didn't let him suffer his imprisonment: to know that he will never get out, to have no hope of redemption and finally to long for Death to arrive. To the free man who would rather have freedom or have death, denying both is the greater punishment.
The death penalty is no penalty. It's vengeance. And I shall have no part in it. Thou shalt not kill means thou shalt not kill. Not in my name, not in God's name, not in society's name.

Why private death panels are better than government ones

2009-08-21T22:03:00.006-07:00

The short answer is they are more efficient. I have some friends who I don't see eye to eye with on all issues, but for this they clearly have the stronger argument.

Think about it. A government death panel. You, or your loved ones, waiting in comatose oblivion while the papers are sent up the ladder: from secretary to secretary, admin to admin, department to department to eventually arrive at the death panel's desk to sit there for weeks, perhaps months. Then the panel finally looks at the documents and after prolonged discussion over a few days finally decides to pull the plug. Of course, then it's another long detour from department to department, desk to desk, finally to arrive at the patient's bedside. The comatose patient might have already recovered by that time! Blinking, talking, may be even sitting up or taking a few steps down the hallway!

The death panel's recommendation to pull the plug would be rendered useless. Too late! That's government bureaucracy for you.

Now contrast it with the insurance companies' private death panels. There is hardly any wait. The hospital sends your information to the insurance company. Depending on your financial status and standing, which determines your insurance level, your case would be looked at by either a claims examiner, or a supervisor, or progressively higher levels of authority. But whatever be the case, each level has decision making powers and rest assured, your case would be dealt with swiftly. And unlike the prolonged discussions by government bureaucrats, any decision to pull the plug will be made quickly based on concrete evidence of your financial value to the company. That decision will then be transmitted down to the hospital within a day or or two, using modern communication methods and you, or your loved ones, won't have to stay plugged in to so many hideous looking life preserving machines for long. You, or your loved ones, can spend valuable time doing more important things, like planning a proper, respectful funeral.

Now that's efficiency. After all you pay high premiums for a reason: to have efficient and prompt treatment.

The Ugly Hybrid

2009-08-13T10:12:00.003-07:00

The predominant argument against the Prius these days is that it is ugly. Sometimes some people want to really emphasize their point, so they call it fugly. You may still hear some random comments about its performance, and that it doesn't accelerate as fast, etc. but gone are the days when people used to say that the Prius is unsafe, impractical, unreliable, hyped-up and so on. Their comments now have converged to the looks of the Prius.

Well, lets see here. I am thinking of the fairy tale we all must have read: The Ugly Duckling. The ugly little duckling wasn't a duckling at all. He was unlike the rest and they made fun of him all the time. Then one morning he found out that he wasn't, after all, just a lame duck: he was a majestic big white swan! And he unfurled his wings and flew away as the mere ducks looked on. May be some of these aesthetic critics need to read their nursery school story books again.

Why is the Prius ugly? Because it doesn't look like other cars? Is there a standard by which the aesthetic qualities of a car can be measured? What is it about other cars that make them "pretty"? Why does it have to look like other cars? Why don't all the other cars out there look like the Prius? Why do cars have their engines in front under a protruding nose? Why do they have similar protrusions at the back? Why do cars have four windows on the sides? Why do cars have wheels? Why four of them? Why does the driver have to sit on one side and not the middle? Honestly I think almost all cars are ugly. And I am not even thinking of SUVs and trucks yet.

Now we all have our own idea of what the ideal woman or man should look like. That idea is shaped mostly by our genes, our DNA and the environment we grew up in. It's a genetic appeal. It's a hard wired attraction. It's an instinct. Basic instinct! However, the shape of the best looking car is not an instinct. It is merely something we have gotten used to. We have seen cars that look a certain way. We are used to it. And we have taken it for granted that that is what cars should look like. It's the engineer's idea of what a car should look like. It started with Karl Benz and Henry Ford and over the last 130 years the idea has been fed to us so many times that we now think that it is indeed our own idea of what a car should look like.

The car, the automobile, is a machine. And machines don't look good or bad. Machines perform well or poorly. And the looks of a machine is a function of its abilities and efficiency. That's how we judge machines. The Prius has the lowest drag coefficient of all cars out there. Drag coefficient depends on a number of things but most notably the shape. It determines the magnitude of the force that the rushing air would exert as the car travels through it. It's something we all know very well, stick your hand out the car window (safely) and have your palm face the wind, then have your palm face the ground. The drag coefficient of your palm facing the wind is higher than your palm facing the ground. The Scion xB probably has a very large drag coefficient given its boxy shape (what's up with that Toyota?); so do most SUVs. The Prius on the other hand is extremely streamlined making it efficient. Its looks were not determined by the random whim of Toyota, but by the equations of aerodynamics. And if you think the Prius is ugly, why did Honda copy the shape for its new Insight?

We don't hear much about the looks of airplanes, now do we? The Boeing 757, for example, is shaped like a thin tube with two flat surfaces sticking out on the sides, yet no one complains why it isn't shaped like the Porsche!

ENIAC and the piston engine

2009-08-11T22:12:00.011-07:00

ENIAC was the state of the art computer during the late 1940s to mid 1950s. It was built with vacuum tubes, diodes, resistors and other electrical components. To quote Wikipedia

ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It weighed 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8.5 feet by 3 feet by 80 feet (2.6 m by 0.9 m by 26 m), took up 680 square feet (63 m²), and consumed 150 kW of power.

Impressive, huh? The ENIAC could also perform 5000 simple addition or subtraction operations per second, with capacity to work much faster if strung to operate in parallel. It could also do 385 multiplications per second. I really suggest reading the Wikipedia entry for this. The details are fascinating. However, I wonder how many people would want to have the ENIAC as their personal computer. It's not even that old, just from the 1950s. I am sure vacuum tubes and diodes have become better these days, and a modern ENIAC could certainly outperform the original one by a huge factor.

Would you buy an ENIAC?

Consider this in contrast though: the Internal Combustion Engine was first conceived of in 1206 AD. That's 9 years before the Magna Carta was written. There have been various people who have made designs of it, till Nikolaus Otto came up with the 4-stroke engine in 1876. Then Karl Benz made the first automobile using a variant of the 4-stroke engine in 1879.

1879. That's 71 years before 1950. And we still drive 4-stroke engine automobiles. And we celebrate Benz (as we rightfully should) in the Mercedes-Benz. But we dismiss the Prius, which uses a hybrid system by combining an electrical motor and a 4-stroke engine, as a hype and as a political statement. The Prius actually uses the Atkinson cycle which was invented in 1882. So whichever way you look at it, the Prius uses more modern technology than any other car out there on the road. But people want the pricier BMWs, Ferraris, Mustangs and what not.

Why not buy a new ENIAC in a newly built concrete housing, with fresh paint, with voice operated climate control, with retina scan entry systems? Isn't that what the new cars offer? An engine technology nearly 130 years old with marginal, if any, modifications, packaged in shiny bodies with fancy interior gadgets.

Fortunately, the ENIAC now exists in the museum and we now use microprocessor powered PCs and Macs. Hopefully the Prius will send the 4-stroke Otto cycle engine to the museum as well. With a little help from the rising price of gasoline.

Driving habits, aerodynamic drag and horsepower

2009-08-11T11:50:00.006-07:00

I touched on the subject of speed limits and speeding and drive time earlier, briefly. I wanted to revisit that. And you'll see why.

If we travel the same distance at two different speeds (velocities) we will record two different times.

Distance = velocity₁ × time₁ = velocity₂ × time₂

Let's say velocity₂ is twenty percent higher than velocity₁. Then you can write:

velocity₂ = 120% velocity₁ = 1.2 × velocity₁

So essentially you have a method to compare by how much time went down:

velocity₁ × time₁ = 1.2 × velocity₁ × time₂

Therefore: time₂ = 0.83 × time₁ = 83% time₁

You can save about 17% of time by going 20% faster.

I have done a few calculations, the up and down arrows signify by how much velocity goes up and by how much time goes down correspondingly:

Velocity ↑ 10%, time ↓ 9%

Velocity ↑ 15%, time ↓ 13%

Velocity ↑ 20%, time ↓ 17%

Velocity ↑ 25%, time ↓ 20%

Velocity ↑ 30%, time ↓ 23%

Velocity ↑ 35%, time ↓ 26%

Velocity ↑ 40%, time ↓ 29%

Velocity ↑ 45%, time ↓ 31%

Here's a more concrete example, showing the speed and the time taken to cover the same distance:

Going a distance of 25 miles @

65 mph : 23 min

70 mph : 21 min

75 mph : 20 min

80 mph : 19 min

85 mph : 18 min

Now that's one side of the equation: how much time you saved. What's the cost of that?

When you move through air, it pushes you back. That's called drag and the formula looks something like this:

Drag = ½ × Drag coefficient × Density of air × Area facing the wind × velocity ²

In that formula, the drag coefficient, the density of air and the area facing the wind all remain constant. The only variable there is velocity. The equation can be written as:

Drag = Constant factor × velocity ²

So the drag, which is a force experienced by a car, increases as the square of the velocity. Increase velocity by a factor of two, the drag will increase by a factor of four!

But wait, there's more. The power required to overcome this force and keep moving at that velocity is given by:

Power = Drag × velocity = Constant factor × velocity ² × velocity = Constant factor × velocity ³

What?! The power required now has velocity cubed as a factor. If you increase velocity by a factor of two, the power required to keep moving will increase by a factor of EIGHT!

Now, using the example above, an increase in speed from 65 mph to 85 mph, is roughly a 30% jump. Let's plug these numbers in and see how much power it takes to keep the car going:

Power₁ = Constant factor × velocity ³

Power₂ = Constant factor × (1.3 × velocity) ³

Power₂ = 2.2 × Power₁ = 220% Power₁

To drive at 85 mph, compared to 65 mph, the power required is more than double. Although engines have an optimal load point, for most engines that are in use, anything beyond 65 mph is inefficient. Also for most engines, horsepower and fuel economy are inversely related. In other words, horsepower and fuel consumption are directly proportional to each other.

By increasing your speed from 65 mph to 85 mph you gained 5 minutes. If this is your morning commute to work, isn't it easy just to start 5 minutes earlier? If you are in a job that is like everyone else's then those 5 minutes are probably not crucial. If you are in a job where it is crucial, like you are a captain on a submarine, then you probably don't drive to work, or don't have time to read this blog either, for that matter.

Changing our driving habits

2009-08-10T22:38:00.001-07:00

We have all seen drivers who rush from one stop light to the next, accelerating as fast as they can, revving up the engine, screeching the tires on the ground, &etc. &etc.

What do they accomplish? 2 seconds of thrill? May be another 2 at the next red light? Is it the sound of the engine revs or the screech of tires that is the more exciting part? Or is it the acceleration that throws you back against your seat back? Because those are the three (3) things that really happen when you go from zero to sixty in 3.14159..ad infinitum seconds. The acceleration part is also available on rollercoasters. Or small planes. Or gliders. What these drivers do not realize, or do realize and do it anyway, is that the fast acceleration uses the most energy. If you were getting on a highway, it would be a good thing. But the bad part is when you have to stop. All the energy that was generated is lost as heat when the brake pads press against the wheels to bring it to a stop. Would be good if this heat could be stored somewhere to be re-used. But no one has done that yet.

What is the purpose of getting in a car and going somewhere? Is it a race? Are there prizes? Why do we drive as fast as we can when it really makes negligible difference in the time? If you have to go 10 miles and you were driving the speed limit of 65 mph you would get there in a little over 9 minutes. If you drove at 75 mph you would get there in 8 minutes. A minute sooner. That's all. If you were going 100 miles, then the trip would take 92 minutes at 65 mph and 80 min at 75 mph. Just 10 min earlier. However, if you were going 100 miles you would probably take longer to start the trip, or stop in between for more than 10 min. In the grand scheme, the 10 mph extra gets you nothing.

Email to the editors of SmartBrief

2009-08-05T10:18:00.004-07:00

I wrote the following email to Jesse Stanchak and Robert Jones, editors of SmartBrief for Entrepreneurs.

Dear Jesse and Robert,

I went to Babson for my MBA and I love to read these little stories that you publish. They are informative and often inspiring. However, today I noticed a story, indeed, one endorsed by Robert Jones, that caught my eye. It seemed way out of line and extremely out of character for SmartBrief.

From what I've learned, through my own experiences and that of others', is that more than anything else, leaders are agents of change. Everybody can stay on the beaten track, it takes a leader to lead them onto a new path. And entrepreneurs are no different. In fact entrepreneurs are the distilled essence of leadership. They are change agents, sometimes disruptive enough to change the way we live. Not only are entrepreneurs change agents, they are also highly competitive. Change and competition are almost synonymous with entrepreneurship. So it is surprising that your journal would take a shot at the President's new health care option. It introduces new competition to the market and it changes the way the game is played now, in an almost disruptive way. It seems almost entrepreneurial in character.

Shouldn't you be celebrating?

Instead you opine how it will increase costs for "entrepreneurs". Well, from the entrepreneurs I know, I don't think they are too concerned about health care reform right now. They spend more time thinking of their own fledgling businesses, they don't always even pay in cash (but equity) and many would love to get such an issue off their hands so they can concentrate on the problems they face day to day. Your poll is completely out of character and even diagonally opposed from what entrepreneurship is about and is in total antithesis with your journal and its spirit. Besides, when you mention a poll, I am sure you know that you need to mention the number of people polled, the demographics of the polled sample and the margin of error. Without those facts, that can be independently verified, your poll is meaningless.

I could go off topic and tell you that health care is a form of physical protection, just like the police or the fire department, or even the military, and physical protection is the raison d'être of the existence of a civil society and even the State. Even if you cut everything out, physical protection must be there in order to have a functioning society. But that's a different debate that I might have with you on another day.

Let me conclude by saying that not only have you gone off character in your newsletter today but there is another thing that experienced editors would never let slip by unnoticed. When you wrote "The Devil You Know: President Barack Obama..." although you were referring to something else (viz. the known health care problem), yet by the juxtaposition of those words you were probably trying to make a subliminal association that is absolutely uncalled for. I do not believe that experienced editors like yourselves did not notice that particular word arrangement and did not think of the connotations it brings. So my conclusion would be, it was a deliberate choice of words and their arrangement. You are a newsletter bringing news of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. All that is well and good, but when you foist your personal political beliefs on others in the name of a "poll" I think you become a demagogue.

I will certainly forward this letter to Babson College and seek their opinion on this matter, since I am an alum of the school and their name appears on this newsletter and ask the opinions of my classmates and other fellow alums.

Thank you.

SmartBrief for Entrepreneurs has published their daily newsletter. Today's issue can be found here SmartBrief August 5, 2009. Near the bottom of the newsletter there is a "poll". I put poll in quotes because there was no accompanying data of the demographics, sample size or margin of error. To summarize the "poll", it seems a large percentage of entrepreneurs think that the public option for healthcare will increase the cost of running their businesses. Immediately following the poll are these words:

The devil you know: President Barack Obama has been making the case that businesses will save money under a federally mandated health plan, but so far entrepreneurs don't seem to be buying it. In fact, even if every undecided respondent were to break in favor of the Obama plan, opponents would still outnumber supporters by about 25 percentage points. -- Robert Jones, Smart Brief on Entrepreneurs contributing editor (original emphasis)

Health of The State

2009-07-01T17:00:00.004-07:00

How would privatized fire fighting services work?

First, there would be the insurance companies that you would pay fire premiums to, for an agreed upon level of service. And then there would be the private firefighters. If someone's home caught fire, they would call the firefighters. The firefighters would come out, assess the fire and send a report to the insurance company. The insurance company would then go over their policies and if they found that the level of services required was within the purview of the policy agreement (interpreted completely from their profit-making point of view), then they would authorize the firefighters to go ahead and extinguish the fire. If for some reason, from the insurance company's point of view, the level of service required wasn't authorized for the policy then they might deny the claim and parts of the house or all of it would just burn down. However, let's say the insurance companies are compassionate and they always authorize all services. But there still remains one little hitch in this model. If the fire was big enough then by the time the insurance company and the firefighters figured out whether or not to put the fire out, it might have already burned the entire house down.

Someone's house burning down like that would be a terrible thing to happen to them. Especially if it was a big, pretty and expensive house. Especially if it could have been avoided. And that scenario doesn't even take into account the danger to the life and health of the residents and neighbors. Clearly such a business model would hardly work. The risks are too high to allow private business with profit-motive to operate in such cases. So what do we have instead? Socialized firefighting. Everybody pays taxes to hire and maintain a public firefighting squad. The person with the pretty, big, expensive house, gets the most value out of it in case of a fire though. The insurance companies play an entirely different and minor role here, merely to replace material things afterwards.

What about a private police force running on the same model?

There is a break-in or armed robbery or some other emergency so somebody calls 9-1-1. At the other end the dispatcher asks, what is your emergency and can I have your insurance policy number please. And if the emergency doesn't involve the caller, the dispatcher might even refuse to talk to the caller, insisting rather that the people facing the danger make the call themselves so that their insurance information may be obtained to be run through the same process of service authorization.

My guess is this model probably wouldn't work for the police either. What do we have instead? Socialized police.

How about the military? That's socialized too.

Makes sense; fair enough. After all that's the reason for existence, the raison d'être, of the State. To protect the people from what, as individuals, they cannot protect themselves. To protect their life and property from threats that are too big for any one person to handle. That is the social contract. People give up their natural rights in order to be part of the State. The State, in return offers them collective protection and a set of civil rights. So why is it that the State can socialize the protection of property but not the protection of health? Why is it that the State can socialize protection from fire that burns your house but not from fever that burns your flesh? Why from threats that are large and visible but not from threats that may be microscopic and invisible? Threats that invade the territory but not threats that invade the body? Why do private insurance companies have so much power over the level of medical care a person may receive? Is the threat to a person's health of less importance than the threat to somebody's property? What is the State? Is it property? Is it territory? What is the State without people? The people are the State. Whatever person or organization argues against public healthcare stands against the State.

If firefighting is a service provided by the State, if public security is a service provided by the State, then by the same logic healthcare must also be a service provided by the State. It is not enough for the State to offer healthcare insurance. Healthcare itself must come from the State. Just as it is a collective responsibility to maintain a police force, so it is a collective responsibility to maintain a medical force. And not just for infectious diseases but for all kinds of medical needs. Firefighters and police officers come to our rescue regardless of whose fault it was that put us in harm's way. And it should be no different for healthcare. What hypocrisy to advocate for a strong military but at the same time trivialize public healthcare! If we trust the State's military to protect us why can't we trust the State's doctors to heal us?

It must be noted that the State is not the same as its government. Government is the instrument a State uses to administer itself. It is one thing to be against big government, but an entirely different matter to oppose an obvious and fundamental purpose of the State.

Salus populi suprema lex esto: the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law. (Cicero, De Legibus).

Locke,Voltaire, Rousseau, thinkers and writers who heavily influenced the founders of the United States, all adopted and professed the same principle. It is about time the healthcare "industry" and its advocates understood the meaning of that principle.

Star Trek and Leonard Nimoy's dickheads

2009-06-22T11:19:00.005-07:00

I think I like Star Trek enough to write a couple paragraphs about it. I recently watched a Saturday Night Live (SNL) episode where the actors portraying the younger Kirk and Spock are trying to defend the new Star Trek movie. And they get some help at the end from Leonard Nimoy, who of course played the original Spock. At the end Leonard Nimoy claims that people who don't like the new movie are "dickheads". Well, if Leonard Nimoy says so, it must be so. After all isn't he the authority on Star Trek?

Well, no. He isn't.

A very technical (and geeky) reason for that would be that Leonard Nimoy's Spock and hence the entire Star Trek series existed in a separate and parallel, and perhaps lagged, timeline than the Star Trek movie of 2009. In all fairness to the people who liked the movie and those who didn't like it (this author included) the new Star Trek movie is an entirely different set of events! Kirk and Spock in this timeline do not have to be like the Kirk and Spock of the original series. Even twin brothers have different personalities. Hence it is perfectly alright for someone to like Star Trek and still not like the new Star Trek movie. The fact that Leonard Nimoy doesn't understand that difference is disappointing. Mr Spock would have understood it right away.

There is however a second, non-technical, non-geeky and more philosophical response which I prefer. You see Star Trek may be a science fantasy television series or movie, but that's not all it is. Veiled behind the ostentatious display of science fiction and special effects are dilemmas and questions that we encounter in our mundane lives as well. And though our lives may be mundane, those questions are often baffling and sometimes downright profound.

Are our actions morally justified? Should I pay heed to my heart? Or should I follow logic? Is the individual more important than the collective? Why are we here? Who am I? Is this all there is? Who created me? Can I contact my creator?

Those are not light questions. Yet Star Trek asks them. And because it sets the stage with smoke and mirrors where we expect to see things of fantasy, because it makes us more accepting of things we otherwise know to be impossible, it also makes us more amenable to the suggestions of those questions. When V'Ger searches for its creator we identify ourselves with it because we search for our creator too. When the extinction of humpback whales causes a future earth to be in danger, we are reminded of our responsibility to nature too. When Spock sacrifices himself because he believes that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" we are reminded of our duties to the collective we are a part of too.

The message, if there is one, in the 2009 movie is either too feeble or too common place and it fails to surface even after two hours. May be in that parallel time line of the new movie there is no place for reflection or thought, just an abundance of testosterone.

Running red lights and pushing yellows

2009-05-29T02:27:00.006-07:00

I was waiting to pick up my wife from a work related meeting she had where neighbors of a certain area were complaining to city officials about a certain traffic light. As my wife recounted the story to me afterwards, the neighbors wanted the timing of the light to be slightly changed so that they could come out of a side street easier on to the main arterial street. The traffic engineer from the city tried to explain that changing timings can have devastating effects on driver behavior, especially on main roads. People are used to a certain amount of wait time at stop lights, if they are made to wait longer, they are likely to run red lights or push yellow lights in order to get to their destinations in time. Apparently there is a whole body of nationwide research to support such behavior change theories.

I don't doubt there is a lot of research on such matters, but what bothers me is such data or research conclusions are taken as the final word by government officials and bureaucrats. And not just in the case of traffic lights. Well, somebody did the research, they may be mistaken, their research may not apply universally or their research may just plain be old and outdated.

To talk of red and yellow lights, I think most people do not want to run red lights on purpose. The only reason they do it is because they are going too fast and they are too close to the stopping line to stop. So when they see the light turning from green to yellow to red, instead of braking, they accelerate. My premise is if the same driver saw the yellow light much sooner then they would have slowed down and halted instead of speeding up. I think all we need to stop red light running is an extended yellow light, one that will allow people to see it well in advance and slow down.

Let me present a scenario where we know the speed limit of a certain road and the margin by which someone is likely to exceed the limit. Can we from these two numbers arrive at a conclusion about how long a yellow light should be on for before turning red? Let's say the speed limit is thirty miles per hour (30 mph). Generally people drive five miles over limit but to accommodate the really aggressive ones, secretly we'll assume that the some drivers will drive ten miles over speed limit, or forty miles per hour (40 mph). If we assume an average car can go from 0 mph to 60 mph in 10 seconds, then we arrive at an acceleration value of 8.8 feet/second/second or 8.8 f/s/s. For those not used to the unit of acceleration, it is [feet per second] per second. This is because velocity is measured in feet per second and acceleration is the rate of change of velocity. The equation of motion is written: v = u + a*t , where v is the final velocity, u the initial velocity, a is the acceleration and t is the time to reach the final velocity from the initial velocity. Here, v is 60 mph, u is 0 mph, and t is 10 seconds. We also have to convert miles per hour, mph, to feet per second, f/s. A mile has 5280 feet and an hour has 3600 seconds.

8.8 f/s/s is about a quarter of the acceleration due to gravity. However, this value is often the best acceleration the car can muster. For normal, comfortable driving the real acceleration is probably half this value. However we'll use this same value for the maximum deceleration as well. This is not to say what the car is capable of, but what is comfortable to the driver and passenger. Since we are talking of regular street driving we'll also assume that the normal acceptable deceleration is half the maximum value as well. That gives us 4.4 f/s/s. For ease of calculation let's round it up to 5 f/s/s. Back to the street, so the person who is going 40 mph has to slow down comfortably and stop in such a way that their deceleration never goes beyond 5 f/s/s. Again using the equations of motion, we can find that the person needs at least 11.7 seconds to come to a complete stop and do it comfortably. Also we can find that the distance the car will have traveled in the process is 344.2 feet.

So what are our conclusions? In order to come to a complete stop the driver must be given about 12 seconds and about 344 feet. This example assumed that the wayward driver was going 40 mph on a 30 mph street. Most people won't go that fast, but some will and it is probably best to consider the worst case scenario when designing for safety. For a road with a higher speed limit the yellow light time should be even longer. But from experience I can tell you hardly any traffic light stays yellow for that long. As a result, the driver sees the yellow light too late and either brakes too suddenly or speeds up and runs through the red light.

What can be done to mitigate this problem? For one, the light timings can be changed. It doesn't matter how long a light stays green or red: those things depend on traffic flow and are not critical to safety. The light that everyone ignores is the most important light for safety and its timing must be adjusted according to speed limit and expected or observed margin of over limit speeds. The other thing that can and should be done is to demarcate on the road the safety line. There should be a small sign on the side or it can be painted on the road itself where it says that if you are behind or at this line when the light turns yellow, start braking. People who are past that line should ignore the yellow light and drive through to the other side.

I agree with the traffic engineer in his argument against the neighbors who simply wanted to change the lights for reasons of their own convenience but I also wish the engineer, and his peers, were more analytical in their jobs and less reliant on government research from the past.

To prosecute or not to prosecute: II

2009-05-23T04:17:00.006-07:00

The well known Stanford prison experiment, pointed out some very dark aspects of the human mind. In this experiment, conducted in 1971 and worth recounting here, a group of undergraduate students were chosen to play prison guards and prisoners in a mock prison in a Stanford basement. The chosen students were psychologically stable and healthy normal people with no crime histories and their roles as prisoners or guards were assigned randomly. The experiment was supposed to run for fourteen days. The prisoners were "arrested" and finger-printed and photographed and transported to the "prison". They were given prisoner clothing and a number sewn on their clothes to identify them. The prison guards were given "uniforms" and batons. Within a very short time the situation grew out of hand. At first riots broke out, which were suppressed by the guards who turned very sadistic and the prisoners suffered humiliating treatment at their hands. The prison guards harassed the prisoners and the punishments went as far as forced nudity and sexual humiliation. Around fifty outsiders who were introduced to this experiment said nothing until the girlfriend of the professor running the experiment finally objected to the prison's apalling condition and the experiment's morality. All this happened with six days and the experiment had to be terminated early. The prison guards were upset about the premature termination and the prisoners suffered emotional trauma.

Ten years before the Stanford prison experiment was conducted another professor, at Yale, had conducted another experiment: the Milgram experiment. In this experiment, a group of random people were chosen to play the role of a "teacher". There was also a "learner" who was part of the experimenting team and an "experimenter", a pretty unemotional biology researcher who was experimenting memory and learning in different situations. In the beginning the teacher read out a set of word pairs for the learner. After that, the teacher would read out the first word and the learner had to choose the second word of the pair from a group of four words. Every time the learner made a mistake the teacher was supposed to impart punishment by electric shock. And the voltages of the shocks went up steadily by 15V to a maximum of 450V. The learner and the teacher were in different rooms and they could hear but not see each other. The learner was not receiving actual shocks but the electrical switches were set up to play pre-recorded screams of pain when the "shock" was administered. The learner would also bang on the wall and sometimes fall completely silent. If a "teacher" objected to the experiment at any point, the biology researcher in the grey/white coat would insist that the experiment be continued and that the teacher would not be held personally responsible for any injury to the learner. Everytime the teacher protested the researcher would insist more forcefully: there were four such insistence levels and if the teacher still protested after the fourth and very firm insistence the experiment was halted. Otherwise the experiment halted after administering the maximum voltage of 450V. After the results were tallied it turned out only one person refused to carry on beyond a 300V level and 65% of participants went up to the 450V level, although many questioned the experiment but were persuaded by the authority of the grey coat researcher.

These two experiments point out two things. One, even normal people can become sadistic and torturous under certain situations. It does not matter what their personalities or characters are like, the system overpowers them and they do as the system demands. Two, most people defer to authority even when they feel that what they are being asked to do may not the most ethical task. People are quite obedient to authority. The usual sentence that is used to describe this is "they were just following orders." This was seen in Nazi Germany when the Germans were "just following orders" when they sent millions of Jews to their deaths. Just following orders? Whatever happened to conscience?

However, there is a more immediate application of the argument in these two experiments: Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Were the soldiers just following orders in Abu Ghraib? Whose orders were they? And why were the people in command not aware of the dark side of the human mind? Why did they not institute a system where torture is not permitted? Were the CIA interrogators just following orders? Again whose orders? And regardless of who was giving orders and who was receiving them, what happened to their conscience?

The world punished the Nazis for their dark deeds regardless of whether they were giving orders or they were just carrying them out. Why then is America afraid to deal with its own set of dark commanders and subordinates?

To prosecute or not to prosecute: that is the question.

2009-04-25T08:35:00.013-07:00

A lot is being said and not said about torturous techniques used by the CIA to interrogate enemy prisoners. The far left is outraged and wants Obama to prosecute the people who engaged in those interrogations. There are another set of people who want the interrogators pardoned but their superior officers, who ordered the torture, prosecuted. Obama himself has said he wants to look forward and move on, although he believes this was a crime. The far right neither believes it was a crime nor thinks the agents or their superiors involved in the interrogation should be prosecuted. In short there is a full spectrum of opinions. I hardly expect there to be any consensus on this issue.

There are a few things worth pondering before forming an opinion on this subject though. First of all, if the President thinks torture is illegal and is a crime but in the same breath says that he doesn't support prosecution of the torturers then isn't he condoning a crime? What makes this particular crime forgivable? If this is, then what other crimes are forgivable? The argument that they did what they did to protect the country is hardly defendable. Against what standard or yardstick will you measure an act and say that it is not forgivable regardless what ends it means to achieve? Any odd group of people, together or severally may commit murder, torture, pillage and what not and claim it was necessary, in their best beliefs, to protect the country. By this precedent then they should also not be prosecuted? Or does this mean that only people working in government agencies can be immune from prosecution as long as they claim their actions were for the protection of the country? Who makes this distinction between people in the government and ordinary citizens? The executive branch?

I hope President Obama has well reasoned arguments to answer all of those questions, not just one. There are many angles from which to attack his vacillating decision on whether to prosecute or not to prosecute. I will list at least one such angle in the next blog.

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

2009-04-16T11:10:00.007-07:00

Does anyone remember what happened at the Mad Hatter's tea party? The Hatter and March Hare tried to put the sleepy, drowsy dormouse in the teapot. I don't know if the tea was hot. And I wonder if it burned the dormouse or killed him entirely. The Hatter had a riddle though, which he confessed he didn't have the answer to himself.

The "tea parties" held across the US yesterday were somehow highly reminiscent of that story. It is a curious coincidence that a lot of the attenders were wearing hats very similar to the Hatter's hat. I wonder who March Hare is. But I think it is pretty clear to the rest of us who the dormouse is. Alas the dormice don't know who they are. And in their slumber they don't realize that the Hatter and the Hare are trying to drown them in that tea.

It is mostly funny, and partly pitiful, that the attendees of the mad tea party somehow got their own party confused with the Boston Tea Party. Now, the Boston Tea Party was in protest of taxation without representation. The mad tea party is in protest of electoral loss of representation. These same party-goers were probably sound asleep (like the dormouse) for the last eight years when government spending went up, surplus went down, deficit went up and the general economy went down and so on. They raise their voices against wealth redistribution but fail to see how the money goes from their wallets to the government coffers to failed bank executives and no-bid government contractors. Is that redistribution? Are the dormice against all redistribution or are they against redistribution in just one direction? The dormice cry and wail because they don't want undeserving fellow citizens to have health care but they do not speak a word when undeserving CEOs of failing companies get millions of the same tax dollars as bonuses. The dormice whine and complain when money is spent inside the country to rebuild its economy but they hardly raise their voices when money is spent outside the country to wage wars and then rebuild other countries. And when the majority of these same dormice get a tax cut, they rally in support of the hatter and the hare who have already received their cuts and are now trying to drown them in the teapot!

Oh the irony! Of mice and men...

Tax cuts vs. Government spending

2009-01-30T13:27:00.006-07:00

An economy is a a system where people buy and sell things. And as these transactions take place, money changes hands and brings value to the different players in the system. When an economy tanks, money is in short supply: indeed that is why the economy starts to falter. Money/value/wealth is the life- blood of an economy. Therefore in order to bring back life to an economy you need to "inject" money. Note that is very different from the Republican stand point of "cutting spending". Spending is the economy! Cutting spending is equivalent to drawing blood out of a patient who NEEDS blood. So in order to bring life back, someone has to spend. If it is not the people, it must be the government. That's where the infrastructure projects come in. It's right out of Keynesian economics: give some men shovels and ask them to dig a hole; when they are done digging ask them to fill it up again and at the end of the day pay them some money for their work.

That is one way to "inject" money into the system. The other way is to give people tax breaks. No doubt about that. But again you want to give the break to people who will actually spend it. Give a millionaire a tax break and he/she will probably either invest it in a bank in China or buy some stock of a relatively successful business or even park the money in a Swiss account. The money will disappear from the primary market and get sucked into the secondary markets. And money in the secondary market will do no good whatsoever to help the economy. The economy is in the primary market. So to ensure that the money stays in the primary market the tax relief has to go to people who will actually spend it. Again, key word: spend.

Lastly tax relief only affects people who still have a job and are paying income taxes. For the people who have lost their jobs, such relief means precious little. No income, no income tax. No income tax, no tax relief. Tax relief will provide relief to those already employed but will not revive the system if a large number of people remain unemployed. The strategy therefore should rest both on re-employment and relief. Not either or.

YellowStone and the fate of humanity

2009-01-11T03:15:00.011-07:00

Mt. Redoubt, in Alaska, is going to blow. There is no reason to redoubt or even doubt that. On the other side of the Pacific, a volcano in Japan spewed hot gases and ash into the atmosphere. Yellowstone Park was in recent news. There were more than 250 tremors in the mid to high 3 range on the Richter scale. The scientists monitoring the park said it was unusual but they also said that they didn't think the situation was getting out of hand. What's going on with all the volcanic activity?

For those who don't know, Yellowstone Park, the beautiful snow covered wilderness with the timely geysers, is actually a caldera. It sits atop a huge magma chamber which erupts time to time, violently, spewing thousands of cubic miles of rock into the air. The fiery plume from the eruption rises miles into the atmosphere and the ash hangs in the air and travels far and wide. It darkens the sky and hides the sun. Not a very happy prospect. The Yellowstone caldera has erupted violently three times in the last 2.1 million years. Many scientists say that is not a pattern and that a lot of the magma has already been ejected so even if there was another eruption it would not be a violent one or at least not as violent as the previous ones.

According to the Toba event theory, a similar eruption occurred approximately 75,000 years ago in south east Asia. It created the Toba Lake of current times. When it erupted it covered the world in ash, darkened the skies and nearly wiped off the human species. Exactly how violent are these eruptions? To use terms we understand better, let's compare this with other explosions or eruptions that have happened in more recent times. Much of this is available on Wikipedia but I'll compile them here nevertheless. The Toba eruption was two thousand times more powerful than Mount St. Helens and twenty thousand times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba. Now the Tsar Bomba, a 50 megaton thermonuclear device, was approximately ten times as powerful as all the explosives used during World War II combined, including Fat Man and Little Boy. Think about that for a minute. The Toba super volcano erupted with twenty thousand times as much ferocity as the Tsar Bomba which in turn exploded with ten times the violence of all explosives used in WWII. That's a lot of violence coming from mother nature.

The Toba eruption was cataclysmic. Volcanic ash is actually tiny shards of glass which, if inhaled, can kill animals quite quickly. It killed off almost all plant and animal life in South East Asia. It also brought about a volcanic winter where temperatures dropped 3 degrees Celsius (equal to a drop of approximately 5 degrees Fahrenheit). It is conjectured that human species was nearly wiped off with a mere ten thousand or so survivors and about a thousand breeding pairs. This theory is used to explain why the species is so homogeneous around the world: Because we are all descended from a handful of survivors of a great cataclysm. And it makes one wonder, that if we all are so closely related, then what causes the division and strife that we see today. The Jews and Arabs, the Christians and Muslims and Hindus, the Allies and the Axis, the whites and blacks and browns: all descended from a lucky few.

The Yellowstone caldera has the capacity to blow with the ferocity of ancient Toba. Some say it erupts approximately every 6o0,000 years. And if that is the case we are 40,000 years over due. Others say that period is longer, since it has erupted thrice in the last 2.1 million years. And still some others say, those eruptions are not good predictors of future activity. I don't have a preference. I would rather it never erupt again at all. But if it does, how have we, as humans prepared for it?

Instead of realizing our basic commonness: that we are all descended from a few survivors of the last great cataclysm; that it shouldn't be us versus them, but we all together versus nature; that our species, and life on earth in general, is fragile, we have stoked our differences. Instead of coming together as one species to ensure our survival, we have created more reasons and ways to destroy ourselves.

War on Terror

2008-12-03T01:30:00.005-07:00

Terror is not a person. Terror is not a government or a group. Terror is not an army. Terror is not a weapon. Terror is an emotion, a mindset. So how do you fight terror in a battlefield? How do you wage war against terror with guns, tanks, aircraft, ships and missiles? Terror doesn't reside in caves, deserts or villages. Terror resides in our minds. Terror resides in our thoughts, in our actions.

In the wake of the recent attacks in India someone close to me is now fearful of traveling to that country. Every time I cancel a travel plan out of fear, it's terror in action. Every time I worry about my safety despite having taken all precautions, it's fear in action. Isn't that what the terrorists want? To keep me in fear? How can you fight that fear in my mind by waging war half way across the world? Sure you can kill the terrorists, but will it end the terror? Or would I still be afraid? As long as I live in fear, all the armies of the world cannot win the "war on terror". The war on terror has to be fought in our minds. Fear exists in my mind and that's where I will kill it. I will not change my travel plans; I will not change my life. I will go where I need to go and do what I need to do. The war on terror is over. Terror has lost and I have won.