Exploding Mind

Ballmer Peak

2012-02-10T07:15:00.001-08:00

Ballmer Peak is a peculiar term used in the productivity of software developers.
I have quite figured out the cause for it and that is muscle memory.
Muscle memory is the part of the brain that stores repetitive patterns and actions
so much so that you do not have to think doing something if the pattern does not change much. But in order to get to that level, you need practice. You need to make programming like typewriting , swimming or driving a car. So it is very similar to driving a car when you are in a partially inebriated. Because, the changes are going to be minimal from what you have done previously even though to the new observer the situation seems to be very dynamic. But the level of practice required writing code in that particular language must be
very high. And if you have such practice, you get to write code faster. Between Speed and Accuracy, companies are nowadays opting for speed with improving accuracy incrementally instead of getting into analysis paralysis mode. I presume that they do it for designing a new project too.I do not know how far this will become good in the long run. But I do not think it would be possible for creative endeavors which are too complex to be practiced. TakeArt for example. Those Aha moments ..

Abstract and Concrete

2012-02-05T01:32:00.000-08:00

I have been particularly intrigued by the differences in the abstract and concrete thought processes. And I suppose each of these thought processes are linked to exactly one kind of storage area( memory ) for final storage, namely, procedural memory and semantic memory. The concrete thought process stores a lot of information in the procedural memory. This is the kind of thinking that is natural to a human-being. All humans possess this trait. This is the ability to understand how something works. As it turns out from the name itself, it is the thought that helps us in practical situations , like doing a specific task once we understand how it works by just doing it or by just studying the process. This trait is the one that is responsible for most of our day to day activities. And in order for us to not think about it and do it within a short frame of time, we must practice doing it again and again until we get to the base of it and there lies the Muscle Memory. This is the memory that is linked with the unconscious thought that deals with emotions and automated reactions. This memory is partly loaded with some information at birth and the rest is slowly built over our formative years. But, unfortunately, most Indian students get trained in schools and colleges over this kind of thinking thanks to the inefficiencies of the teachers due to their lack of exposure and the lack of necessity. Since India was more of a socialist economy from 1947 to 1991 , it demanded to protect each and every individual for their basic need. Hence, people did not find the necessity or the power to do great things. Thus, most teachers were mostly very ordinary human beings who had mastered the procedures of doing something. But, as the economy got into the LPG mode from 1991, the exposure of students have increased exponentially. But, sadly, when they go into the classroom, their mind is limited by their teachers in making them conform to a specific type of thinking i.e, concrete thinking. The main essence of a good education is to make the students ask the "why" question. That can come only if the teacher introduces the way of abstractions and their purpose to be studied in a normal course or a subject in schools and colleges. Because, it is these abstractions that are the purpose to sit and observe and learn something. And when you ask the why question of each of these abstractions, you begin to understand the bigger picture . And when you get to understand the bigger picture, you get to know that to be educated is a blessing and that would drive you to be more curious. And when you store the abstractions and their causes in the semantic memory, you begin to find out the unknown causes of subtle phenomenons in the vast world and when you observe an overlap between the causes of abstractions, you have discovered something that seems like Magic to you. And when that discovery is discovered to be a new one, you publish it to the scientific community. And when that paper's impact on the lives of people increases, it makes you famous. And that is recognition. That is fame. That is life. Instead, what happens nowadays is, people are distracted greatly by emotions and hence do not have the time or the opportunity to think. To top that off, startup companies utilize people's weakness of emotions and manipulate it by making them an addict to these emotions and then make money out of it. Frankly speaking, this use of technology makes people stupid indeed. To act on the emotions, leave it to the arts people. Technology should make the technique of doing something better in a way that it changes the lives of people. And when the whole world follows it, it becomes disruptive. Out of greed and the need to make quick money, the field of technology has lost its maturity. Impatient youth drinking and doing some random mix and match called brainstorming( that is brain-fucking!) and use the open source implementations of out of job individuals (the main aim of these people is to take the revenge on software companies because they did not get a job there) and build out something that makes addicts of fellow human beings and make the quick money from Online Ads. Now this situation is comparable to selling something like Sex videos. And the poor people are in support of such companies claiming that it has changed their lives. It might have given them some momentary pleasures but functionally, it has not made these people to live a better life. Do you say that a super-hit music video changes your life? That is the same comparison here. The main reason for people to claim these as great is that these people are such an unhappy lot. And that has come from disparity among people. Everyone tries to be like the other. Even if they have got the basic needs fulfilled, they are wasting their lives by trying to impress others. And now you could note the starting point of all these stuff. GREED. Yes you heard that right. It is GREED. When does it come? It comes when one person in a community thinks that he is better than the rest. When does he think that? He thinks that when there were some opportunity for him to stand out from the crowd. And when do such opportunities come? They come in a competitive environment. And when does competition arise? When there is scarcity. Now , what the world is built on is, in order to reduce this scarcity, these so-called highly skilled individuals form teams and do something to reduce it. Does n't that sound like SHIT? When such people form teams, they, having realized that they are greater than the rest now try to outsmart the rest in getting the maximum credit on the project. So, if they might not have contributed much to the project(ie the others are more smarter), they might devise new ways to get them stay powerful in the group. And GREED arises there. Do you get it? And when this becomes rampant, everyone wants to be GREEDY because otherwise they will feel like a loser. Are we civilized humans at all or some neanderthal men? Shame on our policies and systems in place. We try out policies like an experiment as if it does not cause any loss to us. Such policies must be more carefully written like a mathematical theorem and the learned community must approve of such policies before they can be thrown to be acted on the poor general public. I agree that sometimes, we make mistakes, but we must learn to recognize those as soon as possible and rectify the systems in place. Man, what a place have we made this world to be? If there is any GOD, he must be laughing at the freewill that he had endowed on us and the stupidity of us humans on doing stuff which we never ought to do at all. Oh my God, I am tired of this SHIT , I am tired of this SHIT.

5 E's

2012-01-23T09:31:00.000-08:00

Energy
Ego
Entertainment
Empathy
Enlightenment

These are objectively the 5 E's that every human-being is motivated by.

Ego

2012-01-23T08:56:00.000-08:00

Trying to remove ego from my list of needs and concentrating just on intellectual need is very far from reality. I am now realizing that it is leading to personal destruction. Returning to the path of resurrecting my ego. For that is what has made me seek challenges and endure tough times and achieve something in this big bad dog-eat-dog world.

Conclusions

2012-01-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

Process Oriented approach focuses on learning and may not achieve the expected result. Result oriented approach focuses on result but may not achieve the learning.
Learning occurs out of experience in result-oriented approach.
The feelings of love, humor , peace and curiosity are neither process nor result oriented. They are just for enjoying the process without the focus of learning or achieving results. Hence, such pursuits must be done in free time and not in a profession.
Education should make us focus on learning.
Curiosity must be pursued as a hobby.
Singing must be pursued as a hobby too.
Singing as a profession focuses more on the money and prestige and it destroys the joy.
Creating music for the process sake might not end us giving much good music.
But Creating music for the result of giving good music does. And we focus on giving
good music if we need money and recognition.

Living with Emotions

2011-12-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

For sometime now, I have decided to use my primal hardwired emotions and instincts to live and guide me through the day. Not surprisingly, my emotions are taking me for a ride. I thought that living with rational thought and logical thinking was learned. No, Logic is also a hard-wired ability. You can simply call it as curiosity with a longer duration. Just that we react with emotions before logic can sense or perceive the situation. So, by this , I mean that there are two kinds of perceptive abilities in us. Sub-conscious (hard-wired) and conscious( learned). Sub-conscious perception has a direct connection to my emotions and the conscious perception is done by logical ability and based on the conscious perception, the logical ability part of the brain might be connected to my emotions. So, as you might see, there are 2 aspects of emotions : Sub-conscious and Conscious. By saying that I am living with emotions, I mean, I have been living with sub-conscious emotions most of the time albeit sometimes conscious perception is also well-developed that it comes into play and then triggers my conscious emotions. But , the conscious can decide whether it has to react emotionally or try to again consciously solve the problem. I have been trying hard to introspect my logical abilities. From that introspection, I find that I perceive a situation based on 3 steps:
1. What is the situation . ie, the input and the output.
2. How is it done. ie, based on my past theories, I ll try to map a behavior that is in my memory to the situation based on the similarities of inner details of the situation. For example, If I come across something like multiplication with my brain having only addition, the Step 1 is new to me. So, in Step 2, I ll see how it is done. Then, I ll try to correlate the behavior of multiplication as similar to addition in that it is only repeated addition. Now, this can happen only if I understand truly what addition is.
3. Why is it done. ie, If a situation happens, ie I know only the output, then I ll try to find out what might have caused this. Even this requires behavior mapping. This is more like guessing.

Now, the drawback of logic is that logic by itself is impeccable. But , in order to truly search for knowledge, logic needs the help of external knowledge either by reading, writing or experimenting. Atleast some of it is required. Even in an abstract subject like mathematics, which requires much of imagination and inductive reasoning, some initial source of knowledge is important. By the help of observation , what one has found out is that many complex systems are just aggregation of identical simple systems. By identical, I mean just the behavior barring the input and the output. That is called self-reference or recursion. This might be counter intuitive to some people. How can a system be defined in terms of itself. Please keep in mind that it is only the behavior that is replicated. The system is a combination of input, system state, behavior and output. The system state might change if it is a dynamic system or it might not if it is a static system.

On paradoxes, well , the logical reasoning might be correct but the premises are wrong. Well, it is hard for me to manage both work and my morbid curiosity to think about things. After all, what would one do if one does not have any other social activity? Replace Peace, Humor, Anger, Fear , Love, Disgust and Sorrow with Curiosity. And Curiosity, I must say, you are my faithful friend.

This post might be a bit wordy but it is not just some scribbling. It is just some spit-out of my thoughts so far stored in my brain with careful conclusions. Oh God, my Emotions are for sure taking me for a ride! Thanks if you have read this far! Hope you have got something from this! If not, give me a punch on my face !

On Recursive Paradox

2011-12-29T08:42:00.000-08:00

I am a strong believer of absolute truth.
Hence, I try hard to reason about paradoxes.
In general, paradoxes are paradoxes not because the logic is wrong but the premise is wrong.

Example:
Statement A: "Statement A is wrong"

If Statement A is wrong, then Statement A is right.
If Statement A is right, then Statement A is wrong.

Sounds contradicting? Yes.

In this statement, Statement A defines itself and can be called recursive.
But in natural systems with recursion, Recursion is just a component of the whole system
and not the whole system at all.

Example: A system cannot be defined only using itself. That means the definition leads nowhere. Imagine if I tell that I am like this because I am like this.

A system must be bigger than the constituent recursive systems upon which the system is built.

Example:
Statement A:"Statement A is wrong AND Statement B is right."

If Statement B is not right, then we know that Statement A is wrong and it fulfills the logical reasoning.

If Statement B is right, then Statement A is non explanatory.

Therefore, Statement A must be wrong and Statement B must be wrong.

Now, even though I have used recursion to explain the statement A, I have used it only in part. The other part is Statement B. Therefore, A system cannot be explained in terms of itself. It requires sub constituents which are different from the system.

Enumerations

2011-12-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

Enumerating my needs, here they are:

1. Food
2. Water
3. Air
4. Sleep

5. Libido
6. Shelter
7. Transport
8. Communication
9. Clothes

10. Taste
11. Touch/Comfort
12. Fragrance
13. Beauty
14. Music

15. Fear
16. Anger
17. Hatred
18. Sorrow

19. Curiosity
20. Peace
21. Loved
22. Love
23. Respected
24. Respect
25. Humour

Means Needs Fulfilled

1. Money - 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14
2. Contacts - 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14
3. Parents - 21,22,20,25,15,16,17,18
4. Siblings - 21,22,20,25,15,16,17,18
5. Friends - 23,24,25,15,16,17,18
6. Relatives - 23,24,25
7. Partner - 5,21,22,20,23,24,25,15,16,17,18
8. Children - 21,22,25,20
9. Entertainment - 25,19
10.Hobby - 19,20
11.Causes - 22,20

I do not have the means for 2,5,6,7,8.
Among those, there are alternate means for fulfilling my common needs except Need 5.
In Future, I might not have the alternate means for fulfilling my common needs.
Hence, I would need the means for 2,5,6,7,8.

That was enlightening!

Epiphany

2011-12-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

Those small moments of epiphany.. that is what is the triumph of the pursuit of interests while ignoring material wants and ego. Whatever your job be, you can make it interesting by this wonderful word called optimization." Sweep the streets like michelangelo painted the pictures ..." - Martin Luther King Jr. But sadly, our minds are still stuck with never ending material wants and ego. I think that is the barrier to happiness. Being goal oriented towards materialism and egoism makes you neither happy in the result. Instead be process oriented towards the job/interests and it makes you happy both in the process as well as in the result.

As for the speech of Martin Luther King Jr. goes here it is:

" If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are."

Proving P!=NP is NP?

2011-12-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Just got some random with this ultimate question: Is P!= NP?
What if the proof itself is in NP?
If it is so, if it can be proved, then P= NP.
Wow. This is consistent with the problem at hand.
So , it is enough if we find out if this proof is in NP.
Aah.. I think I have confused myself about what NP really means.
But for a random scribble, I do not think I should delete this.
Let it be.. Let it be..

Wants!

2011-12-22T09:50:00.000-08:00

Being Result-oriented, we are always working to get what we want.
Small moments of contentment arise when we get what we want.
Already 1/3 of our life is spent in sleep.
In the remaining 2/3 , are we happy about our life?
To say the least, we are neither happy nor sad for 1/3 of weekdays.
We want to finish something. We use intellect and not emotions.
But, Is happiness just an emotion? Is not it a state of mind aka mood?
It is very difficult to be happy all the time. We surely do not want that.
Sure I agree that we are sometimes in total FLOW while we are using our intellect.
But those moments are not for all and not always.
Everyone of us use relativity to increase our wants.
But we do not know what our absolute needs are.
Absolute needs are limited.
What then this life is all about? Is it just hedonism?
But even if it is, are all hedonists happy? Really not.
Then what do we need in life?
-- An eternally perplexed soul with dynamic upgrades and an expiry date.

Back to Results!

2011-12-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

I have been a great follower of process-oriented lifestyle during my years in my undergrad and after that till now. Prior to that, I had been result-oriented to a great extent. I willfully denied that kind of lifestyle after recognizing that I was not having any enjoyment if I followed that lifestyle. But now, being process-oriented has its share of problems. I may be happy but I would be poor and not be able to satisfy some of my needs and the needs of my family. First things First. I might be a dreamer but would be hungry and hunger is strong enough to break me away from the dreams. I exist, therefore I am. I might need to find a balance between my tasks. But I need to be result-oriented at-least in my career. Trying to enjoy the process in a "job" is a naive and childish approach towards happiness and contentment. So, I need to keep things separate and not combine them. Be process-oriented in 8 hours of your free-time. Be result-oriented in the other 8 hours i.e, your job. I might be doing intellectual prostitution but I do not care. So are others. It is the only way to earn a predictable livelihood. If I am a professor in my favourite area, even then the job needs me to do certain politics to get money from the funding providers. Otherwise, the university would not respect me. Also, I have seen that most professors, after getting a tenure, no longer do passionate research. It is all business everywhere. It is better to understand it rather than blaming it for your lack of interest in the job. Paul Graham of course writes an article about doing what you like. But in the end, it is quite impractical to be an artist with a family. So much for money that you are forced to lose your interest in favor of money. PG might be a great person to say that and to do that, but I think it is quite impractical, at least according to me. Even if you take the examples of programmers, they need to stay on the job and in order to stay relevant, they focus on doing things that would not be easily replaceable and that would give them long-term returns(like starting a startup - You get contacts, You get money in future). It is a big bad world out there. Wanting to be a child again is going to hurt you for sure. Even if it does not, it would hurt your family. And so, at least for the love of your family , be result-oriented. Take CEOs for example. They do that first for the money, next for the contacts, next for their self-esteem(this part is important for achieving perfection) and only finally for the curiosity. If it had been for their curiosity, they would have better become researchers instead of running a company. I like Microsoft for that fact in that Bill Gates is passionate enough to build a huge research center although it might not give the company immediate benefits and it is typically a risky investment. And the whole world runs on money. But, all said and done, it is going to be a hard time for me to get back to the result-oriented person that I was till my penultimate teenage years.

LIFE & CHAOS

2011-12-11T09:13:00.001-08:00

Life is probably the most dynamical system I have ever seen. But underneath all the chaos, it is all just the lack of knowledge that disguises itself as chaos. On a higher level, you can explain a system as a combination of Input , A Generalized Behavior which gives you the output. You think you have got it right. Did You? If so, you are wrong. There is another component called the System State.For the same input, if the system state is different, then the output is different. The system state can either be affected when the system's output is fed back to its input or when a sub-system changes its state by feeding its output back to its input. It is really hard to draw a boundary and make a clear definition of each system. We can say that an entity becomes a system when there is a known clear general behavior for the system that acts equally well for all the inputs of the system. Of course , it also depends on the state of the system. Confusions apart, it is pretty intuitive if you think about the system first than thinking about it again and again. If you take an individual for example, his inputs modify his system state heavily and the output depends on that accordingly. Behavior in this case is any ability the system has be it Cognitive, Motor , Psycho-motor or Emotional ability. Assuming that the abilities are static, which is not, the system state is the knowledge of the system from past experiences. It has so much power even to change the apparently static behavior of the system. Take an example of a simple chaotic system like rolling dice. You can categorize the behavior of the system as the process of rolling , the system state as the wind and the way your hand opens to throw the die , and the input as the initial condition with which you keep the die in your hand ,and the hand itself. With such limits of knowledge and the limits of your cognitive ability , and another important limiting factor like time, you cannot possibly accurately do something. It takes 10-15 years minimum to become an expert in a specific category of work whichever type of path you choose, be it inductive reasoning or deductive reasoning or Abductive reasoning. All this only applies to the attempt to understand systems and apply them to solve problems and create new systems. If you want to experience life with all the emotions without even trying to understand the system consciously, you are welcome to do so but when you try doing that, be prepared to face your negative emotions. It is probably the reason why people are inclined more towards logic and reason. It is more like people are prepared to reduce some positive emotions in their life voluntarily instead of experiencing negative emotions. The apparent feelings of curiosity, control and self-love probably compensates for the reduction of positive emotions like loving others/receiving love from others, humor ,peace and thrill. Man, Does life have to be like this? Those people who are seeking ultimate control towards things in their life, relax folks, you are never going to get it in your life probably for the content mentioned above! It is just a balance between control/self-love and curiosity.In the end, if you think you have lived your life to the best of your ability, time, knowledge and interests, that is life for you. There you go. You have lived life. And that is the main goal of LIFE.

Bounded Rationality

2011-09-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

The entire universe is deterministic. By it, I mean HARD determinism. But, humans are limited by 3 things:
1. Knowledge
2. Time
3. Cognitive Abilities.
The more you have each of these , the more you can discern things and predict future with more certainty. Though humans can predict the future, they cannot change it often times.

This is because in any system, there are 3 components:
1. Input Data 2. Functionality and 3. Output Data

The functionality is the same for a certain input in that it always gives the same output for the same input. In other words, it always gives the same set of outputs for the same set of inputs. i.e, For all set of rational and irrational numbers, if x=a and y= a+1 then f(x) = x+ 1.

Now, the reason we cannot change the future is because we recognize that the inputs are the same and try to change it but we cannot. What we have to do instead is to change the functionality which takes in the input and gets a new output. i.e instead of addition, we should do multiplication.

We would not know of this unless we have knowledge of more functionality ,the abilities to understand them and apply it in situations and the liberty of having more time to recognize the function.

Hence, though the universe is hard deterministic, humans almost always act on the basis of immediate benefits instead of long-term vision. That is called as Greed. In order to become the big picture thinker, we need to sacrifice the short-term benefits for the longer term. That can happen only if we believe that the longer term is better than the shorter term and that every situation is practically not optimal by Greedy Algorithm.

Sadly, bounded rationality forces us to become greedy. This , will always be an unsolved problem because, humans are always limited by time,knowledge and cognitive abilities.
-- Known is a drop, unknown is an ocean.

Mathematicians, the world depends on you. Do not stop your pursuit of truth through inductive and deductive reasoning.

On the truth about jobs

2011-09-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

It s been just a week since I had written my previous post. My frequency of posts is increasing . An advantage it has is my ability to discover more truths and express it. A disadvantage is I have not given sufficient time and I am of course limited to Bounded Rationality.

Well,in this post, I am talking about jobs and the truth behind them. Well, why would anyone go for a job? A job is a measure of contributing to the production of a society in order to mutually fulfill it's members' needs. What are the needs of the members of a society? The type of needs might be the same but the magnitude varies. And why does it vary? Because of the observation that the needs might not be fulfilled due to the scarcity of resources. And why are the resources scarce? Due to reduction in natural and man-made production of resources. Do you see the counter-intuition in this? Why would anyone want to go for a job only to hoard resources which is detrimental to the economy in the long run? Why does nt anyone believe that the resources are going to be produced continuously given that we have sufficient man power?

The evolution of jobs is such that more and more of it is being considered redundant and repetitive that it is being automated. And the bottom purpose of this is to save costs although on the outside, it is just told that the society can contribute to more creative tasks. How can the society contribute to more meaningful tasks if there is inequality of economic situations and opportunities due to moral luck? What if the process of automation involving reasoning itself is automated? What would humanity do then? Just sit back and relax while the automatons do the job because then only the emotions and free will part of humanity cannot be automated?

If automatons can become intelligent, it is obvious that they get to control humans using their superior problem solving capabilities though it would take some time for them to get the required knowledge. What would humans do then in their life? Just fulfill their physiological, emotional,sensual and intellectual needs? Let us go get some reality and solve some real problems facing humanity instead of trying to automate repetitive tasks which is just going to create more and more inequality in society . And it is ironic to think that creating jobs is more talked about these days on the outside although on the inside automation really takes control. That s it for now. LL post next time when I give more serious thoughts about this.

Protection,Sustenance and Cherishment

2011-09-10T14:44:00.000-07:00

The title represents the main objectives of a human's life. It extends to Self and of others. Each of the objective further has different levels: Physiological, Sensual, Emotional and Intellectual. So , if you calculate, it is 3*4 = 12 objectives. And that is only assuming of self. If it includes others, it gets multiplied by the number of people. 12*(number of people+you) : Talk about problem solving in life. I see life itself as a great challenge and a problem to be solved. Within one's lifespan, if a human can solve 24 objectives completely, that is great. But most of us end up solving the breadth of problems. i.e, We take up one level of a particular objective and make sure others get that objective fulfilled. Great people extend it to a great number of people and they reserve a permanent place in history. Others come and go but though they have lived a good life according to them ,they are not remembered for the lack of their contribution to society. Human society is a complex society. It talks about interdependence yet plays with nature disturbing the harmony. Beneath us all, Evolution rules us in that we generally try to live even under the worst of conditions, or better yet we cannot kill ourselves though some exceptions happen due to the Survival of the fittest principle. Right before our birth, we compete amid millions of other sperm cells trying to ovulate the egg(from the perspective of a sperm cell) and we accept only the fittest(from the perspective of an egg) and turn down other weaker cells. In that competition however, our individual abilities are the only criteria. But talking about competition in the real world, however, there is this thing called Opportunities. i.e, Recognition of your abilities. That often comes from various other factors not directly related to our present abilities but mostly from our past accomplishments;And even our influence in the society as kith-and-kin of some other notable personality. Coming to talk of real merit, however, there is something called Moral Luck which most are not aware of. So, whatever fairness the society is trying to influence , it is not existent but it is just atleast convincing. Now, the reason why I talk about evolution is that interdependence is also in nature for the greater good and independence is also in nature for the individual good. And Interdependence comes in nature with each thing being consciously independent but unconsciously interdependent. i.e, Take Food Chain for example. There are certain involuntary acts of interdependence among humans when they feel the need to help fellow humans, loving their family etc. Perhaps, this has what has made animals and humans fitter living species. So, What we can take from this is that , Evolution has hardwired some feelings in humans that helps them to survive more better. Hence, doing what we feel will only make us interdependent and not losers. But that said, it makes sense only if we first take care of ourselves and then take care of others. So, Independence first and Interdependence next. In that process, however, we might need to harm some natural being on earth consciously or unconsciously. Does not matter. Ultimately, nature would take care of itself. So, Independence and Interdependence as a rational choice is the best way to go about things. Humans are at war with one another for the same reason. Ultimately, nature would take care of itself by letting humans kill one another and causing other calamities due to imbalance. Thus, the race would near extinction and a more fitter race would come to existence. Such is life. Such is nature. Such is existence. We better deal with it.

Boring blogpost

2011-07-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

This might be a boring blogpost to even myself when I come back and read after sometime! Dont ask me as if my other posts were interesting! Just a poor soul out here :( .. No hard feelings! Right, before I digress and exhibit my madness, here are my thoughts about stuff.

1. Life:
All living beings are in this planet due to a complex chemical reaction that has happened due to a result of a lot of combinations of chemical reactions . i.e, for example, if there are 4 chemical elements, the number of ways in which they can combine together and react is :

2 elements : choosing 2 elements from 4 can be done in 12 ways. i.e, the first element can be chosen in 4 ways(1 or 2 or 3 or 4). The second element can be chosen in 3 ways because one is already chosen ( 1 or 2 or 3 if 4 is chosen as first element) . Combining both, the total number of ways this can be done is 4x3 = 12 ways.

This self-organizing chemical reaction has produced a result of a cell which has the properties of converting the energy that it receives in solid,liquid or air into biochemical energy which can be used by it to grow itself or to sustain itself. Thus the cell was born and from the single cell came the bacteria and from the bacteria came animals and from animals came man. Eventually cells do lose the capacity to do so due to the fact the chemical reaction has a duration to it. Thus began Life on Earth!

The origin of universe is yet unknown due to the fact that the knowledge needed to uncover this is not sufficient due to 2 facts:
1. The source of knowledge to living beings come from their senses. - Empiricism
2. Another source of knowledge to living beings mainly humans come from their imagination from the previously obtained knowledge. i.e, Imagination is just the answer to the question what-if and why-not. It can come only from some pre-existing knowledge. - Rationalism

With 1 and 2, however, lots of hypothesis has been done. By hypothesis, I mean the possibilities of approximations to truth though it has not been proved to be true yet! One such hypothesis is the big bang theory.

By TRUTH, I mean that which has been proved . By PROOF, I mean that which has been logically validated upon. By LOGICAL VALIDATION, I mean that which has been deducted upon. i.e, if A gives B and B gives C then A gives C. And if A gives B and A+1 gives B+1 then if A+n gives B+n then All As gives to All Bs.This is called Induction.

Human beings:

Now coming to Human beings, their needs are just as any other living being on earth but for the fact that through the process of evolution, they have obtained some extra senses and abilities to make their life more sustainable though it has been compensated with their weak of physique compared to other animals.

There are 3 components:
1. Needs / Desires
2. Abilities/ Skills
3. Challenges/ Opportunities

The bottom line or the purpose of human life is to LIVE and CREATE LIFE and SUSTAIN IT. Out of which were born these abilities.
Now coming to the needs,

1. Needs/ Desires:
Physical
Sensual
Emotional
Intellectual

Physical - These are energy needs. i.e, the energy needed to sustain life needs to be taken inside through air,liquid or solid.
The waste products of this chemical reaction need to be outputted from the body.

Sensual - Protection and Cherishment
Protection Sensual needs : The need to see the world and taken in as raw data so that our hardwired(built-in) muscle memory can perceive it.
Cherishment Sensual needs : The need to savor the sensual responses to the outer world which gives a sense of worth to LIFE.

Emotional - Protection and Cherishment
Protection Emotional needs: The need to react to certain situations to protect our life in this world. These are hardwired(built-in) in our brains for a quick response. Example are: Fear, Anger, Hatred, Sorrow
Cherishment Emotional needs: The need to savor the emotional responses which gives a greater sense of worth to LIFE. Examples are: Courage, Peace of Mind, Love and Affection, Humor and Joy.

CURIOSITY is categorized usually as an emotion but is quite different from the protection and cherishment emotional needs in that these protection and Cherishment emotional needs are either positive or negative. CURIOSITY by its pure form is neutral though we would add other emotions like EGO to make it impure. CURIOSITY is the need to know.

Now these emotions that I have told are basic emotions. There are other emotions derived from these emotions like GUILT, RESPECT, EGO/ SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT,PAASAM(Subtly different from Affection), SHYNESS which are more complicated and are usually not hardwired but are cultivated due to the SOCIETAL interactions.

Intellectual -
This is usually of a higher plane. It involves being greatly single minded on a task that you lose consciousness of other external things or about your own emotions and senses. It involves the following abilities : Abstraction/ Modelling the real world on to general concepts, Understanding the procedure behind things, Reasoning the rationale or reason of existence behind the things. Now, the above three are done based on knowledge obtained from our senses. But there is another faculty called Imagination which explores more possibilities based on derived knowledge from our senses and based on the above 3 faculties finding more closer approximations towards truth. So, it is just that Man discovers things one by one. i.e, TRUTH is always permanent but MAN sometimes claims it his invention though there is nothing such as invention and it is all DISCOVERY.

So these are our needs.

The next is ABILITIES/SKILLS.
With respect to ABILITIES/SKILLS, these are gained based on doing something.
SKILLS differ based on what abilities we need to use for that skill.
i.e. 4 types of skills.
1. Motor Skills - Example: Learning to Eat, Standing, Sitting, Walking, Running. Requires our physical abilities.
2. Psycho Motor Skills - Example: Swimming, Driving, Language skills, Memorization.
3. Cognitive Skills: Example: Communication skills, Problem Solving skills, Creativity.

The next is opportunities.
Opportunities are nothing but using our abilities to fulfil our needs in REALITY. In doing so, there might be lots of CHALLENGES/HURDLES.
Hence, Opportunities are often said that they are disguised as CHALLENGES/HURDLES.

So, If we consciously adhere to this TRUTH, we can fulfil whatever our needs are and it is only a matter of time before our needs would get fulfilled.

Now, there is a higher intellectual need that I have been having for the past 1 year : The purpose of my existence. But as I said before, how the world is unable to know what is origin of the universe due to lack of knowledge, so am I unable to know the purpose due to lack of knowledge from senses and Imagination. Hence I am trying to expand my sensual perception and imaginations to find out the closer approximation towards TRUTH.

TRUTH is absolute. But humans find out different perceptions of it due to the fact that they have only closer approximations of TRUTH and not TRUTH itself. Sometimes, the truth is found out like that of GRAVITY. In such cases, it becomes a universal law. Other cases, it translates into opinion and beliefs and dogma.

But whatever that is, developing a free thinking approach is the key to finding it.

With respect to Families, especially like ours, they are built on FEAR and AFFECTION. ie our emotional PROTECTION need to protect ourselves. Hence, they do not come out of that and become stagnant in that . If they come out and explore the TRUTH in the world, they can easily satisfy their needs which takes only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, there is nothing like some special ABILITY given to only some special HUMANS. ALL are created EQUAL except for DISABLED people who are just unlucky children of CHANCE/PROBABILITY. The lucky part is that they are still human which is also due to CHANCE/PROBABILITY.

So, with all this in mind, I know it is going to bother you for sometime. And if you have read till here, then that s an achievement for me.. Just try to digest it as much as you can but if you cannot just leave it at that point and when you feel you can, come and take it in.

SOCIAL PEOPLE

2011-07-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

The world social when put in front of people makes its own meaning.
People suddenly become so conscious of themselves when they are in front of other people. This all happens due to the fact that they want love and respect from others. And they want that from others because they do not have those emotions towards themselves. And once they get some of it from others, they think they are important. Respect from others disguises it as self-esteem and makes you want more so that you can have more of that so called self-esteem(ego). Let me get back to the purpose of the existence of emotions. Why do they need to be there first of all for a human? They are there for a reason .They are there because they protect a human from harmful things which endanger his life. Not only do they exist to protect you but they exist to make humans cherish their life so that they consider their life important and worth living without really thinking about the purpose. Because, when people think about their purpose, often it needs them to come out of the non-sense of the societal civilized life and explore their mind , do research either through rationalism or empiricism or historicism to gain valuable knowledge about themselves. But, the distraction in society would not let them do so as their internal energy is often directed towards their emotions and their emotions often are evoked due to influence from the outside world than from observing their own selves. Even if they reach past to their intellect, they still are not exempt from the distractions of the outside world that the intellect tries to make sense of everything outside but does not know what the hell is going on in its own self. And when it knows quite a bit from the outside, now it observes its own self and by the time it starts that, the age of the body is already over half the average age of a homo-sapien in the modern society. And then due to the lack of energy and sometimes due to the lack of their ability to satisfy their survival needs, the body and the mind dies with no real sense of its own self. But, even with all the outside distractions, one can attain knowledge about self : That is the beauty. And that is through something called KARMA YOGA. i.e, being steadfast in doing something so joyously without caring about the end result. When the intellect and the emotions and the physique all are concentrated towards doing something so intensely that other distractions are disregarded completely and when the conscious is not aware that it is conscious , then that state is KARMA YOGA.
Hopefully, one can attain that state atleast by co-existing with the society. And in doing so, self-realization can be attained even without JNANA YOGA or BHAKTI YOGA. Hope the rest of the humanity realizes this and be happy with wherever they are and do things as directed. Long Live the BHAGAVAD-GITA..

Rationalizing feelings

2011-06-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

It s been a while since I returned to blogger. My blogging happens only if I am in a mood of expressing vehemently to the world but thanks to the modern society and my poor social skills cannot find anyone to do so. This blog pertains to the very basic crux of rationalizing things in life. In doing so, I found out the truth about the purpose of human life. The purpose of my survival is to protect myself and my species from extinction. And my hardwired feelings are exactly acting to do so. While there is no eternal meaning or noble purpose in this, this is the only purpose of the needs of a living being. Previously, I had been disregarding my feelings for the fact that I considered them not to reflect REALITY as it is. And my disregard went to the extent of not finding any meaning/purpose of my needs/my survival and thereby did not find a reason to live.But not anymore. I have begun to truly trust my feelings and inner emotions. I am listening to the inner feelings for they have been given to me by my ancestors thanks to evolution. I am now in the process of listening to my feelings, perceiving reality using my logical and imaginative thoughts and then do something in real so that my feelings are satisfied. Fair Enough for any human you would say. But this was how I was during my childhood and my formative adolescence years . Something unusual happened during my college years that changed me. It was excessive bullying at the point that I had to infer that my feelings were always false and that s where I started disregarding my feelings. From then on, I was always rationalizing everything and found that my feelings were often not "true". Not anymore. So my steps for living my life: 1. Listen to your feelings and accept them totally. 2. Perceive reality to express feelings at the right time and at the right place. 3. Express the feelings fully with full satisfaction. Thus, I shall live. Thus, I shall survive. Thus, I shall prosper.
Nowadays with all the humbug in spirituality in seeing reality as it is ,my discovery is very helpful to not only me but to others who are in similar state of mind as me. Long Live HUMANS.

People

2011-04-20T19:22:00.001-07:00

People are categorized into two:
1. Those who can do things.
2. Those who can abduct them.
The world does not give a shit about you unless you satisfy the needs of someone.This applies to all sorts of relationships except for parents and brother/sister. That too,in a way the mathematics is fine in it as they too expect a certain return on their investment in you. The return that they expect is your happiness and thereby their happiness. Nothing is a better need than being happy by seeing others happy. Other needs force you to help other people satisfy their needs. The need to help others is hence the noblest of all and the highest of all needs. Hence, I see that Maslow's hierarchy of needs needs a certain revision - Helping people is at the apex of the pyramid with all the other needs like self-actualization coming at the bottom.
But I see that a lot of my other needs does not help people. Instead it forces me to do something to satisfy others' needs so that I would become happy. Capitalism is good in that it forces you to contribute something to the society even if you are selfish.
But the contribution's quality can be enhanced only by love of the activity of contribution instead of the love of satisfying people's needs. Communism is for very enlightened people. For the common man, Capitalism still works. For crooks, both punish to some extent but crooks are crooks anyway and hence take the maximum out of the system without giving anything back. Kudos to the two systems.
I sincerely wish the world learns from these two systems and evolves to a better form of system. Or Else, be prepared to perish.

POSITIVE NEGATIVE AND NEUTRAL

2011-04-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

POSITIVE - Joy
NEGATIVE - Sorrow
NEUTRAL - Curiosity

Curiosity is the best emotion available and is the father of other emotions. Only through curiosity does perception occur. Perception leads to other emotions.

Rules again

2011-04-03T21:13:00.001-07:00

Here are my rules again.
There is no way to know the infinite. Freewill may be a work belonging to the infinite.
My simple beliefs are the rules which I am going to follow no matter what happens to me in future:
1. Determinism
2. Interdependence
3. God
4. Karma
5. Fairness
Freedom of Action is just an action already sorted out. i.e, It has already been accounted for. And that is KARMA. Determinism is the belief that Man is nearing towards knowing that everything has a cause and effect but if Man elevates himself to such thoughts, he might actually be able to predict even the toss of a coin accurately 1000 number of times. It is truly the lack of knowledge of initial conditions that makes man ignorant and not able to predict the behavior. And wrt GOD, God is the cause of all causes, he is the KARMA calculator.
Fairness : Is the world inherently fair? At first glance, everything seems so unfair and chaotic. But if you observe closely, there exists an inherent fairness that exists in the universe. Karma and Fairness are closely related.
Man was perhaps the only living being that God might have created in the idea that in his past births as other living beings he might have been naturally fair and not greedy and hence if he is given a sense to perceive,then he can realize GOD.
I am particularly in favor of soft determinism.

DESIRES/NEEDS
ABILITIES/SKILLS
OPPORTUNITIES

The above three are the primary things that MAN mostly invests his actions and thoughts in.

Simply speaking, my exhaustive rules can be summarized as the following :
1. DESIRES/NEEDS
2. ABILITIES/SKILLS
3. OPPORTUNITIES

4. FAIRNESS & KARMA
5. INTERDEPENDENCE
6. GOD & SOFT DETERMINISM

7. 9 EMOTIONS:
HUMOUR
LOVE
ANGER
FEAR
CURIOSITY
SORROW
APATHY
PASSION
HATRED
Be free to consciously watch your emotions and express them accordingly.

In short, be interdependent, deterministic,fair, have desires, develop your abilities, look for opportunities and be conscious of your emotions. That is it.

Energy

2011-02-23T22:52:00.001-08:00

Energy primarily is under the command of the brain.
Brain later directs it to either Emotions or Reason and then to the other parts of the body depending on the action.
Emotions are reactions to the outer environment. Even Memory evokes emotions.
Reason is the ability to validate and find solutions to problems.
What I have been doing for the most part of my life here at Atlanta is I have spent most of my energy towards Reason. And lately,I have realized that even though the world is considered entirely deterministic, It is not so to the humans and when it comes to an individual like me, determinism and scope to know is very limited.
Finally, I decided to stop all this realization and get back to the real world COMPETING to satisfy my emotions. Because, I have known that I cannot satisfy my REASON whatsoever. Even if I pursue it,I am likely missing other beautiful things in my life which GOD has provided me. Well, I am like a CAT on the WALL now.
I have decided to come back thus using REASON as a TOOL to satisfy a myriad variety of my EMOTIONS and nothing else. I have also decided GOD as a likely force pervading the universe through non-determinism(chaos). Here I come LIFE.

Simple Rules

2011-02-20T22:41:00.000-08:00

1. Have Desires.
2. Work Hard.
3. Have Fun.
4. Pray GOD
5. Help people

Chaos ,Patterns & Interpretations

2011-02-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

As the complexity of the system increases, slight changes in initial conditions produce far too greater changes in the final results.
This is called Chaos. This is in fact deterministic. Because, the deviation is with respect to slight changes. Perhaps the function
of deviation may be exponential. Hence,there is no non-determinism. The minute changes in initial conditions have not been calibrated yet.
But it is possible to solve non-deterministic problems using deterministic approaches just that the functions of deviations are too
dependent on the initial conditions. If they are independent of the initial conditions, then it can be concluded that non-determinism
rules. Since ,they infact depend on the initial conditions , I can almost confirm determinism. The power of human approaches to measure
the dependency of the system to the initial conditions must be increased. Though there are devices to measure the initial conditions,
in order to get a generalized pattern , still powerful devices must be used to measure the patternization and generalization.
Perhaps, it is this generalization that is GOD.Perhaps GOD has given humans the power to observe this and make them realize GOD
and the ultimate powerlessness of humans though giving them a choice to see whatever they want to see. He has given the mind
to humans to observe order at the perceived level of humans. Hence, I see that the whole universe behaves in order.
It is just the ability of humans to perceive the orderliness stops at a certain point as infinity is not reachable by humans.
INFINITE is GOD. HAIL GOD.
GOD can be imagined as the FORCE. The purpose of human life may not be clear to humans.
But the purpose that GOD has given humans the mind is to observe the ORDER in the universe at the macroscopic level and their
limited ability in observing ORDER at the microscopic level. Hence, GOD exists.
It is through this level that GOD exerts his FORCE. PRAY GOD.