(un)lrnings...

hmm...thr r so many posts pending, donno which one i shd start with....neways here are some thoughts/lrnings tht passed thru my brain 'n stopped for some time to register their presence...u know the stuff that i was referring to in my previous post...

> Simple Life = Oxymoron

> Stereotyping ppl is not bad, in fact its good, even your prejudices(they are almost always right, you know)...save you from having to experience the sad disillusionment at the end...

> Of all the possible ways, being content is the worst possible way, to be unhappy...

> Its so much more easy, nice and fun to explore the places alone....or even with strangers...than with ppl you know...or whom you think you know, as the fact is you can never truly know a person...

> Friends...you find them at unexpected corners in life...'n then you lose them as well...

> to get lost in a big city....actually feels good...no modify it...being lost, feels good...

> 'n most importantly, why the hell am i still awake @ 3:33am?!

tacit != tact, thrs an extra 'i'...
didn't get it?not to worry...it only means, you are still not infected! Be Happy!

Phantasms

Indie t-shirt designers 410BC are channelling Descartes in their spring collection, with a brain emblazoned t-shirt that declares 'I think therefore I am'.

Not a bad shirt for $15 dollars I think you'll agree, especially if you're hip to 17th century French philosophers.

The phrase "I think therefore I am" originated because Descartes wanted to know about what sort of things existed in the world, but realised he couldn't trust his senses because they could be fooled.

He imagined the most extreme example he could think of, where an evil demon was keeping him in a Matrix-style universe in which everything he perceived was an illusion. He asked the question, if he couldn't trust his senses, what could he truly know.

Descartes came to the conclusion that he could doubt everything except the fact he was doubting and therefore concluded that his ability to doubt, and consequently his thought, was proof of his existence - summed up in has famous phrase "I think therefore I am".

In part, this also led him to believe that thought was not part of the physical universe, and that thought and matter were separate entities. In fact, he believed thoughts were part of the soul but interacted with the body through the pineal gland - a small structure which occupies a central position in the brain.

Descartes' proposal that thought and matter (or mind and brain) are separate entities is known as as Cartesian dualism and is now much derided.

One difficulty is that while few people deny that both mind and brain exist in the physical world, it's difficult, and some would say impossible, to talk about them in the same way.

For example, it's easy to answer the question 'what colour are your neurons?' but impossible to answer the question 'what colour are your thoughts?'

This causes all sorts of merry hell for cognitive scientists and leads to the rather bizarre tendency for people to think that every explanation that includes the mind needs to be reduced to brain function for it to be valid.

Philosophers, who tend to be much more able to think about these things without panicking, tend to favour what's called property dualism, which says that while we accept everything happens in the physical world, we can't always match every aspect of one level of description to another, even if both are both completely coherent on their own level.

Mind Hacks: Cogito ergo t-shirt

well just came across this item on google reader and i remembered i was supposed to do a follow up on that unified theory post, with that philo stuff that got left out. Here it goes.

Hmm...ok, it all started with the song 'Phantasmagoria in two', amazing song from this brilliant album. Doing define: phantasmagoria in Google, gave me this -

'a shifting series of phantasms, illusions, or deceptive appearances, as in a dream or as created by the imagination'

along with a whole lot of other stuff, who knew that the word was so popular?! :)

So, anyways googled 'phantasms' (some ppl may know this word from my gtalk status msg 'n did i get some interesting comments for it! :) ) to know the exact meaning, when i landed up on these pages. This first one talks about the connecting the concept of phantasia in greek philosophy with modern philosophy's notion of the idea and imagination. 'n yea this basically reminded me of the book 'Sophie's World' that i had read long long time back and how much i had forgotten :( Anyways its a really good book, do read it if you get chance.
Now coming back to phantasms, you will find this in the above post -

The ancient greeks--beginning with Plato--used the term 'phantasia' to refer to the faculty
of sense judgment or belief and 'phantasm' is the belief itself; i.e. a
belief (doxa) which arises though sensation is a 'phantasm'.

See the paradox in the meanings? And the second page i came across talks about the same. Do read it and check out the complete site, just amazing some of the stuff covered there.
In the previous post i mentioned 'Plato’s Theory of Love: Rationality as Passion'. And since i can't remember what i wanted to talk about that or maybe 'coz 'm just tired and lazy, 'll let you guys to read it for yourselves here. Its an interesting read actually.

'n that concludes unified theory :P

adios

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Unified field(s) theory

First of all this post has nothing to do with the UFT in physics that one is familiar with. Moreover there is no theory at all. Who said the title/subject should be an appropriate reflection of the body anyway? like this comic or the innumerous sensational headlines one gets to see on TV these days. Anyways the reason i used it was 'coz this post was touching so many fields, including bit of physics, which is the reason i remembered it in the first place. :)

Well it started off with me finding these couple of printouts @ home, which i had probably taken around 2 'n half years back, the time around which i started this blog. Let me check, yep somewhere during this 4th post of mine. Hmm, they were some amazing days...all those discussions on physics/philosophy/religion/life ...learning about so many new things...
Its sad that 've completely lost touch with it now, don't even read! :(

Anyways the printouts in question are - 'The Meaning of it All' by Feynman and 'Plato's Theory of Love: Rationality as Passion' , which a friend had forwarded asking my views on it. The former i saw that i had read almost half but not remembering anything i restarted from the first page. It made for a great reading, as all his other stuff. Its a collection of 3 lectures -
I. The Uncertainty of Sciences
II. The Uncertainty of Values
III. This Unscientific Age

The first two are brilliant but the third i felt was a bit dragging. Many parallels can be drawn from the present world to the ideas expressed there. For eg, this paragraph from 'Uncertainity of Sciences' -

"Most people find it surprising that in science there is no interest in the background of the author of an idea or in his motive in expounding it. You listen, and if it sounds like a thing worth trying, a thing that could be tried, is different, and is not obviously contrary to something observed before, it gets exciting and worthwhile. You do not have to worry about how long he has studied or why he wants you to listen to him. In that sense it makes no difference where the ideas come from. "

can easily describe the open source community. Or take this -

"It is better to say something and not be sure than not to say anything at all"

Don't we all hear the exact opposite? Say something, only if you are sure. Can you imagine how boring the world would be if it was like that? Of course if you say something stupid, just be prepared to accept that you were a dunce and move on. Reminds me of this nice post and the inspirational Google quote - "don’t run from failure — fail often, fail quickly, and learn."

Then you have references to Cold war, Communism in Russia and one is amazed at the intensity of it. For later generation people in third world countries like ours , cold war just remains something you read in history text book or Robert Ludlum's novels.

In the third lecture, there is this part where he talks about statistical sampling and arriving at (wrong)conclusions. It seemed so relevant to what i was coming across in google reader these days. I generally lean towards the opinion 'Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics' and looks like 've valid reason to be, as this latest post in freakonomics blog, points out people generally lie. Even if you assume the people surveyed, told the truth, theres the question of whether it was the correct sample i.e sufficient and unbiased to arrive at a possible right conclusion.

But seriously some of the ones one comes across are so ludicrous, they insult your common sense. A new sensational view of the society is portrayed as a result of some survey whose sole participant(s) will be the author of the piece. The best example? TOI of course. Well you can't blame them as they generally source their articles from outside(rediff,internet...). Actually there is a much serious problem here, that of reporting without verifying the story first. The recent prank played on the leading newspapers in India brings out this issue to the fore. You can read more of that story - here.

Another more worrying problem is the effect on the younger generation. Unless its some film gossip, the general attitude is to believe everything they report in paper. Say supposing an article reads 'more than 70% of under aged students indulge in pre-marital sex'(i really wonder where TOI does its survey to get such data from), now wouldn't other normal kids think that its ok? Yea i know its not such a gr8 example, its a grey issue like many others but you get the idea. This twisting of data/results to come up with a sensational headline is what i take exception to. A funny thing happened just few days ago, which exactly illustrates this process.

Couple of days back, friend shared this item on google reader . It boldly proclaimed -

"Why do psychopaths exist? The ladies help the psychopaths reproduce by going to bed with them. Men who are narcissistic, self-obsessed, liars, psychopaths, Machiavellian, and thrill-seekers get laid more."

Well naturally ones eyebrows will rise at such a statement. But funny part was that another friend of mine had shared this article almost a month back. Now just notice the difference between the two. This one at least mentions more about the study, how it was done 'n so on. Others don't even mention it. So just imagine the third level of referencing done by some other paper from the 2nd source, how would it be?

First of all there are many issues with the way study has been done. I mean with a statement like 'Psychopaths get laid more', one would expect that in the survey one went and asked some known psychopaths how many times they got laid and compare it to normal men. Well this itself will give you a skewed picture as the ratio of psychopaths to normal men is so less but say, lets still grant this one. But alas, this wasn't the way it was done. Just read the article to find more as to how it was done, the only thing i would like to draw your attention in that is to this line -

"He came to the conclusion after conducting 200 surveys on psychology students which asked them about their sex lives and attitudes towards sex and relationships"

Pretty amazing huh?
Now couple it with the fact that most people lie when it comes to self-reporting, aint this result just amazing?

Its not to say that the idea is wrong, it may be right(for all other reasons), but come up with the right set of data to prove it. Well it wasn't the chap's fault, a grad student who had to submit a research paper but you would expect the media to report for what it is and in the cases where they are sensationalizing it, at least give a link to the original research.

hmm....thats a lot 've written!
Time reads 3:35am, guess 'Plato's theory of love' 'n philosophy part will have to be some other time :)

Adios
'n yes Rafa won :D
just an awesome match, estupendo!
feel blessed if you managed to watch the entire thing. :)

>>Update/disclaimer/correction
Say supposing an article reads 'more than 70% of under aged students indulge in pre-marital sex',
The keyword there was 'supposing'. Note i don't quote any specific TOI article, mainy 'coz i'm really bad at remembering the details, but do remember coming across a TOI article similar to this long time back and that time thinking how ludicrous it was and wondering where they got the data from.
So ppl are asked to not use the above as their reason to vow not to marry a b'lore girl :P
as i don't even mention b'lore in there.
he he, 'n this incident perfectly illustrates what i was talking about, namely how a simple number can have such far reaching effects.

A Story...

a story...
a story, you told...
a story for me...
night after night...

wouldn't you tell me one,
for old times' sake now?

there used to be so many then,
or maybe it just seems so
'coz there are almost none now...

a story...
a story, you told...
a story for me...
night after night...

what were they?
who knows?

there used to be so many then,
maybe that we grow
a li'l older, a li'l farther...

but wouldn't you tell me one,
for old times' sake now?

Sometimes you're the windshield; sometimes you're the bug.

yesterday while coming home, as the bus was waiting @ the turn into old madras road during a red light, suddenly felt 'ALIVE'... i know, it kinda sounds stupid, but 'm sure everyone wud've felt that way sometime or the other....'n ofcourse things that makes one feel alive will vary from person to person...it may be finger lickin' food...chocs...coming face to face with nature's beauty...'n i suppose yesterday it was probably the last one....with everything beautifully wet from the recent downpour 'n the flamin' red gulmohar trees made me feel glad that i was alive 'n to be there...after a week or so of feeling down, this felt good....
that happy mood continued for some time, until sometime during night, when i suddenly felt like in dumps...it was weird in the sense that nothing drastic happened which would've made me feel that way...hmm...may be it was everything...the cumulative effect of small small tiny things...
neways this post is not to be abt my mood swings....this is just the rambling me laying down the context for what follows next...'n yea i know u r thinking "this post ain't ended still?! " :)

So feeling down 'n all, i made my way downstairs, took the remote from my sleeping bro on the couch...the Knight Riders innings had just finished, so started surfing channels 'n hit on VH1, to see Gods of Guitar featuring Pink Floyd! The show was on how 'The Dark Side of the Moon', came to be the way it was, as in the entire making of it, thoughts/ideas behind each song,sound....Gilmour,Waters,Mason,Alan Parson...basically everyone involved in the making talk through how they came to develop each song...
when they started showing 'on the run', how they developed it, i suddenly realized how much the sound is similar to Vangelis' spiral...hmm...make it the otherway round as this came first...so it was in many respects a cult album which showcased the sounds of the future...
watching the episode, i felt better...somehow listening to floyd always settles my mind, even when i don't know whats troubling it! :)

well neways it was a gr8 episode but the sad part was i only caught it @ the end :( i sincerely hope they play it again...'n should i even bother telling how brilliant DSoM album is? :)
'n if other episodes are going to be as good as this, with artists like Hendrix,Clapton,Knopfler,Satriani... this is one series not to be missed...
speaking of which, i think its time for the show, so...

Adios

its not you, its me
its not me, its the world
ah ha, what do you know
its not the world, its you!

the trouble with the world is that its filled with way too many freeloaders...

Silence

It hides the sadness,
the loneliness...

the hurt, the pain,
the fear, the anger...

the love,
the hate...

the hunger,
the ache...

the darn silence,
it hides everything,
but yea, it shows the dead...

the best thing you can give a person, is your time...
'n undivided attention during that time goes without saying...

when one starts resenting
good can't be good enough
bad can't be worse enough

Sometimes its best to act ignorant of what the other person is alluding to...keeps things less complicated...

Yes.
No.
Maybe.
Whatever.

in this world of madness, expectin' one to remain sane, is insane...

----------------
Now playing: Travis - Sing
via FoxyTunes

Netherlands bans magic mushrooms

A woman harvests magic mushrooms in a grow room at the Procare farm in Hazerswoude, central Netherlands, Friday Aug. 3, 2007
Magic mushrooms are big business in the Netherlands
The Dutch government is banning the sale of all magic mushrooms after a series of high-profile incidents involving tourists who had taken them.The decision will take effect within several months, said a spokesman for the Dutch justice ministry.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Netherlands bans magic mushrooms

sad, recently only was telling two of my friends, one of whom is planning to visit Amsterdam, how everything is legal over there... :(

so thr u go, one more free society comes under the hammer....

which reminds me of one of the discussions i had with my friend on 'freedom'....can one have absolute freedom? can such a society ever exist? should freedom of all people be curtailed just 'coz some can not handle it responsibly enough? do restrictions/ban ever serve their purpose 'n in a way don't they bring about just the opp effect? 'n all those restrictions won't that make us a weaker species in gen?

guess as someone said before -

the average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe.

Blogged with Flock

----------------
Now playing: Morrison Jim/The Doors - The Hitchhiker
via FoxyTunes

every once in a while the bubble you live in, bursts 'n you see others who are so busy ensuring that ur bubble doesn't, that they can't even have one of their own...

oh, the ugliness of it all!

----------------
Now playing: Pink Floyd - Terminal frost
via FoxyTunes

Blow your harmonica, son!

Well I'm about to get sick
From watchin' my TV
Been checkin' out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it's gonna change, my friend
Is anybody's guess

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Wednesday I watched the riot . . .
Seen the cops out on the street
Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff
And chokin' in the heat
Listened to reports
About the whisky passin' 'round
Seen the smoke and fire
And the market burnin' down
Watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash
And slash and bust and burn

And I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Well, you can cool it,
You can heat it . . .
'Cause, baby, I don't need it . . .
Take your TV tube and eat it
'N all that phony stuff on sports
'N all the unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin' out the way
The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so

And further they assert
That any show they'll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin' hard and doin' swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can't be beat

And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They'll send some joker with a brownie
And you'll see it all complete

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white

Well, I seen the fires burnin'
And the local people turnin'
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob just turn and bite 'em
And they say it served 'em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!"
'N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
(No matter if it's black or white)
Because he's out for blood tonight

You know we got to sit around at home
And watch this thing begin
But I bet there won't be many live
To see it really end
'Cause the fire in the street
Ain't like the fire in the heart
And in the eyes of all these people
Don't you know that this could start
On any street in any town
In any state if any clown
Decides that now's the time to fight
For some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree
There ain't no Great Society
As it applies to you and me
Our country isn't free
And the law refuses to see
If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor
Unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four
Just won't amount to nothin' more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor
And make up songs about being poor

Blow your harmonica, son!

thats 'Trouble Every Day' one of Zappa's greats(for me)...
no particular reason other than tht 've been listening to it on 'n off today...
'n feel everyone shd know of it...

मैं अलबेली

मैं अलबेली,
घूमूं अकेली,
कोई पहेली हूँ मैं
...
पगली हवाये मुझे जहा भी ले जाये
इन हवाओं कि सहेली हूँ मैं
....
मैं वोह राही हूँ जिसकी कोई मंज़िल नहीं
मैं वोह अरमान हूँ जिसका कोई हासिल नहीं
मैं हूँ वोह मौज के जिसका कोई साहिल नहीं
...


ppl shd be knowing, da above words are from that real nice song from 'Zubeidaa'...if you dint...well you know now... :)
'n btw transliteration feature in blogger really rocks! wish they could do it for kannada as well...

A: blah...
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waiting game is fun... :)