last post in here

i hope this is my last post here, because from now on, i plan to post on my own little side: www.cynosarges.com/wpblog, as much as possible.

the social problem of atheism

Ok, so you are convinced there is no god and you are sure that you want to renounce the whole religion thing, so you go ahead and... get stuck with one problem - The problem of the vacuum!
When you are religious, there are certain rituals, celebrations, prayers and addnl. paraphernalia that give some "meaning" to the whole jingbang. Lets put it this way - towards the end of the year, hindus celebrate diwali, muslims celebrate id, christians celebrate christmas, atheists twiddle thumbs.
Some atheists give up and spend time celebrating their former religious festivals anyway, but thats a band aid solution. It is not a very nice thing for the long term.
you see, festivals are only partly religious, they also serve other purposes - they help bring people together, it is an opportunity to meet old friends, make new ones, business gets settled, partnerships are formed, marriages get finalized and finally, it is simply a way of having a "mass good time". The rituals that exist also serve a partly non-religious purpose - think about going to church, the shared rituals partly serve as glue for the community.
Perhaps atheists too need to evolve into a community - a community with traditions, rituals and rules and regulations. Perhaps it sounds binding, but the rules could be simple - respect life, help your neighbors. the rituals could be useful too - perhaps a renactment of darwin getting the first idea of evolution. Tradition could be turned on its head by having the tradition of regularly examining our traditions and beliefs :)
There are benefits to becoming a community - real tangible benefits! in the diamond age, NS talks about a freelance thief who steals from many people, but finally meets his end when he steals from and injures a member of the Ashanti, who are even today a successful group with a strong sense of identity. In another part of the book, he talks about the benefits of belonging to tribes, especially tribes that are massively successful.
I know where I am now, I do not belong to any tribe and i know ther are times when i would want to - and i know that my tribe does not bother about color, race, caste, language, or birth. the tribe-to-be that i belong to worships more than anything the god of reason. The high priest here is mathematics. This tribe-to-be has yet to evolve a culture of its own, rules of its own, it has no tradition expect for the tradition of asking questions and looking for real answers, not mystical ones.
But there is a lot missing from this tribe: a sense of belonging is chief amongst them, rituals full of meaning, perhaps even a sense of outrage...

Signal-Noise Ratio and Zen

The Zen master and his student were climbing up Mount Fuji. It was cold and foggy and they could not see the top of the mountain. The student was miserable and the master was stoic. Suddenly, the sun came out and the fog disappeared and there, in the distance, they could see the brilliant, snow-covered roof of Japan - Fujiyamas peak! The student was amazed at the beauty of the mountain and could not hold back. "Master, see how beautiful Fujiyama looks!" he exclaimed. The master kept quiet and continued walking. The student felt a little disappointed at the master's lack of reaction. "Master, do you see Fujiyama? Don't you think it looks beautiful? I think it looks serene and majestic - truly a blessing to our nation. Dont you agree, master? Doesn't it look great". The master sighed, looked at the student, and said, "Yes it does, but did you have to say it?"

Signal-Noise Ratio

First there is the thought - the purest creation of the conscious mind. SNR: 10:0

Then we articulate the thought into the language we are internally most comfortable with, and this is the first point at which noise creeps in - we try to retrofit the thought into the slots that our mother tongue provides for us. SNR: 9:1

We then translate the thought into the language that is spoken around us: SNR: 7:3

We then translate the thought into words that can be spoken without shame in our peer groups. SNR: 6:4

Sometimes we write down these words and thus retrofit the thought again into the zeitgeist's style. SNR: 5:5

Half our writing is noise!

Forget the numbers; get the principle.

How do you understand "mu" if you are a Cockney or a redneck? The Zen Buddhists know what mu means. How do you understand "love" if you are a Confucian Chinese? The rednecks know what love means.
Yes, the rednecks still have no word for "mu" and the Chinese still have no word for love.

Short Posts vs. Long Writeups

Short posts are like eating bits of chocolate - they give immediate, momentary pleasure. Long posts are like making a nine-course meal - you slave and slog over them and then hope everything has come out right and hope that the consumers like it. But usually, something goes wrong there and you don't win half the praise you desire, so you soon give up.
Some people keep working on it though, they sacrifice the pleasures of chocolate for the more refined enjoyment of a full meal; in time they iron out the kinks and gain praise and fame.
But right now, I'm having chocolate :)

when do you start....

living?
For the first 20 years of your life, you are under the thumb of your parents - in pretty much every sense of the term. Then you take 10 years to recover from those mental depravations - to find yourself. Only at 30 do you really start life! Anyone who says that he has been able to throw off the cloak of his parents before that is either supersmart or has no idea what he is talking about. And that goes for you too, ladies!
The funniest part about it is when i meet people at the age 33-35 who tell me that their life as they know it is over - their opportunities all gone! Or maybe its tragic; I could never tell the difference...

Vivid Dreams

Over the past few days, I've had some rather vivid dreams; stranger and more realistic than most others I've had.
The first one made me a gangster in the Satya mould. You know what I mean, the kind of gangster who will fade easily into a Mumbai mill worker crowd, sweaty, unshaven, miserable looking and mean.
The second made involved people from my office and an operation on someone.
And today was a dream about rats!
And my recurring dream is always about lot of snakes...
My next posts are going to be about these dreams in detail. Maybe i will see a real pattern in there.
And there are posts I need to make about tales from mumbai, apologies long pending, and long tiring days that never end...

Why I love reservations

When I was a kid, I hated the idea of reservations. What can I say? I was naive, I was idealistic, I was dumb. I thought because I had not known about some of my closest friends being lowercaste, everyone was like me, casteblind!
Now I know better. Tell me that casteism happens only in the villages and I will tell you that you are the one who is naive. Here ais an example: http://www.ambedkar.org/News/News1207041.htm. Tell me that this does not happen in Mumbai, the "most cosmopolitan" city in the country and watch me laugh at your face. Ask your Mumbai friends to marry lower caste ppl and watch the reaction in the family.
And in case you want something inetresting to watch, heres a good time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBxy1R0jitM

Weapons of reason

Oddly enough, some of the greatest weapons of reason are not fully reasoned out yet. But anyways, for the ones who are interested, here is a partial list of the guns that Reason keeps with her. This list is not complete, not logical, not even useful, but wtf, its my blog, so i can put in anything here:

Godels Incompleteness Theorem
Russels Principia Mathematica
Occams Razor

Any others?

The newcomer from Pune - a Mumbai story

I read this sometime in the Times of India, when it was a more interesting newspaper, in the late 80's.

A nice, young Mr Bhatavdekar, a pucca Bahman from Pune, took the Daccan ki Rani for the first time in his life, and landed up in Mumbai, again for the first time in his life. So Mr. B got down at Dadar station and decided to take the local train to Mahim, his destination, as had been advised by Bahman friends from Pune. And so Mr. B moved to the local train platform and waited for the train, and when the train to Borivli came, he jumped in happily, praising his own smart self for saving some money, by taking the train when a taxi would have easily cost 10 times more.
Then B remembered that he needed to get down too, so he asked the bhaiya who had been shoving his chameli ka tel lathered head into Bs nose, "Where it is coming? Mahim station? When it is coming?" Bhaiya looked up and smiled, his yellow teeth faintly reminiscent of cows, his look of contentment bovine. B figured that Bhaiya needed more details, so "Mahim station kabhi ayega?" Enlightenment in Bhaiyas eyes and laughter too! And suddenly people around B were also laughing. Then Bhaiya said, "fast train Mahim not stop". B parsed the sentence, understood the implications, figured this was an unplanned for and unforseen situation, and nearly wet his pants. The look of terror on his face turned Bhaiya from condescension to sympathy, and did the same for everyone around. Bhaiya asked "Local train, first time? Mumbai first time?" B nodded his head, Bhaiya clucked in pity, others heard the cluck and a general series of clucks erupted in the compartment.
Then Bhaiya decided to help. He said "Worry not. Me travel this fast train full time. You get down Mahim" Hope sprang in B's eyes, his bladder retreated from its position of war. Bhaiya continued, "This train, all time, slow very much at Mahim station, very very slow very much. u ready to jump on platform when i tell JUMP. careful, train is moving, so after jump u r running for few seconds along with train, then u no fall down". B considered parsed the sentence, considered the implications, and his bladder announced its intentions again. Bhaiya saw the look and said "no worry too much, many people jump running train, ask, relax" B looked around, saw the crowd sagely nodded its collective head, and once again bladder retreated. Then Bhaiya said, "Mahim station coming, u and i stand doorway, u jump when i say JUMP, and run with train for few minutes, no run, fall down, run, no fall down, so run with train. u jump and run with train. ok?" B figured it made sense in terms of newtons laws to do what bhaiya was emphasizing so much and thanked his lucky stars that he was young and yogaing everyday.
Then then it was time to do what no B had done before. B's excitement began building up, he got into position at doorway, and Bhaiya was next to him, priming him to make the leap. B got ready, Mahim station arrived, and GODS BE PRAISED, the train began to slow down.
Now here's the scene, B at the doorway, a coiled spring ready to burst out, Bhaiya also tense, murmuring last moment advice, B's eyes only on the approaching platform, his ears waiting for the magic word, the platform arriving and thr train slowing down... and then Bhaiya screamed "JUMP" and the coiled spring burst into action - he leaped off the train, his hands and legs pumping as he tried to keep pace with the train... and he'd made it! B was off the train, he was alive and he was in Mahim station. Then the train slowed down more, and B ran faster, and then the train slowed down even more, and B ran even faster, and then B was outpacing the train! And Bhaiya saw B running past the his compartment, the spindly legs pumpin, the hair flyin, the moustache twitchin, and Bhaiya felt a surge of pride at a job well done. Ad as Bhaiya kept looking, B was well past his compartment and was actually getting close to the compartment ahead! And before Bhaiya could say Carl Lewis, B was running next to the compartment ahead, where Tambi was standing at the door.
Now Tambi was a strong young strapping lad who really liked helping others. So when Tambi saw this guy running wildly next to his doorway, Tambi did what any helpful man would always do, he leaned out, caught an arm and pulled him in!
And B was on his way to Bandra, Bhaiya was slapping his forehead, and Tambi was confused about what this Ghati was screaming at him, when he had only helped the fella.

Mumbai's stories and scams

Compared to Mumbai, Bangalore is downright boring. Its not Bangalore's fault, all things said and done, there is a certain charm to it. But Mumbai is unique in some senses, when everything is crushed together, far closer than should be allowed by the rules of humanity and the laws of physics, strange things are bound to happen. Physicists say that Black holes break down normal laws of physics; the same happens when you achieve what the railways rather nicely call SUPER DENSE CRUSH LOAD CAPACITY - a state where there are 14-16 people per square meter of space! Imagine a small square around you - 3.5 feet by 3.5 feet, then try to imagine 16 people standing in this space! The mind boggles!
But you get tales in this environment; stories to make you laugh, stories that make you cry, stories that would be right up Dickens' alley.
And I am going to blog some that I remember from my time in that city.
Mostly about scams though.. The scams that I remember from that time.
And I start now:
The biggest scam is obviously the state of the local trains. A ticket in the first class (no AC, bad seats, standing room often) costs way more than a normal ticket in the Delhi Metro. A ticket in the general compartment costs almost as much as a Delhi Metro ticket. And if the Delhi Metro is making a good profit, consider the earnings in Mumbai.
Let's put it plainly, the railways and the central government are ripping off Mumbai commuters.
But I'm getting too serious. The scams and stories I want to talk about are funny, even if they are sometimes mean, because I like to laugh and I like to see others laughing :)

A trip to the wild side?

This post is a long response to R's plan to drop everything and spend 3 weeks in the deep hinterland of India. I mean, Balia really is the middle of nowhere, unless you count places like chandrapur or dangs, which are even more nowhere than balia :) But that is immaterial, what counts is that R is going there on her own, spending time in the midst of strangers who will, in all probability, have radically different ideas from her.
What could be the reasons for R's decision to go away to a place where she knows no one and no one knows her? I suspect even she does not know. And this is no place for a pop-psychoanalysis, so lets stop.
Truth be told, I am not happy about she going away for such a long stretch of time. She is a great friend, a great colleague, and it is going to be terribly lonely without her around. But I also know its a good thing for her to do, she will find it to be a "REAL GROWING UP EXPERIENCE" (TM).
With six more years of life than R, I think I am old and wise enough to give her tips on packing. There are things she should take along, others that may have no purpose there and would just be deadweight on a trip like this. So R, here's some suggestions:
> Carry medicenes that you need. Like Omez, the pill that has saved you time and time again. The food there may be good and you may overeat, and then you may suffer stomach cramps, so Omez will be a good thing.
> Carry your cellphone. But only for emergencies. Don't call anyone; if you need to, call the Gaul. If it is a trip about exploring another world, then try to keep as little connection to this world as possible.
> Pack your laptop; so that you can record your thoughts and impressions without them fading away into dim, sepia-toned memory.
> Carry salwar-kameezes; for you are not going there to draw attention to yourself and its better to be a fly on the wall when you are looking at another place only as an observer.
> Don't carry food, soap, water etc. If you are planning to live there, don't import your world with yourself.
> Leave behind the judgemental part of your outlook. If you think you don't have it, look deeper inside yourself; we all have it in us. Go there, see that world, don't judge the people there; when you come back, then you can spend time deciding whether they are right or wrong, ugly or beautiful, just or unfair. In the meantime, travel light on this commodity.
> Carry lots of patience. Despite Gandhi, Buddha, and Mahavir, our country has very little of it and people in the cities are especially short of this.

Take care and be good. Learn lots and teach some.

Got a new laptop

So my Dell Inspiron 6000 crashed yesterday and the HDD went for a toss. Due to some software issues a couple of weeks ago, I had backed up most of my stuff, so the loss is minimal. One thing Im gonna miss is my mp3 of Beck's "Guess Im doing fine" :(
Anyways, I decided to buy a new laptop then instead of waiting for the machine to go to the Dell office and get a new HDD. So I looked up the laptops in the market. My key condition: the laptop must not be too heavy. The Inspiron 6000 had 2 drawbacks: its weight and its speed. Anyways, after doing a lot of homework, I decided to go in for the Thinkpad T60, which was a bit more expensive than I liked but promised good value for my money. Then I finally went in for an APPLE MACBOOK!
It turned out to be cheaper and more featurefilled than the Thinkpad.
So this makes it my first blog entry from a Mac ;)
Friends are welcome to drop in for a trial run :)

Fear and the Mind

Has it ever happened to you that you are worried sick about something because it may have immense real consequences (take your pick: lose all your security, lose massive amounts of real money, not notional, lose your business or job) and so you haven't told the person who could bring these consequences upon you until finally one day, you decide to chuck the whole fear and worry thing and just speak the truth to that person, so you gird your loins, write up a script, take a deep breath and finally tell him or her that thing you need to tell, and weirdly, there are no consequences and the person ends up thinking better of you, but not much better because it is such a minor issue for him or her?
It happened to me some days ago and I feel good! And then I wonder why I was afraid, and I figure that the demons, like all other demons that I have ever found, are inside my head, and that as long as I speak the truth, I shall remain free and I decide ever more strongly, that I shall count my lies, to know how much I lie!
R mentioned circles of truth, a metaphor I like, and I feel good that i have only 4 circles. Myself (to whom I remain as honest as ever, my inner circle, my circle of known people, and the circle of strangers) Weirdly enough, to the circle of strangers, and to the inner circle, I still lie at times, but to the circle of known people, I have stopped lying completely! Next project, to stop all lies to all in the inner circle as well! Speaking the truth to the circle of strangers is such an easy problem to solve that I don't even plan to bother.
I'm Good! :)

A fresh start

I haven't really been blogging lately and its been a weird sensation. It's
like dereliction of duty or something :) So, lemme see if there is more that
I can do... I also need to do more posts on cynosarges.com/wpblog - it's
been looking forlorn lately.

Truth and Perception (Contd.)

If you haven't read my earlier post, this post won't make much sense.
So here is the answer to my puzzle.
All motion is relative to the observer. Because you are sitting on earth, you see the sun (and other planets) going around you. If you were sitting on the sun (fat chance!), you'd see the all the planets going around you. If you were sitting on Mars, you'd see the Sun and all the other planets (including Earth) going around you.
In each of these cases, the motion of these heavenly bodies can be calculated vis-a-vis the position that you are sitting on. Even before Copernicus and gang, the motion of the various planets and the sun was being calculated quite accurately by astronomers. But it turns out that these calculations were complex and not as accurate as the calculations that assumed the Sun to be the center. Keeping the Sun at the center made calculations for the motions of the heavenly bodies simpler and more accurate!
So, keeping the Sun at the center of the Solar System, nothing more than a change in perspective, made for simpler equations, which is why it makes sense from an astronomers/scientists perspective to work that way. On the ground, from a lay person's perspective, there is no difference!
Now, I go off on a limb... In eastern philosophy, this resolution to the apparent contradictions I'd posed reveals the essentially unknowable nature of Truth. Truth, in eastern philosophy is forever changed by perspective, so there is no way of approaching it. Rather than attempting the impossible, it is better to concentrate on other things like harmony in society and caring for others. In Western philosophy, however, this resolution implies that we have taken one step closer to the Truth - the path of reason reveals to us the ultimate Truth, which may one day be realizable! With our limited senses, we may never completely comprehend it, but we can always get ever closer.
Perhaps this difference is why Sanskrit has no true translation for the word "Reason".

Truth and Perception

This post was inspired by R's post on truth.
One of the key differences between Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy comes to the fore here.
Let me try to explain by an example: Does the sun go around the earth or the earth go around the sun? Think before you speak!
Tell me that the earth goes around the sun and I will claim that you have cognitive dissonance. Your mom, dad, teachers, newspapers tell you that the earth goes around the sun, so you believe them, refusing to acknowledge the evidence that your own eyes tell you... evidence that you see everyday - the sun goes around the earth!
Tell me this is an illusion! Tell me this is a bit of legerdemain! I reply, "Must be an fantastic piece of magic that deludes literally billions of people everyday!"
Even better, believing what all these people tell you violates one of the fundamental principles of science: that you must not believe what others tell you, because truth is not about popular ideas.
A bit of a conundrum, no? How can you reconcile the fact that the truth of your eyes is different from the truth that science tells you?
Confused? I hope you are! I have just used the tools of science to tell you that one of the most important things that science tells you is wrong!
Think hard about the way out of this puzzle...
The answer is not about grammar or verbal tricks, it is not about spirituality, it is not about ideas like Truth is a Pathless Land. This is about reasoning, about application of logic.
But the correct answer that you get explains one of the fundamental differences in approaches to truth.
I am deliberately keeping the answer for the next post, which should occur tomorrow.