Saturday, October 1, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Faith, Religion and Science OR "I know, so I know and so it is"
Ok, So it has been quite a while since when I have returned to the blog, and recently I put up this quote on facebook by Bertrand Russell:
Avinash Pathak
So, lets go step by step.
1) The science here is just a way of doing things, and not a way of life or an ideology, simply put science here only refers to the way we look at the world and try to define it; religion does not help in this regard, saying only that there is some unknown that creates, destroys and changes everything bound by no laws itself. That in itself creates more questions than it answers, ie. how did this unknown get created in the first place. Science doesn't take that sort of easy way out ie. "Leaps of faith" , but rather clearly states that A and B can be explained but not C and D because we either cannot or have not advanced enough.
2)You are right to point out science cannot define and explain more than 90% of phenomena in the universe, but that does not give religion any more credibility, or for that matter science any less. Religion was an early attempt at defining the nature around us, which science is able to do in a better sense because it is based on real life phenomena, and not some abstract agent of creation. And the other thing you are presently thinking about, namely morals and ethics, art and music; yes, religion has substantial input in these fields and i do not doubt that, but religion's primary goal from the beginning has been to define objects in the nature which scientific method is better at handling. Scientists will never try to explain things that they cannot understand, it is a growing field, unlike religion which is based on morays and conservative ideology which is not changeable.
It is better to not understand something and try to look for an answer rather than thinking that what we think is right even in the absence of evidence, ie. supporting real life, physical events.
3) Religion has not faded, true indeed and it will not again most likely true, humans are predisposed to believe things because it gives them a sense of calm and ease thanks to our evolutionary psychology, and indeed if religion completely goes off, it will be replaced by something else. But my point is, that if what you are really looking for is truth and want to actually look at the real world objectively, without prejudices religion in its complete form at least is a bad outlook, and picking and choosing what you like out of those holy scriptures is also counter productive when the religions itself base them selves on those being the immutable laws of nature.
4) additional point, why do things like government change with such difficulty, because we are afraid of change, even in abject circumstances we think it is better than what can be or better put, If you do injustice on a person, just reducing that injustice will cause that person to think of you doing a favor for him; religion has based itself on more blood shed than anything else, and that is true ONLY because people think it is the absolute truth, anything in the physical world is worth giving up for this sort of ultimate reality, where the apparent omnipotent and omniscient god that is the "creator" of the world is interested what you do in your house or otherwise. It is just the rules of man put into writing which created gods; gods have been born and have died just like humans because humans have created them in their own image.
Religion as a personal religion is not a problem for me, I don't care if individuals want to pray to santa claus or bugs bunny or krishna or the latest pop diva star. Its when it spills over in community that the biggest problems come, and giving someone credibility just because of his or her personal experiences and way of thinking is not right, we cannot call ourselves bastions of justice in such a scenario.
Avinash Pathak
Also, again its not just belief in "something that cannot be seen" that is a problem, i believe in the idea of an atom, of neuron, of jupiter and of my own physical self not because i can "see" it, no that is too simplistic and no credible scientist will ever tell you that they believe because they see.
Its more than that, these objects that we believe in by science started as being no more or less than religious objects, but the difference between these and your "something that cannot be seen" is that these can change based on the study of human mind, and based on experimentation, unlike religious things which are there an i am suppose to believe it in absence of any, absolutely any evidence and not question it or i die in a burning pit of fire.
Science does not do things like that, we are encouraged to falsify our own view of things unlike religion because it is not based on our ego (unlike religion).
In fact, if you give me a better tool to work with than math and science, i will gladly drop both of them right this instant to work with that, only prerequisite is that it must define the physical world and not make up things randomly or "creatively" like what religion does.
And the fact on atheists,their statements are outlandish only because of the environment that you have lived in, think about it: the same statements said in a society where Big bad wolf was taken to be the deity would create just the same ideas as you are having now but in a totally different context, the same with Greek gods, or Egyptian ones; nothing more than a chance we think of the present set of "rules" as being religion.
@Shoeb: I am sorry to see that you think of science as a thing that people use to back things up, it is tool to define things with, and not a way of life; you can think with science but you don't have to worship it and definitely not have to define your ego with it, it only makes life easier to work with.
"Not everything in the universe runs parallel to science."
Ofcourse they don't, science is not audacious enough as religion to claim something like that; rather
"Science tries to run parallel to everything in the universe"
Biswajit Purkayastha religion is basically a way of thinking .,,.,.,.it will surely lead to a boost in confidence............it might act as a root of invention,,,,,,,
Avinash Pathak Well, human's need it because of our psychological bias, but saying that it may lead to invention is callous, in its best form it might be called inspiration, at its worst extreme bigotry, hatred and group-think. It has to be placed at the same level as any other ideology, and should be answerable and open to criticism to be forward looking.
Avinash Pathak @Shoeb: No rebuttal? I was looking forward to an intellectual debate on the subject.
Avinash Pathak
ok.. :)
so, firstly the statement on birth and death of gods is pretty accurate; i am sorry if it is offensive but that is my point: religion has this strange kind of place in our society where no one can blame it in any way without sounding like a anarchist or a douche or a blasphemer; I accept there are things which are good in the scripture, but so are certain things in almost any written work; we should not drop our critical faculties just because we are either fearful or we need a solace.
The statement is far from ignorance; if it is, then tell me why Ra no longer grants rain wish or Zeus grant eternal life; have they been outsourced to the new breed of gods? It is only the zeitgeist that defines the place of god in the world; again, I am not disregarding scriptures; I love literary works from Bible; the melodious hymns and chantry songs and thought provoking ideologies from Gita and Quran, I just say that there is no sense in taking it as a word of absolute truth, in all possibilities it is more likely that a few wise but ancient and boorish people have written it and over the ages changed by people in power to get advantage by appealing to the basest urges of humans.
Secondly, people believing in divine presence are amply respected in this world, in fact too much so; no one wants to be openly a non believer only because it causes so much of bigotry from many who believe, and indeed i would expect it if people who do believe think that it is the absolute truth in the scriptures and everything against it is just heresy and we will die for the sins, fear mongering and conditioning by rewards is so high in general public that no one even respects a non believers ideology let alone appreciate the beauty in it.
Thirdly, comfort is not the final reason for any tool that wants to define the world, whether religion or science, just because it would comfort me to think that i am the best engineer in the world would not be morally true or right; religion's making statements on the singularity regions of science is callous; it will cause greater harm than good in long run, as i had earlier written "ignorance is bliss, only to the point that one speeding vehicle hits you"
Now, about religion defining things not reachable by any means, if the past has held any sign of things, it has been that science or for that matter naturalism has been slowly creeping into religion, and rightly so since so much of what religion says should be verifiable if true, and science does that; only difference is that science does not make a hue and cry if results turn out against what is already thought to be true, it does not ostracize people for thinking differently.
Avinash Pathak
and of course science and math are not perfect, far from it: they are tools, inefficient maybe but the best that we have for now, i accept that; i don't say that we have to follow science no matter what, rather i say that we use our mental capacities to judge what is best for us in the present world; not just for now but for future and for the other individuals too; Bigotry just does not fit it quite well.
Also, I am not advocating against spirituality, people can be spiritual and achieve zen without ever having to do any thing with religion, just ask any buddhist monk (and no, buddhism is not a theistic religion, it is more of a philosophy of life, only in the modern times has every one started to make a god out of Buddha, typical of stages of any religion where a wise person, real or imaginary might be ascended to a god like status since we want to believe, even in the absence of evidence).
Shoeb Ahmed Khan
It's true that the image of God has changed across time and cultures and that is bound to happen in any case because of the varied perceptions of different societies. You can obviously criticize religion but like you said it does come with the costs of being alienated especially in a purely religious state. That is a drawback of people who practice the religion, not of a religion itself. No religion tells you to shun a non believer. People's faulty interpretations have shaped such immoral practices.
"We should not drop our critical faculties just because we are either fearful or we need a solace."- Sure but when a close friend of mine is suffering from an incurable disease I will pray for him even though my critical faculties will tell me that there's no way the person is going to survive! I will pray for him in the belief that only a superhuman power will help him.
"comfort is not the final reason for any tool that wants to define the world" - No scripture contains the definition of everything contained in this universe. I'm not suggesting that religious scriptures define our world precisely and entirely. It's more about the definition of the way of life one ought to live. There may not be a verifiable "pit of fire" but religion is all about faith rather than science. I believe science and faith should run together. Now faith is something that is contextual and not fully understandable. There maybe no reason why I believe in the afterlife, but it's a part of my faith. I may not be able to prove it yet I believe in it, which is basically what faith is. It may be quite annoying to debate this but that's how it is!
And lastly, "only difference is that science does not make a hue and cry if results turn out against what is already thought to be true, it does not ostracize people for thinking differently", is again a call back to what I said earlier. It's people faulty perceptions that alienate the non believers. The church for example tried to block the fact that the earth wasn't the center of the universe, which is something really stupid to do. It's a way of life and you cannot force someone to agree to it or ostracize them if they not.
Avinash Pathak
Sure, faith is not bad, we as humans need to rationalize things to get through and to survive and we are predisposed to think of a causal agent for everything that happens (evolutionary advantage of type 1 errors) but when we do know all this, we must not forget to always remember that faith is subjective and not absolute, it is a way of coping with our psychological short comings.
Next, it is not really the fault of the people when they believe that it is the ultimate answer that is answered in the scriptures, isint society as a whole to blame for that, we have ourselves created this image of religion in everyones minds which then goes on for generation; think about it, if i would have been in a conservative bigoted family, i would not even know that there would be an alternative to belief.
Which means that religion and the scriptures are so loosely worded that no one can actually objectively define it, everyone has an opinion on it and all are true, that is just not how the real world works.Objectivity is the very first necessity for any knowledge, if these books were really words of all knowing, wouldn't it be more productive to just write in simple plain words that everyone may understand, or for that matter use similar notations like formulae that only really define the world.
If the real reason for religion is morality and peace then philosophy and psychology in the modern form are far more adept at it than religion ever was, and as for the defining the unknown, why not formulate a faith on something more logical and then work to prove it, and if unprovable then know that it was not all in vain, the belief in the your ideology has no less or more credibility than what religion supposedly puts forward.
and finally, a take on the scriptures itself; they are hardly as pure and divine as people call them to be, they are not so "peace loving" as we would like to think, pick any one of them and it contains several scriptures telling of burning the heretic, killing the worshiper of false gods etc.
Shoeb Ahmed Khan
Precisely, faith isn't absolute, that's what I meant when I said faith is contextual.
There's one very obvious flaw in your judgement when you say that "Objectivity is the very first necessity for any knowledge", this would be true if the knowledge you're seeking is material. You cannot expect Newton's laws of motion defined in a scripture which is essentially a guide to spirituality! What you are saying is that you expect religious scriptures to contain the definition of our universe, complete with all formulae and theories one ought to know. Isn't that counterproductive to life itself? How boring would the world be if God had just laid everything in front of you in plain view and told you how everything worked?! Also how could you precisely quantify something abstract as faith, morality and peace if you were to even go about formulating a new faith?
And again, as far as I know no scripture contains specific instructions to "burn the heretic and kill the worshipper of false gods" unless misread, mistranslated, misinterpreted and taken out of context. I would love for you to cite me examples from "any one of them" as you say.
Avinash Pathak
So how are these(if mistranslated, it is really mkaes a major flaw in the scripture itself, isint the whole point of a scripture is human understanding):
http://www.evilbible.com/
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/cruelty/long .html
Now, about the objective knowledge, what you are describing as subjective faith is also in reality just the outcome of the objective reality of the state of brain, when we will be able to define the way of brain activity, every single faith will then come down to what state the mind was in.
Faith should not be such an abstruse and difficult thing that everything defined by it is subjective, faith after all relies quite a lot on unknown, so much of what we know today had been earlier based on random faith, scriptures can contain objective truth and perhaps should, they are not artifacts to be kept for beauty and comfort but rather something that defines the ideology of the time that they were created in. There is also nothing wrong in boring, how can we know how life would be in any case other than what we presently are in.Of course knowing everything is in itself impossible, for such a case would need to take into account the knowing beings ie. us in the system and that would make the sum greater than its parts, aka a singularity or paradox; and coming to terms with that is very necessary since we can then go on understanding the nature but never be so self centered as to expect ourselves to be somehow gifted.
Shoeb Ahmed Khan
Wow. Those links you provided are actually pretty hilarious. And I'm not going to debate with you if your source is going to be a site that calls itself "evilbible". I cannot speak for the bible as I am no scholar but as a practicing Muslim I can speak for the Quran. As for the lines quoted in the second link, yes thats what God says in the scripture. He says that those who disbelieve will end in hellfire. How is that representing cruelty in the world we live though? That's supposed to be the afterlife isn't it? Does God say that you should be burnt alive by people around you? No.
I suggest you watch this series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcKZnmBnQVE&playnext= 1&list=PLCD66926549FCA86E
Language evolves with time. Many archaic words don't exist any more or their definitions have changed. Thats the reason for mistranslation. More often it's taking stuff out of context that causes trouble.
"every single faith will then come down to what state the mind was in", thats what differentiates faith from religion. You may have faith in your ability to pass an exam, this is just a state of mind. But religion is more than that, it's a well defined set of dogmas and principles one must follow. And yes religion is audacious enough to tell you what you can or cannot do, but only if you subscribe to it, which is after all, your call.
Avinash Pathak
the links are merely a hand waving, the lines may be mistranslated, but what it disturbingly shows is the zeitgeist and ideology of people and viewpoint from the scriptures; the point being that no matter how the scriptures were written, people will take it as they want it to be; which you are right about, and that is the reason that religion is such a dangerous thing to play with. It may or maynot actually want people to kill, but just the scriptures being there provides enough reason for people to have faith in and do all sorts of perverse things, and don't tell me otherwise because a majority of the people subscribe to this viewpoint of absolute truths and even if your ideology is above and beyond this mere visage, the majority shapes the society.
Faith in exam passing is different, at least in the way that we are still not certain about it, religion doesn't play by those rules.
And it is not often people's call to follow a religion, we are in real world after all almost always put into our way of thinking by the nature around us, family and all; it is ironical that you mention freedom and choice earlier, religion is anything but; there is absolutely no reason to follow things when they donot have any real world reason, and we cannot describe the use in the other world, it is just not logical.
Avinash Pathak
is this also true:
Have no unbelieving friends. Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them. 4:89
and
Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (But if they desist in their unbelief, then don't kill them.) 2:191-2
and so many more times i see kill etc from what I have yet read in the english version of Quran.
I find it very disturbing to think of things in this way.
Shoeb Ahmed Khan
I agree with you that " just the scriptures being there provides enough reason for people to have faith in and do all sorts of perverse things", but again I stress that it's the drawback of society and its elements, not of religion.
There is freedom in religion. There is freedom with boundaries. Even in a democracy, for example, you do not have complete freedom. You cannot murder somebody just because you have freedom of will.
You're right there IS no logical reason to follow a religion or have faith, yet there are millions who keep defying logic every single minute.
Avinash Pathak
But that is what you are not taking into account, society is an outcome of religion, if you look at the last 10 Milena of human history, religion has dictated a lot of our choices, along with ofcourse our other psychological responses, in such a scenario what I think you are following, with a more liberal view of religion is just not possible, people do things which are good for them, evil and good are generally only defined after that, religion gives people a way to rationalize their actions no matter how absurd or grossly wrong; spirituality would at least lessen that by giving people more humility.
Also, indeed none of us are truly free, our environment shapes us as much as our body, but when talking about freedom even in its crude form, telling people to stick to some faith by black mailing them or using passive aggressive strategy of group mind is just wrong.
Avinash Pathak
Ok, so this was one of things i was pondering on:
They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah . But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper. 4:89
not exactly very easy to digest, like many others.
Shoeb Ahmed Khan
Excellent. You have brought up one of my favorite lines of discussion. That line you quoted is in fact:
"And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter." 2:190
This has been extensively quoted all over as an evidence of violence in the Quran. But again this has been taken out of context. The preceding line is:
"Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors." 2:189
Note that it says "against those who fight against you, but not begin hostilities" which is a clear message that says that don't attack until provoked which is quite logical. The ayah continues as:
"And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (191) But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful." Which explains itself.
Also watch this for more misconceptions about Islam which are debunked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvHHYrdiXHE
Again, I can only speak for Islam which has been so misrepresented in media and that it actually annoys and angers me. You must've also heard about the 72 virgins thing which is complete and utter bollocks as there not a single ayah or hadith which says that. So there you go, global propaganda at it's efficient best.
Avinash Pathak
i agree to that, propaganda is a powerful force and the countries/communities in power use it to subdue those it thinks are hostile to it, i do not question that; as well as the laughable credibility of the media.
But what I really think about is how all this stems from the us versus them mentality, which is as old as crusades and even more for some sects; 72 virgin thing is again, according to me a cheap shot, but such hostility causes me real discomfort just because people can not accept for a second that the other guy i am fighting with is actually more like me than many of my own "kind".
Thinking of religion in a more "worldly" way would help us all since it would then remove the ego and group-ism involved presently.
Shoeb Ahmed Khan
There's always going to be lunatics who take it too far to justify their actions. A minority isn't a good sample to study for the entire population and you know that. We are all ultimately humans, no one lesser or mightier than the other and anyone who thinks otherwise shouldn't be part of a civilized society. But unfortunately no such rule dictates that and hence the superiority and egoistic feelings of one towards another. Live and let live is what I believe in. I don't force my religion or faith on anyone, I just accept people for what they are, never look down upon them, and defend my faith when I have to. Which is what ideally should be the case for a peaceful existence.
But then again if the world was ideal, gas laws would be valid in all conditions and there would be no friction against motion.
Swings and roundabouts I say :)
Avinash Pathak
and perpetual motion machines, Rational humans, no dual nature of light and Windows computers that don't crash and have a thousand BSOD's and viruses, ah idealization.
But coming back to reality, though religion cannot go away, we need to be more prudent with it and for that i don't think there are many ways except to make it known to people that "we may be wrong, and this is all subjective." Just that much might go a long way.
Shoeb Ahmed Khan That is unlikely to happen you know. Even I wouldn't say that to be honest. The most we can expect is for people to respect people outside their faith for what they are. That much alone would make things much better.
Avinash Pathak
ok, I can understand people at large will not say that, but i really want to know, why you cannot say that, I have absolutely no problem myself saying that; everything that i know and that i may believe is as much false as true, its only a perspective, a tool, i may be completely wrong, but I will not succumb to the easy way out by defining things with an all powerful unknowable thing.
As a side note, science has been wrong so many times, no denying that and i myself don't believe in anything to be honest; but science has this unique characteristic of changing and accepting faults, and of frequent acid tests.
Avinash Pathak
Ok, So i have to admit those videos by Dr. Zakir Naik are downright convoluted at several points, giving circumstantial evidence for religion does not cut it; reminds me of the woo woo by Depak Chopra (Of course Chopra is a lunatic so it is a little extreme, his babble is really scary).
many of those questions just don't matter much to me, it is a personal choice to marry and to eat meat, why will I have a problem with that?Religion dictating such day to day things is also a little too much, just gives me constant reminder of Orwell's 1984; thats why i also hate Brahmin's code of conduct so much, sure there is little substance and wisdom but a whole lot of bullshit in Hinduism as well.
Shoeb Ahmed Khan
It's convoluted if you want it to be convoluted. All his answers are based on existing facts of Islam found in the holy books or teachings of the Prophet (PBUH). And yes you are right about the personal choices that one has the freedom to make, but I mainly quoted that video because he also answers a few questions like the one you asked earlier about that verse in the Quran.
Religion is a way of life right, so obviously it's going to contain rules for day to day life! You cannot accept a diet plan and then ignore the principles of it, can you? It's basically the same thing. And Orwell's 1984 isn't even relevant here if you ask me since he was talking about a totalitarian state that dictated people's lives rather than a doctrine which one had a CHOICE of following or ignoring. Choice is the keyword here. In 1984 you are under the total control of Big Brother with no way out. In religion, you can just quit if its too much for you.
Avinash Pathak
Quitting is not often as easy a choice as you might think it to be, and in often cases almost an impossibility; especially in the present societal way of life. What you are discussing is an idealized view of religion, choice, freedom and way of life; real life religion and "religion that our neighbors practice" is anything but idealized versions; and it is not really a way out to say that it is because of evil in society and in people; if there is "evil" in people, then we should work on it with something better then.
Also, I know it is important to quote religious scripture and all but for me it just doesn't make sense to follow it unless supplemented by some sort of better reason like if it will help society to move forward or make all our lives better.
And about 1984, it often is very close to what i see with religion, not the idealized version that you want to follow but the real life one that people do follow; I am looking at how majority generally deals with it and just making observations based on that.
Shoeb Ahmed Khan
I'm sorry but which free society binds you to follow its religion? Even an Islamic state like Saudi Arabia doesn't have any such restrictions. It's not as if you will be executed for quitting your religion and going a different way! Please describe to me what "real life religion" is in your opinion and what you mean by "idealized version of religion".
Religion and its scriptures go hand in hand in such that one complements the other. So do the teachings of learned scholars. We are far from the "ideal society" that has been described in scriptures hence it's pointless to discuss its merits or otherwise.
Avinash Pathak
@Shoeb:
Society always binds its people in things that if feels is right and keeps it strong, there are rituals and traditions and all that for that reason; so that people feel as a part of the group, religion is also just like that since humans are so socially inclined to form groups and want each others company. Religion provides that community feeling.
The problem often comes since society expects everyone to follow these ways of life. And punishment for deviation is not always death as you have written, it was only in barbaric times and presently in few barbaric societies that death as a penalty would occur.
Rather what we do see is that a passive aggressive stance of the people emerges, everyone in the society feels morally obligated to stick to the ideology because otherwise society shuns them in so many ways, so many that it would be difficult to mention all of them here: from the mundane "the guy is bad" to the extreme like lynching.
And this is not unique in anyway to religion, far from it people have done it in terms of race, color, creed etc.
What does make religion vulnerable is that it is so binding, meaning that if you do things different from the community it might cause problems for ALL Eternity for all the people in the society; it is the concept of all eternity suffering that causes people to turn against those that are not in favor of their way of life.
Additionally it is often that sense of discomfort seeing that there is another way of thinking whereas my way of thinking should be the only truth.This is real religion which was not intended perhaps, but has become.
Friday, November 19, 2010
A Culture of Sheeps
It never ceases to amaze me how odd the human brain is.On one hand we have some of the most fascinating and complex outcomes from the process of human thought, while at the same time, the brain, in its infinite complexity is prone to blunders that are a cause of immutable suffering and pain.
Many of these ideologies have arisen from what is often described from a "personal experience" point of view, ie. due to an observation of a single person which can often never be recreated again in controlled conditions to test of its veracity.These are often, (though not always) from what I have observed, irrational thought processes of human mind.Inherently though, I donot think there is anything wrong with these thought processes themselves, afterall these were extremely necessary in our evolution- without these the human race couldnot have survived.For example, the proces of human rationalization wherein anything that is done by a person which is in opposition to one's ideals is always perceived in positive light by irrational justifications(eg."Smoking is actually good for me" or "If I start the project tomorrow it will be more successful" etc.) not only does this give us pleasure from our decisions but also sometimes becoms necessary for survival.
Then what is the biggest problems with irrationality- Observation has taught me that it is not the ideas that are, by themselves dangerous but rather the effects that these produce in the forms of actions-in the absence of a controlling mechanism of rationality and reality that cause extremely dangerous situations.
Most wars for example have been a result of irrational thought process, whether due to a lust for power or to appease a religious fervour and the result always has been the same- putting our civilization back several years.
What seems to be happening is that we donot perceive the dangers of our own "gut feelings" and "common sense" and hence donot understand that these very ideologies are at most times grossly wrong. We are so sure of ourselves and idolize are ideals to such an extent that they no longer hold any real value in solving the problem at hand ie. to understand that which is around us in the most simple manner without biasing our viewpoints to suit our needs, but rather have a starkly corroding effect on it.
Thus, given how rationality above all else must be that which dictates us to do practically relevant things, I will be writing up a few irrational thought processes over the next few months that I have seen around over the years to perhaps learn just how easy it is to fall in these convoluted slippery slopes and how we all are prone to its sweet embrace.
Many of these ideologies have arisen from what is often described from a "personal experience" point of view, ie. due to an observation of a single person which can often never be recreated again in controlled conditions to test of its veracity.These are often, (though not always) from what I have observed, irrational thought processes of human mind.Inherently though, I donot think there is anything wrong with these thought processes themselves, afterall these were extremely necessary in our evolution- without these the human race couldnot have survived.For example, the proces of human rationalization wherein anything that is done by a person which is in opposition to one's ideals is always perceived in positive light by irrational justifications(eg."Smoking is actually good for me" or "If I start the project tomorrow it will be more successful" etc.) not only does this give us pleasure from our decisions but also sometimes becoms necessary for survival.
Then what is the biggest problems with irrationality- Observation has taught me that it is not the ideas that are, by themselves dangerous but rather the effects that these produce in the forms of actions-in the absence of a controlling mechanism of rationality and reality that cause extremely dangerous situations.
Most wars for example have been a result of irrational thought process, whether due to a lust for power or to appease a religious fervour and the result always has been the same- putting our civilization back several years.
What seems to be happening is that we donot perceive the dangers of our own "gut feelings" and "common sense" and hence donot understand that these very ideologies are at most times grossly wrong. We are so sure of ourselves and idolize are ideals to such an extent that they no longer hold any real value in solving the problem at hand ie. to understand that which is around us in the most simple manner without biasing our viewpoints to suit our needs, but rather have a starkly corroding effect on it.
Thus, given how rationality above all else must be that which dictates us to do practically relevant things, I will be writing up a few irrational thought processes over the next few months that I have seen around over the years to perhaps learn just how easy it is to fall in these convoluted slippery slopes and how we all are prone to its sweet embrace.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
An extended hiatus or a strong case of procastination
Ah, how long has it been since I have stumbled upon my own writings from the yesteryear- perhaps it was a lack of any impetus to write or perhaps the outcome of the cultural changes that I experienced, but I got a renewed sense of excitement to put my thoughts to pen (speaking figuratively in an overtly digital age) a few moments back.
However it also reminded me of why i had lost all the eagerness in the first place- ironically it was the same thing that gave me the ease with which to put my thoughts to everyone, and that was the ease itself.As I got a sense of the vastness of the internet and number of people expressing the opinions, It dawned upon me that even with the smallest of probabilities what i had to say would have already been said a million times before by millions of people.
Do I hear you asking "Then why the change of heart to write again?," well i guess it has to be because now I felt like doing it for myself, and to put my thoughts out there to hopefully be criticized by those of higher intellect to not only have a progressive thought but to hear the ones around to create an open ideology, as free of prejudices as possible.
The change might also be clear from the title of the blog, since I thought it would be productive to talk of thought process and cognition itself.
As always if there is still someone reading this blog, please sound off in the comments any rational viewpoints and perhaps ideas as to what you might want to see in the blog..
However it also reminded me of why i had lost all the eagerness in the first place- ironically it was the same thing that gave me the ease with which to put my thoughts to everyone, and that was the ease itself.As I got a sense of the vastness of the internet and number of people expressing the opinions, It dawned upon me that even with the smallest of probabilities what i had to say would have already been said a million times before by millions of people.
Do I hear you asking "Then why the change of heart to write again?," well i guess it has to be because now I felt like doing it for myself, and to put my thoughts out there to hopefully be criticized by those of higher intellect to not only have a progressive thought but to hear the ones around to create an open ideology, as free of prejudices as possible.
The change might also be clear from the title of the blog, since I thought it would be productive to talk of thought process and cognition itself.
As always if there is still someone reading this blog, please sound off in the comments any rational viewpoints and perhaps ideas as to what you might want to see in the blog..
Saturday, October 4, 2008
"Wine"ing against windows..
Ok, so hands down linux is much more robust an OS compared to windows,heck it is better at almost everything practically usable, thanks to its powerful UNIX kernel and a large open source base.What is that I hear? "I have heard that before, but windows is still a monopoly over almost entire PC industry, and every software that is made is made with only windows in mind as it will sell with the closed source OS."
Though that is not entirely true, with most of the major applications availabe for linux too, it is true that some of the most used ones are not.
Consider for example, utorrent, a simple c coded torrent client ehich i really like running neatly on one corner in my windows session.
Though there is transmission built into linux itself, is good, i find its minimalistic look, no support for tracker and peer addition, and feel coupled with the not so good number of connections possible a dealbreaker.
So in order to keep the power of unix and open source with utorrent, i decided to use a little software called as wine for linux.
you can get it from here.
After installing it from the terminal window, you can run most windows programs on it, including a few games.
Thogh still in beta stages, the latest version does have a very large support base for many windows apps.
Aditionally when installed you can also change the options as to which os it should replicate, vista,xp or the older 98..
It stores all the data you use here is virtual disks c and z, which can easily be accessed from linux itself.
Now if only linux would support directx and i could play games like crysis on it..I would have no reason to stay with windows and its truant "genuine only" policies.
Though that is not entirely true, with most of the major applications availabe for linux too, it is true that some of the most used ones are not.
Consider for example, utorrent, a simple c coded torrent client ehich i really like running neatly on one corner in my windows session.
Though there is transmission built into linux itself, is good, i find its minimalistic look, no support for tracker and peer addition, and feel coupled with the not so good number of connections possible a dealbreaker.
So in order to keep the power of unix and open source with utorrent, i decided to use a little software called as wine for linux.
you can get it from here.
After installing it from the terminal window, you can run most windows programs on it, including a few games.
Thogh still in beta stages, the latest version does have a very large support base for many windows apps.
Aditionally when installed you can also change the options as to which os it should replicate, vista,xp or the older 98..
It stores all the data you use here is virtual disks c and z, which can easily be accessed from linux itself.
Now if only linux would support directx and i could play games like crysis on it..I would have no reason to stay with windows and its truant "genuine only" policies.
The Eeeasy experience
So, on my quest to find a laptop, which truly did what it was initially conceived to do, that is, 1)to be portable, unlike its bulky brother, desktop, and 2)have a price tag which was justifiable in the light of above said inclusion, I found one which came pretty close to the ideal condition.
The "laptop" or more precisely the netbook that I am talking of here, is the eee pc, from the gamer-centric company, asus (though this laptop is not really for even legacy games).
The eee line of netbooks was first made by asus a year or so back, with their main focus over budget portability, rather than performance, which was a refreshing change for once from the ridiculously priced , under performing laptops like macbook air (mac fanboys will really hate me for this..)
Initially shipped versions had within them "remix" versions of popular linux distros like xandros, which made them very user friendly, with most functions availabe at the touch of a on screen shortcut.
They didnot have the power to run windows or run games,because they were just not made for that.
These netbooks excelled at one thing above all- portability.
Initial models had 7inch screen sizes and weighed under a kg, making them ideal for travel.
Aditionally, they predominently had SSD's within them, so for the most part they were shock proof too.
However as the market matured, and a pleothera of these sub-notebooks flew in grom literally every company, the product line was improved, the one that I got was the eee 1000h, which had some intresting features.
First up, was that it came with xp, though the home edition, this was the only legal way to get xp,ie.in the ULPC's now that windows had done away with selling the OS, thanks to vista.
unlike its older sibling though, the 1000h had a 10 inch screen, larger than any of them, whic makes it easier to scroll and read web pages on it.
then there was the weight which was now very close to the borders of the subnotebook region, at around 1.45 kg, partly due to its 6cell Li-ion battery, and a HDD being present of the laptop instead of a solid state drive.
Though this means that it is more prone to mechanical shock, it does give this version of eee a 80gb hard drive space, enogh to install multiple OS's and store downloaded data, unlike the older 4g models which had just 4gb space.
Also on it is a 6 cell battery instead of 3 cell ones on older models, which improves battery times quite drastically, though i found that the long battery span per charge is generally more so because of the bundled application called as hybrid engine from asus.
What it does is that when the laptop is running on battery, it "underclocks" the CPU, from 1.6 GHz to 800MHz and hence reduces the voltage used by it.
The Cpu itself, intel atom which was recently released from intel for these subnotebooks is quite under and over clockable and uses very little power.
The build quality of the laptop was quite good, thogh there was a slight flex on the keys to the right of the laptop, though nothing much to be worried about.
Apart from that, the biggest hurdle in the older netbooks is rectified here, which is that for such small devices, the keyboard is generally cramped up, for example in the older 4g models the keys were so small that it would be hard to type without hitting the wrong key accidentally.Here however the keyboard is almost full sized compared to the usual laptops and after a little practice, one gets adept at using it.
The other intresting thing on this laptop was its touchpad, which with the right drivers can be used with three fingers simultaneously to simulate many conditions.Though it had bugs with recognizing the multiple finger taps, it is more of a software bug which should be rectified soon enough.
For example, 2 finger tap enables sroll, 2 finger motion of moving diagonally away or together zooms or zooms out the fram, three finger tap gives right click and so on..
other than that, it also had a wireless n support though nothing on wimax.The draft n is almost ready and hence this will enable much faster throughputs.
Webcam and microphone was also thrown in for the support of video chatting, skype comes preloaded in xp for that, and the laptop also has a button exclusively to open skype(which thankfully can be programmed to behave differently as i rarely ever use video chatting).
Speakers are phenomenally good too, with a sticker saying that they are dolby certified.Though the sound is not 5.1 channel good, it is exceptional for speakers of this size on such a small laptop.
The audio chipset itself is from realtek and supports hd.
the lcd too is good with bright colors appearing very nice and text easily redable at half the maximum brightness too..though you will not be able to play games or 1080p hd videos on it..thanks to the integrated intel gma 950 video chipset.
all in all though, it fits perfectly in as a second or third laptop for almost anyone who needs a "on-the-go" laptop.For everything else like running adobe CS or playing crysis there is always the good old trusty desktop..
The "laptop" or more precisely the netbook that I am talking of here, is the eee pc, from the gamer-centric company, asus (though this laptop is not really for even legacy games).
The eee line of netbooks was first made by asus a year or so back, with their main focus over budget portability, rather than performance, which was a refreshing change for once from the ridiculously priced , under performing laptops like macbook air (mac fanboys will really hate me for this..)
Initially shipped versions had within them "remix" versions of popular linux distros like xandros, which made them very user friendly, with most functions availabe at the touch of a on screen shortcut.
They didnot have the power to run windows or run games,because they were just not made for that.
These netbooks excelled at one thing above all- portability.
Initial models had 7inch screen sizes and weighed under a kg, making them ideal for travel.
Aditionally, they predominently had SSD's within them, so for the most part they were shock proof too.
However as the market matured, and a pleothera of these sub-notebooks flew in grom literally every company, the product line was improved, the one that I got was the eee 1000h, which had some intresting features.
First up, was that it came with xp, though the home edition, this was the only legal way to get xp,ie.in the ULPC's now that windows had done away with selling the OS, thanks to vista.
unlike its older sibling though, the 1000h had a 10 inch screen, larger than any of them, whic makes it easier to scroll and read web pages on it.
then there was the weight which was now very close to the borders of the subnotebook region, at around 1.45 kg, partly due to its 6cell Li-ion battery, and a HDD being present of the laptop instead of a solid state drive.
Though this means that it is more prone to mechanical shock, it does give this version of eee a 80gb hard drive space, enogh to install multiple OS's and store downloaded data, unlike the older 4g models which had just 4gb space.
Also on it is a 6 cell battery instead of 3 cell ones on older models, which improves battery times quite drastically, though i found that the long battery span per charge is generally more so because of the bundled application called as hybrid engine from asus.
What it does is that when the laptop is running on battery, it "underclocks" the CPU, from 1.6 GHz to 800MHz and hence reduces the voltage used by it.
The Cpu itself, intel atom which was recently released from intel for these subnotebooks is quite under and over clockable and uses very little power.
The build quality of the laptop was quite good, thogh there was a slight flex on the keys to the right of the laptop, though nothing much to be worried about.
Apart from that, the biggest hurdle in the older netbooks is rectified here, which is that for such small devices, the keyboard is generally cramped up, for example in the older 4g models the keys were so small that it would be hard to type without hitting the wrong key accidentally.Here however the keyboard is almost full sized compared to the usual laptops and after a little practice, one gets adept at using it.
The other intresting thing on this laptop was its touchpad, which with the right drivers can be used with three fingers simultaneously to simulate many conditions.Though it had bugs with recognizing the multiple finger taps, it is more of a software bug which should be rectified soon enough.
For example, 2 finger tap enables sroll, 2 finger motion of moving diagonally away or together zooms or zooms out the fram, three finger tap gives right click and so on..
other than that, it also had a wireless n support though nothing on wimax.The draft n is almost ready and hence this will enable much faster throughputs.
Webcam and microphone was also thrown in for the support of video chatting, skype comes preloaded in xp for that, and the laptop also has a button exclusively to open skype(which thankfully can be programmed to behave differently as i rarely ever use video chatting).
Speakers are phenomenally good too, with a sticker saying that they are dolby certified.Though the sound is not 5.1 channel good, it is exceptional for speakers of this size on such a small laptop.
The audio chipset itself is from realtek and supports hd.
the lcd too is good with bright colors appearing very nice and text easily redable at half the maximum brightness too..though you will not be able to play games or 1080p hd videos on it..thanks to the integrated intel gma 950 video chipset.
all in all though, it fits perfectly in as a second or third laptop for almost anyone who needs a "on-the-go" laptop.For everything else like running adobe CS or playing crysis there is always the good old trusty desktop..
Monday, September 15, 2008
Dimentional stacking, Spirituality and Science..
String theory predicts that there may be an infinite number of dimentions stacked atop another one below it, and Einstein's theories seem to support this.
for example, a 3 dimentional creature like us, might tinker with the 2 dimentional world, for example an infitesimally thing sheet of paper. For the 2d creature we would be percieved only as length and breadth, meaning it would only be able to perceive us layer by layer.
Ifnow, say i would take the sheet of paper and fold it around to make a loop, in 3d, in 2d it would appear as if a point had appeared with which one could "magically"disappear from one end of this dry space and appear at a new location.
similarly, any pin which is pushedinto this fabric will be perceived not as a long rod, but rather a small metal circular object lodged on their lands, which, as they would call it came out of nowhere.
Now if we look at the 4 dimentional space time curve, we being a lower dimensional being perceive of the 4d more as the 2d creatures would look at us, one "frame" at a time, with any one given copy of us seen to us, in the long line of events that take place in the 4d.Hence we see only ourselves as being in the present time.
However we would have a complete persona of ourselves in 4d with every event from birth to death in this chain.
The same amazing things could be done by beings if present in the 4d to us as we would be able to on the 2d world.This would mean that a creature in this 4d would be able to "jump" around magically in the 3d and tinker with time.
The higher dimensions too have this property of controlling a lower order dimension, perceiving it though is extremely difficult, as we cannot even at times perceive 3d(mechanical problems relating friction).
So looking at this stacking of dimensions, one thing that does come to my mind is that, what if, the being we call as the God, or a higher power is just a being of this higher order dimension.
It would be possible to do things inconceivable to us in our 3d, just as the 2d creatures think of folding in 2d as magic.This would also produce effects of such profound nature as the space and time twist people claim to have "seen".
However if there exist such beings in higher order dimensions and if it is possible for what we perceive as living to exist in these dimensions is a different matter, but I think that if a being can have such profound effets on this world then it would only be possible through such dimensional analysis.
It's a bird! It's a plane! No, It's Google chrome??
First came google search, then the g"oogle" mail, and since then it has not stoped, be it mobile OS or maping softwares, there was google always on the forefront of it, with their brilliant software developers making a new code like eating candy, and stealing the market share from the Redmond overlord like stealing candy from a kid.
Their policy, well quite simpe- Do No Evil, absolutely... urm.. opposite to the "micro"coders.
And so on their path, they have released a brand new... internet browser, called google chrome.
Well actually it seems like they have taken all the pointers from their peers, the close to awesome bar from firefox, the yellow(from blue) highlight and the incognito (from private browsing) mode from apple safari, with the hint of fresh thumbnail page displays from opera.
However what I found good in the browser was its stability.It is hard on resources when compared to the other browsers in the short run, but the effects of each page and each tab having its own memory and handles was really startling, not once did it crash on me whereas firefox had done so atleast half a dozen times when it was released, and add ons added to it.
Speed is another plus, with java scripting having a new V8 code, benchmarks like the sunspider ran twice, yes twice as fast as even firefox, leaving all the rest of the browsers in its wake, sniffing dust.
Besides the fast browsing, it also opens up fast, but that is thanks to the fact that it can use multicores in a useful way, unlike the normal browsers.
Ok, so enough of the praises that google is so habituated to hear, you ask if it is the best browser yet?
Far from it, will be the answer from anyone using it long enough.
Firstly I personally hate the fact that it has only been released for windows, who made that decision anyway?They should have released it simultaneosly on all the three major platforms.
The reason google has the "cool" factor is thanks to the nature of the software it develops, alike for all the platforms, nothing that suggests them being even close to Microsoft fanboys.
Second is the features.When I had first fired it up, the one word that had come in my mind to describe it was "minimalistic", and minimalist it was.Sure I donot exactly like the unix style, do it yourself all the time, but atleast a few features would have been good, say the ability to look under the hood of the browser using about:config, or the ability to sync booksmarks with a online place, like delicious does in firefox, or for that matter even a working toolbar from google itself(yeah, google toolbar doesnot support chrome).
besides there isin't even a mechanism wherein the browser woould warn me when i am accidentally about to close a dozen tabs, they just close.
And then there is this big reason google might be doing this browser side-mission,to get the customers to browse faster through google so that they can go there several times,so that they can get increased revenue and also by the collection of search terms.
One big thing that was really more of a necessity and wa missing on chrome was ad-block.
this can be overcome by using a simple bypass technique.
after installing chrome, install privoxy and use the following settings in the options(wrench bar in chrome-upper right corner)-->under the hood-->change proxy settings, to localhost and port as 8118 in lan settings.
voila, this should do the trick, not as good as the ad block plus in firefox but nevertheless, a way to get around those pesky ads(which you might experience more in chrome thanks to google's adsense), in chrome, IE, opera, safari...
let's hope the RC of the chrome beta is better, and still does no evil...
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Upcoming Nehalem...more cores, does it really matter?
For those of you who do not already know, Nehalem (core i7) (7th generation?)is the upcoming desktop CPU (at least initially) from the processor giants....Intel.This one will have several features like a true quad core(the core 2 had 2 dual cores on a single dye), which will enable it to switch off each core separately if needed when the cpu loads are low, hence having absolutely no leakage current.Plus it will feature power manager processor within it, making it much better then the current 65watt cpu's and also a oct core will finally be on a single physical processor(more like the current quad, 2 nehalem quad's in a single cpu).
What I really donot understand is their naming scheme, the pentium remained with us for a lot of time, then came the core technology with gen 1 and 2, but all of a sudden it has a new name instead of the core 3 people thought it would be.
aditionally what I am excited about is its capacity to turn off cores and increase the multiplier in it to increase the CPU speed, until it remains in the thermal limits.This would mean that depending on the ambient temperature the performance may vary with the processor.
Also behind the scenes Intel is working on its fabled stream processor, Larrabee,which will place intel in a strong place in the GPU market, if it can make the programmers code in the x86 architecture.However a 80 core processor would help process the graphics in software mode much better, unlike the presently underpowered integrated graphics solutions availabe.
What I really donot understand is their naming scheme, the pentium remained with us for a lot of time, then came the core technology with gen 1 and 2, but all of a sudden it has a new name instead of the core 3 people thought it would be.
aditionally what I am excited about is its capacity to turn off cores and increase the multiplier in it to increase the CPU speed, until it remains in the thermal limits.This would mean that depending on the ambient temperature the performance may vary with the processor.
Also behind the scenes Intel is working on its fabled stream processor, Larrabee,which will place intel in a strong place in the GPU market, if it can make the programmers code in the x86 architecture.However a 80 core processor would help process the graphics in software mode much better, unlike the presently underpowered integrated graphics solutions availabe.
End of the world?....more like the end of sane human logic.
Funny, how people are ultra paranoid about things that they do not fully understand.There were predictions of "the world coming to an end on september 10th" and so on, due to the fact that LHC was being fired up all the way in Geneva.
But truth be told, even if they were right that a "black hole formed by the collision of protons would suck the universe in", there was no scheduled smashing of protons that was sheduled to occur on this day, only the revolving the protons 11000 times on the circumference as seen on CERN's site.Surely, this could not create a black hole? Protons are accelerated to such
speeds all the time in the nature,and we donot see any anomalities in space and time.
Even when they will be smashed into each other, in 2-3 month time,
This would mean that any region formed would break down
Even when they will be smashed into each other, in 2-3 month time,
at the most a infinitisimally small "black hole" will be formed around the
region of the collision due to the high energies involved, but then again
protons are extremely
minute, weighing 1.6726*10^-27 kg.
This would mean that any region formed would break down
in almost no time.
However seems like the media had got something to blabber about
However seems like the media had got something to blabber about
due to this, for
example a
news channel that was blatantly posting an item as "breaking news"
news channel that was blatantly posting an item as "breaking news"
that "world will end
tomorrow", and that too they got their dates wrong...
While some people oppse the creation of this facility,saying that
While some people oppse the creation of this facility,saying that
it is a waste of taxpayer money,
In reality, if the scientists are able to find anything that tells us
about the fundamental particles
in space, which would explain so many other things like whether
there are dimentions above us,
and the very nature of mass itself, thanks to the fabled higgs
boson in the higgs field.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Anyways, what proves my point is that religion, so far, has far from faded and won't in the future as well. People need more than just "reason" and "logic" to comfort them, and though you may scoff at them for their belief in "something that cannot be seen" yet we find it an extreme impossibility that the world as it is came into being of its own or runs purely on "scientific" rules and laws.