Temples today: spirituality and morality take backstage

 Whenever we go to a big and famous temple in India, I get a very uneasy feeling to say the least. Many people who call themselves temple guides or priests/ pandas descend on us like hyenas.  When I ask about their fee, the standard answer is “give me whatever you wish”. I agree to go with one of them. He takes us to his favorite “cheapest” sweet and flower shop and suggests the things to buy. Then he takes us inside the temple and suggests how much to pay for the pujas in each place.

In the end when we come out from the temple and ready to leave, the real bargaining begins. Whatever we give him, he wants at least ten times more. This final bargaining leaves a very sour taste. At every step it seems that only objective of the priest is to get as much money from us as possible. If we keep on paying the amount he prescribes at each step, he is politest and kindest person in the world. However, if we wish to pay less, his demeanour changes, he becomes grumpy, inattentive or outright rude. In the temple, I am trying to have a glimpse of my inner spirituality but the signboard cautioning me to be aware of pickpockets just does not let me, I become more aware of my wallet than the presence of God in the temple.

And all this is done in the name of getting you blessed by the Deity of the temple. Do these people not feel any fear from the Deity when they cheat the worshipers? Do these priests themselves not believe in the divine power and divine justice? Are they completely devoid of any moral qualms?

Similar to the priests the beggars outside the temple also say that if we give them money the Deity of the temple would shower blessings on us. In comparison to the priests, the beggars appear more civilized and honest. Their claim is probably more genuine. They are happy with whatever money we give them. They certainly seem more deserving candidate for our charity.

I am sure the Deity will be much more pleased if I helped the beggars than the unholy priests and the deceitful shopkeepers.

Ref:  Court bans pandas from Kalighat temple

 www.telegraphindia.com/1111126/jsp/calcutta/story_14799173.jsp

STEVE JOBS V/S WILSON GREATBATCH: A REFLEXION ON OUR VALUE SYSTEM IN 21ST CENTURY

Steve jobs died on Oct 5 this year. He was the man who co-founded Apple computers and recently made the company very successful with introduction of iPads, iPods and iPhones. It is mainly the last one, the iPhone that made him hugely famous and his company a big corporate success. His death was major international news and was covered by almost all the news media of the entire world even in the poorest countries where only a handful could lay their hands on one of his creations. His obituaries appeared in every newspaper and magazine including millions of blogs and twiterlogs. Many described his innovations as word changing. Even the most powerful man of our world the president of USA lamented, “The world has lost a visionary”

On Sept 27 this year Wilson Greatbatch died. He invented the first practicable cardiac pacemaker in 1960. The heart has a collection of specialised tissue that initiates regular and orderly contraction of its chambers to pump the blood around our body. In many patients this area does not work properly which leads to failure of the heart. In these patients, cardiac pacemaker is implanted to do the same job.  Not only the pacemaker but also the long lasting lithium battery was also introduced by Greatbatch.   Now more than half a million pacemakers are implanted each year. Greatbatch held more than 300 patents. The implantable pacemaker was cited as one of the 10 greatest engineering contributions to society. It has saved and continues to save lives of millions of heart patients. His obituaries only appeared in few news papers, which generously devoted a couple of inches in a hidden obscure column.

Job was a man of vision but only for the ever-wanting consumer society. His creations no doubt beautiful and efficient were but elegant and cool toys for rich.  After everything is said and done, his company produced improved glamorised entertainment equipments. However it did make a lot of money and very fast. In 21^st century, that is probably the benchmark not just of success but of greatness as well!

Why Rawan will have to be burnt again and again?

Last week we went to Dashahra celebrations arranged in one of the largest parks in Manchester. In spite of a cold, wet and windy weather thousands of people came.  They all jeered when the large effigy of the ten headed demon king Rawan came in the view and cheered when it was burnt following the bull’s eye hit by Ram’s arrow.

We are very enthusiastic and gung ho about burning not only the the Rawan of Ramayan but anyone who we perceive to be as evil as Rawan as long as he is not one of us. If he is our kin or we are directly benefitting from his evil deeds, we gladly tolerate him, even praise him and sometimes worship him.

 It is not only true for the individuals but almost all human institutions, whether it is a small charity organization or a big country. Even a cursory look at recent history of Saddam, Gaddafi and Taliban and their relation with different countries will prove the point. They had quite cosy and mutually beneficial relations with all the countries and kings who were capable of restraining them but choose not to. They were all attending different forums and meetings (the modern Swayambaras and Yagyas) with them at one time or another.

 Only when Rawan chooses to kidnap Ram’s Sita, all hell breaks loose.  Murder of thousands and suppression of millions in Iran, Libia and Afghanistan only raises Ram’s eyebrows not his all-powerful bow, until “nine eleven”!

The reason Rawan gets up and has to be burnt again next year is that each of us shelter a bit of him  within us and we choose not to kill it, till it attacks our own hearts and even then the Amrit of our self interest revives him back in no time. 

PROUSTIAN MEMORY: SMELL, MEMORY AND REALITY

Sun was shining; it was a completely blue sky. I sat in the garden with a book and a cup of coffee.  In the border near where I was sitting, there was a Marigold plant laden with flowers. The colours of the petals were a combination of dark red and bright yellow like flames of fire. Impulsively I plucked a couple of flowers and put it on the table. 

I opened my book and started reading. As soon as I opened the pages, a waft of familiar smell hit me. The smell was coming from my fingers, which I had used to pluck the marigold flowers. This familiar smell brought the memory of my high school days with such intensity that I felt physically transported in that big colourful marquee in the school field on a Saraswati Puja* day. I could see the statue of the goddess in bright yellow and red sari and the whole dais covered with marigold flowers. Most of the decoration was done a few days before but we arranged the flowers in the early hours of the morning so that they would look as fresh as possible. We also pinned a number of flowers to the fabric behind the statue in a gushing fountain design. I could see the face of my classmate who drew this design with a piece of wood charcoal.  I saw myself pricking my finger and reflexly sucking the tip. And there were my fingers, tinged green, yellow and red with intense smell of marigold just under my nose. This memory was like a hologram engulfing me, almost real.  

This kind of memory, where an unexpected re-encounter with a scent from the distant past brings back a rush of memories, is called “Proustian Memory" named after Marcel Proust, one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century.

I have smelled marigold before but I never felt like that. This time I think it was not just the smell but also many other sensory clues were similar. The day was sunny, temperature was not too cold, not too hot, very like late February or early March in India. I was sitting in a green grass lawn very similar though much smaller to the field in my high school. All these sensory inputs together probably reproduced exact environment, which I had once experienced, and the mind converted the memory into virtual reality.

Come to think of it, the reality we perceive is actually a creation of our mind.  The raw material with which mind creates reality is memories. I am now sitting in my study writing this blog. I am aware of the date and time and the fact that the bookcase is behind me and the telephone on my left side only because of my recent and not so recent memories. Though I am only seeing or touching a small fraction of my world, I am fully aware of it only due to this wonderful gift called memory. My present reality is based on my memories, not on what is actually there at exactly this moment. Another interesting topic for another blog.

*Saraswati Puja (also known as Basant Panchami) is a festival devoted to Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music and art. The festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm in the schools & colleges of India.

RECENT RIOTS IN UK: AN UNFORESEEN EVENT OR A SLOW DEATH OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

12/08/2011

A friend of mine is in UK at present. He came from India last month to see family and friends. He is going back in a couple of weeks. He was very impressed with general orderliness prevalent in this country. He was particularly praising the educational opportunities present for the young people here. The Recent rioting, violence and looting in many parts of the country was a real shock to him. He could not imagine these things happening here. He always thought British society being very cultivated and having good civic sense. Of course, his views are comparative and he can be forgiven for thinking that way.

For most of the common people living in UK, it was not such a surprise. It was a disaster waiting to happen.  But the funny thing is that many of the officials who are responsible to prevent and to deal with such events also thought like my friend.

Our atavistic herd mentality, a strong desire to belong to a group with common interests surfaces from time to time breaking our highly individualistic modern life style; may it be looting and vandalising or creating and caring, throwing stones on police or shouting and screaming at/with the pop stars.  An event happens and an opportunity to form a herd is created. What the herd will do depends on type of opportunity present and the inclination of a certain number (threshold fraction) of individuals in the herd.   The number of people in that initial group comprises of a tiny minority but it works like a nidus or catalyst. When it reaches a certain mass, a chain reaction starts and inhibitions of the majority of the individuals in the herd is overcome. The result could a disaster and devastation or relief and creation depending on the nature or motive of the individuals in the nidus. All societies bar none have some very bad and some very good individuals (a Bell curve). In a mob which of these groups forms the nidus first, determines the behaviour and further course of the mob: violent looting or peaceful demonstration.

It is impossible to predict which course the mob will take and hence impossible to plan with limited resources the law enforcement agencies have. If the police are very strict and present in large numbers, the bad individuals are deterred from forming the initial nidus and a peaceful demonstration results. You would think that in this scenario, everybody ought to praise the law and order agencies, but the reality is just the opposite. Both the Police and the Government are criticized by the media, politicians, human right activists and many other opportunistic individuals and groups for using so much police power on peaceful demonstrators.

If the police are a bit soft and not visible in large numbers, the bad elements are encouraged and form the nidus first and the result is mayhem. Again, police is criticized for not being forceful and pre-emptive. 

How to square this circle? When a mob collects role of police should be to discourage the bad nidus from forming and facilitate the good nidus.

Effective intelligence is the only answer. The very good and very bad individuals are usually known in the community. Effective intelligence and good community relation are intertwined and law agencies have to be good at both.  I would even say that a good community relation would automatically result in effective intelligence. 

At present in many democratic countries, the government agencies have poor community relation. People do not feel that the govt is of the people, by the people and for the people. To effectively manage the law and order situation on a more permanent basis the government in general and the law agencies in particularly have to really work hard to improve community relation. And it can only be done by working with the local communities not by appointing expensive public relation firms which now seems to be the norm for all the government agencies. 

If a liberal democratic government feels the need for appointing a PR firm it is the beginning of the end.

SLEEP: PLEASURE, GUILT AND SURVIVAL

I wake up in the morning around half past six. By wake up actually I mean just open my eyes and see the time on the wall clock which is very strategically hung on the wall.   Usually I feel like closing my eyes again and continue with the sleep. Most of the time I let myself do it and then get up after an hour or two. Now that I am retired getting up this late does not cause any problem but when I was working it did. I hated to get up at seven but I hated more being late for work.

        Once I am out of bed I feel ok and ready to tackle the day. It is just willing myself to get out of the duvet is the difficult bit. Some people are up and about by six or even five in the morning, not by compulsion but by choice or even inclination. Sleeping in a warm, comfortable bed under a soft duvet is so blissful. Why would anyone get out of it without a threat, I cannot fathom.

To get out of the bed I need to bribe my brain; promise a reward, give an incentive or sometimes even threaten it with cold water or fire alarm. When I was working the incentive was not to be late for work. Nowadays I dangle a big carrot: promise for a freshly brewed cup of Darjeeling tea. The moment I open my eyes in the bed I just conjure up the aroma of the tea and imagine the feel of the warm cup in my hands. This works a treat. I am up and in the kitchen in no time.

       Sleep is absolutely necessary for survival of the species. If our hunter/gatherer ancestors did not sleep well, they would not feel fresh and not be alert in the morning.  They would have been gobbled up by the predators they had all around them.   No further propagation of Homo sapiens! No me or you. This in fact is true for every animal species. Those who did not sleep well were gradually eliminated from the gene pool.

      To make sure of the continued existence of species, any action that is vital for survival gradually gets hard wired in our brain to be intensely and immensely pleasurable. This happens over thousands of years by natural selection.

          No wonder why it is difficult to abandon the sleep. I can put all the blame on Charles Darwin. I certainly feel less guilty now.

Disclaimer: Only part of the discussion is scientifically proven. 

SMART PHONES AS AN AUGMENTATION OF OUR SENSORY RECEPTORS: HELP OR HINDRANCE?

 

The quantity of information available to people has been rapidly increasing over the last two centuries. The lowering cost of dissemination of data through Books, newspapers, radio, television and internet have allowed information to reach to masses as never before. Until a few years ago there was a time lag between one’s desire to have the information and actually getting it. You had to go to the library, bookshop or to the newspaper vendor etc.  You had to wait for the news on radio and television. Now information is becoming instantaneous with advent of mobile phone/computer technology. These nifty machines are becoming almost an appendage of one’s body providing extra receptors for multiple sensorial stimuli; auditory, visual, even tactile. Now humans can see much more, hear much more.

 We are now always in touch with a greatly expanded virtual reality. We are not just hearing the sounds in our near vicinity but also what a protester is saying in Cairo or Bahrain hundreds of miles away. You are not just seeing your own neighbouring environment but also what is happening in other parts of the world.  You are not limited to listening or talking to people around you but can do with people all over the world.  It was available before but with a time lag not in real time now.

 When you see something interesting in a shop you can check immediately on your mobile if a better model or a lower price is being offered somewhere else. It is really an extension of your own vision and auditory capabilities. You may see so many different offers that you cannot decide which one to buy. 

Our human visual system can only “see” a very narrow range of the available electromagnetic radiation (EMR) wavelengths from about 390 to 750 nm.  Our natural visual acuity is also very limited.  At 12 inches, the normal visual acuity of the human eye is 0.00349 inch. What this means is that if you had alternating black and white lines that were all 0.00349 inch wide, it would appear to most people as a mass of solid gray. If the object is far away it has to be much bigger to be seen with naked eyes. If our resolution becomes much higher we can see the tiny parasites, bacteria and pollens etc at a close range and details of Saturn’s ring and Moon’s craters at a long range. If we can perceive more of the EMR range we can see the ultraviolet and infrared emissions.

This instant ability to see more, hear more is a help or a hindrance to us?

The primary purpose of the senses is to help us to explore our environment effectively to ensure our survival. Humans are at the highest ladder of evolution only because we can explore our environment more effectively than other species. For exploring more effectively does not mean having more acute senses. Eagles do have much higher visual acuity and dogs can here ultrasonic waves, bees can see the ultraviolet light.  If we can see more, hear more, smell more it will not necessarily make our life better rather I think, bombarded with that much data we will be completely bogged down.

 Imagine seeing all the mites in your bed you are about to lie in and the bacteria on the lips you are about to kiss.  To be able to hear even the faintest sound will make deafness sound like bliss. Decision making is certainly improved with more data but not just any data. It has to be relevant and accurate data. Too much data input will make it difficult to effectively filter the bad data and thus make the decision unreliable at best and downright lethal at worst.

That is why over the millions of years of evolution we have settled for consciously perceiving only a limited range of sensory input discarding higher and lower ranges.

I am not saying that technology and information should not be made available but maybe we should not use it as a substitute of our innate sensory inputs.

DEATH OF OSAMA: FUTILITY OF INDEPENDENT ENQUIRIES

Osama Bin Laden was killed last week. Majority of people felt that he deserved it. However a section of society felt that state killing of an unarmed, old man in cold blood was morally unjustified. Some people thought that the killing was illegal and demanded an independent enquiry led by UN.

Recently all over the world calls for independent enquiry have become a norm for even slightly controversial incidents.

Can an enquiry ever be independent and unbiased? How can one vouch for the independence and unbiasedness of the person or persons leading the enquiry? Usually a High or Supreme Court judge is appointed as the lead. It is perceived that being a senior judge, the person has the skill and will to disassociate him or herself from any vested interest and emotional bias.

But is it possible for any human being to make a truly independent and zero bias decision? One can learn to distance oneself from the obvious illegal or immoral influences but then the glaring question comes to mind; whose laws and whose moral codes. And even after agreeing on these codes, in really controversial cases one finds that the difference between right and wrong has to be taken on a subjective level.  

And here lies the inherent problem. The way our brain thinks depends upon how it has developed and modified with the experiences or the inputs in its life time. We can not not  look at the world without the glasses coloured with our life time experiences.  Whatever decision one takes it has that inherent bias.  You ask an independent advice from your friends and family.  You will get a number of different opinions based on their life experiences, and sometimes on their self interests too.

An enquiry cannot be truly independent if a human element is involved. But then who wants an inhuman decision?

HUMAN CONDITION: PROGRESS OR REGRESS

In the paper today I read that United States spent total of 500 million dollars in the first ten days of military activity in Libya. I am pretty sure by now the other alliance countries would have jointly spent similar amount. A Tomahawk missile costs about a million dollar a go.  And Tornado jets cost about $50000 worth of fuel for just to be in air for one hour. The continued war in Afghanistan costs about half a billion dollars per day.  To top it all the total price tag for the war effort in Iraq in Afghanistan was more than a trillion dollar and still continuing. What a waste!  And this without including the money spent by Gaddafis, Saddams and Talibans of this world.

This waste of world resources on military activity is many times the total GDP of some of the poorest countries combined. This is just the monitory cost. The cost of human lives and social misery is just incalculable and will continue for years.

A fraction of this money and effort would have made a significant upliftment in the lives of millions of people in the poor countries of the world. According to UN one billion people live below poverty line. About one in five of these is ultra poor, living in immense poverty and cannot even afford a single meal a day.

Here is a breakdown of what it will cost to implement the UN’s first Millennium Development Goals:

Halving the world poverty and hunger                      $ 20 billion

Achieving universal primary education                     $ 9 billion

Halting and reversing HIV/AIDS                                  $ 7-10 billion

Improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers    $ 4 billion

I spent hours in the hospital struggling to save just one man injured in a traffic accident and here tens of men were killed in a minute by flicker of a thumb. Does it matter whether the thumb belonged to this side or that?  Should we be proud of our education, civilization and culture developed over the last 200 thousand years since the first Homo sapiens walked the earth or just lament?

Ultra Intelligent Computers, Selfishness and Singularity

How things have changed since I bought my first full size pc in 1986. It cost about the £1000 and the total memory was only 512 K. I thought it was amazing in comparison to what I had before; a Sinclair XZ spectrum with 16K memory. But looking at the desk top on which I am writing this blog now it seems how awkward, unyielding and primitive it was. This desk top has 4 GB of RAM and 1 TB hard disk and it costs a bit less than what I paid in 1986.

The rate of development in computer science and technology has been and is phenomenal. The computing power is not just growing rapidly but the rate at which it is growing is also getting faster. At this rate soon they will surpass human intelligence. At present the computer brain power is still less than that of a mouse. It is predicted that computers will exceed this in 2015. But as the computing power is growing exponentially it will surpass a human brain by 2023. The direst prediction is for 2045 when it will go beyond the sum total of the brain power of all the humans on the planet.

Once the computing power of the machine goes beyond the human brain it can be argued that that will be the last machine the man will make (I J.Good,1965)

After that the only way the mankind can keep progressing is by merging their consciousness with the intelligence of the machines. This state of affairs has been termed as Singularity. Will you believe it that there is an academic institute called Singularity University (http://singularityu.org/) in existence for the last three years?

One of the major problems when we talk about achieving and surpassing human intelligence and consciousness is how to define them accurately enough to enable meaningful measurements.

Usually people say we can make computers intelligent but machines will never have consciousness. But I think it is upside down thinking.

One of the simplest definitions of intelligence is ability to look after oneself. Intelligence can be graded; one can be more intelligent than other. But before you develop the ability to look after yourself you have to have understanding of self. I am not talking here in metaphysical or theological terms.

Knowledge of self is simply realisation of ”I, me and my”: this is my hand, this is my leg, I am hungry, I am tired, you are looking at me etc. And this is what I define as consciousness. This is different than medical concept of consciousness which awareness of one’s environment in space and time. Computer can be made aware of the environment around it with various sensory input devices such as cameras, pressure and chemical sensors. But that in my definition does not make it aware of self and thus it is not conscious of self. And without this consciousness of self it will not have the ability to look after itself. Hence it will never be intelligent in biological terms, not even as intelligent as the simplest cognisant living being.

It will certainly have superhuman computing power but not intelligence till we discover the mathematical algorithm for awareness of self and put this on the chip. Then it will truly be the chip of the same block and more!

Till then the much maligned of our attributes “selfishness” will keep the machines enslaved to our advantage.

MCDONALD’S AND PARABOLAS

This is a supplement to my previous blog on the McDonald’s ubiquitous M sign. Depending on how your brain thinks, this sign is simply or complicatedly just two parabolas stuck together side by side. Geometrically parabola is a conic section formed by the intersection of a cone by a plane parallel to its side.

Origin of the word “parabola” is from Greek meaning “placing side by side/ throwing by the side”. It has been attributed to Aristotle to bring the mathematical words hyperbole, ellipse and parabola in rhetoric:”hyperbolic" speech is the kind that goes beyond the facts, "elliptic speech" falls short of them, while a "parable" is a story that fits the facts.

A parable or a parabola is telling an imaginary story which parallels or indicates to a different reality or fact of life. Parables are usually associated with teachings of great religious leaders and thinkers.

But actually the ability to construct a story or narrative and to project them on new contexts (in essence a parable) is one of the earliest tools the human child acquires. We all start telling stories to babies very early. In these stories not only the animals talk but even the inanimate objects like rocks and chairs express their feelings. The child quickly learns to construct its own stories about all the objects around it. In different settings these stories take up different meanings. This ability of human mind to construct parables is at the root of development of thought process and language.

Mark Turner in his book “The literary mind” argues very lucidly that storytelling or making of narratives is not just a special performance by some but is a constant mental activity, essential to human thought and reasoning without which everyday life will not be possible.

If you come to think of it, thinking really is constructing a story from your past experience and applying it to a situation about which you are thinking. Without the parable or parabola human consciousness as we know it, is just not possible.

Next time when you see the double parabolas of McDonald’s, pay a little homage to its contribution to our existence! But remember the parable of the monkey who could not resist eating pebbles that looked like ripe fruits.

MCDONALD’S AND ELLIPSIS

The distinctive McDonald's M sign has become ubiquitous. According to a recent survey this sign is recognized by more people than even the Cross sign.


If you cut it in half with a vertical line and rotate the 2^nd half by 180⁰ and align it below the first one, it forms an ellipse. This word is derived from Greek Ellipsis which means to leave out or fall short of. Ellipsis is an integral part of English grammar. It is defined as omission of one or more words from a sentence in such a way that what is being omitted is a common knowledge. You may perceive Ellipsis as very uncommon or strange but believe me, without it any conversation in any language will really appear very abnormal.

Everybody uses ellipsis many times a day. Here is an example "I can go but my wife cannot." Here "go" is omitted but everyone understands it. "You know the answer but I do not." It will feel absurd saying "you know the answer but I do not know the answer." I understand this but do you? You see what I mean. In written or printed work use of "…" or "***" in place of some word or words or even sentences is also termed ellipsis and again it is used quite often. The frequency of the use of ellipsis in printed material is directly proportional to the censorial vigor of a country. Though ellipsis is not really intended for that purpose.
McDonald's says that its food is good and very delicious. They omit the fact that it is also very fattening and may be quite harmful to your health. But as almost everybody knows it, it is just an ellipsis, not an attempt to deceive anyone!

If you use language, you cannot not use ellipsis. The M sign is appearing so fast all over the globe that soon if you eat, you cannot not use McDonalds in spite of the ellipsis. The double negatives are intentional.
However if you consider only one half of the McDonald's sign, it is a parabola. What has parabola got to do with the language? Well, according to some it is fundamental to development of language. I will discuss it later. Watch the space.

Thanks. (for being so understanding = ellipsis)