I asked AI aka ChatGPT "How to improve Social Media Algorithms to prevent extremism and promote balance in thinking within society"

 

I thought it would be an interesting question to pose to ChatGPT the most exciting AI engine at the current point in time, July 11, 2023. Basically ask AI how it thinks, AI algorithms in Social Media should be improved. 

Here is the fascinating answer I got.

I have to say I am very impressed with this response that feels Spot On!!

Improving social media algorithms to prevent extremism and promote balance in thinking within society is a complex challenge. While there is no definitive solution, here are a few suggestions that could potentially contribute to a more balanced and informed social media environment:

1. Transparency and User Control: Social media platforms should provide transparent explanations of how their algorithms work, including factors that influence content visibility and recommendations. Empowering users with control over their feed preferences and filtering options can help them customize their experience and reduce the echo chamber effect.

2. Diverse Content Recommendations: Algorithms should be designed to prioritize diversity and provide a range of perspectives on important topics. This could involve exposing users to content that challenges their existing beliefs, promoting reputable sources, and ensuring representation from various viewpoints.

3. Fact-Checking and Contextual Information: Integrating fact-checking mechanisms into the algorithm can help combat the spread of misinformation and disinformation. Platforms could work with reputable fact-checking organizations to provide accurate information and context alongside potentially misleading content.

4. Ethical Design and Responsible AI: Social media platforms should prioritize ethical design principles, taking into account the potential impacts of their algorithms on individuals and society. Responsible AI practices involve avoiding amplification of extremist or polarizing content and being mindful of the potential consequences of algorithmic decisions.

5. User Education and Media Literacy: Promoting media literacy and critical thinking skills among users is crucial. Social media platforms can collaborate with educators, organizations, and experts to provide resources, training, and initiatives that help users navigate information and engage in respectful and informed discussions.

6. Feedback Mechanisms and Continuous Improvement: Platforms should actively seek feedback from users and the wider community to understand the impact of their algorithms and make necessary adjustments. Regular evaluations, external audits, and ongoing research can contribute to refining algorithms and addressing potential biases or unintended consequences.

It's important to note that no single solution can completely eliminate extremism or ensure perfect balance. Combating extremism and promoting balanced thinking requires a multi-faceted approach involving collaboration among social media platforms, governments, users, and society at large.

So its not this problem cannot be solved, but if the purely capitalist structure motivated by corporate greed that is driving the social media giants will allow these changes to happen

Machine Learning - Inventing the Singularity

Machine Learning

Inventing the Singularity

Recently, the dangers of Artificial Intelligence(AI), have been raised by more than a few eminent thinkers of current times. Elon Musk even went as far as calling it inventing the Devil. Too dramatic, you might say? I have also heard from many bright minds in the middle of this Artificial Intelligence research and revolution, the people developing these machine learning technologies, people who defend the technology and dismiss the concerns being raised, claim that Elon Musk and Bill Gates don't understand the state of AI and have no idea what they are talking about.

I stand clearly and convincingly on the side that Artificial intelligence has the "potential" to be Evil, to become the devil, the singularity that consumes everything else. More powerful than the invention of the atom bomb.  I might sound like an alarmist at this point. But my conviction comes from an understanding of the nature, direction and potential of the current class of Machine Learning technology. So, let me explain.

Let me be very clear from the very beginning, I think machine learning has a huge potential to do good, be a force for good, do great things.  And we should continue to make great strides in all these areas.

But, as they say with great power comes great responsibility. It applies to machine learning. Its potential is limitless, and so are its dangers. And the dangers are even higher if we are completely oblivious to it. The following is just some insight towards, what makes it powerful, what makes it risky and unpredictable, recognizing its risks and dangers.

I have a background in artificial intelligence since my early days of engineering college, some 25 years ago. Though my day job is in all things Networking, I work for Cisco Inc, developing networking software that makes the internet do what it does, I have continued to pursue my passion for Machine Learning as a hobby throughout my adult life. So I have some insight about what I am saying below.

Very early incarnations of Artificial Intelligence were explicitly rule based, implemented in languages like PROLOG and LISP. You created rules of behavior to simulate intelligence. Then came the concept of learning these rules from raw data, hence the term Machine Learning. You would implement a generic learning algorithm that would feed on lots and lots of data and build rules from the data and then apply these rules on new and potentially unseen data. These were rigid systems that made black and white decisions.

But as we know, the real world is never truly black and white, its a million shades of grey, not just 50. Sorry. Couldn't resist that one.

Then came the statistical and probabilistic Machine Learning algorithms. People tried to develop mathematical models of the neurons in your brain and the network of neurons in your brain, also referred to as Neural Networks. These machines learned statistical and probabilistic rules and relationships from raw data and interactions with the world.

It is this new class of Learning Machines that I refer to, when I warn about the potential to be evil, the potential to be the singularity.

The current generation of these machines have become very proficient at things like recognizing speech, language, vision, etc. Self driving cars, that will be safer than humans, is already here. Its not science fiction anymore.

Ok. Machine Learning is becoming smarter by the day. And in some specific areas like vision, even smarter than humans.

But it is still a huge stretch to go from there to Evil, the Devil, the Singularity. Or is it?

Let me explain a bit more.

My conviction comes from a few key traits of this new class of machine learning algorithms.

1. They are probabilistic decision engines.
2. They learn their probabilistic rules from looking at large quantities of data and interacting with the real world. 
3. Their over all decision making and interactions with the world are made from the collective decision making of millions of simple probabilistic rule nodes called neurons. 
4. It is computationally infeasible to understand or test every potential input, interaction or decision that can be made by the collective decision making of these millions of individual probabilistic neurons.
5. The recurrent version of these machines, are still in its infancy. These learn to make probabilistic  decisions, based not only from the current inputs, but also based on its own past probabilistic decisions and internal state. This makes these machines infinitely more complex, powerful and hard to understand what they have learnt.
6. Larger these learning machines, larger its capacity to learn. And larger the sources of data the more they can learn from and the more complex to understand what it has learnt. 

The importance of the last 3 points above should not be under estimated and is the key to why I believe as I do.

Indulge me a for bit more. Let me elaborate on these points.

These new statistical and probabilistic machine learning algorithms don't learn explicit rules of interaction. They are NOT a collection of deterministic rules like, if this, do that. They are a huge collection of tiny probabilistic decision making neuron models that learn to make probabilistic decisions. And the intelligence of the whole machine comes from the probabilistic learning and decision making of these millions of these little nodes. 

Put it in relatively simple terms, imagine a crowd of a billion "simple", not so smart people, each voting "probabilistically", based on what they directly see or hear from the real world or from their neighbors, to collectively make every decision they make together. Ring a bell? Can you really understand the decisions they will make? Can you really know how they will decide under every condition, input or interaction? Can you really say with any certainty they the will not be evil or make catastrophic decisions. Think of every war, genocide or man made catastrophe in history before answering that question.

It is not possible to understand in real concrete terms all the rules that have been learnt by this huge collection of tiny learning machines and predict all possible outcomes that might be generated by them. Ok, its possible, but only theoretically. The computational requirement to completely understand a very large machine learning model with billions of these neurons would be exponentially higher.

This is true for the simple feed forward learning models which is the predominant machine learning technology now. Once you step into the recurrent version of these models, it becomes a dynamical system that is far more powerful and complex. They have historically been far more complex and difficult to train or understand what it has learnt. Its an area of Machine Learning that is still in its infancy, but progress is being made every year, and they are getting more powerful with time.

Their power and complexity comes from the fact that these probabilistic units or neurons not only make their decisions based on data inputs from the real world and/or the decisions of other neurons at the current time, but take into consideration the probabilistic decisions and state of its neurons from earlier times. This means many things, each good and bad depending on the scenario. Now, not only can they make good or bad decisions, they can continue to make these good or bad decisions long after the stimulus or input has ceased to exist.  A bad decision doesn't just affect the current choice, but can continue to affect future decisions. Continue to improve on a good decision or worsen a bad decision. Learn from good examples just as well from bad examples. Make choices based on learnt probabilities of choices, learnt probabilities of right and wrong, learnt probabilities of good and bad.

A recurrent machine learning model, is one step closer to self conscious thought and decision making.

This might might sound more more like how we humans think. And you will be absolutely right. It is. That is exactly what current generation machine learning is trying to model. But the size and complexity of current generation neural networks is similar to that of the brain of a fly. But its growing and evolving every day. Now imagine something the size of a 1000 human brains, that can learn from every piece of data available to it from all across the world. And what it learns is based on what its taught, what data it sees and the conclusions it gleans from it. This is not a matter of if, any more, but when.

It took 16000 interconnected machines to recognize cats in a video, in an experiment by Google.  A year later it took 16 machines with GPU(graphics processing units) that are way smarter at arithmetic. So computing is not the barrier. The algorithms keep improving every year, learning machines officially have supervision i.e. they smarter than humans at least in some limited vision tasks and will be driving cars soon. In the machine learning world, if computing and the algorithm is the rocket, the data needed for them to learn from, is the rocket fuel, as one eminent machine learning scientist, Andrew Ng, put it in last weeks GPU Technology conference. And data is now available everywhere in spades, petabytes of it and growing exponentially.

In a such dynamic, probabilistic model, its learning driven by huge amounts of data, its decisions governed by a potentially long history of inputs and previous decisions, its learning potential and consciousness is limited only by the amount of computing power and data we throw at it.  For these systems, any choice or decision, even a murderous, destructive or even catastrophic one, does not have a zero probability, it just might have a very low probability.

And even that, we can't be sure of, because we truly can't understand what rules it has learnt, what their probability is or the exact sequence of events that could trigger that decision. That is truly what makes it both powerful and dangerous. You understand and control a nuclear reaction. But how do you control and risk manage something that is just as powerful, but you truly can't understand.

To summarize the big points of concerns to watch for

1. Recurrent Learning Machines are closer to inventing self conscious intelligent thought than anything invented so far, and at this point we don't really even understand how close.
2. Their level of intelligence is only limited by the amount of computing and data we throw at it. They certainly have the potential to surpass humans.
3. It is theoretically not possible to understand all the rules it has learnt and how the rules translates to events in real life. Trying to understand the probability of every outcome for every possible sequence of events can be exponentially more complex. So this creates an inherent level of uncertainty and hence risk to the decisions that they make.
4. The universal nature of this technology means that it can be applied to learn from a wide range of data and solve many problems. This means that it can eventually control very vitals parts of society and make decisions that are life or death. A technology that can become an integral part of life.

There isn't another technology in history that really compares to AI in these aspects and is pretty unique.

And let me be clear, the potential for a AI singularity is just the final big ticket catastrophic risk. There are many other intermediate risks and uncertainty, strewn all along that path as mine fields, that needs careful thought and consideration to navigate. They get riskier as the system gets more intelligent and intertwined with every aspect of our life.   

Now are we there yet, clearly and most definitely, not yet. None of the machine learning algorithms that exist today can do, what I claim they can do eventually. The technology is still in its infancy and its not clear how close we are to machines of such intelligence. We could be decades away or just a simple algorithm tweak away. But the key attributes I list about these learning machines all exist and are currently evolving. The direction they are evolving is clearly headed there.

So when truly smart people like Elon Musk and Bill Gates sound a warning, everyone should listen. Not to shut down research in this area all together.
But to start thinking about its dangers, and the needed checks and balances.

Make sure we recognize Pandora's Box from a mile away, let alone trying to open it. But have no doubt in your mind, that it truly has the potential to be Pandora's Box.

In search of a meaning for the words "I Love You"

Why do you feel all warm and fuzzy when a 2 year old says "I Vuv You". Incase you did'nt already get it, thats baby talk for "I Love You"

People say "I Love You" all the time.  Do they really mean "I love the way I feel when I am around you"?

A mother says "I Love You" to her kids. A child says "I Love You"  to the father. Friends, cousins, soul mates and lovers say it to each other. Ironically, so do stalkers, desperados and the crazies who won't let go.

But what do they really mean.  What do you really mean when you say "I love you" to someone and why do you say it. Why does it evoke such craving for more. Why do some even go nuts in its pursuit.

For, such a meaning must convey such varied emotions, apply to all ages, a range of relationships and be applicable to states of mind as different as day and night.

The search for a universal meaning for those 3 words together eluded me for while.

The definition of the word 'love', according to the dictionary, an intense feeling of deep affection, a person or thing that one loves, to feel a deep romantic sexual attachment. But none of it explained all.

And then I pondered the why and the how I feel when I say that to someone or when someone else says that to me. Why do people crave it. Even get obsessed and addicted to it. It made more sense.

It seems to make sense for all the times and places when people say those words. People want to feel good about themselves, have a good self image. And if people feel that way when they are with someone, it only makes sense that they want more of that feeling.

So now I think, when someone says those three words "I Love You", what they are really saying is "I love how I feel when I am with you".

Quite a few people pointed out or argued that this was a very selfish perspective. And that love is selfless, giving, unquestioning and boundless in nature and more.

I just wanted to clarify that I don't disagree with these characterizations of what love is and what it is capable of.  I have no doubt they are all these and possibly more. When you wonder about something like love, the answer you get also depends on the question you ask.  I was merely trying to ask the why?

Like a child, I kept asking myself, why? why? why? at every answer or reason I came up with, and this process kept returning to the self, the how or why the self felt the way it did.  Returning to ones own heart.

This may sound clinical and unromantic at first, to look at it from this perspective. It doesn't change the fact that the person that is the object of one's affection is the one that makes you feel and want to be a better person, a better mother, a father or a friend. It doesn't take away from it the fact, there are some innate or hard earned qualities about that person that makes you feel that way. That the way you feel may even be the emotional price you pay for those qualities.

But its undeniable that the why, eventually kept me coming back to one conclusion. That when we say "I love you" one really means "I love who I am and how I feel when I am around you"

A Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Part 3 - A Choice

In Love - A Choice?

I know whose right for you, my mom calls in,
You must find someone, the chorus chimes in,
My friends and their neighbors try setting me up,
I am sure by now, they're completely fed up,
Fake it till you make it, some then say,
My answer to them, I've tried that way,
Arranged marriage, another contends,
Been down that road, I know where it ends.

Friends with benefits another suggests,
Or a glitzy life of carnal conquests,
To hell with love, a date once texts,
Just shut up and give me some sex,
What good is sex with no love, I say,
How can you say no to sex, you must be gay,
In total desperation, I throw up my hands,
How do you explain, to those who won't understand.

To love or not, is not a conscious choice,
Its the only topic, where logic's got no voice,
With the way I think, if you have a qualm,
She still loves you! Why? Ask your mom.

Vegas, or Venice or Half Moon Bay,
Which, one picks, you can never say,
Love is the same, should I dare say,
Can never tell, to whom, your heart'll sway.

Love, you must, feel in your bone,
Anything less, I know, I will bemoan,
Love her more,  every milestone,
"Loved like no other", on my gravestone.

Its not my choice, to march to a fife,

To just spawn upriver, like an alewife,
Adore i must, to make my wife,
To wake with her, the rest of my life.


I have, but a life, to live and bet,
I will not subsist with any regret,
If a cat, I am, with seven to live,
I will do this again and not misgive.


Yes, drama, my life, ur at the edge of your seat,
Does'nt mean you boo, and give me such heat,
My life is perfect, just nice and neat,
Won't mess it up, because you browbeat.

Sure, set me up, every way you mean,

Be her black, white, even alien green,
Then shut the hell up, go hatch a new scheme,
Let me listen to my heart and follow my dream.


Part 2 - In Love - It Feels

Copyright (c) Sarvi Shanmugham

A Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Part 2 - It Feels

In Love - It Feels?

The chatter drowns, for a single voice,
The crowd blurs, for a single choice,
Anger dies with a single touch,
A day without her doesn't mean much.

Back from work, the look on her face,
A kiss, a coffee, you'll slow your pace,
Moments like these, you can't erase,
A rough day gone, without a trace.

She waltzes in with a child like grace,
Flashes a smile, and leaves you in a daze,
She fills your life, every nook and space,
Like a breath of fresh air, after a very long race.


You'll smell her skin like she was fine wine,
Swirl her, sip her, and go for her waistline,
Taste her cheeks, her lips, her neckline,
She'll make you feel like you're drunk on moonshine.

Like a lovely siren she rolls in bed,
You'll love the way she smells fresh bread,
With a single look she can drop you dead,
If you survive, you'll still be a love sick bonehead.

Never in a millions years, you used to moan,
Famous last words,  that since have flown,
No one eats your brain, you used to run,
Now happily you serve it, rare, medium or well done.


That look, though rare, that drives you mad,
The hug so tender you want it bad,
Pure agony flies, with that lingering kiss,
If it means one more, you will gladly want this.

When you know its time, to bid adieu,
Time has flown by and its her curfew,
You can't let go, you are super glue,
Its one more minute, o god, please make it two.

Part 1 - In Love - It Means   

Part 3 - In Love - A Choice

Copyright (c) Sarvi Shanmugham

A Crazy Little Thing called Love - Part 1 - It Means

In Love - It Means 

Love you crazy, you're only mine,  say they.
Love you crazy, without you I'd die, say they.
Love you crazy, no one else in your life, say they.
Love you crazy, I must be your wife, say they.
Love you crazy, stalk you where you go, say they.
Love you crazy, can never leave therefore, say they.

Well, say these, they may not, but think these, they sure do.
Love themselves, they do. In Love, truly, they are not.

A mother's love, is unconditional, I know.
A father's love, protects with his life, I know.
A brother's love, stands by you, I know.
A sister's love, misses you every day, I know.
A friend's love, accepts you the way you are, I know.

Well, say these, they may not, but act this way, they do.
True love, it is.

True love, matters not they feel the same, I say.
True love, lets them fly though driven insane, I say.
True love, protects their smile whatever it takes, I say.

True love, will live to love even if its heart breaks, I say.

True love, moves mountains for a moment, I say.
True love, expects nothing in return, I say.

Test of a strong heart, it is. To love some one this way, easy, it is not. 

But True Love, it is I say.

Part 2 - In Love - It Feels

Copyright (c) Sarvi Shanmugham

Dalai Lama's rules for Existence

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk. 

2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three Rs:

1. Respect for self 
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. 

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship

7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it

8. Spend some time alone every day

9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer

11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past

14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality

15. Be gentle with the earth

16. As often as possible, go someplace you’ve never been before

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it

Fasting and the Focused Mind - Part 3 - The Learning

Continued from Part 2

My one week fast was a success. There was no gotchas. It felt good overall.
What was my take away? Eating is overrated. Food numbs your brain :-) Just kidding.

Jokes aside.

I should say I have a new found appreciation for the pain of starvation. The first 2 days was painful, quite excruciating really. In my case the starvation was a choice. I had access to food all the time and I could have broken my fast anytime. It was my choice to will myself not to. But the people in the world that are really starving because they can't get anything to eat is a whole different story. I am sure the mental agony of not knowing when they or their kids would have their next meal is far worse. I can't claim to know exactly how they feel. But the first 2 days of the fast certainly gave me a better insight into how it feels than I had before.

Now to the later part of the fast. Once I pushed myself past the first 2 days. The hunger and the pain that goes with it actually stopped. By the fourth day, I was past craving for food. I wasn't feeling completely energized but I wasn't feeling completely tired either. Normal would be closer to how I felt. But there was a marked difference in my mental perception of my surroundings. Felt more alert. My mind felt fresher than my body.

From what I've read, once the body burns the sugars and then carbohydrates, it falls back to a process called ketosis where it starts to burn the stored fat. And once all the fat is burnt, the muscles start to atrophy starting with the non-essential ones. Its natures way of surviving and keeping you alive as long as possible. Now theoretically I don't believe my body went to the last stage. But I certainly think it entered into ketosis, coz there is no way my sugar or carbohydrates could have lasted a week.

The process of ketosis generates ketones, which I read, is another form of energy that gets generated by burning fat. Interestingly, there seems to be research showing that the brain functions on ketones more than sugar. That there is really something call brain food and that they are ketones.I did feel mentally sharper and more agile during the second part of the fast, the period of ketosis. But was it because of the ketones, I can't tell. But it does seem to correlate. Statisticians will tell you, correlation does not imply causation. But in my mind it does imply that there could be and hence something worth researching.

Now going back to the root of the why, I tried a one week no food fast, and what were my conclusions. Indian history and mythology talks about sages that meditated in the forest and mountains for months and years without food. Is it really possible? And why would they do it? Why not eat between meditations.

First, even though I fasted, I did drink a lot of water. I can see someone meditating for weeks without food. But I suspect they would need water in some form or the other.

Second, Since meditation is an exercise of the mind, I can certainly see how getting your body into ketosis and hence lots and lots of brain food could be helpful.

Third, I still went through my daily work schedule during the whole week of fasting. If I sat myself and meditated the whole time, my energy requirements would be far less and I can totally see how someone can do this for weeks together or even months.

Fourth, mythology claims even years, but that could be bit of exaggeration which happens when stories are told over generations. But then there could also be additional factors at play that I may not be considering such as reducing one's heart rate to a very low level, which yogis have shown to be able to do.  Akin to hibernation.

In conclusion, it was an interesting experiment and experience.

Fasting and the Focused Mind - Part 2 - The How

Continued from Part 1

My plan was to fast for a week, Sunday to Sunday. Living only on lots and lots of room temperature to luke warm water and Green Tea in hot water. Based on my reading on such fasting, I decided to use this as a detox opportunity and give myself an enema every day as well. Gross. Yes. I know. It was recommended to be medically good as part of a detox plan as well as part of our Ayurvedic and Yogic tradition as well. It was simple and Healthy. So that was the plan. :-)

Break out of fasting slowly, with just a small amount of juice in a lot of water, and slowly increasing the juice strength. Then on to bread and milk.

As preparation for the fast I turned vegetarian for a month before I began the actual fast.

I took notes. Observing how I felt each day both physically as well as mentally. I'll spare you all the long details and summarize the week and more for you below.

To summarize, 

Day 1(Sunday) was pretty uneventful. 

Late Evening 1(Sunday) was pretty hungry.

Day 2(Monday) was hungry as hell. Being a work day helped keep my mind busy and out of the hunger. 

Evening 2 the hunger was really bad. I almost gave up on the fast. But barely held on by a thread.

Day 3(Tuesday), I felt the hunger but the peak had passed already. 

By Evening 3(Tuesday), there was just a lingering thought of hunger, nothing more. 

Day 3(Wednesday) certainly felt a bit more tired, physically. But my mind felt a bit spiffy.  

Day 4(Thursday) my mind felt sharp and focused. Never for once thought of food or was hungry. I kept physical activities to a minimum these days. Walking to a minimum. Had to drive into work and back which wasn't a problem. Spent an hour a day meditating.

Day 5(Friday) was brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant. I didn't feel any physical tiredness but kept my activities to a minimum too. But it was my mind that felt like a million dollars. Ultra focused. At work you notice it because you are more attentive in meetings and feel more productive in general. But the biggest difference was when meditating.  Normally, my mind is erratic and wanders a lot. I find it difficult to focus on an object for more than half a minute. It was different on Day 5. I felt my mind was calmer. I could easily stretch my focus for a few minutes which is record for me even today.

Day 6(Saturday) was the same as Day 5. Brilliant. Slept very few hours this whole week.  Yet felt awesome through the day. Everything felt brighter and more focused, like someone had turned on a 500W bulb around me. I just felt much more aware of surroundings and what was happening around me.

Day 7(Sunday) morning, it was time to break my fast, but do it slowly.  I started Sunday morning with a glass of water with a few tablespoons of Orange juice. Lunch was the same.  Dinner the same, but with a few more spoons of juice.

Day 8(Monday) was my day to start solids. Breakfast was a slice of bread and a quarter glass of milk. Lunch was the same with half a banana to add. Dinner was the same. 

Day 9(Tuesday) was a regular breakfast, a bowl of cereal, with milk. Lunch was a light salad at work. Dinner was back to normal food, but vegetarian. 

I continued to be a vegetarian for a few more months after that. And continued to meditate during this period.

Fasting and the Focused Mind - Part 1 - The Why

Fasting without food.  Why? Why Not? How? How Long? Does it work?

I grew up reading Amar Chithra Katha comics. Some would question, the growing up part, but then thats for another blog post :-)

For the unfamiliar, these are Indian comics that cover Indian mythology, history, religion, children's tales and much more. And if you know Hindu mythology, there is a lot of stories that involve penance and fasting and meditation going on. Anytime some character in these stories  wants to win, beat, get power, develop some skill or wishes for incredible wealth or happiness, he or she goes off into the mountains and fasts or does penance.  We are talking of hard penance and long fasting. Months and years as the stories go. They made it sound fantastic, the deity always showed up in the end,  and he or she always got her boon. Yup. Don't you love happy endings.

I've always wondered why. Whats the deal with penance, and fasting and meditation. I believe mythological stories are always fantastic exaggerations of some basic facts or lessons. Hinduism has always revered knowledge as power and meditation and self realization and enlightenment as the ultimate knowledge and all paths to it as being sacred. I am guessing these stories aim to interest the young readers in that ultimate goal. To encourage and motivate them to meditate. To develop ones mental faculty, to develop focus,  to develop an understand of ones self, attain Self-Realization.

So I hypothesized that fasting had something to do with developing exactly that. Or to put it simply, fasting, may be it helped the brain function or focus better in some way.  So I decided I wanted to experience it for myself. But anyone with an understanding of basic biology will know that prolonged starvation is deleterious to your health. So I decided to research the topic on the internet and spoke to a few Doctor friends of mine.

Armed with all that information, I decided to try a one week fast.  No Food. Just water, and lots of it.

Disclaimer: This was my experiment and plan for my fasting. I am an average healthy person.  If you choose to reproduce this experiment, do so at your own risk. Do your own research and consider your health status and consult your own doctors too.

Continued in Part 2

Astrology - A Hypothesis

Astrology is the science that studies the effect of the stars and planets on human behavior, relationships and the events that surround them. And through this study, based on the position of the stars and planets at the time and place of their birth, then attempts to predict as a probability, the future of the person as well as their relationships .

Is that really science? Is there really a correlation between the position of the stars and planets at the time and place of a persons birth and his future behavior or life events or his relationships? Is there any empirical proof?

Empirical Proof, No.

I have a hypothesis on the idea though, that I would like to propose here.

Its definitely a puzzle to which there is no concrete answer or empirical proof. Yet there are many schools of thought that believe it and many more theoretical and mathematical systems that attempt to predict the future of a person using that science.

There is at least one significant commonality between all these systems. All these various astrological systems, are at least partially rooted in the science of astronomy. They all attempt to accurately and very scientifically calculate and understand the position of the stars and planets at the time and place of a persons birth. But it gets less scientific from there on. The correlation between this accurately calculated star chart of a person's birth and the prediction of their future or their behavioral characteristics is less scientific or empirical at the moment.

There is no scientific or even statistical proof. But there is a lot of more than just anecdotal evidence that has a substantially large group of people believing in the idea of astrology.

But even before we attempt to try to collect evidence and prove or disprove correlation between the two through statistical significance, it would be interesting to consider a few questions.

1. Could it even be theoretically possible? 
2. Could the star chart at birth have a correlation to the life of a person? 
3. Then what about free will and does it not really exist?

Lets consider the first question. Could it even be theoretically possible?

To answer this question, it would be interesting to consider another related question, i.e. the behavioral characteristic of the Universe.  Is this Universe completely chaotic or is there some level of symmetry or order to it? I see both symmetry and chaos in the universe. The universe is a dynamic system that works based on some natural laws such as gravity. In fact I see a dynamic system in play between chaos and symmetry.  A sort of the Chinese Yin and Yang. I see symmetry transform into Chaos and better symmetry development from that Chaos. Everything from the astronomical to the atomic or even smaller, seems to have excellent symmetry from certain perspectives and complete chaos from another. Perspective here is being the relative point in both space and time from which one views a set of events in the universe.

The science of Fractals for example, is something that uses this dynamism in Nature between Chaos and Symmetry to understand, describe and simulate nature.

Now if we then believe that the universe has symmetry and chaos at every level, then there is no reason to believe that human beings as part of that universe are any different. There must be some symmetry as well as chaos in the way human beings behave as well as the events that surround them.

Where there is symmetry, there is predictability. The correlation within the symmetry can be measured, understood and used to predict the pattern followed within the symmetry. To predict where certain objects in this universe will be at a time X(t), or how they will move or behave at that time, requires amongst many things, the position of the object at some time X(t-1) as well as the position and movement of other objects in that universe that might have a pattern of co-relation with the objects under study. At least on a theoretical basis. It may still be practically infeasible because of the shear size of the problem and the number of simultaneous measurements necessary to make these predictions.

This then opens the possibility that a system can be developed to predict human behavior or the events that surround them with some amount of probability. This does not empirically prove or disprove any of the existing astrological systems. It just explains the hypothesis that a such system can theoretically be developed.

Could the star chart at birth have a correlation to the life of a person? 

The star chart at birth of a person is a reasonably unique set of parameters based not only on the time of birth but their location as well. Its like fixing a persons origin both in space and time relative to the pattern of the stars and planets in that space and time. So it feels like a significantly unique set of parameters that can have a potential correlation to the persons future. It essentially fixes a human beings position in space and time at birth, which you could call X(0). And how he moves for his rest of his life and where he will be at time X(t) may then have a pattern of co-relation with the biggest objects in universe namely, the planets, stars and entire galaxies. This is does not prove that it does. It merely suggests that it potentially could.

Does that mean free will does not exist?

Well, not necessarily. As much as nature may have a mind of its own and hence symmetry that may allow predictions, it also has a healthy dose of Chaos that constantly tries to disrupt that symmetry.  It is this Chaos that adds uncertainty to that order or symmetry and hence a level of uncertainty to any predictions that can be made based on the symmetry.

This uncertainty then leaves room for "free will" to exist as an instrument of that chaos and uncertainty. This means that not everything is destined nor can it be predicted. This last one is pretty significant, for people to ponder.  Specially for those who believe in fate, destiny and astrology.

So choose wisely and act.

Fear and the Fiery Want

I've been meaning to start writing this blog for a long time. Opened the account almost 9 months back, but never got around to writing anything. 

The blog was supposed to be a critical analysis of the mind, its thinking, how it perceives the world but more importantly, the totally and completely insane ideas I come up with to experiment and torment it with. :-)) As if life doesn't throw enough curve balls already. Totally Nuts!! I know :-))

I seem to always have my foot perennially stuck in my mouth. Its life as usual :-) 

I had one of those moments a while back and started writing. 

Thats when I realized I had the perfect post to start my blog with. 

Relationships stump us all the time. How we perceive and deal with them in our minds is a live experiment of its own, that deserves analysis. I realized that this is hugely significant because how we perceive it affects how we deal with it. And how we deal with it, positive or negative, has a potential to affect a lot of people around us in vastly significant ways, some near and dear. 


So here it goes.

When faced with a relationship decision, and you find the person wonderful in many ways yet thinking I could be get hurt or worse hurt that person, I've found it to have one of two root causes.

Either, I don't really have the spark or passion for the person. I call it the Fiery Want. In which case its best I remained just friends with that person. Its normal and no offense to the person. There are many wonderful people in this world, we may not have that spark with everyone. This doesn't make them any less wonderful. And relationship requires that spark and a lot of fiery Passion with a capital 'P'. But this is also the easiest to recognize. You will find that you think about this person more often than anyone else. And it will bring that warmth of thought that no one else will and you absolutely love spending time with that person, more than anyone else. The key is to give it some time and let the relationship hit some rough spots as well to make sure the 'P' still burns strong.

This feeling is not  a unicorn. It really does exist and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

We've all been there at one point or the other. And sometimes we miss out because the world truly connives against us :-)) and other times our own mind connives against us, aka, because we were "too afraid" of the type below.

The second type of "too afraid" was really fear. The primal kind. The kind that clouds your judgement from within. It distorts your view of things that may be right in front of you. And stops you from recognizing the passion and spark that I describe above. Passion that you really might have for someone but can't see past your fears. This is the worst of the two. Because, it makes you practically blind. 

You could have all the spark and passion in the world for someone. But if you are too blinded by fear and anger to recognize it, its as good as you didn't. Its actually even worse than that. Because the passion and spark you may have for someone is very obvious to that person, even if it isn't to you. And it can confuse, mislead  and hurt that person even without you intending to.

Where am I going? 

There is this very happy child in a play ground looking to have some fun. But she trips on a rock and hurts herself. Weeks pass by, the physical wounds have healed. And she is back in the play ground wanting to have some fun.  But she doesn't see the playground, or the other kids playing hula hoops, or those jumping ropes or playing 7 stones. The child is too angry, afraid and busy arguing with the rock that hurt her, that all she sees are rocks all around, coz thats all she is looking for now.

We all get tripped at one time or the other in our lives. 

We get up and dust ourselves off.

We then have 2 choices. 

Look for rocks OR have some fun :-))