A Hierarchy of Knowledge

Knowledge is a Virtue, and virtue is its own reward. Therefore, the source and destination of everything is Knowledge, and all radii of the circle of everything diverge from Knowledge.

The universal law of Duality implies that Knowledge splits itself into Knowledge and You. This means that the next branch of the tree of Knowledge is You. The name of this branch shall be called Psychology. Since You can split Yourself into Yourself and the remaining humans in this Universe, the next branch is Social Psychology. Since all humans can split Life into all biological life in this Universe, the next branch is Biology. Since all life is manifestation of Matter, the next branch shall be called Physical Chemistry. This leads to a dichotomy of Physics and Chemistry, and that's where I close the circle of everything onto itself - Knowledge.

Afraid of starting a relationship?

To two strangers passing by each other on the street, a smile is the Basis. To a couple who got married by arrangement, their parents and society are the Basis. To a couple who fell in love with each other, a strong foundation of friendship is the Basis. To two classmates finishing a project assignment, their coursework is the Basis. To two Professors in a department, their Head of the Department is the Basis. To two Professors in the same University, the Dean is the Basis.

I think now you can begin to see that this list is never-ending, and that a Basis can always be found for any two entities. That brings us to the only question everyone is trying to find an answer for:

To two people who have never met each other before, and who don't know anything about each other, what is the Basis?

My answer to that question is this. The Basis is either You, or God.

The Basis is what you fall back to, when you are afraid. Afraid of talking to a stranger? Smile, and he will smile back. That proves that you two just formed a basis, and bonded. Afraid of your marriage falling apart? Fall back to whatever formed it. Talk to your parents. Talk about your parents to each other. Afraid of approaching a classmate you have a crush on? Fall back to the basis - talk about your classwork, the Basis. Most guys that fallback to the Basis fear being stuck in the Basis itself. To those, my answer is the only Basis, as I said before - You, or God.

Questioning my entire Basis? Very good. You are very close to the solution. If you don't believe in God, it means the only Basis that's left, and you can fall back on, is You. If you are not satisfied with the answer, the only thing I have left to say to you is this:

You have a serious problem, because you don't believe in yourself.

The Argumentative Scientist

There was once a Scientist who was very knowledgeable in his field of Biology. He achieved the Nobel Prize and celebrated the rest of his life with immense wealth and happiness. But, he was also notorious among his peers for being very arrogant, argumentative and a steadfast Atheist. He was the firmest believer of Logic and Reason I have ever known, and that played a huge role in his successful career.

And then, he came to my University. I was responsible for showing him around campus, taking him out for dinner, and dropping him off at the house of another Biologist at my University.

After dinner, we were walking together from the University to the Biologist's house and it was dark. During casual conversation, we strayed into metaphysics and religion, science and art, and similar philosophical debate about the mind-body duality.

He asked me, "Do you believe in God?", to which I said, "Yes." He then said, "If God is merciful and compassionate, how come my wife left this world a year ago, and I have to suffer such emotional loss and distress? Why am I being so tortured for no fault of my own?"

I said to him, "He is helping you learn.", to which he responded, "Fuck off, you are just being argumentative! I have seen endless debates full of circular and illogical reasoning in my whole life, and it's full of logical fallacies, to the point of stupidity! I can spend EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY, till the end of my life, deconstructing every single argument, and proving each of them wrong!"

I remained patient and calm. I thought, "So he needs proof."

I told him, "I am sorry for being so insensitive. I am sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is, because one of my own aunts died in a fire accident, and she was one of my eight favorite aunts."

We continued talking and we were almost at the end of our walk. I asked him if there has ever been a mugging incident on his University campus, and if anyone was hurt. He said he not only knew of such cases in his own town, there have been numerous such mugging and armed robbery incidents in the US because of the current economic depression. He told me a story about a mugging incident where an old woman robbed a college student, threatening him with a Swiss Army Knife.

I then said to him, "Yeah, the sale of Swiss Army Knives should be regulated in hardware stores, and by local authorities."

I then went on to say to him, "It's dark now, and we are very close to campus. There have been reports of mugging late at night, and it gets less safer, the darker the sky turns. Let me tell you one thing before I leave you. It's completely plausible that a guy could walk up to the two of us, pretending to seek directions, but instead take a knife out of his jacket, and rob the two of us this instant. But, I don't see any guy walking up to us, and I can hardly think of such incidents when I go home every night, after a hard day's work, when all I want to do is fall into my bed and go to sleep."

I can see the house we were going towards, a couple of blocks away.

I continued, "Let me tell you what I am thinking right now. EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY I don't get mugged, is God's way of showing his mercy and compassion to me, even though I have experienced multiple losses in my relatives and personal life, for no fault of my own. I know everything in life does not go by logic or reason, because Logic itself is flawed in many senses."

He opened his eyes so wide I thought his eyeballs were going to pop out of his sockets, when he said, "You are the greatest philosopher I have ever seen in my life!"

I told him, "No, I am not. I am no different from the infinite number of human beings and creatures on this planet, and it's illogical to assume that I am better than any other philosopher or being I know about."

He had a look in his eyes that bordered on reverence and immense respect for me, and then I called the other Biologist on his mobile, asking him to buzz open the front door.

I told the Scientist, "Good luck with your life. I am sure you will find someone that deserves a world-famous biologist like you." He thanked me and we bade goodbye to each other.

I have the answer to ALL questions

Object: I claim to have answers to whatever question you can ask me.
Subject: What's the volume of Mount Everest?
Object: I don't know.
Subject: Doesn't that contradict your original statement?
Object: No it does not. "I don't know" is my answer.
Subject: You are stupid.
Object: No, I am not, I am simple.
Subject: Can you prove it to me?
Object: Yes. When I said I don't know, you were thinking, "That's not the answer to my question.", but you were talking about my self-contradiction, because the answer you are truly seeking is the true answer. I am true in saying I don't know, because I actually don't. The argument you were trying to make, is called "Ad hominem", because you were trying to prove me wrong instead of finding the volume of Mount Everest.

To find the volume of Mount Everest by asking me questions, you will have to work WITH me, instead of AGAINST me. That only proves that you are working against yourself, due to which behaviour, you will never find the answers to any of your own questions.

Self-realization and Self-actualization

Those enlightened beings who have achieved self-realization, but haven't actualized themselves, are the ones that are tirelessly working towards self-actualization and self-transcendence. This unfinished business they are trying to finish has to be seen as a bliss and suffering in itself, one of the dual principles of self-realization.

Unified Field Theory

A Unified Field Theory can never be found, unless it addresses the basic problem of human suffering. If this theory has to address the problem of suffering, it must address fear and desire, which is the cause of all human suffering. Physicists who work on this Theory rarely stray into the metaphysics or the problem of suffering. Since those who realize the theory of everything have found answers to all their questions from their own lives, the majority of Physicists who can never find this theory, are trapped, and have to be left safe in their own traps. Like Prahlad was denied universal transcendence for his first wish, these Physicists can never find a Unified Field Theory, and therefore, I give up working on it.

Now, reason is the best tool any scientist can possess, and his sincerity keeps him from ever finding this Unified Field Theory. If this scientist is truly sincere, he must admit that reason alone cannot Unify all the Fields of Physics. I have found that reason is a tool and the object itself, and reason can be very easily used to get in and out of reason itself.

Proof that God exists

Since language is ever-changing and all philosophical debate is an interplay of words and language, I concluded that what everyone is looking for lies neither in philosophy, nor language.
And then, I questioned God himself and questioned myself. I found that the answer, independent of my belief, is invariably, the Purpose of Life, as I shall prove below.

I shall discuss everything and draw all my conclusions based on only one premise, or as a mathematician would say, axiom - which is this:

There is a single purpose to all life.

This statement can only be either true or false. (The validity of THIS statement will be examined later.)

If it's true, either the purpose has to exist for itself, or it has to exist for all life. If the purpose exists only for itself, but not for all life, it has to be a part of all life, because we just assumed that all life has a single purpose.

If it's false, it means that there is no purpose to all life, and life itself becomes that purpose, because then life has to exist for itself. This proves that life exists with itself as its own purpose, proving that there exists a single purpose to all life, which is itself, coming back to our premise.

Opponents of this argument will say my logic is false, but since everyone has, at some point, questioned the definition of logic itself, proving that Absolute Logic does not exist, which is also a conclusion of my first paragraph - Language has no true meaning.

Now, I ask you to either question the whole thing for yourself, or to blindly follow the only logical conclusion of this premise, which is duality. We have proved that there is a purpose to all life, whether or not you followed my logic. Since it's true, every clause in the dichotomic pair of paragraphs becomes true and false at the same time. The purpose is both true and false, which are the two halves of the Purpose, proving that the Purpose exists in two forms, but we are only calling them by two different names, that merely sound like opposites. Because these two halves or forms can be called by any two names, it doesn't matter what we call them, but the essence of this argument is proving duality. Duality can be expressed in an infinite number of forms, depending on the context or the subject under discussion.

The Purpose is called by different names by different people and this is often a cause of disagreement. All philosophical/existential debates often center around these disagreements, and lead to strife and further disagreement. This disagreement is one of the infinite causes of human suffering, which I shall examine later, because I have work to do now.

Dasvidaniya

This Hindi movie raised some thoughts in me:

Amar the terminally ill patient displays the character of a man who is ready to give up those things that he loves most, to keep others happy. And yet, he has to be the one who has to suffer and die. As we have all heard before, good people usually die young. Maybe this is the way God rewards good people - by taking them to a better place than this bad, bad world, which is not the ultimate reality.

What disappoints me is those people who believe in actions more than in words, are the ones who aren't ultimately understood properly. They are the ones who don't get to enjoy the small things that make normal people happy. Like movies, like a game of ping pong, with the people they really love selflessly. It maybe a convoluted argument, but I am not interested in logic. What saddens me is the way some people make very important judgment calls in life, based on small things, but not big things.

I believe in equilibrium. The very thing that looks beautiful to you when you are happy, will look extremely ugly when you are angry and frustrated. So, what is the truth? The truth is in you, not the thing you are looking at. Base your judgments on things like this - yourself, not on things that aren't real. True happiness comes from transcending yourself. Like the psychologist Maslow said, you can go beyond self-actualization to self-transcenence when you see others enjoying the fruits of your selfless hard work. Like your kids and relatives. But when you dig deeper, you begin to think why you should be happy only when you see YOUR people happy? Doesn't unconditional love dictate that you want everyone, and then moving on to all life, every creature, to be happy? I believe that is when you visualize the solution to the mind-body problem, your soul gets liberated, and you become one with God.

What on earth is Godlessness?

By definition, God is omnipresent. (God is everywhere)

How then, can anything be Godless? That would only point to the irrationality of the subject, wouldn't it?

What do you need in life?

"What is the most important thing that every human being needs?" I guess that's an important question every one of us have asked ourselves at some point in our lives. "What do I want in life? What do I need? What do I do to get what I want? How do I become great?", are all questions we have all posed to our inner minds right before we fell asleep.

I have thought about these things for a while, and I came up with a theory about needs and wants. For every human, there is a fine line that divides his needs from his wants. Once these needs are fulfilled, he goes on to get what he wants. And that line is subjective - ever-changing with time, space, thought and emotion. So, what is that we all need that is never changing? I came up with a hypothesis. Just like any other idea we have already had we but never published because it's not our field, this has already been published by some domain expert decades ago.

Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of needs" is strikingly similar to my theory of human needs and wants.



If you read the Wikipedia article about it here, and look at the criticism section, you will find that, surprisingly, it didn't receive any logical or rational criticism. Someone said there exists no such hierarchy and our needs are non-hierarchical, and dismissed it saying it cannot be proved. "So narrow-minded", I thought. Maybe he should have just said "That theory is not falsifiable, hence not scientific." Unfortunately, that guy didn't provide any alternative hypotheses that ARE falsifiable. And he says poverty is any of these needs being unfulfilled. I thought the definition of poverty was the inadequate availability of fundamental human needs like food, water, clothing and shelter.

It's very interesting when Marlow says that self-transcendence exceeds self-actualization, and that too, near the end of his life. Reminds me of our duties to do something about global warming, it does.

Good = 3, bad = 11

Lorenz's Law of Mechanical Repair:
After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch.

When your hands don't get covered with grease and your nose begins to itch, you scratch the itch and then forget about it. How many itches that you scratched in your life do you now remember?

Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

If the tool drops right next to your feet, you pick it up and go on with your job. Do you commit that to memory?

Kovac's Conundrum:
When you dial a wrong number,you never get an engaged one.

If you DO get an engaged tone, you wouldn't notice if it was a wrong number.

Cannon's Karmic Law:
If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.

You will remember your previous day's lie because it turned real today. Would you remember it if it didn't?

O'brien's Variation Law:
If you change queues, the one you have left will start to move faster than the one you are in now.

You will go on to buy your ticket if the queue you just moved into moves faster. Will you notice the queue that moves slower than yours?

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Why am I doing this - asking if you remember? I want to prove that people forget the good that happen to them much more easily than the bad that happens to them. I read an NYTimes survey that found that on an average, a person tells 3 people about a product he liked, but 11 people about a product he didn't like. See? This is why right is harder and wrong is easier much more often than not - in fact, 11/3 times more often.

The coolest way to handle terrorism

This is in response to my previous posts, Inward and Outward Terrorism, and The importance of humanization. I have found the answer to my questions. The Saudi government has a rehabilitation facility for convicted terrorists that follows the same principles that I have been advocating in those posts. Look at this BBC article here about that facility. Do you know their ideology?

"You cannot defeat an ideology by force. You have to fight ideas with ideas."

Isn't that amazing? I am a thousand percent for it (I will even donate if I can), if India or the US implements something like that to combat terrorism from outside and within.

Of what use is culture and religion?

I came to discuss this in one of my peer groups in an email thread, and I thought it would be more useful to post it on my blog.

Of course, religion is an important part of any culture. I concur. As with any aspect of human life, every religion has its own huge or minor peccadillos. And from the mere existence of multiple forms of cultures and religions in the world itself, we can logically infer that no culture or religion is inherently better than or superior to another - the same argument again - better is logically meaningless. Religion is part of a culture, but culture by itself is mostly defined by the symbolism followed by its people. Culture helps shed ignorance among people and helps them get onto to "higher and better things".

Vivekananda explains this concept using an example of a sage demonstrating it to a him. Link here:

"Many years ago, I visited a great sage of our own country, a very holy man. We talked of our revealed book, the Vedas, of your Bible, of the Koran, and of revealed books in general. At the close of our talk, this good man asked me to go to the table and take up a book; it was a book which, among other things, contained a forecast of the rainfall during the year. The sage said, "Read that." And I read out the quantity of rain that was to fall. He said, "Now take the book and squeeze it." I did so and he said, "Why, my boy, not a drop of water comes out. Until the water comes out, it is all book, book. So until your religion makes you realise God, it is useless. He who only studies books for religion reminds one of the fable of the ass which carried a heavy load of sugar on its back, but did not know the sweetness of it."

So, my point is this: until your culture/religion makes you realize God, it's useless. After you realize God, it's then also useless. Its only use is when it's put to its intended use. That is what I mean when I say religion is useless. For example, take the bindi on a married woman's forehead. It's intended use is to symbolize the sacred connection between husband and wife. For people who don't know its intention, it's an important aspect of mockery and comedy in other countries. "The dot", they call it. "It's a camera!" "Scratch it, you might win something" are their ways of making fun of it. And most young women in this generation no longer see its intended purpose, and thus they don't wear it anymore.

And coming to the discussion of the European origins of Hinduism and the Indic languages, it's very useful to notice the roots of our languages: Sanskrit, Hindi, Telugu, etc - they are categorized in the Indo-Iranian branch of the tree of the Indo-European languages (tree image here). Linguists have believed for over a century that all the Indo-European languages originate from one common language that they call the Proto-Indo-European language (link here). This supports the Aryan migration theory.

Inward and Outward Terrorism

As far as I know, there are two kinds of people when it comes to dealing with adversity. Ones who turn inward and ones who turn outward. The ones who turn inward hang themselves or jump off a cliff, and the ones who turn outward get a gun and start shooting students in classrooms. We all know that the casualties are much more for the outward-turning people. And it's a pretty good estimate of the paap they committed. And most of them are what we call terrorists, right? We call them that, but that is not what they call themselves.

The inward turning guys do think a little about turning outward and doing random killings, but they couldn't live with the shame of atrocities they would have committed. Because in their world, they will be lonely after that. Their life won't improve, because they will either go to jail or lead a life of eternal anonymity from thereon, and this won't be any better than the one they have already been living before they self-destructed.

The outward-turning guys - they don't care about the shame. They feel the shame, maybe too little to be ever admitted even to themselves, but they feel it. It's masked by feelings of victory and achievement. It's masked by a sense of contribution to their race or ethnicity. It's masked by the sweetness of revenge. And they get addicted to it. They do more of it, because they need it to protect themselves and their family, and they want it, because they are soldiers now. Soldiers of peace, or holy soldiers. Or warriors of god. They portray themselves in a positive sense. Not just positive, but the highest sense of self there is. But they drown themselves in this ocean of feelings of success, and eventually they don't notice that what change they wanted from other people didn't come.

Both of them are wrong, and stupid.

The ones who turn inward and self-terminate - they need self-discovery and they need to learn about themselves. They need another chance. Because complacency is what they couldn't live with. They want to achieve something, but they don't have the resources. They can't think of anyway to change their life. Some do - they give up everything and run away from home. They will be free and happy - even for a short while, because their life is in their own hands now. Nobody is around to tell them what to do all the time - even if they lead their life on the lowest rung of the social and economic ladder.

The ones who turn outward and exterminate the "traitors" and harm-doers - they too need a chance. And you know what the difference is? People are too scared of being hurt, that they don't even give them the chance to learn from their mistakes and do something good. We see cases where some of them learn that this a wrong way to lead a life, and give it up and surrender. They enter what resembles "witness-protection". This is also a life of anonymity, but it's not filled with shame. It's now filled with a sense of lifelong achievement. This is mild and positive. Everybody is scared to give them a chance. And this is where the government must step in - because the government exists to do what people cannot do by themselves. Give them a chance and a different spatio-temporal identity forever, and they will (surprisingly more often than we expect them to) CHOOSE IT.

This would be my way of dealing with adversity. Of course, there will be those who won't listen. There will be those who will continue to do what they believe in, even if everyone in their little world thinks it's wrong and despicable. For the inward-turning half of them, let God give them a better existence either in their next life, or after life. For the remaining outward-turning, adamant guys, harsh action is the way to go. And this must be the last option in the list.

The importance of humanization

http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/example/heim6314.htm

Read this article about humanization and de-humanization. It explains why negotiation with the "bad guys" is important. It explains why it's extremely important to see their human side.

I have an idea, a vague idea about a hypothetical talk show:

The President/Prime minister (P) versus a supporter of harsh action against the "bad guys" (S)

P: Take this philanthropist X. do you think he loves this work?
S: Yes
P: Take this normal guy/your relative/you/. do you think he loves his wife/children?
S: Yes
P: Take this drug user/acquitted murder suspect/similar personality. Do you think he loves his family?
S: Yes
P: This character X: do you think he does? X must be a person whose activities must be in controversy that have never been proved/disproved.
Do you think he does?
S: Yes, I know where you're going.
P: I am glad you're intelligent enough to know/not stupid enough not to know.
Now , take this Guantanamo bay detainee who was falsely detained. Do you think he does?
S: Yes
P: Take this convicted felon - do you think he does?
S: Yes
P: Do you think this convicted terrorist does?
S: Yes
P: So, you agree that all these people have a human side and are capable of experiencing both positive and negative human emotions and rational thought?
S: Yes
P: So, what makes you think they are not open to negotiation, logical arguments and rational discussion?


The character of S looks very dumb here, while most S's are very clever or they argue like one.

This piece needs a lot more work for a final draft to come out, but i may never have that time in my life, so, this might be it :)

Aren't they liars and hypocrites?

I met her last Saturday. I didn't know her before that. All I knew was that she was a grad student at CMU. I thought we had a candid conversation. I had a good first impression of her. She said she wanted to go with dating instead of an arranged marriage, though I would have expected otherwise of her, with her being the elder sibling and all; that she would try to be responsible and lead her brother with the currently popular and safe approach to a long and happy life. It's probably outdated in this generation, isn't it?

Indeed, I asked her if she found or is seeing someone. She gave me an answer that sounded like a NO to me, but just a few minutes ago, I saw proof that was a blaring 'YES' to my question. "Ha! Such liars!" was the first thought that came to my head as soon as I saw that scene. She was holding hands with a guy and was walking down the street. She didn't notice me, maybe because they walked past me and could only see my back, or because she was mentally lost in another world filled with maya-like happiness.

Anyway, having been in the same situation around a year ago, I can try to understand her situation, but is it any of my business? My interest in her didn't climb past the 'I just know her-she is a friend' threshold in the first place.

You might be thinking this is one bizarre situation or probably an outlier and I shouldn't generalize based on one of those, but haven't I seen recurring proof that I am right in this case? Did I not ask that Mongolian girl to have dinner with me, not give her my card? And wasn't I promised a call later? And boy wasn't I disappointed when I saw her days later performing the same exact act this girl was showing off minutes ago! Count rises to two now!

Probably the worst among all these cases is that of an immediate relative, but it still is not my right to judge or opine unless asked. I still don't want to take risk by making that public.

Count = Count + 1; Number_Of_Liars = 3. Output_Status = Surprise!

All that I learned from these experiences is that there is as much intellectual diversity among women as there is among men. And I don't mean that in a positive way. This is particularly important because having grown up with two sisters and an extremely (probably overly) patient, giving and self-sacrificing father, I had until now always placed the race of women much above that of men. I had no idea that I was headed for utter disappointment when I landed in the "big bad world" and saw things with my own eyes.

Time to judge me? or time to judge women?

What do I ultimately want? I want honesty and truth when it comes to the "fairer but darker inside" sex. If I can't have that, please give me the strength to live without them, the determination to pursue and infer them from experience, and the perseverance to keep trying when I can't find them because I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Limiting language

The protagonist in the movie "Smart People" says, at one point, "We respond to literary texts using precisely the same fundamental interpretive categories as authors and poets use to create them. So there's no need to posit any kind of unstable ontology or ruptured consciousness."

I thought that was an excellent comment on literature and the work of literary critics. Do you understand what that means?

Shallowness and forgiveness?

What is the relationship between the two? Are you shallow if you can't forgive someone? Are you deep if you are understanding? Are you shallow if you are selfish? Are you deep if you are selfless? When it comes to things that matter, will you trust people, even if you know you will be hurt? Is that plain carelessness, or omniscience? You are your own judge. Nobody knows you as well as yourselves.

Your opposition

Your opposition is essential for your existence. It keeps you in control. It helps you learn right and wrong. It proves that you know nothing. It proves that you know everything. Without it, you will wallow in ignorance. Without it, you will turn into a pig. It hurts you to help you. Nice concept, isn't it?

Love, trust and life

It's very easy to love someone. You don't have to do anything, just give them what they want. Be happy that they are happy. If you can't, just tell them you love yourselves more than you love them. But, is it easier or harder to trust someone than to love someone? You don't need to know anything about that person to love them. It could just as well be Endorphins and Dopamine rushing through their receptors. It takes more to trust a person. It takes reciprocation to trust them. It takes knowledge to trust them. It takes experience, happiness and suffering with them, their past and their present, their reaction to truth and lies, their understanding and their love to trust them. It takes both your lives to trust them.

And yet, you can never know anyone enough to trust someone. Nobody is perfect, which means you can only trust people on a limited basis. Don't be scared, but be cautious. Be daring, but don't be stupid. Mistakes are only as grave as the consequences they cause. You can never know what's going to happen. Do the best you can, do what you think is right. That's what everybody does - what they think is right.

There exists no eternal truth. Even if it does, it's beyond reason and rationality. There will always be people who will need proof, and are fearful of belief. There will always be people who will believe, and eschew reason. As long as there are humans in this universe, there will be variance and difference. It takes just one person for differences to exist - you. There need not even be someone else to argue with you. You can be your own hindrance, your own conscience. You are the master, and you are the slave. You are the engine, and you are the car. You are the fuel and you are the exhaust.

What you do with what people do to you, depends on you. What people do to you depends on what you do. The world is centered around you. The world is within you. That's duality. A particular flavor of duality.