The paralax of the scientific mind !!

The paralax of the scientific mind !!

The question that a scientific mind often experiences is one which is complexly intertwined with the way we understand the world around us.

To initiate an exposition with that in mind, we can look into how we grow our notions about the immediately connected world, eg the one that our previous generation passes to us, which they inherited by their own experience.

We learn about how to play a particular game/sports, how to speak, how to make sense and how to interact with one another.

That preparatory way to learn the basics of our living is a must for any kid in a moderately advanced society. That takes several years of a child's life and modifies him to an educated child/adult.

Once he has reached that phase he truly learns to appreciate the further complicacies and complexities in the world that he lives in. The complicaies might reflect his primary mode of learning via a multitude of relationship methods he forms based on his own persona. The complexities might reflect the underlying truth of the Universe.

His secondary mode of learning are what we may ascribe to a universal education system, his school, his play ground, his freinds, the media, TV, internet, the new age mantras and tantras and so on.

[If you compare the phrase "moderately advanced" with the phrases, developing/developed or 3rd world, you will find a ray of hope because from my own experiences, I can immediately say India is a moderately advanced country, it has tremendous intellectual GDP despite of its lack of many resources or technology or social inequity caused by any or many of the factors ascribed to a developing country, In that sense, moderately advanced is a new scientific description or at-least a terminology]

Now that the child has metamorphosed to his adult phase he begins the phase of selection or choice. Here he wants, he has needs and based on which part of the globe he's grown up in, he has a degree of awareness about his rights and responsibilties.

I think this is a time in his life when he starts delving into diversions of his choice. S/He develops feelings, intuition, ideas, friends, relations. He appreciates his own sense as well as anothers, associates with knowledge, goes after experiences, talks about mystries, enjoys the attraction of illusions, paradoxes do appeal to him.

But one thing is certainly missing from his persona. The quest for finding his ignorance, to self-mentor his doubts and not to misconstrue the uncertainties as mere globs of insignificance.

Among the myriad diversions his choiceful mind has thrown open for him, among the multitude of choice his freewill has led him to, an important diversion has only occured in a few of the minds.

Very rightfully these are the scientific minds, minds that question with an inquisitive bent of design, that sharpens with time. This is where doubts, ignorance and uncertainities enter his mind and fulfil his urge to transcend the traditions of knowledge.

If we sum up in Donald Rumsfelds words of known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, science is a diversion in the direction of the unknown unknowns. Because these are the doubts, ignorance and uncertainities that propel the inquisitive mind.

This is a diversion and this is a paralax. This paralax signifies the many truthful side of the same object, the same truth. This is science and this is not possible with the known knowns only.

Science is not possible with merely the known unknwons, because sooner or later the mystries, paradoxes and illusions will be forgotten or solved one way (known) or another(unknwon).

But the likelihood that the unknown unknown gives is highest for scientifc exploration. In hind sight, there are two unknwons there.

In language that everyone is familiar with a 'known known' is like the "popular" gravity or the interesting phenomena of magnetism, we know they exist and we know they happen.

A known unknwon is like the mystry of the God or the alien that visited us in UFO or the signal that a remote civilization sends to us earthlings.

A unknown unknown is where most of our scientific muscle and credit line is invested: its about exploring the unknwon matter that pervades our universe, the "God" particle that gives value to masses or the strings at the smallest scale of our universe that may turn out to be a poof or as they say in my native "elephant's fart".

Employ-ability of the spirit….and the spirit of Science…

Employ-ability of the spirit….and the spirit of Science…

Speaking my mind about as arcane an idea as “employability” is a difficult task. In what and how many ways can one employ oneself?

And if one does so gainfully while pleasing his spiritual quests it’s an outstanding way of employment.

The more or less unconnected ways are the ones that satisfy one’s needs. The second kind of employment is available in multitude of ways but when you break them down they reduce to just a few.

At the level of needs there are infinite numbers of needs but at the level of consumers it’s a few type defined by the unity of pattern of consumption.

But if you look a little more closely with the first kind the list of opportunities are boundless and the employability can be gainful. Gainful employment that can be pleasing to our spirits.

Isn’t scientific pursuits a bit like that? It’s gainful as long as its pleasing, to our spirits, and as long as we pursue our quests to know. The motto seems to be “Aspire to know and perspire to share...”

The scope of employability with something as arcane as spirit is therefore infinite. It’s not only science, one may argue, which so adheres to a holistic principle of self although in the case of Science it leads to a discovery of self because of its uncanny nature.

One may argue any branch of human pursuit as aesthetic as the arts or music or even writing about folklore can be a spiritually pleasing exercise. This can be gainful and passes the litmus tests of employability.

I do not have any reason whatsoever to deny that. But in retrospect something as aesthetic as the arts or the music or writing about folklores takes away human effort in terms of focus and practice and gives in terms of the art or music-works which is readily perceptible by the common person.

It can be argued that the arts and music and so on are varied and not necessarily perceptible by all alike. True, to the extent sometimes, as esoteric a pursuit as throat music isn’t quite alluring to everyone alike, nor is a big fan-following seen towards the cultural overtures of Mayan aboriginals.

Science on the other hand isn’t quite like that. Its beauty isn’t quite expressed or appreciated like the beauty of a flower or the beauty of a scenic valley. You or I or anyone can’t just open up his eyes widely to appreciate the beauty of science.

It’s not a beauty of emotion. It’s not a beauty of feelings or thoughts. It’s a beauty of vision. A vision which is not necessarily optical or illusive. It’s a vision which is spontaneous and uncanny and spiritual.

Did I say it right? Yes, spiritual. The beauty of science has a connection with spiritual joy. This beauty of science is visible when one truly learns to appreciate the joy of spiritual enchantment.

This joy is like devouring the sweetness of honey and smelling the aroma of a flower. The visual joy of a flower is as captivating as the sensual joy of aroma. Science has made it possible to preserve that aroma in a timeless journey of “culture du jour”.

The spiritual attires of science are often a refined fabric. It can come from the uncanny beauty of feathers of a peacock to the rugged roughness of the “Rudrakshya”. But it has to provide a beauty, wearable by only a few.

While such attires belong to the common place it has a rugged beauty and spirit that often reminds us of the spirit of science. Science is often a great deal of exploration and exploration is often the “el paisaje accidentado”.

Is failure of technology demise of Science?

Is failure of technology demise of Science?

Before I answer that I would like to take some precaution and quell any doubt in anyone’s mind that there is a very unique connection between Science and Technology, apart from the immensely complex nature of Science and the gigantic complexity of Technology, there are a few basic perceptions that I had tried to pen down in an earlier blog. [See “What is Science?”, 20 march 2009]

From an academic point of view or rather a puritan’s pristine view of science, technology is often seen out of the precinct of science because of how technology caters to the immediate needs of a consumer society and how science is often badly understood by even a consumer community that is educated and supports its day to day chores via the ever changing technology inventions.

To quote the famed theoretical physicist Julian Schwinger “Like the silicon chips of more recent years, the Feynman diagram was bringing computation to the masses.” This could be a statement that characterizes another facet of science-technology relationship.

The silicon chips, the computation and the direct linkage of its usability to the consumer community are comparable to the “science in action” of the time. This only surmises the fact that science in the hands of its most masterful architects resembles technology itself, in its output.

Technology can be denied, science can not be denied because it’s always in the making and only in an outstanding or remarkable scenario where a genius like Feynman is concerned science in making can give a quicker lead to technology in use.

Apart from that abstract understanding, to make myself avoid the pain of being incorrect, Feynman was a great Scientist and not necessarily took part in active technology-fication at-least in his days of scientific inventions. Later when his ideas became widely acceptable and usable did he have the opportunity and option to venture into his technology dreams. I can still be wrong and in my mild defense I am not a historian.

So now I have given enough of perspective to link science and technology in a way that does confirm to widely believed notions. I can safely start to relieve my thoughts on the demise of science that is to be or not to be in the event of a failure of technology.

Before that what would it mean to say technology has failed? Because with every need the necessity mother bears an invention child. Well sometimes the child birth can be delayed inadvertently and sometimes the child is of no use for a particular purpose, the child can be too autistic, to procrastinate on my analogies. [Despite of its own beauty, to be appreciated]

To surmise this by an example, you are in Alaska and for whatever reason, say, too strong an aura interfering with the electro-magnetic communication system of your communication device no matter how advance it is, you are out of communication with the rest of the world. You are in a group of ten, all folks the best in their expertise domain, technology, science, computing, mobile communication, you name it. But you can’t fix the problem.

That is by definition a technology failure, because in hindsight you could not have resorted to any kind of technology invented so far that would come to your use. You are transmitting all useful data over to a remote site that is processing these important events and suddenly a “blackout”.

Well if you are smart you note, “No, this is not demise because we can always store the data offline, take it back with ourselves and re-use it”. But “what-if!” we need to, for some unspecified purpose; transmit data on-the-line as we receive it, for some cross-check of an event at a remote site that needs to be done as soon as we have it? We are in trouble; the smart fellow can say, well we are handicapped, not demised. How handicapped do we need to be to feel demised? That’s another route I must take in to to make sense.

So technology can handicap science. There is an inherent traditionalism or say conservatism about technology. Without this conservatism technology can’t be effective, its marketability will be swallowing and its gregariousness can be questioned to the extent of science itself. [How friendly is science??]

The gregariousness of science is often questioned because of the lack of an air of conservatism in it. Famous scientists were greatly accepted only when they showed their conservative sides. They were greatly celebrated only after they showed their religious side and to some degree the accommodation of the central figure in religions, God.

They struggled throughout their life in dealing with their own notion of God and adhered to a silent “E pur se muove” [it still moves]. They did not become a tyrant to their own belief they just showed a great deal of restraint in accommodating the world’s belief, lest they suffer a Maxwellian suicide.

[or Boltzman was that? You see there is an inherent danger to the way coupled or three-some scientists can face in how they are perceived. Its Maxwell that was depressed or Boltzman? Even if you know the right answer if you are aware of Maxwell-Boltzman association for example the M-B statistics, there is a chance you may be confused, like I am]

While science is often, as I said earlier in this article, “always in the making” Technology, to be usable by the mass, the scientific community included, is well prepared, at-least functionally. The other facets or other loose-ends are filled by marketability, social or consumer needs and so on.

This well-preparedness in itself is a diversion from the “making of science” and therefore takes us away from the goals of science. But despite of the diversions the usefulness of technology lie in the fact that it enhances efficiency, facilitates communication, makes science attractive to the lesser concerned about the beauty of science, makes science as prepared as technology, although that signifies an incomplete output.

But science will always be incomplete notwithstanding the hypes of the like of unification or theory of everything. The latter has to be defined to a precinct of confined meaning or else their conclusion will be illusive and as incomplete as their predecessors if not more.

The preparedness and completeness of technology is a cursory knowledge in that direction. The reasoning is: when science depends so much on technology and technology is forthright only when its well prepared, complete and conservative [meaning fulfilling the needs of the consumers] and while science is riddled with open ends, questions, incompleteness, doubts, uncertainties about its own character and future, and they both depend on each other how can we predict our universe with a theory of everything and unification unless they have a conservative meaning itself?? [Conservative: well defined, specified and limited in its scope]

While Technology makes a brilliant case for science it warns us about or forestalls the limitedness of science itself. Science is an ideal human goal, tremendously successful. So is technology itself. But technology respects the bounds of human limitedness. Science has to be seen in that prospect.

Thank you.

Perception and Personality [related to earlier post of "personality"]

Perception.

OK, while trying to hit my nail on personality, I came across interesting and articulate remarks from two folks. One I just made a friendship with and the other possibly a decade long friend [the old Harper]. So they both have their say on my small article on personality and one thing that they throw at me is how perception can influence one's personality. With the example of how a shy person comes forth as an arrogant person and how this is quite commonly held together as reflection of the same inward nature but is quite differently perceived.

So here I will take another shot at pondering over my notions of “perception”.

What is perception?

Perception is again like the matter of personality a subjective one. Your perception of the hardness of an object is different from John’s and John’s perception of a good player is different from the perception of his father’s.

John’s father argues that one who makes quite a lot of tricky movement so as to get the desired result on the ball game is a good player while John swears by the inherent way in which Mr Xenon lofts or swings the ball.

These two folks represent the goodness of the player in different languages but it’s the same thing [trick or natural foot play?] They have different perception of the same physical way the ball is played by the player.

Now coming to hardness while this is not very commonly defined parameter of a large number of objects an obvious argument ensues between John and you.

John finds the hardness of the ball a bit more harsh on his foot and takes a little caution by removing some air. You on the other hand find it perfectly fine. So this is our perception of something which is quite concrete by its own nature, the hardness of an object.

The “goodness” of the player is again a matter of experience and taste and very importantly visual imagination. Its an optical perception if you can in some way equate the other parameters of John and his father.

So perceptions about an object or an optical scene connected with human experience are just two examples where we can form “commonly” held perception [with unequal perception outcomes] There are a myriad different types of “variable” therefore that can be attributed to a notion of perception that can be formed in a human mind.

variable: e.g. hardness, goodness of a player, personality, characteristics.

How then one defines such a notion for something as abstract as personality?

Personality can not defined as hardness can be defined but its somehow connected with another variable, the “goodness” of a player because it is about inner nature of a person or an animal and is abstract in nature.

Personality of a person is quite a significant variable therefore that forms a perception in the mind of the observer much differently than another observer's.

If we therefore talk about perception it offers quite a multitude of perception parameters for understanding the personality of one person [sample person as opposed to an observer person]

The nature of truth is such [in the terminology of scientific understanding] that the nature or personality of a person has to be an invariant, that is, irrespective of the observer’s state or inclination or quality of forming a perception itself.

Once we understand both, the definition of personality [or more aptly inward nature] and the "process of perception" of what we see or envisage there is a readily available conclusion about someone's personality. I think we can direct our understanding in this way for some interesting look/light on the subject of personality.

To respond to some remarks:

Now on to the image of self, image of projection and image we hold of some one else’s self. Lets try to look at these three parameters from the point of view of the above discussion.

Eureka !! Now it sounds like the first and the last one [image of self and image someone forms of some one else's self] are what I call the view of the observer even if the personality of the same person is in question. We have two observers here for the same variable, therefore two images. The second one [image of projection] is a perception of a multitude of observers since its open to anyone for observation, that is its about general understanding.

Addendum: summary of some main points of the analysis, from Sanjay, quite brilliant understanding.

Perception is the interpretation of observer through their own experience and knowledge that may not project same personality for each observer (non-unique).

Personality is the reaction to perception of other. How we choose to react to different observation of others or occurrence in general defines our personality. This reaction also defines our projection (Nico's second point).

A poem I wrote [in English]

Passion.

Am I the only dinosaur living of my time?
Or I am an archaeopteryx ?

Am I a lion or a pumpkin -head?
Am I a buffoon or a funny alien?

Am I an eccentric musician singing lores of love songs or a wind of hope?
Am I a breeze of ecstasy or a smoke of clove?

I promised my papa I won't smoke pot again
My mama calls me at midnight and asks me if I had had my dinner.

My friends call me yet ask me not how I am doing? Cos I am the one who showed them a way out of adversity.

I am no Ruskin Bond or Mark Twain, but sure they would have liked to sip a little wine or boast about the favorite beer they had.

Am I a Professor who likes to keep you on your toes? or a student who wants to learn it all again?

Am I an experimentalist who has forgotten the trade after the great depression or the theorist who nobody listens to?

Am I the whiz kid in the class who cracked jokes on everybody or the class clown who didn't mind spanking his own butt?

Am I the traveller who made it a point to take the wrong exit to discover the wild or the unsuspected nomad to taste on the country cooked potato?

Am I the maverick who made friendship with the theater girls or the wanna be drummer of the exotic music ?

Am I the day dreamer who popped a dozen ideas in the group of ships or a silent passenger in the crowd?

Am I the scholar who woke at 4' in the morning to take a day off into the paddy field and a "before the breakfast call on the restaurant" ?

Am I the student who took it all in the name of good or the loafer who made fun of everyone unsparingly?

Am I the lover who felt with his head while calculating the bill he has to pay ?
Am I the sadistic who took pleasure at everyone's helplessness or am I the loner who needed a pat on his back for being so different?

Am I the one who has done it all or the one who doesn't understand why things happen the way they do?

I have done it all , all in the name of passion cos thats one thing I never begged from anyone.

What is personality?

What is personality !!
[1.30 pm, IUCAA guest house, waiting for lunch,
probably a friend will call any minute now]

I am trying to hit a nail on something which is quite subjective. And its much wider than any one can emancipate just by himself. But its much like trying to describe the taste of coffee. I agree [and can not disagree] that there could be a very generally acceptable notion about how coffee tastes and there are almost cult following towards coffee taste and habits.

But such is also the case of the subject of personality. The epistemological description and study of personal types belong much to the subject of psychology and its customary descriptions vary so widely given to its "marketability" that trying to get a generally acceptable way of understanding such an interesting idea is a time taking venture. I am therefore just trying to gather my ideas into a crude form without much or rather zero recourse to psychological concepts.

Here is what I find a suitable notion of what personality defines. A personality is a very powerful expression of someone's subconscious behavior towards the world such as to get appropriate response from the world to lead oneself towards an understanding by the world.

Again the notion in its entirety is subjective, as one can take the clue, if one were to peep a little harder and say: "well everyone doesn't quite expect the world to develop an understanding in a person, probably such folks belong to a specified category". But in such a definition there also is an essence of a definition for what personality is. Its the outward visibility of a person irrespective of that persons knowledge about such an outward expression.

Having defined such a notion, at-least for the sake of what my understanding of personality is all about, I am trying to tell you something more. Why is it that all living beings have a personality not just the human beings. Well, definitely not the plants, at-least so much which I can envisage.

A tiger as a representation of a particular species signifies one type of personality behavior. Aan individual tiger could be mild or laid back in its approach while another individual tiger could be much contrasting to the former, but as a whole their personality could be different from the personality of the man kind.

[1.45: Lunch break]

Well, so all living beings except perhaps the plants do have a personality? In some its quite visible and in others its not.

Another idea that come to me is that a person has his personality quite laid into his making right from the time that person was a kid. Possibly its just one part of the personality, which we can say, is the persons nature and we can categorize his responses to the world as his visible personality. But I [or one] would like to see all that summed up as a truer representation of ones personality.

A personality is much immensely complex than my naive ideas crudely summed up here, but one way the psychologists try to represent it is through careful analysis of many kind of personalities and their characteristic traits and then try to make a list of personality traits and associate some kind of tests to their way of such descriptions by some kind of empirical observations such as a specific type of questionnaire.

I believe such questionnaires are but a very short and limited way of describing personalities. Otherwise the psychologists would be the ones to completely predict human behavior from their "unattractive" system of description of human behavior. Human behavior changes with every other thought and possibly the psychologists are the least aware of human thoughts in its complete variation.