Fighting with each other Vs Fighting together

Till March 2020

India-Pakistan, NRC-CAA, North Korea, Brexit, USA-Iran, Hindu-Muslim, US-Mexico,...........

From March 2020 - (            )

Covid - 19

(        ) -  Till the end of humans?

India-Pakistan, NRC-CAA, North Korea, USA-Iran, Hindu-Muslim, US-Mexico,.............. World vs China................................................

For once, we are fighting together. Just a matter of time for us to go back to our comfort zone of fighting with each other

Anthropomorphism of domesticated animals

There is a lot of anguish (rightly so) about rearing animals for human benefit especially for meat. There is enough material about it and so I won't get into it here. However, I want to address (or attack) a rebuttal point I used to use against people who were abstaining from meat quoting animal cruelty as the reason but still consume animal products like milk etc

So my rebuttal was simple. If someone is against animal cruelty, then how can they justify consuming milk products when we know what and all is done to a cow to maximize milk production. If at all, killing appears to be more justified than the life of a cow was my point (BTW, I hold this point true to humans also and not just cows. Death is better over a miserable life). It just occurred to me, I might have held my position from an anthropomorphic point of view and so decided to give a closer look.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to an animal, object or god. Whenever I said, a cow's life is miserable, what was my basis to it? Have I asked the cow? Or, are there brain studies on cows indicating how much it is suffering? Do we know a cow is happier in an open field than in a crowded shed? I know there will be some indirect cues about the nature of it's life but how sure I can be about it? I guess my position was coming from an anthropomorphic view point where I was imagining what it would be if I was in the cow's position. I am sure I would have felt terrible. But does it necessarily translate to cow feeling the way I would have felt? I don't think that implication is fully justified. Having said that, the converse is not implied meaning we cannot say the cow is not suffering either. We simply don't know unless there are ways to measure it (I am not sure whether such studies have been done. If so and if the reader knows the answers to the above raised questions, I would be happy to know also).

P S - This post is not intended to rationalize our treatment of cows (or any domesticated animal) in any way. It is just to examine the nature of our position and if possible to come out of our self-centric position ;-)

What should humans learn from the Corona virus?

Yes, we all know about the corona virus and Covid-19 and how it is ravaging the whole world now. But have we stopped to notice the stark similarity that exists between humans and viruses? Here it is.

The virus - It infects a human, grows in the incubation period, transmits to 2-3 people (12 people if it is measles) and finally kills a fraction of the infected people. What does a viral infection really mean? It is hijacking our molecular machinery for it's own reproduction and survival. Therefore, it is noteworthy that a benign virus has higher chance of survival than a lethal one. Because, a lethal one kills the host thereby killing itself. Now we can understand why the seasonal flu virus is still surviving whereas the small pox virus has got extinct (We were successful in eradicating small pox not just because it was lethal but also because we had effective vaccine). Moral of the story is, a virus which transmits effectively and benign has high chances of survival over a highly lethal one. That is precisely the reason we have a corona virus (mortality rate of 2%) pandemic but not an Ebola (mortality rate of 50%) pandemic. It's counter intuitive but true that a less lethal virus is causing more damage for us than a more lethal one because the former stays in the humans population longer than the latter one. 

  

The Humans - We occupy a land, survive and reproduce there with the help of agriculture, domestication and industry. If the land becomes unusable or hostile for any number of reasons, we move. This is how humans have been occupying various parts of the planet for centuries. The comparison between the humans and virus is, if we are like the virus, the place we live (our land and habitat) is like the host for us. Similar to the virus, the more benign we are towards our host, the longer we survive (that's why the whole sustainable farming and lifestyle movement). If we rape the land we live, we kill ourselves. Moral of the story is, if we reproduce responsibly and be benign, we have a higher chance of survival in comparison to our current state where are reproducing irresponsibly and destroying the host where we live.

A meta point - Unlike the corona virus which has infected 6,00,000 people implying it still has over 7 billion hosts to infect, we have virtually exhausted all the places on earth to live. So that's a huge phase difference between humans and the corona virus. We are left with our last host (the global village) since we have no technology to move to other hosts yet (other planets), we are in a precarious situation. If we are reckless with pandemics and climate change, we might end up killing our last host  thereby killing ourselves before we make the transition to other potential hosts.

A meta meta point - If the earth is host to us and if we are host to the corona virus, unfortunately the corona virus has made a bad choice in choosing humans to be it's host in the 21st century. Because, the virus might have over 7 billions hosts left to infect, but if we kill our host, the virus will die too because it's host will be killed in the process. 

In conclusion - Ideally, we should live like the gut bacteria. In the absence of our capacity to do so, we should be like corona virus and not Ebola for our own survival. Strange but true!!

Barriers to honesty - Cont

I have spoken about honesty at reasonable lengths in a couple of previous posts. However, I felt the need to highlight another aspect of barriers to honesty.

Let us say there is couple where one of them is highly understanding, accommodative, essentially having a big heart. He or she is completely in sync with the other person's fallacies and shortcoming. This can give enough room for the other person to be completely honest in expressing whatever he/she wants to (including goof ups). When such a thing happens, it is possible that the other person might feel good about the fact that he/she is completely honest in the relationship. But who should get the credit? The understanding person or the honest person?

Let us say the other person is not reciprocative in terms of understanding and accommodating. Now in some rare situation, his/her partner commits some goof up and wants to come clean. But he/she feels terrified of the consequences. That acts as a barrier to honesty and so he/she finally decides to hide it. So who should get the blame here? The understanding person or the honest person?

I feel being honest is not just the measure of greatness. It is very important to identify the contribution of the person who allows the other person to be honest!!

King Kong!!

False belief that drinking methanol protects from corona-virus leaves 300 people dead in Iran


"It's not the methanol. It's stupidity that killed 300"

The illusion of 'lack of choice'

You might have heard people saying phrases like "I don't have a choice", "I did not have a choice", "What else I can do?" etc in certain situations. Do people really don't have a choice when they say they don't?

Let us take some extreme examples to understand what it means to not have a choice. Say when someone is jailed, or being paraplegic, they really have no choice or very limited choice to exercise any will. They will be at the mercy of their harsh reality. Actually some people exercise their choice even in extremes of situations. Bhagat Singh for example went on a hunger strike to fight the atrocities of the British empire being in jail. Mahatma Gandhi famously said (referring to the British again) "They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me, then they will have my dead body. But not my obedience". Barring such extreme personalities, for the sake of argument, we can consider people in such situations to be helpless to exercise any choice.

My sample set is not the kind of situations or people who I referred above. I am talking of people in normal lives who face certain difficulties. Let us take the example of an old couple who is being constantly troubled and abused by their son. After a zillion chances and exhausting almost all the possible ways of help, the situation is not rectified. At this juncture what would a typical parent do? My bet will be on, they will continue to endure though some part of them know deserting him/her would give a fighting chance to help the situation. However, when asked to exercise that choice, they might say "What can I do?" or "I don't have such a choice". But in reality they do have that choice but it's a difficult one. I am aware when people say they don't have a choice, they are intending that certain choices are difficult to implement. However, in my opinion, telling oneself that there is no choice will lead to mentally blocking the small chance of entertaining it's possibility. It would be better to tell "I have a difficult choice" than "I have no choice" because that can help the person to sleep over it, contemplate it and probably muster the courage to exercise it.

We all have choices. It's just that some are more difficult than others.

A slow death

It's better to burn out than fade away - Kurt Cobain

In the wake of Covid-19 and ever looming climate change, I just realized we are headed towards times of uncertainty in a way that we might fade away than burning out.

People of our times*, barring exceptions, have had a somewhat predictable lives. It's like you plan your studies, job, family and even retirement. If not 100%, one can fairly materialize their plans if they work towards it. There's comfort in predictability. Now talking about predictability, there's comfort in predictability (certainty of death) even if we are headed towards apocalypse like say in next few months. In fact people have partied thinking planet will come to an end. Though dying is hard, there's no pain of unpredictability in an apocalypse situation. People can let go of all their attachments and prepare to accept the eventuality. However, the situation in between the predictability of stable lives and predictability of apocalypse is deeply problematic. And I think that's where we are headed to. 

Leading epidemiologists are saying pandemics will become more common. Climate experts are predicting drought, famine, floods will become common. By 2040, these catastrophes will become more common than our elections. But each one of this by itself (like corona for example) doesn't give a feel of apocalypse. Therefore, we try to see them as inconveniences and strive to get back to our predictable lives and that's where the real problem lies. Let us try to understand this in the context of the Covid-19 outbreak. It does not appear (at least not yet) like an impending doom but a grave inconvenience. Possible infection and hospitalization, work from home, loss of revenue, etc would trouble us but does not provide enough to look for an apocalypse kind of situation. Therefore, we want to fight this to get our predictable lives back. In times of apocalypse, we could have let go. But now we hold on and thereby setting up ourselves for major disappointments because the frequency and intensity of these inconveniences is only going to increase with time. 

It might be better to burn out than fade away but the chances of that appear slim.

* Only referring to people from my immediate surroundings with similar socieconomic backgrounds and maybe the privileged class. Highly disadvantaged people are outside the scope of this post.

A strong case for Anna Karenina principle

I have been an antinatalist for a long time now. And NO. This post is not about every aspect of antinatalism* but just one - the scope of the Anna Karenina principle.

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

Anna Karenina principle

The above point is often used to justify antinatalism. The fact that everything in life needs to be somewhat right to be happy but even if one thing goes significantly wrong, happiness can be stolen away provides a strong case for antinatalism. Because it is statistically more probable for one thing to go wrong than everything to go right implying the unborn child is potentially exposed to misery. Essentially, happiness is not only not certain but less probable. Though, I knew this for long, My friend recently shed some light on the scope of this point. He compared the lives of animals and humans in the following way

1) Non - Sentient beings - We can keep them out of the argument as the question of happiness, pleasure, suffering is not applicable to them as we conceptualize.

2) Sentient Animals - 

          a) Wild animals - If you take the life of wild animals, apart from the difference between dying and living, there is hardly any difference between the kind of life different individuals lead. Any deer eat the same food, live in the same habitat, have the same predator etc etc. Some get to mate while some don't but the point is, there is not so much of a difference between the lives of different individuals.

       b)Domesticated animals - There exist some difference in the kinds of life led by a domesticated animal versus a non-domesticated animal. For example - a street dog has to fend for itself while a domesticated one gets fed. Nevertheless, the difference is not as exacerbated as humans

3) Humans - Just see the difference in life led by the royal family of England versus a sex worker in an Indian brothel or a teenager in a terrorist camp in Afghanistan. Look at the range of illnesses - physical and mental that can inflict humans. The extent to which social, political, and economical, injustice exists is mind boggling. What about religious persecution, racism, casteism, marginalization, gender oppression, poverty?  I can go on and on and on but you get the point. 

Though I knew the range of things that can go wrong in humans, contrasting with animals made me appreciate the scope of Anna Karenina principle in humans. I reiterate, the life of a royal family member and a sex worker in a third world country is astronomically apart. 

* If you are interested in different aspects of antinatalism like ideological and practical grounds, the below links are excellent reads

https://philpapers.org/go.pl?id=LICTIO-2&aid=LICTIO-2.1 - Ideological

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-case-for-not-being-born - Practical

An other surreal experience!!!

I am always always fascinated with the complexity of biological organisms. I will never be able to fathom the marvel of the biological functions like molecular biology, functioning of the brain, evolution etc etc. I am bewildered, overwhelmed, stunned.. soon I will run out of adjectives. I have asked myself and my friends whether they are more bewildered about the magnanimity of the universe or the complexity of biological organisms and it's functioning. For me, biology on any day wins the competition. 

Recently, I wanted to understand the evolutionary principles behind our liking towards art. In pursuit of the answer, I watched a few videos by Dr. V S Ramachandran, a veteran in brain research. I was awed at the end of those lectures knowing the intricate principles behind our liking towards art. I was in a trance for sometime. Soon after finishing watching the videos, I started cycling back from work to home. On my way, there is a crematorium where a dead body was being burnt. The antinatalist, cynic, misanthropic in me always favors death over living. But on that day,  I had a surreal experience when I felt an amazing machinery had come to an halt. It's one of the weirdest feelings I have ever felt in a long time. The best part is, the surrealness of the surreal experience continued to increase even after this. First, I was awed by the complexity of biological functions. Then I was even more awed at the sheer amount of stupidity this complex system is able to create (Like Trump and his voters for example). I was utterly confused as to what I should feel at the end of it. :-(

P S: Much later, I was able to resolve the conflict. Yes, it is true the biology is complex and wonderful. It is also true that it has produced a lot of stupid people. But the crux of biology is, it is optimized for survival and not wiseness (In fact being wise and smart is not only not good for survival but can act as a deterrent. But let us not go into that here) The fact that Trump is a rich 73 year old guy speaks for the success of biology. So let us all embrace the complex, magnificent, awe inspiring yet stupid world!!

Responsibility - A necessary but not sufficient condition for Love

What is Love? There is a decent biological understanding of this term. However, according to me, it is one of those terms which people excessively use without a clear understanding of it is. And NO. This post is not going to attempt to define love but will only discuss one feature of love - Responsibility.

I had a student whose father was an extreme alcoholic who drank himself to death when my student was just 13. While talking about her father, she mentioned that he loved her very much. That unsettled me. I did not quite know why but I was sure something did not fit my world view. Later, I was able to put things into perspective and this post is about that.

According to me, being responsible is an absolutely necessary criteria to love someone. Let us talk about this father who drank himself to death. He could have done that by all means by not giving birth to his daughter. It is his life to ruin if he chooses to and he is not accountable to anyone. However, choosing to marry and giving birth means he is entering into implicit agreement which involves other people and their well being too. I just cannot fathom the possibility of how a father can claim he loved his daughter when all he cared about was his indulgence. If the daughter was okay with him drinking himself to death, that's understandable. But obviously she did not want that. Loving someone is not just about having a surge of irrational emotions. I do understand the importance of irrationality in love but that's not it. It should involve a cognitive aspect where a person consciously introspects and mends his/her ways (if necessary) for the well being of the loved. Otherwise, what is the difference between love and selfishness? That day, it was crystal clear to me that responsibility is an absolutely necessary criteria for love. I cannot ever come into terms with a worldview which accepts a feeling devoid of responsibility as love.

P S - Though my understanding of love changed many years back, I am writing this post today. Because on this day, I had to desert someone because of their so called love lacked responsibility. In my worldview, it is not love at all. And I got tired of trying to clap with one hand.

Judging Vs Modelling

"Judging a person does not define who they are... It defines who you are"

I loved this quote and I am pretty sure we all can easily agree to it. However, does it mean we should never try to know other people? Or if we try to know, would we be branded as being judgmental? I want to shed some light to these questions.

I want to differentiate between three terms to make my point here. Prejudice, Judging and Modelling.

• Prejudice - Subscribing to a belief due to established stereotypes without any respect to evidence. For example: Long back (even now actually) many people were prejudiced about the whole white supremacy stuff.

• Judging - Inferring something about a person (often negatively) with one or very little data points. For example, once, when an acquaintance of mine failed to materialize a plan, I inferred her to be unreliable. When my other friend pointed it out, I did realize I was being judgmental.

• Modelling - Inferring something about a person (negative or positive) based on many data points keeping biases to a minimum.

I am of the opinion that being prejudiced or judgmental is bad while modelling is not only good but very necessary. In fact, biologically we have a predisposition to model, without which we could not have survived till now. Just imagine, if cavemen failed to model how a tiger attacks based on many pieces of evidences, I would not have been in a position to write this post nor you would be in a position to read it. I was recently trying to understand why we like art. Actually, it is bewildering because liking art does not make any evolutionary sense. What's really happening is, art is about pattern recognition and therefore it is tapping into those networks which are primed to identify patterns or make models. Just see the below picture. If I tell there is a dog here, you mind starts groping into the details.

And you will have a Ahaa moment when you identify the dog.

So modelling was very important back in the days of hunters and gatherers and is important now. Scientists' job is to model the world around us. Mathematicians and statisticians model about many phenomena. Weather modelling (however unreliable) is still very essential to prepare people for calamities. Extending this line of thought, I would argue, people who are social animals, need to model about others for healthy relationships. However, one needs to have the rigor in order to minimize biases while modelling.

So modelling judging is bad and modelling is good. Where is the catch? In my experience, at times, my nature of modelling has got (mis)construed as being judgmental. I am NOT saying I am never judgmental. I am prone to judge here and there because of the inherent biases I have. But at times, I have noticed, my modeling has been mistaken for being judgmental. Guess those people were judgmental about me being judgmental :D

P S. How do I know that those people who I referred above, were being judgmental about me being judgmental and they were not modelling? It is also possible that I could be judgmental about they being judgmental about me being judgmental. Okay enough, I will stop the recursion here :-)

The Quantum Mechanical Nature of Life

"Ignorance is Bliss". Really?? The people who advocate this ideology is very selective when it comes choosing what they want to be ignorant about. If one's spouse is secretly admiring some other person, ignorance works. But when you don't know about a condom and get an STD because of unsafe sex, is ignorance really blissful? I am aware we cannot have a blanket rule as "ignorance is bliss" or "knowledge is bliss". Nevertheless, I find this "ignorance is bliss" hurled at me often when I tend to analyse various aspects of life - Philosophical outlook, Relationships, Career etc etc. This got me thinking [I know this goes against "ignorance is bliss" ;-)] whether/how much I subscribe to the ideology in context. 

The reasons behind people advocating ignorance is quite simple. When we start analyzing a lot of things about life and the world around us, it's usually murky waters and can lead to confusions, frustration etc etc. Though I agree with this, I have a slightly different take on this and that is where quantum mechanics comes to picture. But before jumping right into QM, let's begin with Aristotle's physics. Aristotle explained the behavior of an object, such as a rock, in terms of the “essential nature” of that object.  For Aristotle, a non-measurable force existed within an object that compelled it to behave in a certain manner.  A stone, for example, was classified by Aristotle as a heavy object, while fire was defined as a light object.  Since heavy objects, likes stones, tend to fall downwards and light objects, such as fire, tend to move upwards, these behaviors –gravity and levity respectively– were deemed by Aristotle to be part of the essential nature of those objects. I should say this appears lotttt simpler than our current physics. But is it really? The idea of simplicity (parsimony) is slightly different in science than the colloquial use. It's not about how simple it is for a commoner to understand and use but the number of ideas to be used for an explanation should be minimum. Though the ideas of gravity and levity may appear simple to a common man, it is not simpler than Newtonian mechanics (which is complex for a common man) since it uses fewer ideas (only gravity in this case). Extending this logic, quantum mechanics appears lotttt more complex than Newtonian mechanics but it is simpler in the eyes of science since it explains what Newtonian mechanics can explain and more. So I guess, we can see a pattern here. Something that is easy for common use might not be easy in the eyes of science and vice-versa.

Now, this the time to apply the above logic to the whole "Ignorance is Bliss" question. Yes, when we start questioning or understanding something, it appears complex the way QM is complex for a person who starts to study it. It leads to frustrations since many counter-intuitive ideas are embedded in it. However, once a student becomes proficient in QM, it appears differently. The over arching generalization given by QM makes the student to look at the natural world lot more coherently. Similarly, questioning about various aspects of life might be difficult to begin with. But with time, one can notice over arching generalizations which makes the whole life question simpler than before setting out the journey. So yeah. I am not too impressed with ignorance is bliss. I would agree ignorance is better than half-baked knowledge but surely not in front of the power of generalizations.

P S - QM might have given very robust generalization but still it does not have answers to every question of nature. Similarly, though one can find over arching ideas about life, one cannot find all the answers. Guess questions about life goes on as long as life goes on.