My Small World

1st Feb, 2018 Bangalore A. Douglas Hofstadter is well known for his classic - Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. This book was published in 1979, and I purchased it in 2007, perhaps. I was deeply engaged with this book, for an year, and was so inspired by it that I thought to inspire others by gifting them this book. Little did I know that one of the two-three folks, to whom I gifted this book, complained indirectly about weight of this book, hard to carry.  I am yet not sure of fate of those books, I am very unsure whether people really read books -- those who read are of course scarce in number. Anyways, Douglas is a big person, in the area of Cognitive Science. And I liked his article:  https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/the-shallowness-of-google-translate/551570/ . I will summarise his points (better to read his article):  Tools like Google Translate are half-baked. Lack the organelles to "Understand" translation. ...

Dear Me, I understand that though laziness may be one of those things that is keeping you away from writing, but somewhere you are afraid that whatever you are writing may lack soul. In the age, where definition of friendship and sense of warm discussion is blurred, it is anyhow hard to put any soul.  Perhaps, this paper, this digital piece, can be of more help. It can provide more solace. So, please, write more, just in the hope that someday soul will arrive, somehow magically. I have thus thought of posting small or less on this blog. Hope it works. Yours.

सच को जानने के लिए जीतना नज़दीक गया, पता  चला कि सच केवल मेरा रह गया - specific , particular | अब इस सिमित  सत्य के साथ  चलूँ  या की जो initial condition था, यानि कि पूर्ण सत्य से कुछ या ज्यादा  दूरी - वहीं रहूँ | यात्रा अपरिपूर्ण की ही है |  इसलिए पराजय ही लक्ष्य है अथ्वा नियति | 

As far as it goes - II No Indian Universities in Top This was in news today. Multiple reasons can be cited : Universities are not building theoretical models (abstractions). Innovations are not backed by rigor. Service sector lacks innovation. There is too much emphasis on business. Lack of competition these days. IIT JEE entrance examinations have degraded. Seats in IITs were refused . Similar was the condition with NITs and other State funded engineering colleges. Too much emphasis is on testing and monotonous work in offices. They have spoiled regular science education. Quality of regular universities is even worse. Lack of Scientific temperament in Indian diaspora persists. Scientific thought and relevant think tanks are absent. Darwin's note on Marriage Now even he was not sure. You read it over here for your own pleasure: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwins-notes-on-marriage. An excerpt (When Marry): My[17] God, it is intolerable to think...

   As far as it goes - I Feynman, the physicist, married thrice. His persona and fresh approach towards many a realms are omnipresent in his books and lectures; and even after thirteen years and so, ever since I bought his Lectures on Physics, I still refer to them. His second marriage - seven years after his first wife died - with Mary Louise Bel was brief and unsuccessful, and when I was going through Wikipedia on Feynman, I stumbled upon following lines:   He begins working calculus problems in his head as soon as he awakens. He did calculus while driving in his car, while sitting in the living room, and while lying in bed at night.     —Mary Louise Bell divorce complaint[46] I never thought he can be so boring to someone, for he was so exuberant, full of life, and so much indomitable spirit he was. Glare at some of his quotations , which are quite humorous : “Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is.” and “Science is like sex: som...

Did you see Meta ? People should read Hofstadter. Godel, Escher and Bach is of the finest book that I have read so far, in the Office's Bus ... from Attapur to HiTech City, in Hyderabad. In what could be a possibility, that I will purchase the book The Strange Loop . The word Meta was most dear some word for me, be it programming, Bourbaki or Tarski. However another dear some word for me is Isomorphism. Again quite common in Mathematics, yet quite illustrated in GEB. Every Noun (except/perhaps proper noun) is a kind of Isomorphism. And also traits of Human being.

Somehow had to confront with such a situation. Here it is[from http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20-pe07.html ]: An individual diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder needs to show at least 5 of the following criteria:     Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).     Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.     Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).     Requires excessive admiration.     Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.     Is inter-personally exploitative, i.e., takes advanta...

I struggle on a daily basis when it comes to find simplicity of thoughts among conversations. Man of each age, literate or sub-literate, lively or unmoving appears to enjoy an art of vacillation. And I am struggling hard to avoid being part of the same machinery. My only wish is, God please give me enough patience, courage, peace and energy to work hard that I keep being logical for rest of my life. Sleeping now, will be blogging more and more in coming days.

There are Economic models which can be used to ascertain Society's Economic state.There are aspects of Computational Sociology which can model how Society behaves. Basically these are computational aspects, involving one or other kind of Mathematical models. But irrespective of absence or presence of these methodologies, Human Beings have this uncanny habit to guess - "Are the moral values of Society changing", "Whether a given religious setup is better than other". Man has the habit to derive and predict. But these all aspects begin with a prologue. Creation of the prologue is in itself has deductive and inductive nature. But then it is more or less an area of crude experiments, it is like unprocessed resource. This is the area of creativity. Now are there methodologies to create prologue is a question which is on the common boundaries of Psychology, Philosophy and Logic. This is narrow area of a river where the current is high. And as there can be Psycholo...

These days I almost sleep by 2 to 3 AM. Some days it even went to 4 AM. I wonder and people may not believe, I was the same person who used to protest in hostel in his first year, to be allowed to turn of the light by 10 PM! Part of this overstretching may be attributed to Internet. Not sure, how many others have slipped into same kind of habit. Nevertheless Internet is a kind and knowledgeable friend. And though I could see that it might make people more non socializing, mechanical or may infuse monotonicity in behavior; but it is boon for those are forced (say directly or indirectly) to remain reclusive. Kind of survival factor. Any ways, I will start writing more and more on this blog. Will restart the "Day #" series. And will try to put what happened on the day. Sort of Diary. Raj Kapoor's birthday was on 2nd June. I had the chance to go through his interview on BBC . I must say he overall presents a great personality, his Voice is unhurried, calm I was quite at...

What I am not sure of ? I am not sure of what one human being wants from other one. I am confused. I do not know how much importance is given to the virtue of being humble, hardworking, honest and hearing. The mentioned attributes will give you respect, pseudo importance, will put you at some distance from people; yet when you will like to mingle with people it becomes a tougher task. A new question: how to keep yourself serene?

I am hearing that cold is quite aggravating these days; especially in northern India. However there may not be too many days left for this cold season. During these days because of seasonal changes people are observing health related issues. Quite succinctly, I too have been a victim of the swings in Season. But this is about season which now man has capabilities to measure; what remains indeterminate and enigmatic is the behavior of Human Beings. Why Man is fallible and fragile is not just because of he has been made so; one of the root causes is, he feels people should be apologetic about their deeds, though his own actions misses virtues of being apologetic.  Part of this lies in the way people are taught about values these days and another part of this lies in lack of readiness to engage with himself. Sense of reading a book and sense of learning it are two senses. Added to it is the fact that to analyze actions Man must make sure...

Happy New Year 2012 !!! Wishing you all the success, good health and good life in 2012. I am now in Bangalore, where I was in Hyderabad earlier (for last three and half years). My memories of Hyderabad is quite rich, and I will like to write more on it. It took lot of effort to adjust to new home. Still some problems are remaining. I should not complain more, for I am finding this home quite relaxing. First person to visit my home was my Uncle (elder to my father) and aunty. I do not know how much to feel emotional about this visit. For when a machine does a good work, one can say that machine is  emotional or honest about its duties; however seldom such assertions are made. Emotion is a word very much tied to expressive (or impressions which are observed) nature of people. I chosen to not to be emotional, rather kept my thinking on and tried to connect thoughts, discretely. Will express what I thought someday. I am yet immature to express precisely. Man have no choice b...

I am reading Desmond Lee's translation of Plato -- The Republic. And I met this line, somewhat tricky for me: "Plato sought a cure for the ills of society not in Politics but in philosophy, and arrived at his fundamental and lasting conviction that those ills would never cease until philosophers becomes rulers or rulers philosophers ." It appears from the flow of above line, that Plato's idea of " Philosopher King " is not just an abstraction. However having a Philosopher King does not seem to be a very strange or very particular idea. For it makes sense for the Guardian of a house to observe housemates and rule an appropriate way. Same applies to those who rule society or country. The bigger problem is what should be the way King should learn; and how he deduces or sets up analogy among varied observations. Notion of Philosopher King appears having relation to some axiomatic, deductive and decision making system. If we forget religious concoction, th...

I  earlier planned to direct this blog more along the lines of Philosophy. At this time  I am only aware of Mathematical Logic and its Philosophical context. I thus do not have formal training in the areas of Philosophy. Nevertheless Philosophy as well as Psychology are chief ingredient behind a cohesive society or country. It will be delayed if I do not study this area. I am thus going to study Pages of Kant, Plato, Radhakrishnan, Hegel and many more. While doing so, I will keep logical perspective (the way one keeps it in Mathematics), and I will initially note down terms involved in it. Content of these notes will be always subject to verification.

I inquired again, what space Sin and Virtue creates.  The novel (and movie based on it) Chitralekha came to my cognition. A syndrome gets created when one confuses the domain of Sin and Virtue he is aligned to. True conceptualization of context or circumstance demands analytical approach but people, as always, are not connected, within themselves, at all level. I made good Brinjal-Potato sabji (vegetable) yesterday; and I left nothing in the container. I was on Twitter for a long time yesterday, and I wondered by what was trending on it in India. Conservatism in India is not by some rule, it is by comfort. You will be confused if you study religious or conservative aspects of people. For people trick notion of their moralistic or religious values. Actually it always make sense to identify the threads of comfort for a human being. And "comfort" could be aligned to "virtues" one seeks for; at the same time Man identifies many a notion/perspective as "Sin"...

After my post of "Day 1", it became something like a week when I am now writing this post. People tell you that in your life you should have aim, and then what I usually do is to envisage life of people around me, life of my relatives, life of my friends. Majority of the people are in the business of making money, stocks, defeating points of fellow people or in the business of procuring or creating a family. I then miss the enjoyment that one has during his childhood, curiosity to see new things, energy to keep playing and the ability to remain at ease. When people believe you they will put you on stress test; when people do not believe you they will put you stressed. But people, I am sure, do not know the reason behind their attitude to earn money; their attitude to be greedy and selfish for their family or loved ones; their attitude to get rid of people.What one should do in such a case ? I always thought that reading books and developing my skill set is what gives me peac...

Yesterday I forgot (read slipped) to write post. I was quite aware that I have to write a new post, poor me, I could not. It happens, don't feel so bad ! :) Yesterday, I went through interview of Thomas Friedman by Sonia Singh of NDTV.  Check for the conversation at 3:46 with Mani Shanakar Aiyer. I will not denigrate Mani's questionnaire, but what was recommendable is Friedman's optimism about India. It is important that people should become more confident about their future. Not only for India, but for entire Globe. I cooked Khichdi yesterday, plain old type khichdi. I put lot of vegetables in it and yes it came good. I was very hungry, ate good enough, and like day before yesterday, I slept in day time. I rarely sleep in morning, may not have slept more than fifty times in my entire life, but I slept again. And actually I dislike sleeping in day time, though this time I felt fresh after I woke up. My aunt, my mother's sister, Mausi , always made sure i...

Day 0 is not my Birth Day. It is just another Sunday, my mother is at my home town and here at Hyderabad I am alone in a 3BHK flat. The place where I am ( Janapriya, Hyderguda, Attapur) there is only one restaurant closer by - Hyderabad House. And there food is pretty bad. They call their food spicy; but in reality it appears like you have crushed red brick and decorated it with Chilly. The Naan will require efforts of both hands to tear them apart. Terrible. Mother went to home town on 5th October, and then since I ordered Hyderabad House just two times. But then I cooked good enough Potato + Soybean + Green Peas  curry yesterday night , and it came out good. So good that it inspired me to try making Roti ( chapati ) again.  This time I was careful to spray water over Wheat flour dough. I guess now I have learned art of making dough. Bit practice and I will be a chef. The Rotis this time came approximately circular, they were not triangular or semi-circular or som...

I am feeling too bored today. I am not lonely, rather I do not feel there is much to talk to people. In past people were not available who could answer my questions. In present, my questions have matured so much, I am afraid I will get any answer. When you talk to people, you get topics and then you write. And I am feeling so bored, and so disenchanted with topics of one or other choice, that I do not know what to write and what not to write. To help this blog survive, I think it better to write my day to day story - the boring stories which even I may not like. Read the forthcoming posts with all mental care.