karmany evadhikaras te
ma phalesu kadachana
ma karma-phala-hetur bhur
ma te sango ’stv akarmani (Bhagwat Gita: Chapter Two verse 47)
Notwithstanding above preaching from Bhagvad Gita, all our actions have always been driven by result and reward. In fact, the deviation from Krishna's above preaching differentiate living from non-living. The sun, the moon, the earth , rivers, mountains etc. are totally bound to their job without any interest in result of their action and hence their movements are absolutely predictable. On the contrary, living beings are totally result oriented in their actions, thus highly unpredictable in their movements and behaviour.
Yearning for more and a changing definition of result and reward, keep them confused in decision making and leave everybody guessing of their actions in pursuit for reward. Many a times this pursuit takes them beyond the realm of rationality. Yet, the complex human mind finds trends and predictability in weird affairs of the living, specially human. Driven by the reward a man could get by knowing the future course of action of other people, man has been striving hard to develop an algorithm for POMDP policy computation. A mathematical equation to describe complexities of human mind. Sounds exciting! The algorithm is being used to instil life in robots.
But more motivated are the financial institutions, who are desperate to look into the psyche of investors so that they could invest in futures ahead of the mob and make tons of money.
Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away, know when to run.
With 'karma' closely following reward, we are heading into greater chaos. Everyday, stuck in traffic jams, I wish, if someone could write an algorithm to wriggle out of the mess, which is not half as complex as human mind. Yet, the day begins with a bigger jam and the traffic policeman at the crossing, appears to be doing greater duty to the mankind than all those great people, who wrote history and thus this murky future for us.
