Redefining Consciousness

Consciousness is, questioning the sensory information and its obvious interpretation and subsequent response generated by the brain. 

Consciousness manifests when one walks out of survival mode and merges and pulsates with the whole creation as one.

In quantum words, consciousness is when particle loses its identity and behaves as a wave.

INDEPENDENCE DAY 75 - INDIA

Years of slavery turned out to be a boon for India. People of extreme diversity from North to South and East to West of the peninsula, languishing under the extreme bondage and leading a subservient existence, united in their fight against the British rule. And when these people got independence, they chose to live together under a secular federal republic of India, barring unfortunate partition of Pakistan as an Islamic state. 

If you are looking for people, a whole range of variety viz. religions, languages, ethnicities, colour n races, customs,  social structure etc is available in India.  To keep these people of varied types and interests bound by a single constitution for 75 years is by no means a small feat. All credit goes to the early leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, JLN, Sardar Patel etc who laid the foundation of the secular and democratic republic of India. And specially, we are indebted to Baba Saheb Ambedkar for knitting the most diversity friendly constitution for the people of India. Last but not the least, kudos to the people of India for sticking together despite all their differences. 

To appreciate this great day, we must understand what freedom is. For an individual, freedom means to have greater options, choices and opportunities in day to day life. How this freedom is affected by the degree of diversity in a human society could be illustrated by the following examples. On a canvas, a painting with specific designs and patterns restricts the freedom of the brush. In a rose garden a merrigold is like an alien. While in the wild all flowers irrespective of their colours, sizes or shapes are a welcome sight. 

The fact Individual freedom is a direct function of human diversity can be explained by the laws of thermodynamics. As per the second law, increasing entropy (disorder) gives rise to greater molecular/atomic freedom and leads the system to equilibrium or greater stability. On the time arrow the entropy is bound to increase progressively. Now, in manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics if we extend the paradigm and replace entropy with diversity and atoms/molecules with people, we may deduce "more diverse human societies (or nations) which offer greater freedom of choices to people are more stable and peaceful." 

However, life on earth is governed by irrationality.  With recent call for Hindu rashtra, we have chosen to walk backward on the arrow of time which will destabilise the nation and lead to its disintegration and decay. 

Wish the sensibility prevails, and India as showcase of the human diversity.

Covid19 – Fiction and Facts

HNY 2020 started with panic. Social media was abuzz with macabre videos of people gasping for breath and dropping dead like fish on the roads of Wuhan, China. Soon the news was confirmed by the respectable and responsible media around the world. Arrival of the Novel Corona Virus, SARS CoV-2, was announced. The world trembled with the sense of déjà vu of Spanish flu of 1919.  Initially slow but later an over-reaction sent the world reeling into strict quarantine followed by a total lock down and mass hysteria. 

Living in the age of information diarrhea (often lies) has its own woes. Billions of people connected on various social media platforms got spooked by the news. Heads of states sprang into action bringing down all airlines and closing their doors and sealing their borders  for the foreign travels in an animated move. Some countries went on to impose total lock down instantaneously causing unprecedented inconvenience and harassment to local public and loss of employment and businesses. Media was adding fuel to the fire by its 24X7 (mis)reporting every silly aspect of the pandemic. Social media was going berserk with quackery. Most of the deaths can be attributed to the remedies prescribed on whatsapp and facebook. 

People scrambled for Oxygen cylinders, remdesivir, Cortisones, antibiotics, antivirals & immunity boosters, Oximeters, steamers or whatever treatment was prescribed by the whatsapp institute of medical sciences. Hospitals were flooded. So were the graveyards. The frenzy and fear were unprecedented.  

After two and half year of the onset of the Covid19 pandemic, when there is not even a murmur of the virus on the social media and business is as usual around the world, I lookback in the history to read about the previous episodes of the pandemics. 

Eversince the outbreak of Spanish flu in 1918, medical biologists have been seriously working on ways to control any pandemic from happening. But despite their best efforts the impish viruses have struck at regular intervals with impunity and crossed borders viz, 

• Asiatic Flu (H2N2) in 1957, 
• Hongkong Flu (H3N2) in 1968, 
• SARS COV1 in 2003, 
• Swine Flu (H1N1) in 2009 
• MERS-CoV2 in 2012.

But in the past no one panicked. People died in plenty but there was no commotion, no lock downs or loss of jobs. Business went on as usual despite the heightened mortality. In all the cases the virus shook hands with humanity after one or two years of hostility without any invasive intervention.

I wondered if the overload of information and technology has helped us in our fight against the Covid19 pandemic this time. To find an answer I dived into the Google sea(rch). 

I am not a biologist but I do have elementary knowledge of bio sciences. And what I found was as follows:

Every animal species hosts unique viruses that have specifically adapted to infect it. Over time, some of these have jumped to humans – these are known as ‘zoonotic’ viruses. When viruses jump to a new host, the process is called zoonosis. Because every virus has evolved to target a particular species, it’s rare for a virus to be able to jump to another species. Whenever this does happen, it’s by chance, and it has devastatingly morbid consequences. 

In comparison, malwares (computer Viruses) which are designed for Windows OS won’t work on Linux OS or a Windows virus won't harm devices running on Android or Mackintosh systems. Sounds logical as they are designed to screw the OS DNA.

Out of all the  viruses corona & Avion Influenza viruses are highly adaptable due to their rapid mutations. This is probably due to this property, Zoonosis is observed in these viruses.  

Avian influenza (HxNy) viruses are classified by a combination of two groups of proteins: hemagglutinin or “H” proteins, of which there are 16 (H1 to H16), and neuraminidase or “N” proteins, of which there are nine (N1 to N9). Many different combinations of “H” and “N” proteins are possible. Each combination is considered a different subtype and can be further broken down into different strains.  

On the other hand Corona virus is a common cold virus. SARS COV1 & 2 were crossovers from other species having a single-stranded positive-sense RNA.

These viruses have persisted from the time of origin of life on earth. It is their ability to mutate, adapt and fox the host’s immune system which make the host cough and sneeze and fall sick season after seasons. Zoonosis is once in blue moon event when the zoonotic mutants crossover to the new host species and the events take an ugly turn leading to morbid  pandemics. But at the same time these killer mutations don’t last long and the kinder variants follow as the parasite knows well it can’t thrive on the dead bodies.

However, what we saw in response to the spread of virus was a gross over-reaction, which caused more harm than good to the mankind. This overzealous game plan had been incubating in the researchers mind for a very long time. Start of this century, the researchers had their first go at it with SARS CoV1 in 2003. The story was hatched about how the virus was produced in a Chinese Lab and transported to HongKong and subsequently to Canada. After SARS CoV1 failed to takeoff, in 2009, Swine Flu was declared as a pandemic which was widely publicized by media. The idea was also promulgated by The Contagion, a movie released in 2011.

However, in January 2010, Wolfgang Wodarg, a German deputy who trained as a physician and chaired the health committee at the Council of Europe, claimed that major firms had organized a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare a "false pandemic" to sell vaccines. Wodarg said the WHO's "false pandemic" flu campaign is "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century. 

In June 2010, Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the BMJ, published an editorial which criticised the WHO, saying that an investigation had disclosed that some of the experts advising WHO on the pandemic had financial ties with drug companies which were producing antivirals and vaccines. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, replied stating, that WHO's decisions to raise the level of pandemic alert were based on clearly defined virological and epidemiological criteria. "It is hard to bend these criteria, no matter what the motive".

After 2009, the resurgence of non-respiratory virus epidemics, including Zika, Chikungunya and Ebola raised extreme concern for human public health authorities and hit the news headlines. These fetal viruses couldn't kick start a pandemics because they were far less contagious. But finally the moment of truth arrived in March, 2020. BINGO!! the alarm went off and the social media assisted Covid19 scare gripped the world. Finally Corona virus vaccines were quickly rolled out. They were made mandatory by the governments worldover in what was to become the biggest immunization program. By end of 2021, the cases and mortality dropped considerably and world resumed laissez-faire. 

The two years of chaos have left me with the following observations and doubts:

1. Covid19 deaths were mainly in the second phase of the disease ie 7-10 days after the symptoms when the virus entered into the lungs and kicked the auto immune response in host, with uncontrolled levels of cytokines released in so-called storms that killed the patient. This information was released much later after the world went on to consume Chloroquine, zinc, antibiotics, antivirals, remdesivir, immunity boosters etc. 
2. More deaths occurred in stage 3 due to black fungus formed in the lungs.
3. Many people died due to wrong line of treatment or by fear itself. 
4. My biggest doubt is on the efficacy of the Covid19 Vaccines. With Corona virus mutating so quickly, its hard to keep up with it. Considering the vaccine takes six to eight months to roll out after the first outbreak, its effectiveness on the persisting variants is highly doubtful.
5. There were many cases where people died of the disease after taking single and double doses of the vaccine. The exceptions were one too many to doubt the efficacy of it.
6. After two and half years, the mortality and morbidity due to covid19 has reduced considerably but the virus is still thriving in its benign forms as was the case in all of the previous episodes of pandemics. So how on earth could we credit the vaccine for the control of this flu related pandemic.
7. These pandemics are triggered by the zoonotic viruses. To stop the zoonosis, animal farming is looking up for reforms. Or the practice must be stopped. Staying vegan is an option.
8. Human population needs to be controlled in more humane ways.
9. On a positive note, social distancing, use of face masks and sanitization proved to be the best policies. The countries where people practiced these three rules with strictness did better than those which did not.
10. We learnt to use mobile phones to track the infection down and control it. 
11. Clusters based lockdown was more prudent approach than blanket lockdown.
12. We learnt to work from home (WFH). It has become a culture now. 
13. It showed if there is a will, tough decisions can be taken by the governments sacrificing the economic interests in larger interest of mankind.
14. Humans are today capable of moving logistics at mega scale at short notice.
15. While we saw the greedy side of the humanity, on the other side was helping approach of many who assisted others going out of the way.

Finally, we may have seen off the Covid19 pandemic but the social media pandemic persists. It’s a queer place out there with plenty of dumb forwarders and followers. They have no time to think or question. But I hope, like these highly adaptive viruses, we shall evolve and overcome someday. 

Yes, Sir - No, Sir - All Bloody Fools

Imagine being out on a space travel in a spaceship and you fall out of the ship. You are floating all alone in the starless space, OR, imagine being in the medieval era thrown in a dark dungeon by the king’s men. In both the cases the time would cease to exist for you, let alone the senses. 

Human mind is programmed to perceive and process only the relativity, an irrationality in absolute sense. It takes at least two to tango. Adam & Eve did it for us and from the irrationality of the two, we are eight billion plus today. Two are company, few dozens a society and billions of us are definitely contributing to a chaos. Nonstop cacophony on the social media is a proof of this chaos.  

To date, human mind is considered to be the best processor of information. Considering the compactness of this clever machine, its not difficult to guess that it deploys many a clever hacks and tricks in order to construct the world around us by processing the data it receives in bits and pieces through our highly limited sensory peripheral devices.

The Israeli-American psychologist and economist, Kahneman, introduces two engines that animate the mind:

• “System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. It controls the reflexes and our day to day routines and cognitive tasks, such as identify threats, navigate our way home on familiar roads, recognize friends, and so on.

• System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations and philosophical thinking. It helps us to analyse and solve complex problems, do math exercises & crossword puzzles, and so on. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.”

System 1 is an intuitive system that cannot be turned off; while System 2 is like putting brain in higher gear which takes effort and energy to engage. So, the brain tends to take shortcuts at the behest of System 1 and what follows is a saga of fallacies.

As we grow old, we strengthen our bents and biases by selectively savouring the information on the social media fish market served in the form of saucy fiction (Gossips or propaganda is the right expression). Out of prejudice we keep jumping onto conclusions and form new opinions consuming selective story after stories. A feeling of personal enlightenment hits us as our newfound knowledge fits into the larger story that romantically and naively endorses our age old beliefs and prejudices and thus the sense of righteousness.

This behavioral sickness of developing preferences, bents and beliefs without much thinking puts us at the risk of manipulation. By exploiting these weaknesses in the way our brains process information, social media platforms, governments, media in general, and populist leaders, are able to exercise a form of collective mind control. Most of the time we don’t understand what’s really going on. We think we’re in the driver’s seat and steering the course of our lives and nation, but we are wrong. We are the victims of illusion and vicious agenda of few.

But we aren’t helpless. We can learn to behave responsibly. Instead of being impulsive or prejudiced we can take time to dive into the vast sea of information out there on internet. Google it to read the other side of an argument or narrative.  Integrate other points of view with other perspectives without being judgemental or prejudiced.

Prompted by our CPU 1, it’s natural for us to compact the complexity of our rationality into crisp commoditized ideas. But we must remember our rationality is infact the irrationality of relativity. It is impossible for us to define rationality of an event from a single frame while it is impacting billions of other frames. There will be multiple sides of a story.

What to do in this case? Gather information from various sources (not selective); logically analyze arguments; try to avoid jumping to conclusions; don’t become a part of the fiction. 

“Question everything, learn something, answer nothing.” - Greek playwright Euripides.

P.S.: Reading about rationality and cognitive biases, after all, does not free anybody from their nasty epistemological pitfalls. So, lage rho Munna bhai.

Passion, Fear and Greed – the 3 Propellants of Life on Earth

 “Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.” ― Albert Einstein

I am a staunch non-believer but I am open to all faiths and beliefs because our world is full of irrationalities which logic can’t explain yet. So please allow me to bring in the invisible and irrational character, we call the creator or God, in my assessment of the sapiens history and the world beyond.

I think what made us humans so special was, despite our bodily design we were programmed to walk on twos, a highly unstable and unnatural stance. It takes almost one year for human baby to learn to walk after many falls and with lot of difficulty. The biologists argue that long time taken by the human child to walk is because in comparison to other animals the human child is prematurely delivered and most of its brain is developed later. But the fact is, the poor human kid could have never learnt to walk on twos inside the womb inspite of having a full blown brain. Standing on twos for human baby is learning by hit and trial process and not by instinct. His first few steps on earth pave the way for cognitive learning later on in life. Once up and running, the human child goes on to acquire other cognitive skills over the years through hit and trial experiences. These exercises make humans inclined to experimenting with options without being averse to failures giving them a clear c edge over the other species.

Development of speech and language gave sapiens the advantage of sharing feelings, thoughts and information efficiently. Their ability to bullshit nonstop drove the last nail in the coffin of evolution (of life) on earth. Consequently, imagination, abstract thinking and language capabilities enabled sapiens to create fictions and imagined realities. By believing in the common myths and so-called “intersubjective realities” like God, religion, money, governments, law etc, large numbers of strangers could establish trust with each other and conform to the same set of rules and standards.  And therefore cooperate successfully together. This kind of social cooperation, both flexibly and in large scale, differentiates Homo sapiens from other animals and explains the rise of Homo sapiens to the top of the food chain.

While the life on earth has always been driven by greed and fear, humans recruited stupidity too when they stood their ground on irrationality of twos. These intersubjective fictions(realities or stupidities) helped humans to find common grounds to unite and work collectively to solve various problems in quest for a better living.

On the other hand falling to intersubjective tales weaken sapiens as individuals. Imagine persuading a chimp to blow itself with a bomb in return for it getting 72 bananas in heaven after its death. No way!! Are you kidding?, says the Chimp. But sapiens do it for 72 hoors. Sadly!

We, as children, grow up believing in stories and fiction. And the passion these stories incite in us has helped us in achieving the impossible. The science came in our lives as a tool to understand and tame the physical realities (the nature) around us. Now it is helping us in realizing the fiction we grew believing in.  Also, It is helping us realize intangible dreams so dear to us.

Fear and greed both override each other and keep living beings in checks and balances to give them the best chance of survival. It’s the passion or the stupidity which drives sapiens overboard in their quest. Most of the time it works against the individuals but once in a while individual achievements help the whole community to cruise forward collectively, at times LEAP.

If we look back, we have come a long way. Today, we are the undisputable kings of the ecosystem. But looking forward, undoubtedly, driven by passion and greed, we have screwed the entire ecosystem and our survival looks imperilled. Today our emotions are resonating with those of Emperor Ashoka after the Kalinga War. What for? Where to??

God, the creator, the invisible irrational SOB, who makes us fight with each other in order to save self, BLESS US ALL!  

~ Inspired by Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens

Human Population - "Optimum Carrying Capacity"

Neo-Malthusians wud luv to believe the moment of truth has arrived with WW-III staring at us.

There have been several deja vu for them in blood-soaked human history, which they profess optimized the human carrying capacity vis a vis other resources on our lonely planet. Yet, the human population has no looking back. It’s been cruising almost exponentially proving fears of Malthusians unfounded and baseless. Neo Malthusians heavily discount the value of humans as the prime resource on earth. 

Anti-Malthusians factor in the capability of human mind to invent means and technologies to manipulate and exploit the existing or new resources to full-fill needs of the growing population at even greater rate. 

Malthusians invent dooms day in every new technology. Like they fear, AI & Machine Learning will render the slower processing machines called human minds redundant and obsolete in time. In their propaganda against the intelligent machines, they willfully scuttle the role of imagination and ideas, the most important and exclusive faculty of human brain.

Malthusian’s is not a theory but a basic instinct of all living things. Division of resources sucks. We all wanna have the Lion’s share. Siblings if too many, are threat to each other - not by rationale but by instinct. Every day we see mortals fighting over plenty and perishing.

Driven by the instinct, the ones in power use the technology for their own benefit to create behemoths which are used by the ruling class to manipulate and keep the human herd controlled and systems of production, consumption and distribution of goods limited by brutally greedy formulas of “optimum carrying capacities” bringing humanity into greater states of enslavement and misery.

Had the technology been allowed Laissez-faire, all would have flourished and eventually stopped breeding out of frustration in a responsible manner bringing human population to “optimum carrying capacity” in more humane way than a war. 

RELIGION AND GOD

Probably, once the nomadic hunter-gatherers settled down to agro lifestyle, humans found enough time to THINK beyond their carnal desires. AGROMAN, now away from the wild, needed to do something out of the woods (box). He needed to do something different and NOT just work for food, eat or sleep.    

Man, highly limited by information but intensely focused at this transitional stage, started thinking. Gradually, the thinking breached the barriers of physics and ushered him into metaphysical world, where he was introduced to personal EGO and IDENTITY.  Agriculture demanded the people remained together strictly bound by a common code of conduct with clearly defined and delegated scope of work. The thinking types acknowledged the fact for their own survival and salvation.

Equipped with little or no information, metaphysical world was as scary as the uncertain physical world for the travellers. The petrified voyagers on the metaphysical road, desperately looking for help, visualised an invisible man on whose back they were to piggy ride through the rest of their journey.

This omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent but not to be seen figure was served to the ignorant subjects of the physical world. Theirs was just to have fear and faith in it.  Fear, because it was watching them all the time and ready to punish them at the slightest infringement. Faith, because it was there to reward them for the deeds as inscribed for them by THEM.

The metaphysical, spiritual, mystic thinkers soon overpowered the agricultural type ignorant AAM ADAMI. The foundation of religion was laid with the invisible man as the whole soul owner of it. The foundation had esteemed trustees who promoted and sold the concept of fear laced in faith.

The concept and foundation worked perfectly. In an ever evolving human society, with more and more information and knowledge flooding in, the foundation of ignorance, fear and faith withstands.

Long live the lord!!

Birdie Num Num

 Another cloudy morning in Silver Oaks.  As usual, I was out at our outdoor badminton courts for a game or two of "birdie num num". Nobody was there today since the gang leader (Dr. Saab) had moved to the enclosed greener pasture in Phase 2 along with the entire baddies troop.

The solitude gave me an opportunity to observe the gang of monkeys on the adjacent shops-top. There were three adult monkeys and few infants. There was this big boss monkey lying carelessly on its back, while the Mada female on duty was carefully & lovingly(?) picking ticks and lice from his fur. Another male adult was sitting with its back on the couple, sulking and scratching his own bum. There were few infant monkeys jumping here and there playing with each other carelessly. These babies were prob’ly born out of Maafi or the reward the big boss delivered to her.

In this small troop of monkeys, I saw the microcosm of the human society.  People say human society has changed, but looking at the monkeys in the backdrop, I found nothing has changed fundamentally. I could clearly see the Ape Hangover in us.

It’s a pity, shaving blade is just skin deep. Deep inside we remain a jerk.

3 Farm Reform Bills in Nutshell

A cattle farm was in bad shape in dire want of proper maintenance.

- There was not enough fodder or water for the cattle to feed, as a result the animals were malnourished.  

- It was never broomed, washed or cleaned, so it was a very dirty and stinking place. As a result many animals were sick.

- There was no proper fencing, and as a result predators picked up poor animals at will.

As a result of no upkeep or security, the productivity of cattle was too little and their mortality rate was too high. To improve the farm conditions, the owner of the farm fired the existing manager and employed another manager. The new manager outsourced the services of a committee of experts called A-niti A-yogya to draw up a detailed reform report to uplift the condition and productivity of the cattle.

After a few years of study, the committee gave a detailed reforms report to the manager. The manager said, "BINGO"!!! and implemented the reforms as suggested in the report.

He demolished the farm and fence completely and released the cattle to fend and feed for themselves in the wild grasslands as the detailed reform report suggested.

Jo Bole So Nihal!!!

 

 

Digital Reality

We live in a digital world where present is the tiny gap between the two bits and it plays no role in the progression of this grand illusion called the universe. Rather, realisation of present shatters the illusion instantaneously.

Meditation Explained

Basically meditation is to withdraw from the outside world and have a peek within self. A peek within means shutting down of the thought process and action center which get their inputs from the worldly physical cheat senses. These sensory inputs are processed by our brain to construct a personal or collective faith in the illusion around us, which then prompts us to physically execute the scripted commands of the supreme master.  Its like non-co-operation movement which ultimately leads to freedom. Aazadi of  living the moment!

In advance stages, the meditation is to insulate the sensory inputs from the brain and at the same time shut down the proxy server which auto kick starts on the stored information. Its kinda reboot with all sensory ports disconnected and to stay connected with the pure consciousness. If successfully achieved, it will give you a feeling of timelessness or stillness.

To start with, it is not possible to isolate mind from senses. So we start by concentrating on breath alone while we are fully connected to the outside world through other senses. The idea is to spurn the overtures to enticement by the senses using brain power and remain in a passive state. The idea is to not to react to the outside temptations and noises. Push everything to the background. Initially you would be disturbed by the activity in your backyard. But slowly and gradually the background noises will disturb you less and less as you choose to be indifferent to them and get used to them as a passive observer. The result would be more peace inside irrespective of the noises outside.

So we finally arrive at : Meditation is awareness without indulgence.

In wider ambit, following physical activities can also be classified as meditation:

1. a student studying during festival season

2. a player practicing while his friends partying

3. a man quietly and calmly listening to his wife's rants

4.  an audience calmly enduring a boring lecture

In broader sense, Meditation is willful ignorance of favourable or unfavourable sensual triggers which try to breach peaceful staus quo or thwart your tryst with consciousness. In any case it imparts you peace of mind and helps you to accomplish your goal.

Difference between Sleep and Meditation

Sleep is purely a routine involuntary physical body maintenance process where mind rests in a subconscious state, while Meditation is controlled throttling of the streaming sense bytes in order to interact with the consciousness. Mind is in highly conscious state.

Consciousness – Have it Neat

PERFECTION IS GOD. CONSCIOUSNESS PROMPTS LIFE TO ACHIEVE PERFECTION IN A RESTRICTED PLURAL SET UP.

Life is a journey from relativity to singularity or from imperfection to perfection. Life is change and the change is possible in relativity domain alone. The relativity domain is encompassed by Singularity or perfect consciousness.

The progression of life has been evolutionary i.e. from lower level of consciousness to the higher levels. Consciousness is singular descending from the singularity. All forms of life derive consciousness from this single source on time sharing basis. Each one of us possesses a different level of consciousness depending upon our genetic evolution, species, inheritance, environment, location, ability, company, upbringing & personal efforts.

There are different levels of manifestations of consciousness viz.

BASIC LEVELS – Sensory & Survival

Awareness - sensory consciousness

Lowers-Middle Level –Basic instincts and Survival

Feeling & experience

Basic perception

Emotions

Pleasure and pain

Instinct,  

Middle Levels – Competition

Knowledge,

Learning

Intelligence,

Will,

Attitude and behavior,

Happiness and sadness

Ego

ADVANCED LEVELS- Striving for Excellence

Intelligence,
Learning

Persistence  

Foresight & intuition

Bliss,

Think of a Wi-Fi; mobile phones, laptops, computer or TV sets, they all are receiving their signal from the air and producing the output according to the data they lock on to as per their design and wish of their operator. Without that signal of consciousness they are as good as dead.  

Similarly, all the living organisms are communicating with consciousness from a common source. The basic objective information received and perceived thru senses is same in all organisms. e.g. whosoever with eyes have X in their visible range will see X and whosoever with ears have him within hearing range will hear him and whosoever with nose within smelling range of him will be able to sniff his presence in the vicinity. Those with only touch sensors will be able to feel him upon touch and so on. The basic information transferred will be identical to all in the form of basic awareness. However, retaining that information is again a relative ability.

Awareness or observation would then induce a feeling of pain or pleasure or indifference. The perception of the observation then prompts a reaction within the observer, which primarily would be in accordance to the basic instincts ingrained and propelled by the genes of the species. The living being is very predictable and its interaction with the consciousness is very limited to low levels till this hardware stage. e.g. a cow sees grass and feels hungry and eats it and cuds on merrily. Not much of consciousness is at play.

Then a Lion sees a cow herd. He too feels hungry and wants to eat. Lion watches the herd carefully hiding behind the grass and bushes. Selects a weak target and then slowly and stealthily moves close to the target and then runs after it. The target runs too to save self and there is a skillful chase after which the target escapes leaving the lion hungry and dejected. A higher level of consciousness manifested here though still a product of the basic instinct.

The fundamental rule of life is to survive and reproduce. Each instance of life is designed to be selfish in order to preserve the instance till its natural expiry; also, during the currency of the instance it is expected to produce its own replicas (reproduction) to promote its species and class at augmented level of consciousness. The instance receives the information to survive by the way of genes from its parents then remains under their protection till its ready to acquire its own, which in turn are passed on to its own offspring. That is called Evolution of life.

Each instance of life comes equipped with upto date hardware and further adds on new software using the consciousness to deal with the new events. We call it learning. Life interacts with consciousness only while learning. Normal routine life can be lived in sub-conscious state. Thus learning is imperative for manifestation of consciousness, hence the Evolution. 

Evolution means higher level of competition to achieve greater functionality and give rise to an instance which is more complex and better equipped to understand the nature and survive. Our universe is limited by time and space and life comes packed in a minuscule size body with very limited reach.

It’s the consciousness which prompts life to seek and breach limits of the physical world through learning as if consciousness is trying to discover itself through life or trying to liberate a piece of it captured in the relative zone. It’s a bid to strive for perfection in an imperfect world.

Players and sport persons practices for hour, honing skills to win and excel. Scientists & scholars work on their projects day and night to discover unknown, artists passionately toil to deliver master pieces. And sadhus & monks meditate to master their senses. All of them constantly try to manifest consciousness in its highest form in our limited world. The uphill journey to top requires one to come out of the personal comfort zone and enslave the senses. One has to endure extreme physical pain with undeterred persistence and will in order to achieve the top spot.

In very high states of consciousness, time dilates and space shrinks, making it possible for the piddle fart living being to grow and become at par with the vast universe. e.g. at Roger Federer’s consciousness level at tennis court, the court shrinks and the zipping ball appears to be moving at snail pace.  

However, the real limitations are not posed by space and time but by our own senses and ego. The senses act like gravity and Ego acts like mass in our flight to singularity. At low levels of consciousness, senses exert maximum force like gravity on a stationary rocket. Life is in full control of the senses. Life is at rest or in sub-conscious state in such a condition. But as the life starts negating senses with sheer will, the rocket takes off heading towards singularity. But as the life gathers momentum into the consciousness, EGO, the mass, starts bloating. By the time one reaches the relative top, it becomes hard for one to sustain any further and only way then is down. For one to attain perfection and manifest top level consciousness, it is imperative that one must keep offloading ego on the way to top and finally merge with singularity jettisoning I in whole and uniting with pure consciousness in a state of bliss... From being just a particle, to be in a whole wave harmony! Hey, you observer, buzz off.

References:

"He who experiences the unity of life sees his own self in all beings, and all being in his own self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye." ~ Buddha

"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as a derivative of consciousness." ~ Max Planck

“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”~  Erwin Schrödinger

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and his feelings as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness." ~ Albert Einstein

"The whole world is a cyclone. But once you have found the center, the cyclone disappears. This nothingness is the ultimate peak of consciousness." ~ Rajneesh

“I don't believe that consciousness is generated by the brain. I believe that the brain is more of a receiver of consciousness.” ~  Graham Hancock

Evolution - raised level of consciousness

“You are here to evolve and make your consciousness high. You are here to dance, sing and celebrate life. You are here to help others to make their life happy. We are here not to compete, but to learn, evolve and excel. We are not here to make divisions in the name of prophets and religions. We are here to encompass the world with love and light.” ~  Amit Ray, Nonviolence: The Transforming Power

“We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.” ~  Brian Cox

“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.” ~  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

“Consciousness is only possible through change; change is only possible through movement.” ~  Aldous Huxley, the Art of Seeing

"The human race is a herd. Here we are, unique, eternal aspects of consciousness with infinity of potential, and we have allowed ourselves to become an unthinking, unquestioning blob of conformity and uniformity. A herd. Once we concede to the herd mentality, we can be controlled and directed by a tiny few. And we are." ~  David Icke

"Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind. Consciousness manifests itself in several ways: intelligence, knowledge, intuition, bliss, perception, emotions, will, attitude and behaviour, awareness of pleasure and pain. Life and consciousness are coextensive. Wherever there is life, there is consciousness and vice versa. But there are degrees of explicitness or manifestation of consciousness in different organisms. In the lowest class of organisms, it is very much latent, while in human beings, it is very much manifest." ~  Jain World

Pain/ Efforts & consciousness

"There is no birth of consciousness without pain." ~  Carl Jung

"If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution." ~ M. Scott Peck

Act of Man

Scientists on earth plan to populate moon with machines and robots. It is planned that the moon would be populated on similar lines as the life evolved on the planet earth.

Over a period of 100 years, reproducing robots were evolved in to a very advance robotic civilization on Moon. Man controlled the robots from earth but the robots felt as if they were doing and controlling things themselves. However,  robots were hinted and programmed to believe in a creator, a God. This was most important otherwise the toys would have gotten confused on their way to evolution by the imperfect simulation. God acted like a suspense account to them while we people debugged and conveyed logic through scientist robots.

However, some were left atheists. 

There was greed, emotions, sex & violence, family, religion, politics and all other ingredients of a blockbuster soap.

One day, a  meditating stubborn believer robot was brought to earth and allowed to meet his creator. He was made to tour the godly planet earth. Seeing the plight of his God on planet earth, the robot, Ram, said, "Oh my God! Poor God."

Jai Ho!

When I started learning painting at school, I would draw only the subject. But then my art teacher would tell that my work was incomplete as there was no background in that. I gradually started understanding the importance of  background in a painting. ...and with that came the respect for fellow Indians and my Indianness.

Unmanned Car

The other day during a discussion with my most learned friend, Deven Kalra of Big 'G' Google, he told me the philosophy behind developing driverless car at Google is, the man must do only those jobs where there is need to apply brain or where it is imperative, rest all routine jobs must be handed over to robots.

Hmmm... a great philosophy and logical too. Having come thus far and having loads of information at hand, man's job should be to synthesis information and work on technological solutions to take total control of our lives.  Routine cut copy paste jobs are waste of time and human resource when alternatives are available.

Going back to history, man's obsession with tools has been integral to his evolution. From hunting to going all the way spatial.  Man has toyed with machines. The basic instincts attached to this weird love are:

- Seeking comfort and ease of work

- Greed for more in the shortest possible time

- Identity crisis

Mechanization of human society has not been a smooth sailing. At various levels it met with stiff resistance from the incumbent methods, practices, lobbies & religion. There was always a fear that the increasing use of machines would render the human workforce unemployed. But on the contrary there were other types of jobs created. And each time people embraced and settled to the disruptive technology.

So far so good... But I have my own reservations now.

No doubt our hold on technology is stronger than ever before and it is further growing manifolds at fast pace. But at the same time today the majority of population is making living out of absolutely no skill petty cut&paste data feeding jobs or simple machine operating and monitoring jobs. And that's a great cause of concern. Technology in its stride is going to gobble up these jobs someday very soon. That would leave a vast majority of this unskilled, bum-ass (not used to mental or physical hardship) population redundant.

Whenever I think of human society, I think of ants and bees and bacteria. And that takes me into bit of biology. Some of the biological facts are:

- With in a generation, members of a species are born with various levels of capabilities.

-  Evolution of a species is direct function of the number of mutations and population

Excessive consumption by the worker ants/bees will certainly change the ph & temperature of the hive. The growing large population of  bum-ass drones will have to parish in order to preserve the resources, temperature and ph of the hive. But these drones actually play a crucial role in evolution of the hive. Thus any such eradication of the drones may hamper the evolution process of human beings as whole.

Progression of human society has uncanny similarity to that of  bacteria in a culture. I guess, our growth is almost at the acme of the log phase now, which would have to be followed by the stationary and death phases respectively.

...and that would leave the unmanned car without a passenger.

   

A short but never ending story...

There is this rich owner of a skyrise. He is perturbed by the development of a small property in the vicinity. He is unhappy because:

• the construction process is causing inconvenience and turning the surroundings dirty
• the upcoming property may grow bigger and become a potential threat to his superiority in the region.

Besides, there could be several other reasons for him to feel offended and insecure.

Also, there is a beggar in the area near the developing site. He is happy as he foresees more alms falling in his kitty. 

But the big schizophrenic fella has the other idea. He pays the beggar some money to throw stones at the small guy's property and create nuisance.   The beggar willingly accepts the money and marshals the commands of his powerful boss.  The small guy now considers the beggar as his biggest enemy and root of all his problems. The beggar is by now a full time servant to his rich employer.

...and the life goes on...

p.s. I have since short listed 3 candidates for casting in my film. The candidates are USA, India & Pakistan. The problem is, Pakistan wants the rich man's role. 

Simply, The Godly Bread

There is a Subway Restaurant at my Office building. Every morning when I pass by, the aroma of freshly baked bread greets my nostrils and flirts with my taste buds. The experience is exuberating.

As a curious man, I am tempted to go deep and see how this delicious and tongue tingling food is made. Here it is... You take some rich flour and kneed it into a loose dough by mixing water, salt, sugar and yeast. Let the yeast make merry and ferment the dough and then place it in a preheated oven. Wait for some time... Lo! the mouth watering aroma will start emanating and finally the golden brown crusted tasty bread.

The magic ingredient of the recipe is YEAST. Yeast is nothing but fungus/ bacteria. As the yeast consumes the nutrients in dough it produces CO2 which forms pockets of air within and fluffs the dough. In the fermentation process nutrients are broken down into smaller (but over-stretched) and more flavoured and tastier substances.

To our joy, the colonies and civilisations of yeast are wiped out at their acme every morning as they bake in earthen ovens across the earth. Yet, the yeast learns no lesson. It consumes, grows and multiplies in the dough pans as if it were in an infinite resource. Its end is sealed in its DNA. It is destined to be annihilated one way or the other.  

I pity poor yeast. But soon this pity turns into self pity. Our role on earth is nothing more than that of yeast. To the joy of hungry God, the global dough has now well risen and ready to go in hot oven.  Aroma of freshly baked bread will hit God's nostrils soon and will be received by his olfactory receptors to titillate his taste buds.

OMG!, Bon Appetite! We can feel the heat.

I want to break free

Each night I think of meditating to come out of the egg. I am told there is a limitless and a timeless paradise waiting to welcome me outside. But then a worrisome thought flashes, what would happen to Mr. S K Jain's cosy little white & yellow world? How on earth could I just walk out of a life which promises me the wealth of Bill Gates and fame of a Michael Jackson or an Amitabh Bachchan; and all that fun that I have with my family and friends. How could I just disown the name and fame associated with me. Despite all of limitations and woes here I can't think of a life beyond this shell. I can't see the beginning or an end of this shell. For me, this is my infinite and only world. Somebody tells me once I come out I will have wings and will be able to fly and I would be able to lay eggs and create universe for creatures like me myself. What rubbish! I don't really believe it. I am comfortable here

Slowly and gradually, I slip out of the dilemma and return back to the daily grind of past and future tense. I love the relativity of  my real world where S K Jain is the centre of attraction and a happening place. Even if true, singularity sounds like a boring proposition.

But given an option, a chick would never go back in an egg or for that matter for me mother's womb is a capital NO!

Memory, Logic & Time

Time is a derivative of change.

The other day while chatting with my learned friend, Deepak Rathore of Thilio Technologies, Deepak said that to him the genesis of time was in memory.

Hmmm..., a very apt observation. A frame in absence of any previous event becomes a timeless still frame. And as soon as you introduce a frame from the archives to it the things start moving and clock starts ticking. The science of animation...

Elaborating on the concept, there are other aspects to time viz. spatial change and logic. e.g. if we are looking at sun in the sky for few seconds it will not impart any sense of time but if a moving cloud is added to the scene at the same time, the time will start flying.

Now Lets take the example of a frame consisting of a classroom followed by another frame showing a vast sea. Our mind will not be able to relate the two events and we will perceive the two frames as stills. Hence, to experience time, the two events should be logically relevant and related. However, the logic is built upon our past experiences hence it is also a product of memory. Therefore, we can say memory holds the key to time.

Ref. my blog, The Quantum Twist: http://sudkjain.blogspot.in/2015/09/complexity-daughter-nature-is-not-as.html, I observed that physically time is electromagnetic in nature. Well, it seems I am in perfect sync with my friend since physically memory is also electromagnetic in nature. 

Corollary: Time is a trait of finite relativity. For singularity its just an endless dash(instance).

Beauty of Imperfect World

While the definite 0 & 1 probabilities are reserved with Singularity, our universe supports all the non-definite probabilities between 0 & 1. A polite 'may be' squeezed between rude Yes & No. And that makes our world an interesting place to live, full of hope...