Flyover

solve this:
You have a balance scale and 12 coins, 1 of which is counterfeit. The counterfeit weighs less or more than the other coins. Can you determine the counterfeit in 3 weightings, and tell if it is heavier or lighter?

courtesy sandeep. and ha ha. i quadruple checked it. my solution is correct.

something i wrote a few days back in 20 mins (fast by my standards), for a deadline… the task was to write an essay on the quote below. i have a little change of opinion since then, at one point. but whatever.

“I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values.” – Albert Einstein

Ethics are usually taken to mean a moral code that helps one decide what is right and what is wrong, and that leads us to the following question. What IS right and wrong? Who decides what is right and wrong? A selfish society usually tells one that what one does for this society at the cost of self sacrifice is right and what one does just for oneself at the cost of harm to the society is wrong. Clearly, society cannot be taken as the judge of right and wrong because it is an interested party. The other relevant and interested party is the person acting. So, where do we go from here? Is there a third person, who can decide unbiasedly? For the theist, yes. God. But how do we know what God thinks? And how do we even know that God exists? How many of us have known him personally, met Him, seen Him, talked to Him? Our scriptures were written by society. How do we know that they are an unbiased account of what God believes? We can’t say, we don’t know. So, we come back to the 2 interested parties- the society and the individual. Since, ultimately, the individual is the entity actually doing the action, he obviously has a greater right to decide right and wrong. And the rest of the society, in itself constituted by individuals, can act in the context provided by others’ actions. We exist because we are selfish as per Darwin’s theory of natural selection. If we hadn’t been selfish and with a sense of self preservation, we would have been wiped away as a species long ago. So, being selfish is natural. And if an individual decides to make selfish decisions, how is it wrong?

I hear you say- ‘oh but that would lead to anarchy! No one would ever have any respect for anybody else’s life. We would all die!’ Exactly! Anarchy would lead to destruction. And because we are selfish, we don’t want to die, and so we don’t want anarchy. So, what an intelligent person would do is set his ethical code in such a way that he would have sufficient scope for progress without resulting in anarchy, whereas a not so intelligent person could easily lead to anarchy if he follows the simple rule of being selfish. This person needs to be brain washed, needs to be told by the society what is good and what is bad, even for his own good. And we, as a society, need to brain wash him, for OUR own good. So, there comes the idea of ‘instilling’ ethics. Half knowledge is dangerous.

So ultimately, a good purely intellectual attitude would lead to stability in the society. There is no good reason to opt for the abstract “ethics”, without a convincing justification, over facts, which we can see and test. And opting for facts is our nature as a species, because if we understand the causes we can manipulate the effects, which would give us greater powers, and a greater ability to ‘fit’- again, natural selection. However, it has to be borne in mind that this kind of attitude takes time to develop. There will always be people who would acquire only half knowledge and would lead to anarchy. So, for these people, and there’ll be many of them, an intellectual attitude would lead to a weak code of ethics, an impairment of good ethical values.
How do we resolve the situation? We cannot go back intellectually, and so there’ll be a continuous increase in the number of people who set their own selfish ethical code. What we can do is try and implement a concurrent socially determined code of ethics, so that when the person does not have a good code of ethics, he’s put into a dilemma by a prevalent and completely different good code of ethics.

rating: ****

it falls in the jaane tu ya jaane na category for me… very new-age, refreshing and cool… and sid (ranbir kapoor) is so completely adorable. and anupam kher was so real as his dad, that i could see my dad in him! and everybody else… his mom, konkana… way too good… i loved it. though the ending was abrupt, all the rest of it is worth a re-watch…

i tend to feel personally offended if someone does not find find ayn rand’s ideas awesome-est… yeah… i always knew there was something wrong with me.

and btw, got to know recently, that lara dutta said at some show that she was earlier thinking of taking part in ‘99 Miss India, but didnt coz she wanted to be the new millenium Miss Universe… one of the most awesome things i have heard in a while… look at the confidence!

[Add] Have done a major change in the following. [/Add]

inspired by a post on phys-geo.blogspot.com, here’s an attempt at providing a sensible, consistent definition of god.

for that, let’s go through the evolution of god:

one very important reason for success of humans as a species is their curiosity. we seek reasons, and if we know the reasons, we can manipulate them to modify effects. the early man was surrounded by a very very curious world… things did not make sense, they were almost magical, so he hypothesised… and indeed, it was a very very logical hypothesis at that time… that there was some higher power (which he decided to call god) doing all this, beyond his complete understanding. why does sun rise in the east? god. why do people die? god… and so on. then arose the question about the identity and characteristics of the god… and we being unacquainted personally with any species superior to us, we naturally thought of god as the most powerful and intelligent human being that one can wildly think of… he could do everything… literally… he was basically omnipotent. and since he could do everything, he could decide our fate… and it was seen that usually, the more goodness we showed, the more were the friends we made, which brought us a good future, and we assumed that that must have pleased him, which is why the omnipotent super being allowed us to be successful… and so ‘goodness’ became godliness… and since everybody wants to be powerful, he became the ultimate ideal…

he was the ideal. the super power. the ultimate form of existence… and most people obviously thought that he was beyond them, he being so super, was usually superior… except as per some of the villains in mythology, who were very powerful and who did not act the way people wanted God to behave. because God was apparently pleased when you did something to enhance your success (as explained above and below), and he showed it by increasing your success. so it appeared that God was selfless. but these villains were people… they would obviously want themselves to be more successful than others, and so they tried to DECREASE others’ successes, however much the general people tried. so people called them villains. so an idea of personal best as being equivalent to this ultimate ideal became a form of atheism… this meant that you did not believe in unattainable superiority of god… but that is not true atheism. that does not mean that you think that God does not exist… it just means that you think you could be omnipotent too.

many people believe that achieving god means achieving their personal ‘divinity’ which is equivalent to being their best… so god is equivalent to their personal best, which is as good a definition as any, but the problem is that it is not the same as that given by many religions, and history is probably a good way to decide on a standard definition. so, it seems that as per what seems to me to be the probable history, that’s not how it goes… the original god was a WILD, SUPER ideal, not a ‘real’ ideal… most people who believe in god think that they can not BE god (except the previously referred-to villains). Not only that, those who believe in God must believe that God exists… that this ultimate ideal is actually an existent being, not just an imaginary ultimate ideal. you see, even these ‘villains’ cant call their personal omnipotent ideal God, unless they believe that such a being exists. God is not just an idea. saying that, you want to be this this. and so this aim is your God is senseless in this context, because what you want to be is an idea. and your idea of personal best is something you actually wish to BE, you believe you can ideally BE.

not believing in a super power is atheism by this definition… but people are very reluctant to call themselves atheists, because atheism is generally associated with power hunger, cruelty, lack of conscience… but not necessarily… for eg… i want a pen. i could steal it. that would be power hunger… or i may not steal it and compliment the pen owner, work hard for the pen and earn it, making friends along the way by being reliable and doing favours, and being nice in general… and having many new deposits in my favour bank which i could withdraw ultimately when need strikes. by stealing a pen i could have been caught and made enemies… and my favour bank would have been depleted badly… so a god-fearing and an atheist could actually do exactly the same thing (not stealing the pen), depending on how smart or stupid the atheist is… and how long term he/she thinks. so yes, atheists do have a conscience… they just work for their own real ideal, not for any god.

whereas believers of god, work to please god, because they believe that pleasing god would help them achieve their own personal ideal… which for a believer may be to have a comfortable after life. after all, he really does believe that to be true. and this approach usually helps… because we decided what pleased god by checking the results only… as mentioned above, what usually led to success, must have pleased god… so its one and the same thing ultimately.

religious person follows pre set guidelines for pleasing god… non religious believer does not believe in what he believes to be illogical guidelines, and decides his steps himself, based on his idea of what pleases god.

an atheist just seeks his personal best, no strings attached… no god to seek… he may set guidelines for his himself to achieve his personal best, which he may then follow blindly, to decrease his mental burden (like self), or he may think on a case-to-case basis.

this is one definition of god, which seems to me to be a fairly non-controversial, acceptable definition and lending some meaning to the question ‘are you religious?’, because if everybody has a different idea of religion because they have different ideas about god, this question makes no sense… so going by my definition, are you religious?

and i think that, the idea of god is an example of science… it was the first attempt at a grand unified theory… but it implied that we could not understand the variables in the equation, and our curiosity was unsatiated… so we searched for patterns and further answers, and we continue to do so… having proved that, whatever be the case, god is definitely not as arbitrary as might have appeared at first sight… he does not work with infinite variables… he doesnt bring about rain without any pattern… there are some other factors related… and its all interconnected… a relatively small bunch of variables lead to everything. and we are trying to figure out the shortest list.

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
Ill cross the stream – I have a dream

I have a dream, a fantasy
To help me through reality
And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
Ill cross the stream – I have a dream
Ill cross the stream – I have a dream

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
Ill cross the stream – I have a dream
Ill cross the stream – I have a dream

i feel nostalgic because of yanni. when you are so full of happiness and so complete, you feel passionate… i dont know if that makes sense to those reading, but thats how it feels to me… what i had was definitely some form of passion… i mourn for the loss, but i would never want them back, because it can never be the same again… that magic is best left untouched.

motivation vs. procrastination –> neither satisfied –> frustration

side note:
those who pronounce adolescence incorrectly, please note that it is pronounced as aedulescunce (u here is pronounced as a mild form of “a”), not adawluscunce.

AND, there is no such word as “comperer”. you are a compere. not a comperer.

http://www.relfe.com/plus_5_.html

i often see cryptic one-liner (usually) comments (advice, analyses) talking about closure, struggles, darkness etc. on various blogs (no reference to any specific blog)…
when i dont know what they are all about, they irritate me; and when i do know, the melodramacity often astonishes me… one gets standard moral science quotations put apparently powerfully in 4-5 “raw” words. is such advice ever useful to anyone? they sort of remind me of my least fav book in the world, the monk who sold his ferrari (which, as i have said before, feels like a compilation of moral science quotations plus a loser attempt at a story… you want to talk about moral science, talk ayn rand, with great stories plus interesting moralities).

which is not to say i never comment in a similar manner… you’ll often see me come up with some similarly pseudo-powerful and “raw” and “thought provoking” questions/analyses… half the time just for the heck of disagreeing with the blogger (probably related to the trash bit of my complicated sense of superiority), rest of the time its either because i cant think of a less powerful way to put it, or because of my unconscious attraction for unnecessary style and flamboyance.