psychology

The Mitr

Review of I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter – Part 1


I recently finished I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. The book is an introduction to the core ideas about self, self-reference, feedback loops and consciousness as  an emergent phenomena. The core question that is considered is

What do we mean when we say I?

Hofstadter in the preface indicates his angst at many people missing out on the core ideas of Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. No doubt GEB is hard to read, and each one makes their own meaning of it.

Years went by, and I came out with other books that alluded to and added to that core message, but still there didn’t seem to be much understanding out there of what I had really been trying to say in GEB. xiii

I Am A Strange Loop is sort of a prequel to GEB, which came afterwards. In the book the focus is on developing an idea of emergent self, in which our consciousness is seen to emerge from feedback that we have by interacting with the world. Hofstadter uses a variety of examples to drive home the point of recursive feedback loops, giving rise to strange phenomena. The central claim is that we, our sense of self, our idea of consciousness derives from recursive interactions and feedback that we get via our senses.
He starts with a dialogue he wrote as a teenager between Plato and Socrates about what is it to be alive and being conscious, this in a way sets the stage for things to come. In the first chapter On the Souls and Their Sizes we are made to think about presence of souls in different foods that we eat (he himself doesn’t partake mammalian meat). We non-chalantly eat a tomato, irritatingly squish a mosquito, but what happens when we eat higher life forms, like chicken, pigs and sheep? Do they have souls? Do all living beings have souls? If so, then does the soul of a human is greater than that of a cow (now here I must be careful, there are people in my country who judge the soul of a cow much much greater than that of a human being), of a pig, of a chicken, of a mosquito of a tomato?

Does a baby lamb have a soul that matters, or is the taste of lamb chops just too delicious to worry one’s head over that? 18

The suggestive answer is  given in a conciousness cone, in which we normal adult humans are at the top and atoms are the start of the cone. But then granted that we have a soul, are we born with a fully developed one? Here Hofstadter takes a developmental approach to the concept of the soul. The idea is that we are born with some essence of what appears to be soul, then gradually over the years it develops. The concept of soul here is used interchageably with “I”. The main take home point in this chapter is whatever this is, we do not get the fully developed version of it from birth. Rather it is a developmental process which takes place in the real world, shaped by experiences. The said developmental changes are in degree, rather than a black/white switch.
In the second chapter This Teethering Bulb of Dread and Dream we look at possible ways of studying the mechanisms of the brain which might potentially shed some light on the puzzle that we are after. In general the idea of studying the hardware of the brain seems to be set in agenda of many neurologists. But Hofstadter argues against this way of studying thinking.

Saying that studying the brain is limited to the study of physical entities such as these would be like saying that literary criticism must focus on paper and bookbinding, ink and its chemistry, page sizes and margin widths, typefaces and paragraph lengths, and so forth. 26

Another analogy given is that of the heart. Just like heart is a pumping machine, brain is a thinking machine. If we only think heart as an aggregate of cells, we miss out on the bigger picture of what the cells do. The heart surgeons don’t think about heart cells but look at the larger structure. Similarly to study thinking the lower level of components may not be the correct level to study highly abstract phenomena such as concepts, analogies, consciousness, empathy etc. This is pointing towards thinking as an emergent phenomena, emerging from the interactions at lower levels which are composed of objects/entities which are not capable of thinking.
Hofstadter then takes philosopher John Searle to task for his views regarding impossibility of thinking arising from non-thinking entities. The analogy of a beer can to a neuron is taken apart. What is suggested by Searle in his thought experiments is equivalent to memory residing in a single neuron. But this certainly is not the case. We have to think of the brain as a multi-level system. But going too deep in these levels we would not get a comprehensible understanding of our thinking.

Was it some molecules inside my brain that made me reshelve it? Or was it some ideas in my brain? 31

Rather it is ideas that make more ideas.

Ideas cause ideas and help evolve new ideas. They interact with each other and with other mental forces in the same brain, in neighboring brains, and, thanks to global communication, in far distant, foreign brains. And they also interact with the external surroundings to producein toto a burstwise advance in evolution that is far beyond anything to hit the evolutionary scene yet, including the emergence of the living cell. Sperry as quoted on 31-32

Another analogy that is given is that of Thermodynamics and Statistical Mehcanics. Just as atoms interact in a gas at a micro-level to create gas laws which can be observed at a macro-level. The macro-level laws also makes it comprehensible to us, because of the sheer amount of information at mirco level that one would have to analyse to make sense. (Provided that we can in theory solve such a massive set of equations, not considering the quantum mechanical laws.) Similarly the point is made that for understanding a complex organ such as the brain, which contains billions of interacting neurons, we should not look at the hardware at the lowest level, but rather look for macro-level patterns.

Statistical mentalics can be bypassed by talking at the level of thinkodynamics. 34

The perception of the world that we get is from sensory inputs, language and culture. And it is at that level we operate, we do not seek atomic level explanations for the dropping of the atomic bomb. This simplification is part of our everyday explanation, and we choose the levels of description depending on the answers that we are seeking.

Drastic simplification is what allows us to reduce situations to their bare bones, to discover abstract essences, to put our fingers on what matters, to understand phenomena at amazingly high levels, to survive reliably in this world, and to formulate literature, art, music, and science. 35

The third chapter The Causal Potency of Patterns provides us with concrete metaphors to think about emergent phenomena and thinking at levels. The first of such metaphors is a chain of dominoes, which can be thought of as a computer program for carrying out a given computation. In this case finding checking if a number is prime: 641. Now a person watching the domino fall right upto 641 can presumably give two answers, the first one is that the domino before 641 did not fall, while other is 641 is a prime number. These two answers are many levels apart. The second example is of Hofstadter sitting a traffic jam, The reason why you are stuck in traffic, is because the car in front of you is not moving. On the other hand this does not tell you anything about  why the jam arose in the first place, which may be due to a large number of cars going home after a game or a natural disaster of some kind. The main idea is that we can have two (many?) levels of explanation each one looking at the system from a different level of detail, for example, the car ahead of you local,  the reasons for the jam global. As far as the causal analysis goes we can look at answers at different levels.

Deep understanding of causality sometimes requires the understanding of very large patterns and their abstract relationships and interactions, not just the understanding of microscopic objects interacting in microscopic time intervals. 41

Similar example is that of a combustion engine. The designers of the engine do not think about molecular level of interactions, the level that is relevant for them is the thermodynamic level of pressure, temeperature and volume. The properties of individual molecules like their locations, velocities is irrelevant in such a description, though the properties of the ensemble is.

This idea — that the bottom level, though 100 percentresponsible for what is happening, is nonetheless irrelevant to what happens — sounds almost paradoxical, and yet it is an everyday truism. 42

Another example that is given is of listening to music. Lets say you hear a piece of music, and you experience some emotions due to it. Now, consider there was a slight delay before playing started, the actual molecules which vibrated to get you the music, would be different than in the first case. Yet, you would experience the music in the same way even though the molecules that brought you that music were completely different.

The lower-level laws of their collisions played a role only in that they gave rise to predictable high-level events. But the positions, speeds, directions, even the chemical identity of the molecules – all of this was changeable, and the high-level events would have been the same. 42

Thus we can say that a lower level might be responsible for a higher level event and at the same time is irrelevant to the higher level.
 
The next metaphor we consider is that of careenium and simmbalism. (No points for guessing what the intended puns are here!) There are many witty puns throughout the book, and Hofstadter uses them very effectively to make his points. This Gedankenexperiment is referred to many times in the book. Simms (small interacting marbles) are very small marbles, which can crash into each other and bounce off the walls in a frictionless world. They are also magnetic so that if they hit each other with low velocity they can “stick” to each other and form clusters called simmballs. A simmball can be composed of millions of simms, and may loose or gain simms at its boundary. Thus we have tiny and agile simms, and huge and nearly immobile simmballs. All this bashing and boucing happens at frictionless pooltable, the careenium.
After setting this metaphorical system we add another complexiety that external events can affect the simmballs, thus we can have a record of history by reading the configurations of simmballs. Now a reductionist approach to this system would be that we really need to know only about nature of interaction of the simms, rest are just epi-phenomena, which can be explained by behavior of the simms. But such a view isnot helpful in many ways. One of the issues that is raised is that of enormous complexity raised by such approach will render it meaningless. But, whether we can even describe a phenomena in a truly fundamental way, just by using basic laws is itself questionable.
A interesting reading in similar line of though is by Anderson (Anderson, P. W. (1972). More is different. Science, 177(4047), 393-396). He gives examples from physical science which seemingly defy solutions or explanations on basis of the fundamental laws. He strongly argues against the reductionist hypothesis

The main fallacy in this kind of thinking is that the reductionist hypothesis does not by .any means imply a “constructionist” one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe, In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, theless relevance they seem to have to the
very real problems of the rest of science, much less to those of society.

Anderson draws three inferences from this 1) Symmetry is of great importance to physics; symmetry the existence of different viewpoints from which the system appears the same. 2) the internal structure of a piece of matter need not be symmetrical even if the total state of it is.

I would challenge you to start from the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics and predict the ammonia inversion and its easily observable properties without going through the stage of using the unsymmetrical pyramidal structure, even though no “state” ever has that structure.

3) the state of a really big system does not at all have to have the symmetry of the laws which govern it; in fact, it usually has less symmetry.

Starting with the fundamental laws and a computer, we would have to do two impossible things – solve a problem with infinitely many bodies, and then apply the result to a finite system-before we synthesized this behavior

Finally Anderson notes:

Synthesis is expected to be all but impossible analysis, on the other hand, may be not only possible but fruitful in all kinds of ways: Without an understanding
of the broken symmetry in superconductivity, for instance, Josephson would probably not have discovered his effect.

Going back to Hofstadter, he considers a higher level view of the Gedankenexperiment with simms, simmballs and careenium. To get a birds eye view of our  have to zoom out both space and time. The view that we will get is that of simmballs, simms would be to small and too fast for us to view at this level. In fast forward of time, the simmballs are no longer stationary, but rather are dynamic entities which change their shapes and positions due to interactions of simms (now invisible) at lower level. But this is not evident at this level, though the simms are responsible for changing the shape and position of simmballs, they are irrelevant as far as description of simmballs.

And so we finally have come to the crux of the matter: Which of these two views of the careenium is the truth? Or, to echo the key question posed by Roger Sperry, Who shoves whom around in the population of causal forces that occupy the careenium? 49

The answer is that it all depends on which level you choose to focus on. The analogy can be made clear by thinking of how billions of interacting nuerons form patterns of thought, analogy, interacting ideas. Thus while trying to think about thinking we should let go of observing a single neuron, or the hardware of the brain itself, it will not lead us to any comprehensible description or explanation of how we think. Nuerons are though responsible for thinking they are irrelevant in the higher order of thinking.
 
 

The Mitr

Reductionism in Science

Many scientists look on chemistry and physics as ideal models of what psychology should be like. After all, the atoms in the brain are subject to the same all – inclusive physical laws that govern every other form of matter. Then can we also explain what our brains actually do entirely in terms of those same basic principles? The answer is no, simply because even if we  understood how each of our billions of brain cells work separately, this would not tell us how the brain works as an agency. The “laws of thought” depend not only upon the properties of those brain cells,but also on how they are connected. And these connections are established not by the basic, “general” laws of physics, but by the particular arrangements of the millions of bits of information in our inherited genes. To be sure, “general” laws apply to everything. But, for that very reason, they can rarely explain anything in particular.
– Marvin Minsky in The Society of Mind pp. 26

The Mitr

Trump’s Trumpeting Triumph

Election of Donald Trump and Democracy
I have two observations to make for the election of Donald Trump to the president’s office in he United States. First there is a certain sense of bewilderment in general public as well as the intelligentsia, they ask this question: “How can this possibly happen?”, “This is the doom of America” among other things. The arguments that are generally given are he is white-supremacist etc. And one of the major reasons for people to not expect him to win was that major media houses were against him. They portrayed a very peculiar negative picture of him through and through the last few months of campaign. Anything he said was scrutinized and all kinds of people were supposed to be against him. But how did we know this all? It was through the very same media houses that were biased against him. Can you really expect the media houses to give us an accurate description of ground reality when their entire aim was to derail his campaign. So what happened is that the entire rhetoric that was built upon against him didn’t stand actually reflect what the pulse on the ground was. People had different moods and different agendas on mind. And they were frustrated with the nexus that they thought was reason behind their miseries. So all this so called appeal to the “logic” or “reason” of the people to see Trump stood for (according to the media houses) and not vote for him had no takers. All those attempts by his followers were seen as hollow and shallow attempts to demean and demonify Trump. And in the final days to the election the shrillness only increased. Each attempt by a new group or a new person to vilify Trump was seen as desperate attempts to keep him out of power. He was the one who could do something, who promised to do something. He was the hero America needed to be great again. In contrast to this Hillary Clinton’s campaign can be seen as an ass saving campaign. She was caught in many hiccups, but managed to balance the possible derailment of her campaign, be it her emails or other things. The very fact that she managed to come to finals bating Sanders, in spite of so many problems itself reeked of crookedness for many. The entire anti-Trump rhetoric, instead of helping her, hurt her. So for his supporters there was no appeal to reason against him as they were already convinced beyond doubt that he is the person, and at the same time attempts to stop him were seen as conspiracies of the old system. The intelligentsia rhetoric was hollow and appeal to reason was a treason.
The Indian Election of 2014 had a similar trend. In this Narendra Modi was the candidate (also right wing). In this case also we see that the appeal to reason seen as a treason. Though he did not promise a wall, but tall promises were nonetheless made. The entire image was manipulated as if he will deliver all the things in a jiffy, when elected. We see similar bashing of the intelligentsia in this case also, the rhetoric also went overboard by calling anyone not agreeing with their tag line as anti-national, which continues till day.
For those particularly in intelligentsia lament at Trump’s victory as “Democracy has lost”, they are missing a very crucial aspect. The election of Trump actually shows the true nature of democracy. It is literally the rule of the people. And if more people think a particular candidate is good for them they will choose him. To claim it as a “Dark day” is to question the democratic process itself. These same people would have been perhaps happy if Hillary Clinton was selected. But then this for me is just changing of the goalposts when you have lost an argument. If you cannot convince people to vote for someone, it is not loss for democracy, rather it is the way it operates. The democratic process cannot remain correct if some candidate wins and problematic when someone else wins, of course under the assumption that these are fair elections, not rigged ones. This for me reflects obliviousness for the obviousness of democracy.

The Mitr

Free Press and Democracy

A free press is an essential part of a democratic system. In a society like ours, with its stark inequalities, only a media free of government and corporate pressures can ensure that the voiceless are heard. What we are seeing currently is not just blatant collusion between the media and big business but also a deliberate obliteration of much of what happens to the millions who live on the margins.
via Economic and Political Weekly

This is what Media Lens has to say about the BBC which is supposed to be in public interest and impartial.

Instead of providing responsible, public-service journalism, the BBC acts as a conduit for government propaganda. It is particularly noxious that the organisation relentlessly channels the state’s supposedly benign intentions abroad. This is the diet of daily bias and distortion we are all fed. When will BBC heads roll for that?

But isn’t this true of the media in India also? Or elsewhere in the world for that matter. Tehelka reports that many of the barons of power also control the local media in newly formed state of Chattisgad. And what is the use of controlling media when they are not used for gains. When the so called free media becomes a part of the political parties we cannot be sure of what they report.

If the Congress has Naveen Jindal, the BJP has Ajay Sancheti. If the Congress has the Lokmat, the BJP has the Hari Bhoomi. Barring coal, in which both the Centre and the states had their hands in the till, in the case of other mineral resources, the real corruption lies in the states.

It is not that people do not use media for their own gain, media is used for spreading ideology, there are many mouthpiece outlets for political parties and others which propagate the ideas. But what is worst is that the masquerade that many media houses put on themselves claiming to be honest and working in public interest, and people at large believe them, being obliviousto the fact that these very media houses are the ones who are power brokers and very much in the filth as corporates and politicians. A recent example of this was the Radia tapes.

The complete blackout of the Niira Radia tapes by the entire broadcast media and most of the major English newspapers paints a truer picture of corruption in the country than the talk shows in the various news channels and the breast-beating in all the newspapers about the 2G, CWG, Adarsh, and other scams.
via|G. Sampath – DNA

It was not until the non-main-stream media began to show up too much, there was some coverage given. But the very fact that the accused are in complete denial of what happened is what is disturbing. We usually held names like Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi well but these tapes just show how much they are in the filth of what they pretend to expose. From then on, I have given up on NDTV as a reliable source, which earlier I thought it was. But then what do you trust?

At the same time, it is worth noting that neither Barkha nor any of the other journalists whose names have come up have denied that those conversations took place. So why not let the reader or TV viewer read or listen to the transcripts and decide whether Dutt and Sanghvi’s conversations with Radia are a part of “normal journalistic duties” or amount to pimping for politicians and business houses? Or perhaps they were doing social service for the Congress? Play the tapes on your show, na, Ms Dutt, instead of tweeting about them? Why not let ‘We, The People’ decide, instead of you deciding for us all?
via|G. Sampath – DNA

The media blackout of particular events is what I find disturbing. What it shows the kind of camaraderie that exists between different media houses and their corporate and political cronies. That basically means that the news, sorry the Breaking News that you see is like a managed play, with directors and writers deciding what people see, hear and think. In Marathi novel (Ithink it was Swami (स्वामी) by Ranjit Desai) I had read a sentence which fits these situations well, it reads:

मी मारल्या सारखे करतो, तु रडल्या सारखे कर.
( I will feign to hit, you feign to cry.)

This creates an illusion about real problems. Most of the News channels that are beamed in India follow this line. Put all the focus on some non-issues, or twist them from certain angles so that why all this happens remains oblivious to the viewers. If our media was after all serious about the issues that they present, they would have seen to it that things are done.
Many a times what I have also found reading reports on various different news services is that they are same. I mean many a times they are word to word same, as if the reports have been written at one place and distributed. I do not have links right now, but will update this post when I do. This again creates a picture that what news we see is heavily filtered, and sometimes flavours are added to create sensationalism. And the icing is that we all think this is genuine, with “Free Press in A Democracy”. Orwell had a foresight about this as well:

Of course, print will continue to be used, and it is interesting to speculate what kinds of reading matter would survive in a rigidly totalitarian society. Newspapers will presumably continue until television technique reaches a higher level, but apart from newspapers it is doubtful even now whether the great mass of people in the industrialized countries feel the need for any kind of literature. They are unwilling, at any rate, to spend anywhere near as much on reading matter as they spend on several other recreations. Probably novels and stories will be completely superseded by film and radio productions. Or perhaps some kind of low grade sensational fiction will survive, produced by a sort of conveyor-belt process that reduces human initiative to the minimum.
via The Prevention of Literature | George Orwell

The only reason I see that India is feudal and corrupt is that the so called Free Press was never able to take up the challenge to the nexus, and ultimately now has become a part of it.

In our age, the idea of intellectual liberty is under attack from two directions. On the one side are its theoretical enemies, the apologists of totalitarianism, and on the other its immediate, practical enemies, monopoly and bureaucracy.
via The Prevention of Literature | George Orwell

Though there are dissidents here and there, this now has become global phenomena, with the Indian media people just following the suit. And if this is the case, what difference does it make whether you are living in a democracy or a totalitarian state?
And Orwell wraps it up thus:

A totalitarian society which succeeded in perpetuating itself would probably set up a schizophrenic system of thought, in which the laws of common sense held good in everyday life and in certain exact sciences, but could be disregarded by the politician, the historian, and the sociologist. Already there are countless people who would think it scandalous to falsify a scientific textbook, but would see nothing wrong in falsifying an historical fact. It is at the point where literature and politics cross that totalitarianism exerts its greatest pressure on the intellectual.
via The Prevention of Literature | George Orwell

 

The Mitr

The PhD Octopus

Thus, we at Harvard are proud of the number of candidates whom we reject, and of
the inability of men who are not distingues in intellect to pass our tests.

This is something the American philosopher and psychologist William James wrote in the Harvard Monthly of March 1903 The Ph.D. Octopus.

Brilliancy and originality by themselves won’t save a thesis for the doctorate; it must also exhibit a heavy technical apparatus of learning; and this our candidate had neglected to bring to bear.
To our surprise we were given to understand in reply that the quality per se of the man signified nothing in this connection, and that the three magical letters were the thing seriously required. The College had always gloried in a list of faculty members who bore the doctor’s title, and to make a gap in the galaxy, and admit a common fox without a tail, would be a degradation impossible to be thought of.

"This must be a terribly distinguished crowd,-- their titles shine like the stars in the
firmament; Ph.D.'s, S.D.'s, and Litt.D.'s bespangle the page as if they were sprinkled
over it from a pepper caster."

“No instructor who is not a Doctor” has become a maxim in the smaller institutions which represent demand; and in each of the larger ones which represent supply, the same belief in decorated scholarship expresses itself in two antagonistic passions, one for multiplying as much as possible the annual output of doctors, the other for raising the standard of difficulty in passing, so that the Ph.D. of the special institution shall carry a higher blaze of distinction than it does elsewhere. Thus, we at Harvard are proud of the number of candidates whom we reject, and of the inability of men who are not distingues in intellect to pass our tests.
But the institutionizing on a large scale of any natural combination of need and motive always tends to run into technicality and to develop a tyrannical Machine with unforeseen powers of exclusion and corruption.
…
First of all, is not our growing tendency to appoint no instructors who are not also doctors an instance of pure sham? Will any one pretend for a moment that the doctor’s degree is a guarantee that its possessor will be successful as a teacher? Notoriously his moral, social, and personal characteristics may utterly disqualify him for success in the class-room; and of these characteristics his doctor’s examination is unable to take any account whatever. Certain bare human beings will always be better candidates for a given place than all the doctor-applicants on hand; and to exclude the former by a rigid rule, and in the end to have to sift the latter by private inquiry into their personal peculiarities among those who know them, just as if they were not doctors at all, is to stultify one’s own procedure.
…
The truth is that the Doctor-Monopoly in teaching, which is becoming so rooted an American custom, can show no serious grounds whatsoever for itself in reason. As it actually prevails and grows in vogue among us, it is due to childish motives exclusively. In reality it is but a sham, a bauble, a dodge, whereby to decorate the catalogues of schools and colleges.
…
We advertise our “schools” and send out our degree-requirements, knowing well that aspirants of all sorts will be attracted, and at the same time we set a standard which intends to pass no man who has not native intellectual distinction.

It forms an interesting reading considering this is what we are exactly doing and what is happening around us. For example the rule that prevents permanent appointments in colleges if the candidate is without a PhD. Or for that matter the ‘stamping’ that happens if you are from a so called privileged institute.
As the first quote that I have used from the article, summarizes the way our society recognize academic talent. If you are the selected ones from 10,000 odd people then indeed you are smart and the institute that selects you is indeed greatest. The ratio of the people applying for the courses to the ones that are actually accepted forms a good indicator of the ‘quality’ of the institute. The same institutes when choosing a faculty would apply even higher standards and even more people with decorations, on the list.

The Mitr

A self referential post for others

This post is for those who are reading this :Post!
When you read this post, you will know it is meant for you!

You can fool all people for some time.

You can fool some people for all the time.

But, you cannot fool all the people for all the time.

Hope that the message reaches those for whom it is meant!
That is for those people who are reading this post!!
You anyway are wasting your time by reading this sort of trash written by me!!!

The Mitr

A Woman’s Snare…

They chatter with one man,
Look at another with amorous gestures;
And in their minds think of yet another,
Who then is loved by a woman?

From: Bhartrihari [7th Century]

When you read these lines, the immediate thing that you want to do is to find a woman in your memory lanes that fits the above bill. One will perhaps find not one, but many. But, perhaps this also applies to men, in fact I think they are more likely to do so, if you accept the explanations from evolutionary psychology and comparative psychology.

In evolutionary psychology they say that the males want to produce as many offspring as possible. So they try to mate with as many females as possible, many times the quality does not matter, only quantity does. This is so because the males do not have to invest [sic] a lot in mating. The analogy that is often given to the sperm production in males is to spam mails that hit your mailbox daily. Even if one in 10 million makes it, your job is done. But for the females the bodily investment is much larger. So females they say prefer quality over quantity. After the copulation it is the female who has to bear the child, and the responsibility of male becomes minimal. Imagine if a human male copulated daily with a fertile female, which I guess one can, how many children can he produce in a life time? Perhaps in thousands. Similarly if we think of human females producing children when they can, that is taking into consideration their biology; perhaps one child in a year, considering all other factors, the total number will be max at 2 dozen or so. So it is the males who would are more likely to be mating more than women to produce children and that too with many different ones, if they have the capabilities.

This particular observation is not general, and of course does not apply to all species. There are species of sea-horse in which the males rear the young ones, in almost all birds the rearing of offspring is the joint responsibility of the couple. In animals who have social structures, as in case of humans and monkeys, the young ones are raised socially.

But we being humans, do not copulate just for procreation, we do also copulate for recreation [of ourselves that is]. They say that dolphins and chimps are the only other creatures which do so, no wonder they are called intelligent. All other animals copulate when their natural cycle tells them to. So in this light of recreational copulation the above verses acquire a different meaning. There are women and men who copulate and want to copulate for recreation, it is perhaps their nature to do so, but perhaps they are bound too strongly by the social sanctions that surround them.

The next question to ask is that is it right for them to do so?

Well, the answer depends on what one thinks of such social norms. Are they to be followed in to to, or they have an interpretation dependent logic.

The answer is something that I do not know…

PS: Perhaps the essay might sound silly, it is; I have to expand on certain sections.

The Mitr

Humans as Fermions

Humans as Fermions

* The Fermions

  Fermions are one set of fundamental particles and the other one are
  bosons. The distinguishing factor between bosons and fermions is
  that the fermions have half integral spins, whereas the boson have
  integral spins. Their names suggest that the bosons were discovered
  by S N Bose, an Indian physicist and fermions by E Fermi. Now
  another this is that the fermions follow what is known as the Pauli
  exclusion principle. That is to say you cannot have two fermions
  which have all the quantum numbers same.

The Pauli exclusion principle is a quantum mechanical principle formulated by the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925. In its simplest form for electrons in a single atom, it states that no two electrons can have the same four quantum numbers; that is, if n, l, and ml are the same, ms must be different such that the electrons have opposite spins. More generally, no two identical fermions (particles with half-integer spin) may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. A more rigorous statement of this principle is that for two identical fermions, the total wave function is anti-symmetric.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_exclusion_principle

And electrons are fermions It is this principle which decides the electronic
  configuration in atoms. The filling up principle or the aufbau
  principle works according to the exclusion principle. So when near
  to each other the electrons will tend to have different quantum
  numbers. If all the quantum numbers are same for a given pair of
  electrons, then they must have the spins opposite. But now if a
  third electron is to be arranged in the same orbit, it simple cannot
  be accommodate; it has to go in a different orbit. So that the
  electrons behave, as if they do not like the proximity of each
  other.

* Local trains
  Now when observing humans when they are in a crowded environment
  like a local train in Mumbai, I feel that the humans do behave
  exactly like fermions. That is to say that they do not like the
  proximity of each other, just like the electron do not like
  proximity of each other in the electronic orbits. I have observed
  this many a times in the local trains. Usually the trains are very
  crowded. Even to get a position to stand comfortably is a privilege,
  especially in the peak hours.

  When you board the train at the starting station like the VT, then
  what follows is closely analogous to filling up of the electronic
  orbitals in the atom. The seats that are usually taken first are the
  window seats. In the atom it would correspond to the first filling
  of the principal quantum number. In the window seats also the
  preference is to the seats for the windows which face the incoming
  air, that is facing towards the direction of travel.

  Then the seats are filled in the order of least occupancy. People
  want to sit at the seats which are least occupied. Normally the
  seats can take 3 people, and 4 with a bit of difficulty. But the
  norm is that 4 people are seated on a single seat. Once all the seats
  are filled up to 4 occupants, then people tend to stand in between
  the seats. The analogy does not extend to the people who are
  standing at the doors, there it is more like an ensemble of free
  particles, which are jumping in and out of the compartments.

  So coming back to the seating arrangements what I have observed is
  that once the seats are filled with 4 occupants. That is the maximum
  that our ‘seat’ orbital can take. The rest are occupied in between
  states. They are like virtual states, ready to jump into the empty
  seats as soon as one gets empty.

* The Law of 3 
  Lets assume that the people standing in between are like the
  electron sea in metals. Now lets assume a situation in which there
  are a few people who are standing in between seats and all the seats
  are seated by 4 people. Now lets see what happens when one of the
  person who is sitting stands up to get off the train. As soon as the
  seat gets empty, one of the persons who is standing goes to fill in
  the empty seat. As more and more people get off, the people who are
  standing take up their seats. Finally we reach a state when there
  are no more people who left are standing. Now all the seats have
  four seated occupants. Now if a single person gets up. There is one
  seat with just three people, but people don’t tend to move to that
  seat. It just not worth the effort, by going from a 4 seated seat
  again to a 4 seated seat, you don’t gain much. So you remain seated
  where ever you are. But if you are one of the people who are seated
  on the seat where the person just left from, you surely feel
  relieved.
 
  Now let us try to visualize the situation if 2 people from a single
  seat leave off. Two people leaving from 2 different seats will not
  help. It has to be 2 people who were seated on the same seat. After
  this what we have is that, there is a seat where only 2 people are
  seated and rest of the seats have 4 people seating on them. As soon
  as this happens, a person from a 4 seater, will try to get to the 2
  seater seat. This results in two 3 seater seats, whereas the rest
  are 4 seaters. Even more if 3 people from the same seat go away, the
  resulting changing of seats by people results in maximizing the
  number of 3 seater seats. This is the law of behavior of people in a
  local train ;). I call it the Law of 3. This just also touches on
  the idea of what is called in psychology as personal space. We
  are comfortable only within a certain distance from each other. And
  make it a point to bring this into existence we make the movements.

  Well this is just a vague analogy, to the actual behavior of the
  fermions is much more involved, but nonetheless the analogy is worth
  observing.

The Mitr

The Dialogue

Purity

Oh I am so pure. Don’t touch me!

Why?

Because you will pollute me.

Who, me?

Yes, you.

But, how can I?

You will, somehow.

Is that so?

Yes.

Okay, then go away.

No, I don’t want to.

Why?

Because I like it here.

But then you will get polluted.

No, I won’t.

Are you sure?

Yes I am.

But what if I touch you? Won’t you get polluted?

I don’t know.

What you don’t know?

I don’t know why I want to stay here. Would you tell me?

I have already told you.

You did not tell me.

Yes I did.

But when?

So many times, but you did not understand.

I did not understand?

Yes you did not.

How can that be? I am a good person at keeping and understanding relationships, how can you say I did not understand when you told me?

Because you did not understand.

Do not make things more complicated for me.

Am I making things complicated?

Yes you are.

I think it is the other way round.

Means?

I think you are making things complicated for everybody.

No I am not.

Yes you are.

But I just want to stay.

And not be touched?

Yes.

That is something you don’t understand.

Means.

It is as simple as this.

As simple as what?

As simple as, you cannot have the cake and eat it too.

Oh yes I can have and eat it too!

This is what you don’t understand.

Oh yes I do, how will I not have the cake and eat it too? That is not an Escheresque impossibility.

Oh yes it is! And this is the precise thing that you are not understand.

But I am not mathematically minded.

You do not have to be mathematically minded to understand this.

So, if I was mathematically minded would I have understood?

Even if you were, I am doubtful whether you would be able to understand. I know of mathematicians who fail to understand this.

So is there no way for me?

Yes there is.

What is it?

Please go away.

But why should I?

Because you don’t belong here, this is my place.

Friends

But cannot I have shelter here? I am all alone and lonely?

Are you really?

Yes I think so.

I don’t think so.

Why?

When you need to talk, you always find people to talk to.

No I don’t. I don’t have any friends left anymore.

Why?

All of them abandoned me.

Why?

I don’t know the reasons. I had been so nice to all of them.

Were you really?

Yes I was?

Then why did they broke up with you?

They tried to wake me up from my dreamworld. A world where all the things that I do were perfect.

But did they do anything wrong then?

Yes they did.

If they tried to wake you from dream world, what wrong they did?

Yes, they did. Trying to wake me up from my dreamworld, was the precisely wrong thing they did.

But how can that be wrong?

Why not, I want to live in a dreamworld, I am so happy there, why wake me up?

But what happens when dream clashes with the real world. They would be shattered, won’t they? You should see Requiem for a Dream, then maybe you will understand.

I am not thinking about that.

That is what your friends tried to tell you.

I don’t think so.

They tried to rob me from what little happiness that I had, and still I have in my dream world.

I think they were concerned about you and your future.

They were not. They were just not happy, because I was happy.

How can you say that?

I just know.

Know what?

That people cannot stand it, when I am happy.

But happy for what?

Happy for anything.

Even living in dream world and making castles in the air?

But I was not making castles in the air?

But your friends thought so?

Did they?

Yes and a lot many of them.

But they wanted to take my dream away from me.

So?

That is not right, everybody has right to their own dream.

Yes they do.

Then why were they after me to abandon my dream.

Because they thought it was not good for you.

But I would like keep my dream, they won’t let me keep it.

At what cost?

At any cost!

Then you have paid the cost.

How?

By abandoning your friends, instead of abandoning your dream.

Is that so?

Yes precisely.

But I thought they left me, not the other way round.

No, it is not so.

Why?

How can be so many people be wrong about your dream?

They are jealous!

Jealous? For what?

For me being happy.

But if they were friends of yours, how can be they jealous of your happiness?

They were not friends to begin with.

Then?

They were just compromises I had made.

Is that so?

Yes.

But then so am I, just a compromise.

I don’t know.

Tell me one thing what is so special about this dream, that you abandoned all your friends for that.

It is an imported dream.

So?

What so? Tell me how many imported dreams you get, a very few indeed.

Ok. Any other specialty of this dream?

Yes.

Tell me about it.

This dream is blind.

What do you mean?

Yes, the dream cannot see people, as it is blind as bat, especially during day time.

And yet you want to hold on to it?

Yes because it is my dream, and it cannot hurt me in any way.

Since you have made [and will eventually make] so many sacrifices for your dream, I think it must be worth those sacrifices you have made.

I don’t know.

What do you mean?

I am not so sure whether the dream will be worth the sacrifices I have made.

They why did you make them?

Well this is my life, and I don’t need you ir anybody to tell me what to do with it.

But you only had asked about it?

Did I?

Yes you did?

Well don’t tell me then, what to do with my life and my dream. They are mine and I won’t tolerate any interference with it.

Even if it ruins you?

Yes. And what do you care? As I have already told you, it is my life. So stay away from it!

But that is what I am precisely asking you to do.

Meta-Thinking

What do you mean? I do not understand?

To stay away from me.

I cannot.

You cannot.

Why?

Because you do not capacity or the ability to think about what other person is thinking.

How can you say that?

Why not?

I am above the age of formal operational stage of Piaget.

But you still cannot do
meta-thinking.

I don’t think so.

How?

I know all your motives and what you want from me. I know all of your kind, and what they want from my kind.

Is that so?

Yes.

Then tell me what do I want from you?

You and all your kind are all the same.

Ok. Agreed. And I am proud of it.

How can you say that?

Why, is it not my life? Can’t I do anything with it, the way I want.

Not when I am involved.

Is it not hypocritical of you, to say this?

No it is not.

Why?

Because I am special, everybody should take care of me.

What makes you special?

My charms!

I am not charmed any more.

It is not possible!

Why?

You cannot…..

I cannot what? It is my life and my place, I can, and I do.

So?

So just stay away.

But I have told you, I don’t want to stay away.

Then abandon your dream, but still then I am not sure of allowing you to .

Don’t tell me what to do with my life.

Ok.

Why are you treating me so?

You should better know. You have the ability to meta-think don’t you?

Ok. So give me reasons.

I have no reasons.

What do you mean you have no reasons?

I have no reasons for my behavior, and even if I have, I am not obliged to share it with you.

Why?

Because there are no reasons, only choices.

Only choices?

Yes.

I don’t understand this.

You made some choices, you did not ask anybody and did not listened to anybody.

So?

So likewise why do you want to interfere with choices that I make?

Because it involves me!

The choices you made involved me.

So what, I have already told you, don’t interfere with my life.

Then I am sorry, you must leave. This is my dream.

Why?

Every place has its rules, if you don’t follow them you don’t belong there.

But I don’t care about rules.

But others do.

So?

Thats why you must leave.

I don’t understand you or your logic.

Is that my problem?

Yes it is, should it be not?

No.

Why?

I have stopped taking responsibilities which are not mine?

Why?

I don’t benefit from them.

But still you should.

Why?

For me.

No way.

Why?

You are not worth it.

You don’t mean it.

Yes I do.

All of you are torturing me.

Are we?

Yes you are.

You are torturing yourself and others also.

How?

You have the ability to meta-think, don’t you? Think about it.

I can’t.

So be it.

Relationships

But we do have a relationship.

You are wrong.

Why?

We had one, we don’t have one anymore.

You can’t do this to me.

Why?

How can you?

How can I what?

Abandon me.

Why should not I?

It is not proper.

Not proper for whom.

For both of us.

Don’t drag me with you.

But what happened to the relationship we had?

It was a one sided one.

What do you mean?

It was all your side of the relationship.

Means?

Only you benefited from this and still are.

How can you say so?

Look at the past and see what have I gained from this.

I don’t know. But why do you need to gain?

Why should I not gain?

You are a good person. Why do you want to gain something from this?

Why I should not?

Then you are exploiting me.

Nobody exploits anybody.

You wanted something from me, but did not give anything in return.

Why should I?

If you don’t are you not selfish?

No, I am not.

You just want to take, what you want, not give anything in return.

Why do you expect any return from me?

Is it no right?

No, when I am involved it is not right.

This is what your problem is.

What??

You are unable to think what others expect from you.

And?

And when sometimes you know, even then you tend to ignore it.

I don’t agree to that.

I had told you already, that you don’t understand.

Enough!

What do you want from me?

Friendship

I want your friendship.

But it cannot be one-sided.

How can you say that it is one-sided?

Well in this case I can give you reasons.

What reasons?

See in any friendship there should be some respect for each other.

Are you saying that I don’t respect you?

Yes, and not only me, but lot of others also.

How?

When you are with someone, somewhere, you are not bothered about them, even if they are your friends.

How can you say that?

When you are with somebody, you just don’t care about them.

What do you mean?

When your dream comes calling, you just ignore who is with you.

No, I don’t.

What does it mean if you leave people stranded in middle of nowhere, when you are happily day-dreaming somewhere else.

I haven’t done this.

Yes you have, and that too many a time.

Who says so?

If it was just me, I would have considered it an exception, but I am not the only one who has suffered.

You consider your ignoring of me an insult.

Yes, I do.

Bullshit!

I told you, you don’t have meta-thinking.

Okay. This is one where else I do not fit in.

Well you never seem to have time for us.

Yes, I am very busy person, so many things to do.

So is that my fault?

No.

Have I ever said to you, that I don’t have time, when you have asked for some.

I don’t know.

And how many times have you said that you don’t have time, when I wanted some of yours.

I have already told you, I am a busy person, so many things to do.

So am I, but still I do find time when friends call upon me.

So do you mean I am lying.

No.

Then?

What I mean is, if you want, you can always find time.

But I cannot.

Who are you fooling now?

What do you mean?

Don’t you always find time for somethings or someones.

You are again interfering with my life.

So be it, but it bothers me a lot.

How does this bother you?

For me when somebody says, I don’t have time, I feel the person does not want to be with me.

Another one of your crappy things.

Yes, but I am like that.

So what do I do?

I have told you already.

What?

Go away.

But we can talk.

No.

Why?

I don’t want to.

Why?

You have given me enough pain already.

So have you.

Yours were self made.

No you gave them to me.

You could have avoided them easily.

How?

Maybe you should have a
voided me.

But that is what I don’t want.

You are not sure what you want and what you don’t.

How can you say that?

You like me and you hate yourself for that, don’t you?

How can you say that?

I can meta-think at least a bit.

Bullshit, these are your self-gratifying thoughts.

So be it, and here the dialogue ends as there is nothing more left to talk about….

adios…….