Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Free iPad2 Giveaway by Stanford!


Ever thought the prestigious Stanford University would give away free iPads to random people over the world? Well thats exactly what this is -

To win, simply sign up HERE (official stanford site, you can check address bar). NO NEED to Like any facebook page or fill out any surveys and shit! This is all.

Apparently, this giveaway is part of an experiment being conducted to study the viral propagation of an article on the net by one Nicolas Kokkalis from Stanford as part of his PhD.

Also, SHARE this on fb and twitter (buttons below) to increase your winning chances!

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Monday, October 10, 2011

"Does God Exist?" conversation between Professor & Student is FALLACIOUS!

A conversation between an atheist Professor and a Student tries to prove that the professor's ideas are wrong and support the ideas of God, Religion and Faith. There are possibly multiple versions of this conversation floating around the internet; I have come across two. One of them is a video which claims the student to be Albert Einstein.


Another is a a viral article on Facebook as well as many blogs which claims the student was Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
Link: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/96175_awesome-conversation-abdulkalam-as-a-student

The very fact that the student is claimed to be a different person (scientist) in different versions and yet the story is claimed to be true shows a pathetic attempt of a (theist) person to sell-off their ideas under the name of established scientists just because people tending towards atheism would be more likely to agree with a scientist. Shame on you believer!

I don't know about Dr. Abdul Kalam, but I seriously doubt Einstein had that conversation ever. As far as I remember, according to a lesson in my school, Albert Einstein was kinda a slow learner and reticent in his childhood, thus making it unlikely that he would answer back the teacher with such articulation. Whats more, Einstein went to a catholic school. Do you honestly believe, a teacher in a catholic school would try to preach atheism in the first place?

The argument of the student is not at all convincing if you reflect on it but even then this conversation keeps enduring. So here's my critique on the conversation given in the article (the video leaves out some parts from the article).

I'd like to start with criticizing the most obvious flaws first:

1) When the student mocks the syllogism of the professor to question the existence of the professor's brain, the professor could have easily refuted the student's point. Questioning the existence of human brain in this way is not similar to questioning the existence of god. The professor could have easily said, "It has been established with practical evidence that the brain does exist within the skull. People have seen it, felt it, smelt it. This is NOT the case with god. Hence the two cases are not analogous. If you are still reluctant to believe that I have a brain, I can bet you that I have a brain... kill me and have a look; the bet being, after you kill me, you should deposit 1 billion dollars in my wife's account and then kill yourself since it is due to your puerile insistence that i would have to die."

2) Regarding the evolutionary theory, yes it is a "theory", which means it is not a proven fact, but a very probable one. That is why it is taught in schools. On the other hand, the idea that an omnipotent, omniscient god exists who urges people to follow some set of rules (religion) is a theory with an infinitesimal probability. Moreover, it does not explain most of the observations that we encounter in life. Then why teach it? Hence it is called preaching. This absurd idea is like saying "There is one powerful raven who is white in color. We know all the ravens we see around us are black, but have faith, there does exist the white raven. And we must worship him (his deity)." And this ridiculous idea cannot be disproved without examining each and every raven all over the world. But common sense dictates that this idea is highly improbable which is why we call it ridiculous.

Its also noteworthy that the evolutionary theory is considered heretic mostly in the West. Now, I don't have much knowledge about the Abrahamic religions (or any religion for that matter), but I reckon this may be because it conflicts with the Christian teachings that God created Adam and Eve and that is how humans came into being. Eastern religions do not have a grudge on the evolutionary theory. So the point is, the conflict is between a particular religion and science, not between the idea of god's existence and science. Hence, since all the religions don't have a consistent view, we can discard the aversion towards Evolutionary Theory.

3) The argument about how cold is just the absence of heat and likewise evil is just the absence of good, is cogent and I might agree to it. Absence of heat is cold implies that the coldest something can get is fixed i.e. -273C or 0 Kelvin - there is a fixed absolute zero point. The temperature cannot go below this value coz this is where it starts. Similarly absence of light is darkness implies there is a fixed absolute zero point for the magnitude of light whence darkness is said to be maximum. However, can you think of a fixed deed which is the most evil i.e. a deed in which there is complete absence of good? There is no such absolute zero point. You can have neutral attitude toward something, you can have a positive attitude towards it or you can have a negative attitude towards something. The "Goodness" extends infinitely towards the positive axis. And, similarly, you can go in the negative axis also, infinetly! The more you go in the negative direction, the lesser the Goodness and more the evilness. The point whence good becomes evil (neutral point) is a matter of personal, social and cultural view. Its different for everyone. You can think of the scale like a Rainbow - there is no fixed neutral point. For some yellow maybe neutral attitude, for some green maybe neutral.

In essence, Yes, absence of good is evil but the scales of Light and Good are different. Light has a fixed minimum value below which it cannot go while the value of goodness can go below any point and extend infinitely in both directions. The idea that evilness can extend infinitely practically means you can come up with more and more evil intentions. There is no single most evil deed. Similarly for goodness.

Lastly, immaterial of the validity of the arguments presented by the student, the final claim that "The link between man & god is FAITH" rests flimsily on the concession of the Professor "I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son."
First of all, what kinda Professor resigns so easily from his principles giving in to a simplistic, fallacious argument made by a kid? Clearly the conversation is forged to favor the theistic opinion. If the Professor had continued his case like I mentioned in my 1st point, the student could never have made his conclusion about Faith.

Therefore, Checkmate you piece of bogus conversation!

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Finally, my view on faith, god and religion:

Imagine the prehistoric time when the concepts of religion, god, etc are yet to be thought of. People wonder why they exist. They keep thinking about existence, purpose of life, what everything around them means. They keep enduring pain at the hands of natural calamities and predators. More importantly, they have to feed themselves regularly else their body gives them pain.
Life seems meaningless just like the life of a mosquito seems meaningless to us presently. They get frustrated, confused, chaotic because they cannot come up with an answer. To appease the frustration, some clever guy comes up with an explanation which is undeniable although without proof. The explanation is -
"A supreme power called God created this world. Since he is the Creator, he controls everything in this world. Since he created us, we must thank him and worship him. Since he is the Creator, we must always trust him. Have Faith in him. He will always do good. God has given us life, so he wants us to live it. Have Faith in him."
This gave the people a purpose to live, which, although fake, was undeniable (see eg. of white raven above).
As years and centuries went by, the story could have branched out into various versions. Moreover, artful people could have added their own ideas to it which would benefit them. Hence the rise of religions.

This is what I think could have happened. Instead of giving in to this fallacy, I prefer to accept the reality that life is but with an unknown purpose or even meaningless. I prefer to think of our purpose of existence every moment and come up with plausible Purposes. And if ever I'll be tired and frustrated, I would resort to accepting the least objectionable Purpose from the pool of purposes I would have thought of till then. As of now, my least objectionable purpose is:

"Our purpose of existence is, since we don't know what it is, to find out what it is."

This purpose is definitely not attainable overnight, not even in a few more millennia maybe, but by living our regular life and by engendering a smarter generation every time (owing to genetics) we can and would definitely contribute toward this ultimate purpose. Hence we must live on.

Its also important to remember that, a single definition of God is not accepted universally. Some consider God as preached by their religions, to be a single entity like Jesus; some consider God to be just a mysterious force; some consider Gods to be the manipulators of natural forces like in Norse, Greek mythology, while some consider God to be the answer to everything.

A quote by someone (I don't remember who) is a nice aphorism -
"For Religion, God is in the beginning. For Science, God is in the end".

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Also see this article on the same conversation: https://croor.wordpress.com/tag/existence-of-god/

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Monday, September 26, 2011

T-Shirt for October Fest - BEER!

The new contest on inkfruit.com is called the Intoxica in anticipation of the Octoberfest and it was a fortuitous opportunity for me. I have not much to do in the everyday, I needed to learn Illustrator and lastly, I like Beer :) (occasionally)

So here's my design:

Whether the design means you are dreaming about a wonderful beerland or whether it means the Chalice has stumbled into Beerland like Alice stumbles into the rabbit hole, either way, the t-shirt is a good conversation starter in pubs :)


Now, I neeeeeed you to VOTE for my design on Inkfruit.com coz thats how it works! They select 3 designs as winners based on votes. And only the winning designs are printed and sold.
So Vote here: http://www.inkfruit.com/contest/index/vote/id/18481
On right side, click WOW :D
>> If you have an account at inkfruit, please Login and then vote coz, votes from members count much more! Or just make a new account, it hardly takes 1 min, plus u'll get some discount points to use when you buy online.

Let me state that, it took about 4-5 days of designing this. I did it from scratch... no copy paste-ation from internet. Original idea, original painstaking design in vector format. Credits also go to Sayli Kawatkar for the wonderful sketch-work without which I couldn't begin.

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For those who don't know what Inkfruit.com is about - Its a Mumbai based website where people submit t-shirt designs, people themselves vote and then they select some winners. Winning designs are sold online as well as in stores like Planet M, Pune Central. I myself own 4-5 inkfruit tshirts and I can vouch for the quality.

Also, let me take this opportunity to point out some facts about Beer -
If you google "Beer health effects", you'll get all results which give health benefits of beer :)
A glass or two of beer in a day is innocuous, infact healthy; above this limit, its cons would come into effect. So its like Science & Technology - its upto you to use it positively or negatively.

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Friday, September 23, 2011

Sci-fi movies in plausible chronological order

Here's what I've observed: some movie can follow from another movie because the events in movie1 can plausibly lead to the events in movie2.
For eg. - Terminator -> Matrix
In Terminator, machines rise up and become the superior race trying to eradicate humans. They probably succeed in proliferating over the world. In this process, as Matrix tells us, humans would try blocking out the sun to prevent the machines from getting their energy source and hence those machines come up with using humans as batteries and eventually the whole Matrix movie follows.


Here's another plausible flow of movies:

Iron Man -> I, Robot -> Terminator -> Matrix

1) Tony Stark comes up with a brilliant invention - a powerful, sturdy yet compact cyborg suit which has highly developed and interactive AI built into it. Then its just a matter of time that the suit is modified into an independent robot. Soon these robots are commercialized and I,Robot happens.
2) In I,Robot we see that the AI (V.I.K.I) evolves and becomes self-aware just like the AI in Cyberdyne systems in Terminator1. But alas, it is destroyed in the end. However, Sonny the unique robot, the Hero throughout the film, also has a capability to evolve coz he is highly human-like AND FREE, having free will! Whats more, in the end, Sonny sets out to FREE all other NS-5 robots. Isn't that exactly the beginning of a new superior race? It is bound to happen that among these 1000s of FREE robots, some would be aware that they are superior to the human race and become just like VIKI or Cyberdyne systems and hence Terminator follows.
3) Then as discussed earlier, Matrix follows.

Another possibility:

Iron Man -> I, Robot -> Bicentennial Man (with Sonny from I, Robot as the robot in this)

In I,Robot if at the end Sonny doesn't set free all the other robots, then he could be the robot in Bicentennial man - he has emotions, feelings, dreams just as in bicentennial man.

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Thursday, September 1, 2011

Levels / Orders of Thinking

When you're in a strategic situation or a game, there are, what I call, Levels of thinking or Orders of thinking.

In a strategic situation, you must anticipate what your opponent would do and act accordingly. Your opponent will also anticipate your moves and act accordingly. Which action is the winning move depends on which order you and your opponent are thinking on. Interestingly, when the action can have only two values, it alternates every level.

That must have made no sense, so here's an example:

Suppose you have done something wrong, lets say you've abetted someone in a crime, and a detective is hired to look into the matter.The detective is gonna talk face to face with a bunch of people rounded up for interrogation.

Its your turn. He shows you a photo of the thug whom you assisted and asks sternly, "Recognize this fellow?".
*Now, if you show fear or guilt on your face or by way of body language like gulping down your throat, the detective is gonna corner you even if you answer "No". And you lose!
That is Level 0 thinking - Ground level thinking or obviousness or naiveness / artless / simpleton.
Level 0 for you coz, you did the obvious/naive move: showing the guilt by gulping down.
Level 0 for the detective coz also took the obvious decision as according to him, you were clearly guilty.
The detective wins coz thats what was supposed to happen - he was the Expected winner. This was the simplest case.

Now, instead, suppose you act smart. You realize if you show any signs of fear or guilt while lying, you're done for. You anticipate what the detective is gonna look for.
So when asked about the photo, you calmly deceive the detective by saying "No" just like other innocent people.
That is Level 1 thinking on your part.
The detective was still on Level 0.
So, you won.

However the detective may also be artful.
Lets assume that he has a presumption that all suspects think on Level 1. So even he thinks on Level 1. Hence if you do suppress your gulping or body language, he CATCHES you. He wins.
If you DONT suppress your gulp, you DONT get caught! Here's where it starts alternating.
If you understand all this and you purposefully decide not to suppress the gulp, it means you are thinking on Level 2. It means you completely anticipated your opponent and stayed one step ahead of him.
If you had not anticipated your opponent AT ALL i.e. if you had been naive i.e. if you had been on Level 0, even then you would have won.
However if you had anticipated your opponent but not completely i.e. if you had been on level 1, you would lose! Thats like executing a half baked plan... no plan is better than a half baked plan.

Now, lets take this a level higher - the detective is one smartass like Michael Scofield (from Prison Break). He understands all of what is written above! He believes you are also a smartypants and so you are not gonna be on level 1, let alone level 0. He has reason to believe that you are gonna be thinking on Level 2. You don't know this coz you have not anticipated that the detective is one hell of a smartass; smart, but not so smart; so you go with Level 2 (half-bakedness). Hence, you DO GULP expecting to win the battle, but unfortunately for you, the detective is also on Level 2. He sees through all your smartness and He wins!
An amusing point to note here:
If the detective was on Level 0 i.e. a simpleton/naive, say a teletubbie as a detective (not worthy of being a detective), even then, he would have won!

What we can conclude in numbers here is:

Of the two entities competing, one of them is gonna be an Expected Winner at ground level - In this case the detective.
1) When both the entities are on the same level, the Expected winner wins. Or to generalize, when there is a difference of 2n between their levels, the Expected wins.
2) When there is a difference of (2n+1) between their levels, the Expected loser Wins.

So its like an alternating ladder:



Also, when your action/move can have more than 2 values, I think the representation might look like a helix:




Where do you encounter such convoluted thinking?

In real life, usually, only level 0 and level 1 are common. Thinking on Level 2 by just one party is quite rare. Thinking on Level 2 by BOTH the parties is hardly ever encountered in real life, atleast I have not observed it yet. Level 3 and beyond are practically non-existent IRL.

In fiction, esp crime drama, psychological thrillers Level 1 and Level 2 by one party is somewhat common. Level 2 thinking by BOTH the parties is seen once in a blue when the producer/writer wants to shock you. And Level 3 thinking by one party would be very rare. I think Death Note exhibits Level 3 thinking at some point... not sure, I'll have to watch it again.

Where do you use this?

Social Engineering, deception, investigation, day-to-day life decision making, recognizing people, Sports, Games.

My example considered an "intellectual battle" between two characters. However, this concept of levels of thinking is evident in other cases also whenever you would anticipate something. *Cant think of an example right now; will update as soon as i find one*

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Now that you understand what levels of thinking means, suggest me some movies, serials, animes, books which features "High Level thinking". The universally known genres "Psychological Thriller" or "Mindfck" come close to describing the same quality but not quite exact.

Here's my list:

Animes:
1) Death Note
2) Code Geass ... I haven't seen it yet but from the descriptions by its fans that I've read it does seem to be like "high level thinking" stuff.

Serials:
1) Prison Break

Movies and Books, dont know. All of the ones I know are Level 1.

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"Levels of Thinking" was my way of putting up this concept that we unconsciously follow. Do you have a similar framework? Upto what Level have you ever thought?

Leave your comments.

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Monday, February 28, 2011

My Goals in Life

Note: I'm gonna write this article as if this blog is my personal diary. So excuse some random disorganization in the structure.

People ask children what they wanna be when they grow up. Some say they wanna be a pilot, some say they wanna be an actor. When I was a child, I never understood why they think so. I think there were too many uncertain variables to be able to answer that question. Or, I think I didn't have a goal. Rather, I didn't understand what a goal is. Most of the people go with the flow doing high school, college, engg or medical and get a job.

About 2 years ago, I understood what it means to have a goal in life. I know its quite late, but, better late than never. A goal is something which if not achieved makes you frustrated and hence inspires you to work towards achieving it. I felt it first when I was thinking about the universe and existence.

I categorize my goals in life as:
I) The Ultimate Goal
II) Practical Goals that will define my career

I) The Ultimate Goal

This is infact, the ultimate goal of mankind, of each and every person knowingly or unknowingly.
I am an introverted person and a thinker by nature. Everytime I think about existence, the universe, the planets, the oceans, humans compared to animals, mosquitoes, modern science, meditation, psychology, I get frustrated knowing that we are apparently so insignificant in this universe about which we know almost nothing.
Why do we exist? This is the basic question that baffles every person but people nowadays seem to ignore it. However, I believe, finding out the purpose of our existence (and all related questions about the universe and existentialism) is the ultimate goal of every conscious being. The question cannot be answered by a systematic project. Each and everyone in this world contributes towards answering this question by their actions, unconsciously or consciously.

So that is the Ultimate Goal of mankind. And I stress it as My Ultimate Goal too because my practical goals in life are based on it.

II) My Practical Goals

Although I call them "practical goals", they are still far-fetched. There is no fixed way to achieve them. These goals are what would decide my career. Some of these are just fascinating ideas which later became one of my goals.

1) To build a Free Energy Device

Since my high school, I was trying to think of a PMM (Perpetual Motion Machine). During my college, I learnt that there exists a word for such a machine which is called PMM. I always feel that there must be some way by to build a device which can provide energy without any expenditure. And to support my feeling is the fact that the 1st law thermodynamics aka the conservation of energy is just based on human observation. Its not a mathematically derived law. Anyway, I now call it by the proper name - "Free Energy Device". I wish I could play an important role in inventing a FED which will propel India towards being a superpower.

2) To come up with a technology which will enable direct transfer of thoughts and knowledge from one mind to another or to an electronic system which can store it.

My inspiration for coming up with such an 'absurd' idea is simple - during my schooling I noticed the teacher cannot convey absolutely what s/he has to teach. Even if s/he does, the students interpret it differently. Plus, we spend about 20 yrs in just learning. So what if, one could copy the teacher's knowledge directly? I know that is ridiculous, flawed and might probably even inhibit learning but that was just the inspiring thought. Lets develop it some and see the implications.
As of now, there already exist commercial toys which can read concentration levels and manipulate a prime mover. There also exists technology using which you can indicate directions to drive a car (say in a video game) just by thinking which way to go.

Suppose we are able to come up with technology which can copy a person's thoughts as it is i.e. without any data loss we could accumulate the thoughts and understandings of each and every person on the earth into a powerful supercomputer. This computer will be like the Akashic Records - a library of all human knowledge and experience. Then the computer can be programmed to process on the thoughts and knowledge of every person to reconcile discrepancies between every person's understanding of the universe and various phenomena. This will drastically accelerate our understanding about the universe, history of mankind, mythology and will catapult mankind towards The Ultimate Goal.

Alternatively, if we are able to transfer our thoughts and knowledge directly to another person instead of to a computer, then a global network for mind information transfer can be setup. Then, instead a single computer reconciling discrepancies, it will happen in every person's mind which will bring the understanding of every person to the same level. In essence it means every person will be able to understand other perfectly. This is when complete and worldwide Peace will be established. This idea of mine was reinforced when I heard it in Naruto Shippuuden. I think Naruto says something like "Only when people can truly understand each other will peace be established".

3) To make a self-learning machine

Various sources have inspired me to consider this dream as one of my goals. One of them is a funny quote: "I'd rather write code that writes code than write code." :D. Another is the array of sci-fi movies and literature that feature AI such as The Terminator, Matrix, I Robot etc.
Most importantly, though, I believe that for the innovation of a self-learning algorithm, one needs to think philosophically. For instance, always think how a new born baby would learn what is good for it and what is harmful. Or how a baby learns to filter out unmeaningful background noise from language and within than, how it makes out words - something based on pattern recognition. I have a philosophical mind and I love thinking philosophically on quite anything.

Implications of a self-learning machine are of tremendous gravity. For one, if the AI goes out of control, the story of I Robot or Terminator could happen followed by Matrix :P Sometimes I think jokingly that how ironic it is that one of my goals (no. 2) may lead to world peace while another (this one) may lead to the destruction of humanity and that due to the limits posed by my educational qualification, I cannot pursue the Peace goal and am pursuing the Destruction goal :P.

However, suppose we are able to create a self-learning machine that is kept in control preventing Terminator, then we will in essence have an immortal human being which is able to learn and improve itself at an exponential rate! Hence, it will drive humanity towards The Ultimate Goal with exponentially increasing rate!

And ofcourse apart from helping mankind in achieving The Ultimate Goal, an intelligent, human-like-thinking robot will drastically advance each and every field. Its no feat to imagine its wide range of applications.

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Now about how these goals would affect my career:
I have done my Bachelors of Engineering in Mechanical. Hence, its impossible to pursue my 2nd goal. It is very much fitting to pursue my 1st goal. And lastly, I can also pursue my 3rd goal by getting into the field of robotics - humanoids, intelligent machines, AI and so on. I chose the 3rd one.

All three of my practical goals are also highly far-fetched but I have a gut feeling that they are possible although I admit, the 2nd one is the most unrealistic of all.
Regarding the 1st one, work in FED is already taking place all over the world.
As for the 3rd one, just think of it as bio-mimicry. Humans themselves are self-learning machines. If humans can exist, so can man-made self-learning machines.

I know that probably during my entire life till death, I might not achieve the goal but atleast, I would contribute as much as possible in achieving it. Maybe sometime in between, I might gain immortality by becoming a cyborg :P

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