Joker vs Batman - Nihilism vs Society

The Question: Who would you rather be? -

Batman: The incorruptible, conscientious, intelligent, eccentric watchful protector of the "good" people; not just a man, but a symbol of hope who strikes fear into the hearts of evil-doers.
OR
Joker: An agent of Chaos, equally intelligent and eccentric but who sees life in an alternate way, incongruous to established society; who understands there is no "good" or "evil", that hope & fear are all man-made, who embraces the craziness of existence... a Nihilist.

Do not think that The Joker is the obviously wrong choice; there's more to him than meets the eye. Read on.

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There are two drastically different points of views to life. You are probably familiar with the first :-

1) Find joy / sorrow in day to day things - You feel happy when someone gifts you ice-cream, you feel content when your work is appreciated, you feel sad if you are the reason for someone else's pain, you feel jealous if a colleague gets the girl you like, you feel sorrow if you lose someone dear.
Living life like this for your entire life, sharing the joys and sorrows, you achieve some career goals, personal goals and influence everybody around you, ultimately contributing towards the progress of humanity. (Progress is defined by humans, for humans, of humans). After say 80 years, you'll die and humanity will continue with your imprint on it.
This way of life has been passed along to us since generations by the society.


2) Nihilistic view:-
Question the fundamental assumptions that we take for granted everyday and see what hell breaks lose.... The previous view has been passed along to us since generations by the SOCIETY. But why conform with the society? Why should I run after a career, money and all the man-made stuff? Money itself arose because of population, to trade goods. But why should I care if I steal rice from the farmer instead of trading it for money? Why should I let myself feel "guilt" for doing so? Guilt is taught by society just to give everyone a fair chance. Same goes for a "sympathy", "pity", "being considerate".

If a friend yells at me because I hurt him, I would feel sad. But once I abandon all conformance with society, once I abandon care for others, there is no reason to feel sad in such cases.

If I feel curious and interested to see what happens if I stab my arm with a knife, I should do it! Why should I fear what my body is telling me to feel - pain? May be just because of the survival instinct, evolution has obfuscated our true nature. Possibly killing is not a bad thing either. May be the life after death is the better one, or maybe death is the road to freedom. Or may be we are in a Matrix (movie) and this is not the truth. There's no way of verifying if what we are living in is the truth. Its all undefined.

Happiness, joy, sadness, love, hatred, guilt, sympathy, greed, envy etc are ALL either man-made or enforced by your body on you due to evolution! If I consider myself as just my mind trapped in this materialistic body in this materialistic society, I have absolutely no reason to feel them.

There is no reason to feel them. But here's the twist: Just because there is no reason to feel them doesn't mean I should not feel any of these feelings. I can feel what I want to and ignore what I don't want.
Example: If I feel like eating a cake and then board a plane and then kill the pilot, I should do it all!! In the process if I lose my partner to the cops, I shouldn't feel sorrow. If I take a bullet to the hand, I would just observe the blood oozing out and how the body makes me feel pain and carry on with whatever I feel like doing next.

It doesn't make much sense does it? Thats coz its all very chaotic! Chaos is the answer. That is how the Joker's mind works. He does what he feels like just because he exists (which he didn't ask for) and doesn't want to conform with the society because there is no natural reason to conform with the society. In such a case what he does, is simply unpredictable. Its chaos to others as well as inside his mind!!

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The Nihilistic way of life is not "wrong" because it is fundamentally the natural way - doing what you feel like doing without conforming to society which is man-made. Moreover, if you accept it, then there is no "wrong" or "right".
However, with many people living together, the natural way of life cannot keep everyone happy at the same time. Thats why it is considered "wrong".

Imagine this: You are the only person on earth. You did not even grow up among humans as we know them now. No society. No culture. Just the way nature intended it to be. Then you would by default be following the Joker's way of life except that you wont hurt yourself. But add in the understanding that you are separate from your body, and then you would be following Joker's way of life, won't you?

So if you were to live the most natural way, it would be the Joker's way.

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Now that you understand these two ways of life, first of which Batman follows and the second, Joker, who do you think is more close to as nature/god/creation intended you to be? Now, what do you choose?

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Identifying with the Joker

There are some characters in movies with whom you can identify with if you think like them.

I have been thinking about nihilism so much in the past few days having nothing better to do sitting at home, that there was complete chaos in my mind yesterday. So I decided to watch Dark Knight again today becoz I had read somewhere on the net that Joker could be called a nihilist.

 And I could fking relate with the Joker!! I understood why he was laughing when batman was beating the crap outta him in jail. I understood him when he gave a gun to Harvey in the hospital and took a chance. I could identify with him when he was utterly shocked at why the people in the boats didn't blow off each other. I also could identify with him when he hysterically jumped on his own clown fallen on the ground after being electrocuted while removing batman's mask.

Being able to identify with the Joker may be a terrible thing! But, I also understood why the people on the boats didn't blow each other even though according to Game Theory, they should have.  More importantly I understood why Batman anticipated before time that they would not blow each other off. That speaks of the inherent "good" within people or conscience.

Being able to understand both, the unstoppable force and the immovable object, the two extremities, is, I feel, an achievement! But the greatest achievement is by the one who not just understood them, but created them... Christopher Nolan!

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Can you identify with the Joker?

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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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"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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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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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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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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