Curious Idiot

See these nice flowcharts about blind-faith and Science.

When I read this Paul Graham's essay I understood that I was seeking wisdom rather than domain specific intelligence. If I refer to my earlier post named "Three levels of Consciousness" , I can say that seeking wisdom is in the "third level of consciousness" and seeking "domain specific intelligence" is in "second level of consciousness". In the past 6.5 years I simply could not spend much time in seeking domain specific intelligence. I was completely addicted to reading books from different fields only to understand how exactly this world is working. Which I think has paid off when I finally ended my book reading stride with "Consciousness Explained". I still will read books but the rate of seeking wisdom may not be high. So finally I started applying whatever Ideas I have learnt till now. I will have to see what I end up with in my life :-)

The following concepts and facts made me think about what exactly is happening in this earth. 1) Universe might have formed during big bang ( Big bang theory ) 2) Living things are formed from non-living molecules which in turn are formed from basic elements. 3) Living organisms formed and evolved over 4 billions years in earth 4) Our Brain is not a complicated system but is a complex system. So whole is more than the sum of its parts. That extra in the sum is the consciousness. So consciousness is just a side effect of the working of the subsystems of our brain. 6) Second law of thermodynamics says that "In a closed system, a process can occur only if it increases the total entropy of the system " 7) Living organisms are examples for decreasing entropy. (Of course in an open system) 8) Human beings have the capability to decrease entropy due to their own actions which in turn results in our illusion of having "Free will" and "Consciousness". So here is m...

Today many theories exist to describe human consciousness. Some are: a) Mind/Brain dualism b) Cartesian theatre c) Hard problem of consciousness d) Multiple drafts theory e) The society of mind ( In these theories I do not find any difference between Daniel Dennett's "Multiple drafts theory" and Marvin Minsky' s "The society of mind" ) In June 2007 I finished reading "Consciousness explained" by "Daniel Dennett" and came to know that it could be the last book which would change my life forever. We might take two or three decades to have more strong evidences for the "Multiple drafts theory". Following are the facts I consider as strong points for this theory:- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1) None of the cells in the brain(Neurons) bother about the brain or the body containing the brain. They just do three things. a) Energy absorption and Survival. b) ...

I read a useful way of dividing our consciousness into three different levels. The idea is from the book "Visions" by Michio Kaku . First level: ------------- The lowest level of consciousness is the ability of an organism to monitor its body and its environment. By this definition, even a thermostat has some consciousness since it monitors the surrounding temperature. Examples of this level: a) Bacteria going away from higher temperature area or going towards food. b) Humans taking away the hands when accidentally kept on a hot surface. c) Babies moving hands and doing other things when born. These are mostly hard-wired functions. Second level: ---------------- The second level is the ability to carry out well-definted goals, like survival and reproduction. Higher up on this second level lies the entire animal kingdom. Once the primary goals ( e.g., finding food and mates) are preprogrammed into the animal brain, they determine the complex plans to carry...

I can find only the following three things to be causing worries for anybody in this earth. 1) Wrong goals 2) Unrealistic goals 3) Not working towards realistic goals Examples for Wrong goals: ------------------------------ a) Being rich would satisfy all my needs and wants. b) My team will succeed if all my subordinates in the team do what I assign them to do without pushing back. Examples for Unrealistic goals: ---------------------------------- a) My children who are not disciplined today would be disciplined 10 years later, without any effort from anybody. b) Expecting that manager would always give the work which we like. c) Expecting that best things would always come to me automatically. d) Expecting that we will do our best even when we are tensed up. e) Expecting that if I get good grades I will get the best job in the best company. f) Expecting that others will measure my intelligence 100% accurately. g) Expecting that we would get the best knowledge from our elders and paren...

Amygdala is the part of the brain where emotions arise. Emotions arise by way of secreting chemicals. For simplicity sake we will assume that only the following emotional states are present. Pain - We always try to go away from this state. Peace- Might be boring after sometime. So we generally try to find something better than peace/boring state. Pleasure- We generally try to be in this state most of our life. All these states would have different chemicals secreted in Amygdala which is a part of the lymbic system . This is true for all mammals. And this is what is happening for any kid/adult in this whole world(earth). There is nothing like SOUL in the brain to recognize these chemicals. Pain: ------ Caused by some problem in Real World- Following are some 1) Hunger 2) Injury 3) High/low temperature 4) Many other physical problems/sufferings 5) Seeing that our friends/relatives are suffering. Self Induced Example: 1) Not achieving the set goal. - If achieved, it will lead to pleasu...

Just a 192 pages book "A brief history of time" clearly explains what we understand in this world and what we do not understand and if we might understand in the future. Now that I know what I do not know, I thought of reading books from experts of other fields to understand the universe more. Once I completed my Bachelor of Engineering in May 2002 I joined Novell, Bangalore for my first job. Then I started reading all kinds of books which interested me. Strangely enough, not many care about reading books after starting to work. Atleast I have not seen many working people who read books. For me it was the opposite. I became a voracious reader. There is no pressure to study and get good grades. I did not really bother to spend more time after office hours for growing in the company. So I spent all my spare time in reading all sorts of books which I thought would help me understand this world. Following are some of the books which I read from 2001 till date. 1) I'...

I went with my friends to city from the college hostel to hang around and enjoy. That was around march 2002. We also went to second hand books sale shop. Everybody bought books of their choice. Sarangan bought "Chicken soup for the surviving soul". I was thinking about buying "The God of small things" . Sarangan said it is a good book. I decided to buy it later. I chose the small book - "A Brief history of time" and it just costed Rs. 40/- as a second hand sale. When I bought it I just thought that it would be an interesting one. How could I ever have thought that it would change my life forever? Following are some of the things I understood from the book which if one understands would change their life forever. 1) The concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. 2) An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job. 3) A theory is just a model of the universe, ...

I was not exposed to any great books till I was in school. That probably was because none of my school friends or relatives or neighbours talked about reading any books. Not even novels. Apart from school books I just read Tamil(My mother tongue) novels. When I entered college, I found most of my colleagues reading books. Mostly novels. All kind of novels. I also read some novels. But I could not spend much time for the first 3 years, as I wanted to get a good job. The next day after getting my job, my book reading spree started. I literally got addicted to reading books. The first book I read was "I'm OK You're OK". This book was really good. It helped me understand that brain is not a single undivisible entity. "Thinking part of brain" is different and "feelings part of brain" is different. I was able to see this easily in me and in others. I was able to apply this easily. Then "Dancing Wu Li Masters". This was also good. I learnt that ...

We can't prove that God is not there. But then we can also not prove the presence of the God. I dont want to wait for either of these to be proved. But there is one logic which helped me in deciding that "God is not there". If the so called Omnipotent God is there with all possible powers in the universe, then atleast some responsibilities can be delegated to God. But if he is not there, we should be responsible for everything. Even if God is there, he is not going to kill us for assuming more responsibilities. Now that God is not there, where did this universe(/multiverse) come from? Who are we? Where did we all originate from? ? What are we doing here? Where are we headed towards? Why did this universe get created? Why did we get created? I could not spend my time in searching for the answers for any of these questions for the next four years. I spent 1998 for standard 12. Then got into a , pretty much good, engineering college called NIT Trichy, Indi...

Until March 1st 1997, when I was just 16 years old, I was a normal kid going to school and doing what would please my parents and others. I had all the normal beliefs about life and earth and universe or atleast that is what I was thinking. That is when my biology master told me the truth. Within a few moments it struck me that, YES GOD IS NOT THERE!!! Anywhere in this universe there is no such thing called GOD. Everything fell into place automatically. All propositions supporting this fact started to fall in place in my brain. That was the first turning point in my life. I started to diverge from the normal life which I might have led if I had not come to know about the fact that "THE SO CALLED OMNIPOTENT GOD IS NOT THERE AT ALL IN THIS UNIVERSE (OR MULTIVERSE IF THERE IS ONE)."