Not your optimistic afterlife

For any religion to be worth its salt, it must offer its followers perspectives on three things:
1) A view of Life, the Universe and Everything.
2) A method for going through everyday life. After all, its tough \m/
3) Some history as to the faith's origins.

For this post, lets consider what the biggest religions have to say about the first of these.

(Borrowed extensively from thinkquest.org)
Christianity

The body dies, but the soul lives forever. The big question is where each person will spend eternity. Heaven is a glorious location where there is an absence of pain, disease, sex, depression, etc. and where people live in new, spiritual bodies, in the presence of Jesus Christ. Hell is a location where its inmates will be punished without any hope of relief, for eternity.

Muslim

The Islamic holy book, the Koran, says that salvation depends on a man's actions and attitudes. However, repentance can turn an evil man toward the virtue that will save him. The final day of reckoning is described in awesome terms. On that last day every man will account for what he has done, and his eternal existence will be determined on that basis.

Muslims recognize that different individuals have been given different abilities and various degrees of insight into the truth. Each man will be judged according to his situation, and every man who lives according to the truth to the best of his abilities will achieve heaven. However, infidels who are presented with the truth of Islam and reject It will be given no mercy. God judges all men, and the infidels will fall off the bridge al-Aaraf into hell while the good men continue on to heaven.

The Koran has vivid descriptions of both heaven and hell. Heaven is depicted in terms of worldly delights, and the torments of hell are shown in lurid detail. Muslims disagree as to whether those descriptions are to be taken literally or not.

Hinduism

The final goal of salvation in Hinduism is escape from the endless round of birth, death, and rebirth. 

Four ways of reaching such salvation, are described. Jnana yoga, the way of knowledge, employs philosophy and the mind to comprehend the unreal nature of the universe. Bhakti yoga, the way of devotion or love, reaches salvation through ecstatic worship of a divine being. Karma yoga, the way of action, strives toward salvation by performing works without regard for personal gain and Raja yoga, "the royal road," makes use of meditative yoga techniques.

Buddhism

You die, you reincarnate. The type of rebirth(whether as a mosquito, a pig or a human etc) will be conditioned by the moral tone of the person's actions. The Buddhism sees ignorance rather than sin as the roadblock to salvation. That is, the belief that the world and self truly exist, keeps the illusory wheel of existence rolling - only destruction of that belief will stop the mad course of the world. The Buddha described Nirvāna as the perfect peace of the state of mind that is free from craving, anger and other afflicting states. It is also the "end of the world"; there is no identity left, and no boundaries for the mind.

Some glaring problems with issues of afterlife. 
1) Personal Identity: Do we keep our memories or leave them with the body? If we indeed leave them, its like a total refresh, everyone is the same blank slate. Does surviving this way have any point at all?
2) Why is the afterlife so similar to this physical world? Do the genders exist? 
3) There are hypothesis about the future, death and the afterlife(which might last for eternity), but what about birth? Are new people being created or like in Hinduism/Buddhism, just being recycled? 


I don't believe in religions anyway, so why am I analyzing them? Well, firstly to see how having stood for over thousands of years, these are still not without basic logical shortcomings. Secondly, just to see what different perspectives are possible. And thirdly, to make a brand new adaptation of mine, even though it might not be palatable to many.

A new approach
Lets consider dying = a bad thing. After all we are all sad/afraid of it. 
So unlike conventional schools, lets conclude Earth is Heaven and Afterlife is Hell (for lack of better terminology). 
This makes our natural state as Souls in Hell, from where we are allowed breaks when we visit Earth. 
Now this reminds me of prison more than anything else, so extending this mind-trip further, maybe we are all prison inmates in some uber-world, and are allowed parole on Earth from time to time. 
Perfect. Now we have a perfect reason for associating sadness with death, for this is when we are going back to our hell prison. 


On the upside, this gives a concrete objective for mankind as a whole. To achieve immortality, here in the physical world, so that we need not go back. Hence the constant race for technological progress. 

Extra: Existential

The Existential system of beliefs is very simple - nothing comes after death. We simply cease to be.

Also you might like to check this out, its the most awesome post I have read in some time.  Thanks Kinari for sharing.

Festival breakdown

I have been able to group holidays, or rather observance of special days, in six broad categories :
(no great insights here, just writing this post to organize some thoughts I had during DP break)

1. Cultural/Religious - Diwali, Christmas, Durga Puja, Thanksgiving etc
2. National/Memorial - Republic day, Independence day, Gandhi Jayanti
3. Scientific based - New year, New/No moon(is this a holiday), Harvest festivals
4. Personal - Birthday, anniversary
5. Consumerism based - Valentine's day, Mother's day, Friendship day etc
6. Modern/popular culture - April's Fool, Pi day(14th march), Star wars day(May the fourth) etc

Can you think of anything else? Leave comments.

Now for some analysis. Some questions we can ask are -

• Are these categories really different?

The first four seem largely separate. But Cultural(1), Consumerism(5) and modern culture(6) do have overlaps. A quick wikipedia search reveals Valentine's day was previously a christian holiday till 1969 when Pope Paul XVI deleted it. The 20th century has then on seen massive commercialization of the festival, extending from paper greeting cards to roses, chocolates and further to (to the dismay of competing smitten males) diamonds.

Mother's Day also has some antecedents in the worship of some goddess' related to motherhood, but the modern celebration in India, a wiki search reveals, is a rip of US's which was started by President Woodrow Wilson. It has been so commercialized that some refer to it as "Hallmark day".

Actually, scientific and cultural also overlap. Case in point specially the harvest festivals like Pongal, Chatt, Baisakhi, Thanksgiving. These are by nature products of the season cycle, but these events were so entwined with people's lives that they have become something more.

• Are any of these celebrations dangerous and should be discouraged?

I don't know. I guess someone having read some previous posts would expect me to cry out and say 'Religion' but I don't think so. Religious events are celebrated with the most gusto around the world, and are great for getting children into the societal fabric. Some particular customs I can always oppose, which might have made sense in some day and age but have no significance now, but everything evolves.

• How have the old holidays evolved?

With mega dozes of consumerism. Think diamonds, think booze, think Ekta Kapoor's soaps, think designer kurtas etc etc.

• What I think should be encouraged?

More scientific ones please, just due to the fact of being purely secular. As a bonus, any extraterrestrials we encounter can automatically be imbibed in.

• National holidays or Religious Holidays?

National holidays generally celebrate some majorly goody stuff, like independence or establishment of a republic. On the other hand, inside a nation, I think an individual individualizes more with his religion and would consider (1) more special.

Lessons from the tree

Finally, a moment of serenity. Its been a pandemonium recently. But I guess a good all-immersive experience in a different sort of world which I always felt alienated to. Is it a good thing to always be rational and not go for hype? Don't you get more out of life if you let yourself get lost in the crowd, flowing around with events happening around you and to you, instead of holding steadfast and resisting change?

Its so peaceful to look at a tree, the clouds, the moon. The omnipresent symbols of the fact that the world is not about me,the individual, but is something greater. I am but an evanescent existence. The clouds, the mountains are the things which have always been, and will be. Do they attach any significance to that I made it to IIT? to IIM? or whatever I am going to do in future? They have seen generations, will see many more. Each with its achievers, with its drivers, with its sheeple. No matter what I may like, humans haven't really changed over the ages. Things around them might have, but we still think the same thoughts, have the same apprehensions, same desires, same happiness, and so on. Asimov's psychohistory(a fictional branch of science where you predict the future development of large masses of people) makes more and more sense as I grow up.

A tree is so peaceful and tranquil, no pain, no arrogance, no desires. Who am I to believe my existence is more fulfilling? But then, fulfillment is itself just a human 'concept'. So are 'pain' and 'desire'. Am I attaching more importance to non-intelligent life than it deserves? But who is to decide who deserves what?

I find it amazing that both man and tree can results of the same evolutionary process. Are these two the only stereotypes in which life may evolve? Sometimes I feel we classify that we define tree as 'life' just due to lack of imagination. But we do share ancestry, right? So I may be wrong. But still, is Life the only exotic stuff universe produces? Try as I might, I am too bound with my own mental blocks to progress on this line of thought. Maybe that is for the best, intellectual masturbation should have its limits.

The moon. I was surprised recently on realizing how long I have gone without the feeling of wonder that comes with watching the night sky. Education has so ruined us. But if nothing else, it is amusing to think how many loners are looking at the moon the same time I am, and how many have looked at the same sight from era to era.

On a side note I have recently become a fan of Craig Ventor, the guy who first sequenced the human genome, and has recently created the first cell with a synthetic genome. In effect, a whole class of organisms should in the future consider him their god, their creator, in the truest sense. But that aside, this is quite a landmark event in human development. Even if we don't develop genetically-engineered humans in the near future, our physiology will definitely be affected by the modified-medicines, food, and maybe insects/animals we will be living with.

Post college musings

College is finally over, and I have an entire new set of confusing thoughts to deal with, most of them to do with future prospects and so on. Would a masters in a non-English speaking country be a good experience even if the institute is good? Or should I just do a job for a few years and then make a decision? That seems to be the sensible option. And I still want to return to India after whatever degree I get abroad. So maybe it would be better if I never leave, unfortunately then the IIMs seem to be the only option.

The ideal thing would of course have been that my grades and projects would have been bad enough or good enough to give me enough conviction to make a strong decision. But they're hovering around the mediocre range...which is not very encouraging, and you always feel tempted to think you'll get your act together later on.

The sensation of leaving college and going out on your own, taking your own decisions, managing your own money, hasn't quite sunk in yet, but I think I'm starting to get premonitions of what it would be like. I had something of an argument with my family over what I should do-with them arguing for a stable, well-paid job 5 years down the line, and me giving vague arguments about what I want to do right now, with no idea about after 2 years, or even next year for that matter. In the process, I thought a lot about money matters, responsibilities, future plans and so on. Anyway, that matter has kind of subsided for the present. So I suppose I'll be writing a similar blog later.

Speaking of future careers, a senior from our college wrote a horrible, horrible book, called "the equation of my love" or something similar...it got plenty of us thinking, how hard could it be to become a full time writer, plenty of idiots do it, i suppose writing styles could be developed, and you might even turn out something decent given the right amount of hard work and time. Not only that, this guy is supposed to be working in Schlumberger, which is supposed to have a realllly busy job profile, and he found the time to write this book inside an year. Well maybe that explains why it is so lousy, but the guy, by all first hand accounts, was an idiot to begin with.

Varun tells me some guy from IIT D got a degree from a film school and returned to make a movie called 'formula 69', if I remember correctly. Then there's this one senior from my college who's completely left engineering and is presently researching snakes in the north east. He apparently did an internship in the jungles of the Western Ghats, and his work in the North East is supposed to be one of a kind, in that there has never ever been a study of the snakes in this region. It's supposed to be important enough to get multiple publications in Nature. He is currently living in a hut beside the Brahmputra, which is not cool, but you do have to admire the guy's conviction. Then there's this good friend in the college band, who is now going to Paris, and I suspect he will almost definitely join some sort of band there, successful or not is a different matter. And these are both people I know personally.

Plenty of people are coming back after doing Phd's abroad, at least according to an article I read recently, and rumours are that a 4 person team from IIT D came up with their own version of iPad, which is supposed to be much better, in that it has multi-tasking and multiple ports, and a bunch of other extra features.

So I suppose things are a lot different from even 5 years before...when we started college, and doing something different seems to be more and more normal. If you open up the option, then the number of careers you could switch to is infinite, isn't it?

This example is outside India, but still- I came across a professor's profile, he got his bachelors in mech engg from princeton, then got a masters in mech engg from stanford, then after an yr, he joined harvard law school, and is currently a professor in law, and his articles are cited by judges in the Supreme court, of the US. Though I suppose given the fact that law is so highly paid in the West, this would actually be something like IITians going into marketing or something after IIM. So it's not that remarkable.

Of course, the thing to remember is that all of these people must've been incredibly committed to what they were doing. I definitely can't imagine switching at this point, and I can't imagine I will be at any point in the future. I did think of law, after watching Boston Legal, and debating for a while. But I was brought to my senses by my lawyer sis, who told me it is way different than on TV-you won't be arguing big civil rights cases, mostly boring simple cases. And of course that I should try out my own field first.

This was thankfully way back in 2nd year, or I would have another thing to get confused about. Though I honestly don't think it's that different from switching from engineering to an MBA.

Blogging, podcasts, the US

It has really been a long time since I have written anything because I wanted to, in this blog or otherwise. I think I owe Varun something of an explanation why I haven't been blogging more frequently. Of course the normal thing to do would be just to ping him, but doesn't look like there are too many readers of this blog besides the two of us....at least regular readers.

Well if you look through the blog, you can immediately notice the line Varun takes- he is deeply philosophical-loves to do it. I wasn't even aware he has gotten so much into it. I suppose it's kind of a good thing. His thinking has really started to mature over time. But now when I want to write something, I generally want to write about the movies I watch, the news items I read, or hear and so on. I guess most of my ideas are borrowed, I wouldn't go so far as to say they're copied- but still I simply haven't ever thought up any "thought experiments", nor am I likely to do so. So I guess I think my blogs sound pretty banal when they sit besides Varun's.

Anyway, I'll try to make up for it, if that doesn't harm the tone of this blog. I am really pleased to see Varun has kept up with it, and the blog definitely seems to have got its own "identity", if that's the right word.

Anyway, the reason I decided to write a blog after so long is that my BTP is finally over, the only thing remaining is to write a paper on it. So I seem to have free time, and I thought I might as well use it productively.

Varun recently gave me a good tip: podcasts. I had no idea what they were until 2-3 months ago (my apologies to the tech-literate). I've had a great time browsing through a load of different varieties of them. I don't know the reason why, but the ones from Britain seem to be somehow way better than anything else anyone else produces, and it's mostly the BBC which produces them.

I've spent most of my college life watching American soaps, reading articles on time.com, nytimes, washington post etc. I wasn't aware that such a huge difference in cultures exists across the Atlantic. I had generally assumed that no matter how much fun they make of each other, they are after all, Westerners, sharing more or less the same values.

So I was listening to this comedy podcast the other day-I forget the name. This Brit was making fun of an American who claimed a First Amendment right to give a policeman a middle-finger- that is it was his right to freedom of expression. Funny as that was, the guy said this was possible only in America. They are probably the most obsessed with matters of principle, rights, freedom than any other country in the world. In fact, I think, it is actually possible George Bush was sincere when he said he wanted to go to Iraq to free the people. They really are that kind of people, and he was stupid enough to believe that he was the liberating hero too.

So then I did some rethinking about the soaps I watched, the kind of jokes I've picked up from them, and I discovered I've picked up a lot of stupid American ideas. First, and I think this is fairly common among others too, is this habit of referring to not just people, but objects, colours etc. as 'gay'. Now some things really do deserve the label, but I recently heard this guy critiquing Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. I really like the book, but according to him, it's gay, because Siddhartha's friend really admires him, and describes him accordingly. I've heard people do it with classical music, even hindi music at times, the opera-which I think has also been wrongly defamed by Americans and so on.

I think the idea is that whatever comes from Europe, has to be gay. I didn't realize this until I heard one die-hard Simpsons-Southpark fan express something similar.

Then there's the obsession with ideals. I was quite interested in the Capitalism-Marxism debate in my second year, before realizing how stupid the debate was. If you had been following the news over Obama's health care reform, people in America opposed it just because it's "European", and "it sounds socialist".

I have even started forming a theory that nearly all the modern stereotypes-of gays, chinese, indians, brits, africans etc. can all be traced back to the US.

Oh and a word on Star Trek and Star Wars- though I still like both franchises, I've become kind of disillusioned with them. I've only seen the Star Trek movies, so I'll take an example from Star Wars to explain. If you might remember, whichever planet they might land on, their would be these natives who would always be inferior to them, they would immediately challenge their top leaders, find something wrong with them, and show them a better way. Doesn't that sound more than a little American? Then there's only one black guy in the entire main cast, which totally doesn't make demographic sense (you're talking about the whole galaxy here), and the ones who are non-human, generally get killed off as soon as possible, preferably with no major fights. Only exception is Yoda, who, being primitive, is outsmarted by the genius of the enterprising Darth Sidius, and everyone has to be saved by the fair-haired, young, upstart and obviously American hero.

I might be overanalysing, but even if you consider the fact that Americans will make movies having their own audience in mind, it still doesn't make it right. America is very diverse, and its media should reflect that. Moreover, I think it reflects a really bad perspective of the rest of the world. And I think you can find enough evidence of that in their soaps and movies.

So you get the idea. I am in a really anti-US mood right now. I think I've rambled on enough. I'm off to sleep, and hopefully tomorrow this blog will still seem like it has some sort of coherence.

Thought Experiments

I have a big deadline tomorrow, my B.Tech project report submission, so instead of wasting* time, I decided to post a post.

Is there a limit to human thinking? I do not allude to the cultural grooming here, but a more fundamental limit, something which excludes entire plains of thought from the our carbon based biological brain. Consider, try thinking of a four dimensional space. No problem? Try five(Four is possible if you take time as one dimension, which engineers might naturally take). Now you are probably instinctively trying to break it into simpler models involving graphs and axes. I would consider any claims of otherwise with high suspicion. So how can we be sure that the three dimensional view of the universe we get through our five simplistic senses, is not laughable? Lets analyze -
(i) We sense the vibrations(of limited range) in the all-consuming atmosphere as 'Sound'
(ii) Electromagnetic waves(whatever those are) of particular wavelengths, we experience as 'Light' or 'Sight'
(iii) Inhaling atoms of various other forms gives us 'taste' and 'smell'
(iv) Finally, force from other objects is experienced as 'touch'.

Well, on a crazier analysis, what we experience is actually the energy transferred by these phenomenon to the well designed receptors of our body, and then its analysis in the brain where it matches it up with the whole framework of the world already present in our mind.

I have been watching Star Trek(highly recommend) recently, and it comes as a relief that I am not alone with such deranged epistemological issues. ST regularly deals with aliens of different kinds and forms. However even ST seems to take a conservative approach sometimes, probably due to lack of budget or constraints of connecting with the audience. Most of the species differ just in cultures and makeup. There's some talk of alternate dimensions and omnipotent beings, but all very timidish.

Now to justify the title of this entry, I present three thought experiments, nothing scholarly vindicated, but interesting experiences -
(a) Look somewhere. Now consider yourself as a creature, without any history, obligations, ambitions. Think of yourself in the world and what makes you happy.
(b) Visual sensation generally overwhelms other sensory inputs. Next time, close your eyes while doing some regular activity. Try brushing, eating food, listening to music, and consciously focus on taste, touch, sound.
(ba) In a related activity, lie/sit down at a peaceful place, close your eyes, and one by one feel every part of your body, starting from toes to heels to ankles etc etc to forehead. Notice where you suddenly feel uncomfortable. Respect the sheer quantity of (mostly redundant)experiences you are constantly filtering out.
(c) This one is complicated. Imagine a landmark event in your future, some exam, passing out, meeting parents, anything. Imagine what all it will be like. And now pay attention to everything around you, capture the present instant, your location, objects in the room, your eagerness for the future etc. Now Wait(days? months? years? depends on your event). When the time comes, you will automatically reflect upon the younger yourself, and notice the changes in yourself(and smile).

People can also checkout a related post revolving around limitations of logic by Bharat Hariharan.
*Time enjoyed is ideally not time wasted, but we will go by the conventional definition here.

Blank Spaces

So all immediate concerns have been taken care of, and all that's impending isn't gonna be a concern for some time, at least for a few hours. Isn't a time like this, the blank spaces, the void, moments we are all living for? When survival needs have been taken care of, and the time is truly ours to utilise howsoever? But the dilemma I am faced with, is what exactly to do now? I could maybe watch a movie, read a novel, like the normal college student, but that's just a source of filling time, awaiting something else. Custom dictates I could follow my passions, hobbies, like paint/write something, but I don't feel particularly inspired for that(this post is written later in retrospect). I am tired of philosophical ranting. I could hang out with friends, chat up, go somewhere. A good option, man is a social animal after all, and exchanging banter enormously pleasing. But is that in the end what it's all about? The reason for all of us working, surviving, cursing, drudging along? I don't really have an answer. I ended up reading a few articles on net, not extremely revelatory. A simple additional act of constructive commenting gives disproportional satisfaction.

Maybe creation is the key. Self-actualization(full realisation of one's potential) is described by psychologist Maslov as the most basic as well as the highest necessity of any organism. Creating something in the world would I think certainly make one's ego feel closer to self-actualisation. The thing about hobbies, passion might also be right after all then. Of course, learning something new would be self-actualization. But as we soon discover, the cornucopia of things to learn is too large for random traversal. And you tend to forget stuff, which is really frustrating. Creation also lets you leave memoirs everywhere you tread upon, an evidence of you existence, whereas a skill you learned and forgot doesn't offer much boasting potential. After all, we do live to impress our neighbors rite? No? Well, than I can't help you much. Or myself.

Probably I should have bigger concerns as I grow up, career, family etc. But then these aren't exactly 'blank spaces'.