Justice and Markets

"Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing, but, and here’s the risk: once the familiar turns strange, its never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be unthought, or unknown. "

That is how Professor Michael Sandel ends his first lecture on Justice, a Harvard course running for the past 20 years. If you haven't seen its lectures available online, I highly recommend that you do. In this post, I intend to discuss one particular topic Prof. Sandal talks about, that of Morality and Efficacy of Markets. No, we are not going to talk about economics, or debate free market vs regulated one. We will instead talk about moral value of things, and of markets. 

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product...if we should judge American by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. 

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. "

- John F. Kennedy, 1968

Prof Sandal might be considered old-school, in that his views are more strongly influenced by Archimedes theory of Telos, the end-purpose of things. Unlike theories of Utilitarianism(maximum good for maximum people) and Libertarian (rights of the individual), which are always at odds with one another and does not consider differences among people, societies and situations, the theory of Telos is applied always specifically to the situation at hand. It postulates that to determine the justice in any situation regarding an social institution, we must first decide what was the purpose of creation of that institution, what role it satisfies in society. 

Would you pay your child to learn? This would make it a more free-market situation, compared to coercing the activity out of her. But would you consider it amiss if I say something is lost, when you start rewarding activities which should be inherently pleasurable. How many of you have noticed that once your hobby becomes a more directly rewarding, it is not so pleasurable any more.

I do not know whether it is because of my upbringing or an individual choice (it doesn't matter), but my own views have started reflecting Prof Sandal's. To have a world where a life of meaning is still possible, we need to have a better look at what our institutions mean and stand for and what we are doing with them (big words, probably silly and precocious, but I let them be uttered).

What is the Telos of a business? I would like to believe it is 'to make money satisfying the needs of society'. But the public-company institution, by separating the owners and executioners, it is no-ones responsibility to look after the society. No-one is culpable. Marketers intend to 'create needs' and demand, rather than satisfying them.

Consider the Quota debate of IITs. The objectors lay a monomaniac emphasis on the impact quota will have on 'quality' of students. I am a supporter of affirmative action but in this case, the IITs have for too long and too loudly blown the trumpet of academic excellence and selecting the cream (and socially inept) of students through JEE. The government has been in on this. Hence my opinion is that the IIT directors and government as well as the general public, should have a common opinion of what the mission of IITs is, not what was written some 50 years ago, for have a peaceful debate. 

---------------------------

Most of us are firm believers of meritocracy. We believe that each of us should have equal opportunity to success in life and are pained that it is not so. However, even if a person, has equal opportunity, is he sufficiently equipped to access it? With prices of higher education and even good primary schools ever increasing, even a free job-market does not imply equal opportunity. 

But this is very basic reasoning. My question is, even if we receive equal preparation, and are renumarated according to our skill and determination, then, is it fair to say that, we deserve what we have? That we have earned it? That is a tricky question.

Shackled Thought

Lately, I have become obsessed with the 'mind' or the inner experience. Not the word 'mind' or the scientific literature (psychology/neurology/artificial intelligence) par se but the internal experience we have of it. In fact, it is not even clear whether I can say a thing like 'internal experience we have' as I can't define any sharp line between what we define to be ourselves and what we define as these internal experiences. I am thinking here of the first half Cartesian duality of soul/mind and body. The difference between knowing the light frequency corresponding to color 'red' and actually seeing the color red (I hope you follow). It is remarkable, we essentially live, exist, in our minds and yet we don't know anything about it. All we can do is match our emotions or thoughts to various regions of the neural network. But what of the qualitative, internal, experience, that 'I am ME'?

I should say I am heavily influenced by these very venerable people, just so you don't consider me the the next Wacko:

Tony Robbins (Motivation Speaker), Sam Harris, Chade-Meng Tan, Richard Davidson, Matthieu Ricard, Shelly Kagan, Paul Bloom, Dan Gilbert among others. 

I do believe there are different types of consciousness, we all experience the world differently (no way of verifying until we get the ability to hook up to other people's minds and experience what they are experiencing), and each one of us perceives the world in different ways at different life stages. Sometimes, I feel the children are the most awake of us, experiencing the world in a much richer fashion, and as we grow up, we live more in a synthetic experience created by the mind (as a result of our past experiences) than in the world surrounding us. 

There are definitely different ways to perceive the world, even limiting ourselves to the senses we have. Indians must perceive it differently than Americans, than French, than Chinese and likewise. We perceive it differently under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and I am talking of how you experience the world around you, not how you handle your own balance. 

Most of us see our 'self' as situated behind the eyes, looking at the world from that vantage point. Close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and that vantage point will shift to your nose. 

Personally, I think there was a time as a child when I used to experienced the world in 3D, being actually aware that a 'chair' in front of me exists. Nowadays the world feels more like just something I am seeing and processing, and I have to respond to. 

Modern science can pin-point which emotion or thought excites which part of the brain. This prompted Richard Davidson (Professor, Psychology) decides to take a Monk (Richard Mattieu) and another regular Joe, hooking up their brains to a brain scanner, and see their neural networks' response to various graphic images. The result: The centers in the brain associated with Happiness are triggered much more (several standard deviations more) in Matthieu Ricard. You want to be truly happy you say? Why not become a monk I say.

So the brain works analogous like the rest of the body. You need strength to lift weights, you lift weights to gain strength. Similarly, the neurons in the brain are responsible for your thoughts n emotions, and these neurons can be trained by just thoughts. Enter Meditation. The age old method of training your brain which most of us consider a quaint hobby. As a logical flow of this thought trail, I am trying to read more on it and practice meditation. Richard Davidson is convinced that by 2050 they will have enough scientific precise evidence backing Meditation, and it will be in the core curriculum of all schools (making the world a better place?).

I also believe that in explaining and developing these inner experience, the eastern and Indian civilizations have gone much further than the west. But since the topic is not easily explained, the eastern texts are not as easily accessible as the direct, explanatory texts of western philosophy. Like the chicken and egg problem, Indians (including me) also always strive for a western acceptance of their own traditions(like yoga) and so these texts remain unexplained, in colloquial language which people like me, modern college grads might get. 

In a way, our 'mind' is an entire universe, with its own rules, entities and existence. Who says a universe should have physical dimensions? 

In the end, it is all about figuring out 'What am I?', which has to be answered before 'What is death?'. 

Is it not silly that we are focusing so much on our outside world, what we achieve and how the people perceive us, when the inner self remains a mystery?

On a related note, one thing the MBA had given me is an elevated respect and cognizance for the omnipresent human-institutions which exist only in thought, but determine how the world is run. We accept and learn these institutions by imitation, looking at how other people are behaving and what is acceptable. For example, railway is a technology, but without a ticketing and reservation system, concept of train stations, it would be for naught. Similarly, concept of buying-selling, of property rights. Just sitting here writing this post, I am an 'employee' of some 'company', a 'citizen' of a 'country', with an over-arching 'government' maintaining some 'law'. I am connected to support groups, of my family, friends, colleagues, batch-mates, countrymen. All this is necessary for existence, survival and meaning. But this also means, that we will never experience the 'state of nature', of what it means to be creatures, individuals, just living beings, in this universe. 

Maybe I am over-dramatizing. But that is why I am writing this blog so I can get feedback on my views and questions.

Apathy

A persistent problem for me for sometime now has been a mediocre-ish academic performance along with a sense of boredom as such with the term upon term of different courses. Even the quantitative and analytical courses, supposed to be my forte, are not untouched. Hence, I think it is about time I analysed this phenomenon in some depth, and even though no 'solution' is expected, its almost incumbent if I am to maintain my self-image as a deep thinker.

I numerate the likely causes of my apparent lack of interest:

• Because I am not good at it (if marks are any indication): The classic chicken and the egg problem. Whether I am not performing because of my apathy, or whether I am apathetic because of my non-performance? A reinforcing circle, it is. Also, I might simply not be as intelligent as I like to think(or pretty dumb), specially for handling systems like 'courses'.
• No novelty: Another term, another set of courses. 22 years is enough time to get bored living the same cycle. The courses are also hardly ground-shaking.
• Superficial coverage of material: It seems as though the further I go in my studies, the more hurriedly and flippantly the topics are being covered. Engineering gave one semester for each course, management reduces it to 3 months. And moreover, neither the professors nor the administration expects you to be serious about studies. 
• Bad instructors: Well, I will certainly not generalize this to all courses. But in courses with good instructors, I am almost always vigilant. And that seems to be less and less these days, although the minima would have come been sometime in my undergrad.
• Non-basic courses: For quite some time now, I have been convinced that mathematics is the only subject worth studying (and maybe physics). For all other qualitative/analytical courses, the general methodology is to assume some logical framework, and derive results. Now of course mathematics will play its part and you will get some pretty outcomes. Is that creating new knowledge? Even if you are interpreting new phenomenons about the world, as a student, what am I learning?
• Apathy of students towards education: I see hardly any of my classmates concerned with taking the theory further or connecting things or reading a subject outside curriculum out of interest. Personally, I find this rather depressing.
• Inconsequential topics: Hardly 10% of the material I learn will I need over my lifetime. And most high-scorers I know remember less about subjects or their implications than me. Overall, this questions any motives I may have of increasing effort.
• Inconsequential rewards: My favorite excuse. The grades are hardly a reflection of my expertise of the subject or my intelligence. It has also hardly any impact on my future career (although this might not be true as a whole, for a single individual subject, it rings true).
• Laziness: To all readers, I am lazier than thou. And I hold the label as an achievement. 
• Attention Deficit Disorder(?) : Concentrating in class has always been difficult for me. For most of my engineering, most of the subjects I learned have been through re-reading the books, which is infinitely tougher when you are not enthusiastic about it.
• Deep Thought: (I like to think .. ) I think too much, as evidenced by this post. I also like fantasizing. Apart from the direct consequence of time wastage, I cannot remember a theory/formula until I know for myself it is perfectly sound given its premises. 
• Inability to prioritize/Distractions: Like writing this post when I should be preparing for mid-term examinations, I do a lot of things at the wrong time and at the wrong place. This does not explain apathy, but rather lack of performance.

So some factors seem to be internal(laziness, deep thought), some course related(inconsequential) and how it is conducted(superficial, bad instructors), and some systematic(apathy of students, no novelty). 

Any solutions?

Some proverbs which come to mind are - 

1. Hard work beats intelligence
2. The classic Gita proverb 'karm karo, phal ki chinta mat karo'. (Do your duty, don't worry about outcomes)
3. Hell is other people

ImpossibleHard to implement.

PS - I hope no future employer will judge me adversely on reading this post, for I have just been a little honest (at least as much as I mentally find myself to be at the moment). 

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.