Causality, Predictions and Consciousness

Causality is a concept that is considered axiomatic in the workings of the universe, or at least in our daily experience. The concept of causality as understood in our working sense is simple, "Cause precedes action", a natural seeming concept. Every action, which here also means a result from another action or a seeming change of state, is not a standalone concept but bears it's root in a cause or a reason for it's existence. And the result is seemingly influenced by factors of space, time and causation, or simply the circumstance. And this rule is very strong founded in our experience of how the world works and also in how we are taught it works. But in an experiential sense, it may not appear so, for perceptions are naturally stained and limited and our proof too that proceeds from the data bank of these senses which are further selectively assimilated by our mind, for it is too an imperfect and limited instrument, a sense that governs senses. And this post seeks to look at it from the perspective of experience.

Opinions Wanted!!

To all my readers, thank you very much, I am very glad and grateful that you take the time to read my posts. But, I would also like to know your opinion and criticism, and also any suggestions you have for me will be much appreciated. So, leave some comments for me. Thank you guys and gals for being such an awesome crowd. Keep kicking!!!

Bias and Original Thought

Note: Sorry about the long hiatus, but I can't seem to maintain a schedule well. I'll try to get some posts running and the blog back on track soon. For now, I hope you enjoy this post.

Bloom's taxonomy is a simple presentation of the cognitive heirarchy in learning, and the higher processes represent a more refined and deeper understanding of an idea or subject. We begin with the base of the pyramid, which involves a rote memorization and basic memory of the subject involved, a fact collection stage. After this the understanding, application and other stages which are more or less self explanatory from their names. But the pinnacle of this pyramid is creation, which represents the deepest level and highest cognitive process that can be called upon when we are using the fundamental ideas we have gathered at the fact collection stage. This also involves a great deal of understanding the facts and also their interplay with different scenarios and facts.

Bloom's Taxonomy

But even with all that, even at the highest stage of creating, there is an inherent dependence in the facts learnt at the bottom of the pyramid. And in fact collection there is a great deal of prejudices and opinions that are gathered too. And the inherent problem in this is that, unconsciously, we become conduits for ideas, and opinions of other people. What we call as identity is simply degraded into a mere confluence of ideas and emotions that have been collected over the span of a person's education or lifetime. In such a situation, where does original thought exist? How many of us present the ability to express an idea that is truly original and not born out of the many prejudices and influences that have made their impression on our mind?

Phoenix

I was born and raised
I laughed and played
My time was spent in frolic and games

A baby I was, new to the world
I thought it simple, but couldn't put it in a word

But as I grew I came to know
Battles must be fought, in rain and in snow
The world fought back but it was the world
That hit me back until I curled

Jacqueline

She was a bird that wanted to fly
She stood in her cage, but she couldn't cry
She sang a sweet song, so sweet yet so soft
Does she know what holds her heart aloft?

Isn't she sweet, this pretty little bird?
She loves everyone, but isn't she heard?
She is so pretty, yet so far away
A faint little smile, she steals my heart away

7

This is an article dedicated to the weird me.

Normally 5 would be considered as the centre or middle number from 1 to 10. I have found this a hard idea to accept. 5 just seems to be an impostor, masquerading itself as the balanced middle number. I have thought about this and the right contender to the throne appears to be 7. No other number seems to be proper to fill that role.

5 seems to be a very small number, and in a way bland or bitter, meek and misplaced. It doesn't seem to be the balancing number, I don't know why. But 7 on the other hand seems just perfect. It's not too big or too little. And it's not even, it's an odd number. It seems to perfectly stand in between 1 (or 0 for that matter) and 10, balancing out their weights. 

So, in my opinion 7 is the number that must be rightful middle number.

Perversity of Beauty

Note: Please understand that the blog entries do not intend to and cannot describe everyone in general. They are only indicative of certain trends and the entries are usually clear about what they seek to comment on. And in my opinion, I'd call this article juvenile, but something I still wanted to put out.

Beauty can hardly be construed as something that inheres completely in the object beheld, but it could completely be confined to the realm of perception itself. Beauty isn't just a simple perception or an amalgamation of thoughts, beauty is better described as an emotion. And that makes it all the more harder to give it a form and definition. But even if you can't see the wind blow, you can see the leaves rustle in it. And beauty is better judged by the mark it leaves on a man than on absolute terms.

And the perversity of beauty I speak of is less a perversity of the object but the perception attached to it and it's present incapacity for subtlety. and for depth. A story would illustrate the point well, though I don't remember the source.

In an art gallery a man was looking intently at a painting of a beautiful, young and incidentally naked woman. An old woman who passed it by remarked that it was a very vulgar thing to display to which the man coolly said, "The vulgarity of the painting, madam, is in your eyes".

Power

1984. If there is one book that could describe Orwell, it would most likely be this. A functional dystopia, and totalitarian power characterize this universe and makes one wonder if it would ever be sustainably possible, or what it would take to bring it about. This post would be a discussion on power and control.

"Freedom is Slavery" "War is Peace" "Ignorance is Strength". These are the three edicts which Orwell's paradise swears by. In the history of the world, power always displays a dual nature, of being a tangible and dense cloud and of an illusion that could be pierced by a sharp knife.

Power in the world has been won, by oppression, benevolence, a common love, a common hatred, and the list could go on. This is a prevalent expression, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely in such manner that great men are almost always bad men."  True, but not always. Power is more like a chastising fire. Not everyone can handle it without being burnt. And without a will to power or a will to control, a will to fight, a man or a nation is doomed to be tossed about and has written its  own epitaph.

The Words that Deceive

When I was a kid, I used to think a lot of strange stuff. One of those went as follows:

What if what I say is actually not what the person hears. And what if what he says is not what I actually hear either. What if what I said turned into something else when he heard it and the same happened when he spoke in a way that continued the conversation.

I decided to give up thoughts like this to keep myself sane. But, one day, when I was older, I came back to this thought, I don't know why. But this time, the thought stuck to me. And I realized that this was indeed true, just not in the naive way I had once assumed it. 

The world is what it is. The problem is what we assume we perceive is not necessarily the object in itself. The word used to define something is nothing but a lifeless shell. It is the human perception that chooses to use it as a pointer. The idea is puissantly expressed by Henry Ward Beecher when he says "All words are but pegs to hang ideas on". I shall also mention one of Khalil Gibran's quotes here simply because it appeals to the idea I am trying to present here. All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.