Started here on 9/11/2003 (may not be the exact date but i think it's around that)
I like to live my life to the fullest extent. I mean that I love to use all
my abilities to study wide variety of topics not narrow down very much on a few
topics in Computer Science.
I believe that education is a continuous process that keeps one evolving and
that's very much required for betterment of mankind.
Now BETTERMENT as such may be subtle or obvious.
To be updated....
Updates... (9/12/2003)
Education helps mankind to justify the rationale behind doing a particular thing
and the JUSTIFICATION's correctness depends on the WISDOM a person gains... The
underlying fundamental behind having WISDOM is having a sense that we have to do
things for the benefit and growth of mankind...
That was all philosophical right... any ways I like to ponder a lot on all
issues and share them with people who like to.
Updates...(10/2/2003)
Being open minded is regarded as one of the desirable qualities of human kind.
But if one is really open minded he is thought sometimes as wavering and
instable.
The problem is that people look everything from their OWN (EGO, SELF)
perspective.
Updated 10/8/2003....
NOW MY WEBSITE CAN BE ACCESSED AT astro.templ.edu/~nagesh (it is still under construction though)
Updated 12/6/2003...
Defining "media" as means to express the "thoughts" we have... we have inherent limitations and relativity on the levels of clarity of thoughts. a person can be thought of having "more" clarity of thought just because he has "more" flair in using the media to propose his thesis... also this fact matters because a person's flair is more dependent on the "conditioning" of his mind induced by the level of formalism used in their day to day lives.
Updated 12/7/2003...
Belief. Believing in what you do plays the most crucial role in keeping you on the track in times of any kind of "crisis". This is based on a wonderful piece of advice given by my professor Dr. Kumar Eswaran on belief.
Updated 12/19/2003
To believe in what you are doing is non trivial, in the sense that it depends on how much importance you give to "satisfy" your compared to giving to "satisfy" others' evaluations on your work. Now evaluations are required (which unfortunately result in conditioning the minds of many people) so as to make sure that we don't loose the basic wisdom i explained previously. if we realize evaluations (a kind of feedback) in the right sense then we can be on way to believe in what we are doing.
Updated 1/21/2004 (edited 2/19/2005 - sentence structure etc..)
Humans are social beings. They depend on each other and many other things (mostly which they can see or know concretely) for many things. They feel that depending on "unproven" things is a kind of weakness but that kind of thinking is the actual weakness. I mean we should be able to depend on certain "abstract" facts (dependence that we call as trust) happily feeling it as an asset like savior instead of having a dull feeling. Because abstractness is only in body consciousness, when we think in soul consciousness (which is the original and powerful conscience) there is nothing like abstract. Dependence between things builds relationships (of different kinds). Similarly dependence on abstract things also builds relationships and as time passes one feels more and more comfortable even with abstract things because our basic consciousness is regained in the process. And I need not exaggerate how much necessary is, being comfortable, for one, in the way one defines.
After taking Quantum Computation class I came to know certain profound ideas of measurement. We cannot measure everything and anything as we want. This is true even in human life... Measuring some qualities in human life is also has to be with extreme care, only to succeed to a certain extent in correctly measuring them. For example if you measure honesty of a person in a test condition you won't measure his true honesty. If you measure a person's talent in an exam you won't measure his true talent... you will measure his talent of performing in the exam. Only GOD can I believe measure and judge us. Of course there is nothing to be worried about or bothered about this... This is how the world is designed to work.
Mysteries of brain...in recent history man has been motivated to mimic the functioning of the human brain (or any living brain)... and he has been fascinated by its amazing potential... I believe man can at the most mimic the "history" of brain and not the actual working potential of the brain. Its because we "use" our brain in mimicking it and if we actually mimic it... then the potential of our brain would be higher and the artificial ones are only a "history". By the way... we say brain is a fascinating machine... in fact the difficulty and profundity involved in mimicking it is what makes its study fascinating.
Freedom and independence.... are they both same!!!(to be continued...)
Peace....what is it???(to be continued....)
Freedom and independence are different dimensions of human rights. Freedom is that abstraction that allows people to be able do whatever they want with their basic or extraordinary abilities. Independence is an opposite of dependence. Independence is a very relative term. In different abstraction levels of civilization (like state, country, continent, etc...) independence is different. There cannot be absolute independence. While absolute freedom is possible. The fundamental assumption if getting the feel of freedom is that everybody has freedom. While this is not the case with independence. And finally freedom does not necessitate independence.
The following thoughts are thanks to my association with BK spiritual organization.
Peace is the only ultimate, fundamental, basic feeling that brings real happiness to a soul. Actually this is the fundamental characteristic of us (souls). One can easily understand this if one analyzes situations by asking "why" for each of the feeling one experiences. So this said, we got to do something to be peaceful in other words happy. Well we have to incrementally understand the true dynamics that govern the life. After one spends such thinking and analyzing one can easily and firmly believe that these dynamics are governed by the Supreme force and once we master them we can get all we want. GOD teaches us these laws by a unique tool called LIFE. That's why LIFE is a big time opportunity to learn the dynamics of this world.
Some research and academic stuff....
After completing two semesters of graduate level studies I got some opinions about some things. In some cases the confidence level in a research is so conservative that finally the outcome of the research seems very obvious. What does advanced concepts in any field mean? Why is advanced knowledge tough? I feel that what gets tougher is to work with higher level abstractions, formalizations involved in advanced concepts. This realization is important if one wants to learn the higher level concepts and also contribute to the field. Of course this is true in general to solve any problem,,,, identify the difficulty first to solve the difficulty.
Honestly I was very busy and was afraid of updating the thoughts section for couple of months. But today almost as an instinctive event I decided to update my thoughts section... Actually I had many thoughts in summer... like how human energy state influences his thinking.... how one can benefit from streamlining his energies via appropriate thought processes.....etc... The key idea for streamlining energies and thoughts is to "understand" everything in a "positive" way. What is meant by positive thinking is that being able to assimilate that every event happening in your life is well deserved and nothing happens "just because of no reason"... all you job is to find out reasons courageously. Why nothing happens "just because of no reason" is because all these events are guided by the ultimate law from GOD i.e. "LAW of KARMA" or in other words "LAW of ACTION".
When trying to read my thoughts or in fact anybody's thoughts one has to keep in mind that the words of communication are human created and hence might need something more than just words to understand them.... that thing which one might need is experience! Once we realize this thing communication becomes much easier.... after all life is all about realizations and their use in keeping us peaceful and happy.
Topic for this thought session is ego. Throughout life we are told many times to give up ego for peace. But how is the question? For that we need to know what exactly ego is and what giving up ego means. Dictionary definitions of ego can be found easily. Here I will like to discuss of what kind of feeling (related to ego) causes problems in life and why should one naturally avoid it. Every human wants to be peaceful, happy, secure. One has to realize that these essential and ultimate feelings are nowhere but in our thinking. Everyone has to realize that we can do whatever we want as long as we firmly keep in mind that everyone is also essentially alike. The forgetting of this feeling is the root cause for the coining of the term ego and the problems related to that. We should give up the urge to have absolute control over things happening to us. In fact a non-egoistic thinking reveals that there is no necessity of such urge. One nice point for pondering is that intra-personal ego (ego among different intra-personal feelings) is much harder to control than to control inter-personal ego that is basically because ego is something within us not something outside and by base nature of humans we are less bothered by things outside to us. Careful, courageous logical analysis provides evidence to this.
Aside: Importance of urge to being successful varies based on one's tolerance levels of life and which is influenced by the history of this and previous lives. As long as we are honestly and logically sure of our justifications we can do what we want.
Next session would be based on... freedom of will....contribution to society....
Freedom of will is a pleasant fundamental concept that we have. It is because of enforcement of this freedom that humans are progressing. It is to be kept in mind that nobody has control on others or events happening in life. All one has is the freedom of will to understand and analyze the episodes of different time periods. In fact the beauty of life is in doing that. As long as we remember that we are just a part (not owners) of a big cosmic phenomenon we can put the granting of freedom of will in practice.
Everybody in this universe is designated to contribute. It's just that one has to realize it. For example scientists contribute in fundamental breakthroughs (this does not mean they are GOD but just that it is a kind of labor that is required for the society and is performed by them), others like industrialists apply the breakthroughs to benefit the society. It's when we misunderstand the roles and think that we influence the dynamics problems arise. All the basic instincts of human inquisitiveness are just part of Nature's evolutionary process - it's nothing like humans are great in animal kingdom. As long as everybody is happy with their contributions society will continue to flourish.
Quick thoughts:
Perception level of security in life decides the tolerance levels for perceived frustrations. Continuous and persistent success comes when we want it and realize that continuity always proceeds not looks behind - meaning if one compares (and lets the feelings effect him) his current successful state with his past, unnecessary complacency may turn in. That's why don't stop to look back. Again this does not mean ego or anything... that's the way it is... that's all.
I would like to add my advisor Professor Richard Beigel's beautiful and elegant observation about logic:
From his website
Teacher and media critic John Maguire wrote:
I think many kids (speaking of freshmen I have taught) today "understand" that the world is an untrustworthy place, that their own minds are untrustworthy, that they must rely on others to explain things to them and the explanations are wormy with self-interest, and that someone else is in charge of everything that matters, and that the truth is not inside them but "out there" and endlessly evasive.
I suspect that many of my students (even graduate students) feel the same way. No authority (including me) has a monopoly on truth. At the same time, a small dose of self-doubt is good for healthy thought. Learn to check your own work and criticize your own thinking. Master logic and apply it carefully; then you will be able to find the truth inside yourself, and you won't need anyone to tell you when you are right.
Many say that humans like to be mysterious and its not desirable or hard to be fully open. Being fully open requires lot of maturity and more than anything courage to face. By being mysterious people tend to satisfy many abstract needs like ego etc. Of course I don't say that's bad but at least keeping the fact that this is how it is, in mind makes life peaceful, which is what every soul ultimately wants. Regarding "courage to face and maturity" it's true even the other way in the sense that mysterious people can start saying 'why can't open people be mysterious? Are they scared?' And the open people by their characteristic say YES.
Emotions are like tools that we have to master to be happy in life. The analogy is like martial and defense arts where they master using 'dangerous' tools like swords, knives, guns etc.. Any misuse or mistake in using them would cause harm in different levels of intensity... But the only difference is learning art like life is a life long process:) where as other arts can be 'excelled' (at least to a level that humans can measure) after some finite years of practice.
Meeting expectations in life is the basic drive for the labor one puts in. In western culture the expectations are more independent of others and we call those as materialistic and in the eastern culture they are more interdependent and we call those as emotional. Neither of the two is superior to other but the important point is to understand the difference and use the knowledge when dealing with people from different cultures.
The following thought is not my original thought and I don't remember the exact source and words. Research is a kind of labor. There are basically three perspectives (levels) of it. One where people enjoy it because they feel they are doing something which most others are not doing. Two where people 'think' they are impacting the world. Three where people enjoy because they 'think' they are trying to reach the ultimate truth. These three kinds of perspectives are indeed necessary for the 'progress' of the human world.
There are different kinds of people based on what emotions they believe are important in life. The differences don't effect or matter as long as one kind does not force its beliefs onto other kind(s) using some logically unnecessary physical or abstract forces.
Humans are part of Nature like plants, sand, water and other animals. Hence human feelings, actions are not something artificially created. And being part of Nature we need to tolerate, respect and since educated understand (or try to understand) the reasons for events happening in our lives. Fundamentally any part of the Nature tries to exist as long as it can and so do humans and there is nothing wrong in it. As part of the effort we put in to survive as long as we can we have to (because we use lots of resources compared to other parts of Nature) put in effort to protect the Nature. We should always remember that conscious effort is not artificial it is just scientific. We should not misunderstand science to be bad... it's the politics that makes many think science is bad. Of course politics is also part of the game (nothing to be worried). After all everything is part of Nature - nothing can be artificial in the true sense. For example, buildings built, are no different in that sense from ant hills.
Many know concepts like survival of the fittest and Natural Selection. For longer survival we not only need success but also a very good understanding of the feeling of success. Being successful is not to be ashamed of but mishandling the feeling the of successful has to be shameful. Now I will try to define what that mishandling might be, as best as I can. When one succeeds one should not feel superior over others but just feel happier than others. One should keep in mind how others look at you because you succeeded and act accordingly. Help others to succeed as long as you think it is not mutually exclusive with you. But again even if it is mutually exclusive never do anything that would "unnecessarily" reduce the probability of others' success. Keeping in mind that being successful means just that Nature has selected him/her to be so (because of the kind of efforts you put in to survive not because you are "great" or something) might help in handling the feeling of success. Always understand that every single living thing (or I think even non-living thing) is designed to struggle actively or passively to survive.
The main understanding is that increased sophistication in lives is always welcome as long as main wisdom is not traded off.
Importance of adaptation trait in the process of evolution hardly needs emphasis. Adaptation is one of the most important survival instinct because the Nature of Earth, of which we are part, is always changing and it won't let those who do not follow it be the part of it. We call anything good that allows and ensures survival and change does that and hence it is also good. The more sophisticated one is the more people one can network with efficiently and be beneficial to the network (of which the one will also be part by default). The networking of people should be done with very care because we have strike a positive balance between objectivity and subjectivity in the relationships in the network. I will try to come up with constructive analysis of this care in future.
If we broaden the concept of a resource then the fastest growing resource in this Nature is human. Humans are part of the Nature and hence their growth can also considered as growth in Natural resources. But of course the resources of Nature are not useful if they are not put into proper framework for the benefit of mankind. We master the usage of resources (of course slowly) for longevity of humanity. Education is one of the crucial tools for mastering the usage of human resources. Universities are no different to industries in this sense. Automobile industries produce automobiles, similarly universities produces educated humans. As there are different classes of automobiles there are different classes of educated humans. We should always remember that what ever we do should be enduringly beneficial to us. I stress on the word enduringly because that is assured only with wisdom (which comes with experience, of course only if used).
As the human population grows the framework in which we live becomes relatively tighter and tighter does not always mean a bad sign. We need to be efficient in our daily activities and that's why humans research and come up with machines to aid in our activities thus improving efficiency and providing buffer to come up with more such machines and also improving efficiency of machines. Sometimes understanding the theory of efficiency in machines helps us be more efficient in lives..........(more clean up required for this paragraph).
Communication skills are one of the most important skills for any life to exist. Humans have a very powerful communication capability that lets us implement a powerful concept called cooperation. This is done in several ways like motivation, knowledge distribution, formation and following of rules etc... Basically the social system we see today is essentially rooted in this capability. I agree that communication is not necessary in the pure sense that we are capable of thinking on our own. But thinking everything on our own reduces efficiency tremendously and thus in this true (applied) sense communication skill is necessary.
I have more thoughts to update, which I will do soon.
Directed effort is very essential for successful results in any endeavor. That direction can be obtained in basically one way which I call self-tuning. Now self-tuning can be done from several sources of information if properly used. Those sources are all part of Nature like humans (parents, friends, advisors etc.), observable results (like outcome, responses, success level). Depending on our efficiency of processing this information we can adjust the speed of our self-tuning to give best results to us. An example is that if an effort is not giving proper results then that's a kind of signal and we should think of either changing the effort strategies if the project is important otherwise 'use' that effort for something else useful. All this of course takes time in life. What I mean by processing this information is that we have to interpret the information in a truly positive way that every event (full of information), if one is honest and clear, happens for one's good. Also remembering the ultimate goals of any effort (that is peaceful enduring survival) is a must in making (tuning) one's effort to be effective.
In some of my previous thoughts I mentioned that success is in a sense a Natural Selection process. I want to elaborate on it now. Solving problems is very important because problems are obstacles for survival. Now assuming Nature wants to persistently maintain life on this planet it gravitates power, energy to those points which have high potential to solve problems and hence contribute to enhanced or extended survival. If we think having power and energy as success then it is purely a Natural Selection process. Now since we are part of Nature we can 'influence' that process by deciding how close we are to those points. The way we can get closer to those points are directed by basic principles of humanity like honesty, fairness, urge for growth, encouragement, cooperation, nurturance etc... (I borrowed the idea of principles from a popular book The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey. But the thought of moving towards points is my original thought.) Now we have to keep in mind that once we are close to the points it's important to be there. For that we have to be efficient in spending the power and energy always keeping in mind to use them as investment and multiply them so that they can be used for other points for survival and also as a reserve for future generation. One tip is don't think about others unnecessarily just to save energy.
Points of view. I want to say a few things about points of view, their necessity and sufficiency for growth. We all know that there cannot be single point of view on any topic whatever it is say GOD, LIFE, SUCCESS, LOVE, POWER, GOOD, BAD. Of course there is theory of relativity everywhere. My discussion is that it is necessary and sufficient for growth of humanity. (Note that continuous growth means the survival is implicit). Necessity of different points of view is required for action which is essential input for growth. E.g.. If we agree with what ever is told to us then there would be no research, no thinking of why, no inquisitiveness, no such actions which are evidently important for growth. Sufficiency because whatever is required for growth can be interpreted in the sense of originating from difference in points of view. Of course the abstraction levels of views changes but the seed is the difference. Note that this is a semantic interpretation not syntactic that means we can interpret, once a source for growth is pointed out. It does not find out all the sources by itself.
I have couple of more observations and thoughts...to be refined and put up on the website.