Where are things today?

It has been quite some time since I wrote last. Not many things have happened but I seem to have changed quite a bit. The biggest change in me is perhaps my poor health and deteriorating fitness.

It seems to be a symptom of a larger issue in the way I live life nowadays: the lack of a sense of stability. There is just a lot of things I am trying to do and ending up being inefficient.

This is not new, but I need to change and change fast. The most important thing lacking in my life currently is discipline: discipline in multiple things in life.

I went to Pazhani Temple this morning. Pazhani is simply a magical place and it has never failed to inspire me to be better in life. I am sure this time it will be no different.

The anatomy of failure

I have been wanting to write about this for a long time. This one is in the series of posts of self-reflection. By putting down whatever I do here, I hope to change and improve.

What is failure? What constitutes it? Failure is a condition of under-achievement: a feeling of not having done what you intended to or wanted to. I think wanting to do something and not being able to do is a better definition rather than intending to do something and not being able to do so.

There can be many reasons why people fail. The obvious one is that the goal they set for themselves is far beyond what they are capable of. This is failure by design. The system is structured for failure. You cannot be born in India and hope to be the President of the United States.

Failure by design is caused by bad judgements of goals and expectations. Such types of failures can be corrected by realigning goals and wants - the familiar expectation setting. Some people might be of the type who purposely set stretched, unattainable goals for themselves. This is a good strategy for people who know how to deal with it.

The other and more important type of failure is failure by choice. Some people just choose to fail. It is not because of the goals being stretched or their skills being inadequate. It is this nature of failure I personally want to avoid. Currently, there is an overwhelming feeling inside me that I will end up failing because I choose to fail. And the choice is not something I make consciously.

Why does this happen? I think the primary reason is a lack of confidence. It is a feeling inside which says 'success is not for me... I am meant to fail.' It is hard not to succumb to such a feeling when it is strong and sub-conscious. I am not saying that I have succumbed completely; but every now and then, I do believe (and believe very strongly) that success is not for me.

The whole proposition is very silly given that there is no basis for such a feeling. This is the exact logical way I am taking to fight my way out. If there are tendencies which my mind can take for an uncertain event, I might as well tend towards believing in success rather than in failure.

But believing in failure is the very essence of pessimism. It is something that (unfortunately) is a part of me.

Leo Tolstoy

Last weekend, I read by first Tolstoy novel. It wasn't his most famous work; for I have reserved War and Peace and Anna Karenina for a later stage in life. I happened to read 'The Cossacks' - an early Tolstoy novel.

To say the least, it was a wonderful book. There was the right mix of story and philosophy. I could relate to how and why Mahatma Gandhi would've been influenced by this Russian giant.

Line of credit and the milkman

I got back to Mumbai after weeks outside. Thankfully the house was in order except for a bit of dust around. There wasn't much to eat apart from almonds, walnuts and some old boxes of sweets. It is a bit of a struggle without having food handily available. I am now completely dependent on my social network; someone has to suggest meeting up, someone has to suggest that the meeting up happen over food etc.

When I started writing on this blog, I had two main objectives: a) getting used to writing and writing well so that I may someday use these skills to write a book or something worthwhile, b) to 'educate' the world through my ideas and observations. The second one was a bit of a stretch. But at times I do certainly feel that people out there really aren't very keen observers. There are some patterns of thought and reason which everyone resorts to.

A system of thought can be legacy; something that is passed down through generations and is a part of one's culture. But logic? Logic cannot be something that is passed down. Logic has absolute existence. The existence of logic is almost tautological. It simply cannot not-exist.

People have very skewed notions of what is logical. The human mind is to blame for this. For all the talk about human beings being intelligent, there is still a long way to go. We are no where close to being objective in our thoughts and analysis.

Being non-objective is necessary and important. If as a race, we weren't non-objective, we wouldn't have poetry, differing opinions, ideologies, etc. But it is important for people to be objective where necessary. I would say necessary is not the right word. Humans can survive without being objective at all; but being so makes life a touch easier. What do I mean by being objective?

Before delving into that, I want to get one thing out of the way. I hadn't paid the milkman for milk I bought in the month of January. The outstanding amount was some 520 Rupees. So last night I heard the bell ring at an unearthly hour: some 10:30 odd. It was him demanding his money. How did he know that I get scared in the night, easily, alone? The matter is now sorted; I paid him the money this morning.

When you are objective, your thoughts are uncoloured by feelings. You examine evidence for what it is and your logic is absolute, singular and not coloured by what your culture or upbringing has taught you. You maintain hypotheses to be hypotheses till the point there is credible and objective evidence.

There are so many instances in life where I see people rationalizing non-objectively. These people also claim that their rationalization is logical and objective. This is because their system of logic and reason in non-objective. Or rather the hypotheses on which their system of logic rests haven't been tested enough.

Another pet peeve of mine is what I want to term 'perceptual knowledge'. Simply put this is like saying "I know something; I cannot share it with you. You will have to realize it for yourself" (sounds familiar, doesn't it?) I think perceptual knowledge has some basic flaws. Knowledge by definition (my definition at least) cannot be perception based. Knowledge has to exist outside the mind for it to be knowledge. Perceptions are mere perceptions and there is no credible way to ascertain their truth. Or even better, the truth value of a perception is something that doesn't make sense.

The other major flaw is that perceptions by nature are products of the human mind. And the human mind is not objective. Putting it in another way, perceptions are mere chemical balances in the human nervous systems. This chemical balance needn't be driven by knowledge.

A Renaissance?

I am perhaps in the laziest phase of my life. I sleep for about 9 hours a day (while holding on to a job which pays me quite a lot). I wake up just in time for work. I do not exercise and have no controls on what/how much I eat.

All this makes me feel a bit unsettled. I haven't been like this in life too many times before. There might have been the odd week or two where I've gladly chosen to be a potato. But this time, its been more than a couple of months since I was active.

A few things have changed for the better though. I get lots of sleep; deep sleep. I no longer suffer from the bouts of being half-asleep and things like that. My anxiety levels have reduced, I am not as jittery or fretful as I most times am.

But I need to change. The remorse about 'wasting' my time is hitting me hard these days. I really can do so much with the amount of leisure I get. Technically speaking, there is nothing that stops me from making better use of my time. It is just an efficiency problem.

A possible cause for this condition is that I am goal less now. I really am just going with the flow of life and so far, I have been contented with where it has taken me. To change this approach towards life, I need to think hard on multiple things.

Today, I had a project performance review meeting with my boss. And I was surprised with the ratings I got. I thought I had done poorly but in the end, the feedback wasn't that bad after all. This gave me a good feeling and a stronger sense of belief in my abilities.

During that discussion, I also realized how I have stopped being diligent. As I previously mentioned, I have started taking things lightly.

I need to think myself out of this and develop a strong work ethic. This 'Renaissance' might be a bit of going back to the drawing board and start planning things.

As a start, I am determined to make good use of this three day weekend. I have promised to read a book cover to cover - Orhan Pamuk's 'Istanbul' which I purchased today. Outside that, I also want to develop an plan, a set of specific things I will start doing in order to change my ways.

My investigation into the nature of true statements

Off late, I have been trying hard to understand the nature of knowledge and belief. Knowledge to me is a higher idea than belief. Knowledge is something that is true whereas beliefs needn't be. But this differentiation isn't as simple as one would expect; because claiming that something is 'true' is not an elementary task.

Perhaps understanding the nature of 'truth' is a good starting point. Once we know what 'truth' is, then we will have a clear way to differentiate between 'beliefs' that are 'knowledge' and 'beliefs' that are merely beliefs.

There are many tests for truth; or the criteria of truth. The primary and most relevant criteria are objectivity, and consistency. I wish to discuss consistency first; objectivity deserves a longer, more detailed discussion.

By consistency, I mean that a true statement should be be consistent with everything else that is accepted as true. This is a very basic condition; if a statement is true but it contradicts another truth then one of two things: the statement is not true or the earlier statement which was accepted as being true is not entirely so.

This is perhaps how science and human knowledge grows: by testing the consistency of propositions with the accepted truth. A classic example is the idea that the world is flat. This was considered a true statement until somebody's claim which was inconsistent with this, started getting attention.

The second and tougher criterion is that of objectivity. The criterion of objectivity requires that a true statement stands alone without dependence of opinions and feelings. An objective truth should be external to the mind; for the mind's lens is a subjective apparatus.

Once we bring in objectivity into the picture, our sample of possible true statements shrinks alarmingly. For example, Adam tells Eve. "Shem tells me that it is a very hot day today in Canaan. Is it true?" If objectivity is a criterion for truth and the word 'hot' is as understood as it currently is, Eve can only reply "The temperature today in Canaan was 40 degree Celsius".

Shem's opinion about the weather would have been true if our system of communication had defined 'hot' has 'a condition where the temperature is greater than 39 degree Celsius' or something like that. But as we use it, the word hot is an opinion, a judgement of a condition.

This brings me to the next step: the difference between factual statements and judgements. A fact is an objective statement (hence external to the mind) that need not necessarily be true when stated or proposed. In a way, a fact is a true statement whose consistency hasn't been tested yet. And by definition, a judgement can never be a true statement.

The statement 'this colour is blue' can be true under the assumption that that blue is understood to be a colour that corresponds to a certain wavelength of light. What if Adam tells Eve. "the water is blue in colour"? Is this a factual statement?

This statement might have been termed factual. But one fine day someone identified colour blindness as a possible human condition. Given this possibility, Adam's statement cannot be factual in the strict sense. Adam's perception of colour is something that is still subjective. If Adam said "the wavelength of light reflected by the water is xx Angstrom", this can be called a factual statement (assuming that Adam has the standard equipment to measure such details accurately and he makes this statement after the measurement).

Is the act of measurement objective? It certainly can be. Assume a machine which just correctly reads the light and displays the wavelength on a screen. Adam can just read off this screen and make a statement on the wavelength of the light. This statement by Adam is no doubt factual; but its truth will depend on Adam's ability to read correctly.

There are a lot of things I want to discuss regarding the consistency of true statements. I shall get to that some other time.

On the nature of happiness

If I were to name three books that have had the greatest influence in the way I think and lead life, one of them would surely be Fooled by randomness by Nassim Taleb. I have read the book one and a half times and have been fascinated by some of the stuff in the book. In some places, the book is extremely immodest but that is the author's style. Amidst all the positioning and holier-than-thou, there is a lot of sense in what he says.

I would like to bring to your attention a quote from the book: Solon's warning - 'The uncertain future has yet to come, with all variety of future; and him only to whom the divinity has guaranteed continued happiness until the end we may call happy'. Taleb builds on this in a way and combines the good and bad effects of randomness to bring about his views of success, luck, etc.

I do not agree to Solon's statement completely. Happiness to me is more a stock variable: at any given point of time, you can either be happy or you are not; and the argument ends there. The state of being happy can change quickly thanks to uncertainity of the future. But calling only those who enjoy perpetual happiness as being 'happy' isn't something I wouldn't agree with.

Here I am tempted to think along the lines of what constitutes happiness and whether it is an abosolute term at all. Does happiness derive from the change in one state to another (whereby happiness is a relative perception of the mind) or is happiness absolute and stand alone? My answer tends more towards the former than the latter.

My best effort would be to define happiness as a state of mind. A state of mind which can further be broken down into a specific mental chemical balance (do I love this line of reasoning or what!) To that extant, happiness is an absolute state. We can, in some form describe happiness as - 'a mind state where the subject has an endorphin concentration of xx gm/Litre'. Depending on how you are as a person, the value of xx will differ. But this is not the 'non-absoluteness' I want to talk about.

Happiness is derived from relative improvements in situations. Abolsute situations do not guarantee happiness. E. g. If you beat Usain Bolt in a 100m race, the first time you are happy. Your endorphine level shoots up to 10xx or something. The 100th time you beat him in a 100m race, the end state is still the same in an absolute sense but you don't feel half as happy.

Humans are greedy by nature. Our happiness circuits follow the law of diminishing returns. It's as if the gland releasing the happiness hormones says "I've seenenough of this. Show me something better!".

New beginnings

It is past eleven on a Sunday night and I am still up working on something. This time, my week begins early. I think working Sunday night is a good way to beat Monday blues.

As I was reading slide after slide, the idea suddenly came upon me that I should re-start blogging. Mind you, I have done this a half a dozen times. But for once, I got the blog address I was looking for in the first attempt. I do not like to claim myself to be a believer in superstition (I'm supposed to be a member of the Brights Society) But this time, maybe it just felt good to get the blog address of your choice.

I do not have a direction for this blog as of now. And I would be uncomfortable if I did have one in mind. I think direction stifles creativity. It is also that this early into this blog, I wouldn't want to take call on what I should write about. Something might come up as I progress.

Today, the world celebrates Valentine's day. I did too but that's besides the point. Celebrating Valentine's day is by no means universal. There are a few pre-requisites for it - love (obviously), people, freedom, smart marketers (yes, that is increasingly becoming true).

Among the things I listed, let me pick on freedom. You need a certain degree of freedom to celebrate it. The lack of freedom doesn't preclude Valentine's day but it certainly jeopardizes attempts to celebrate it.

There is an interesting episode of how a certain person chose this day to show hatred against someone, something on this day. For this certain person, someone and something, this day would denote a day of hatred. The day when the hatred began - to be precise. Hatred is as strong as love, and even in this case it outlived one of the people involved.

In many places in the world, there are some things which neither money nor MasterCard can buy.