transcending reality - transcending time.

A few years ago, I started developing a distaste, well, an intense dislike for chronological time.
If I had to create something, I wanted it to be timeless - what is the use crafting sublime architectures in C++ when the very basis of the systems that will let them exist, are certain to change and disappear in a few decades. Not that I might be remotely capable of doing anything similar, but in contrast, consider Mozart san and his music ... it has stuck a few centuries, at least.

Also, when doing work, I kept wanting to be in a state where I did not have to be aware of time. Like a master craftsman.
What was this with time and me ...
(this ties in with some of my meme cards about sustainability)

Last week I had the fortune of sharing my residence with a physicist from Albany, NY ... a quantum physicist. When discussing time, its contrived nature and how the mind fabricates time ... he quipped ... 'You had better become pure energy ... for anything else, time is an enemy of!'
This is very interesting.
That might the business of yoga.

Modern science again seems to be approaching the boundaries of rationality. I wonder why this keeps repeating again and again.

Following the yamas ... Truth, and why science can't understand the architecture of the world.

Let's begin with Satya or truth.
I look at the moon. I say out loud, 'I am looking at the moon.'
I have just lied. Not only have I lied, but I have lied -without- being aware of it, which is all the more dangerous, for it comes with the belief that I am speaking the truth. And that very thing, will prevent me from seeing anything more fundamental.

How? I have no real proof of existence of the moon other than the report of my senses and the result of a carefully constructed series of mental constructs called rationality (which is really a solved problem.)

Yet I say, the moon exists. Like a guy running around in Doom II saying that the sprites that represent the demons exist.

First step towards transcending reality, is to never lie, for that will consolidate the seeming reality of the very virtual constructs whose architecture we're trying to understand.

So following the yama of Truth ... requires me to not speak at all! For the nature of everything spoken - if seen closely enough is untruth! It is possible to mince around, playing with semantics ... and that would perhaps be the job of professional philosophers.

But empirically, it was easy for me to see this once I saw why actions speak louder than words ... actually, certain kinds of silence speak much louder than actions, and give the person who is silent a tremendous power to effect change.

At this point, it was easy for me to turn agnostic (if I am a sprite in Doom II then, I CANNOT figure out the architecture of the OS or the processor ... but that again, makes certain assumptions about what knowledge is and what is knowable), nihilist ... well I could go any number of ways really, but then I wouldn't be any closer to the state of the art ;)
I resolutely refused to conform, yet continued the quest to observe the mind.

(from mid-2007)

the unanswerable why .... and mistaking proximity in time and space, observation and classification for understanding

Modern science and its derivative fields, amongst other things, are limited in their methods for discovery of truth - that observation (and proximity in time and space, albeit - many times, repeated) and classification is mistaken for understanding or even worse - an understanding of causation. The 'why' is a question - designed to be unanswered. For every answer to a why - can be met with a further why. An open loop. A hole. A back-door through the cocoon of language. Temporary answers to ANY question, based on existing classification models and observations in the time-space dimensions may be convenient or useful in limited local contexts (which - due to the 'value agnosticism' of science .... okay maybe, more on that later), however ... the why remains unanswered.

A self-respecting follower of science, and one very good at his stuff, probably, soon reaches the limits of what his methods can allow him to see. Where he sees that he does not, in fact, understand anything about anything.

Perhaps - this is what happened to Einstein.
And I also saw it in the bluepages profile of a person who was in my 'most respected' list in IBM. In his profile - it said
Expert: C / Algorithms / Procrastination / Abstraction
Strong: LDAP / C / Windows / Unix / Communication
Competent: Korn Shell / HTML / I18N / Build / CMVC / Software Dev &
Support / Sensitivity
Learning: Java / Package & install / Business Processes / Details / Diplomacy
Clueless: Sales & Marketing / Money / Life
:-)

sleep, sweet sleep

Some time ago, I didn't keep regular sleeping hours.
On one of those sleepless nights - I wrote a few lines in my notebook -

Sleep, sweet sleep ...
come to me, hold me
in your arms
pray, let me
sink into your lap
enter me
scrub my mind, spirit, flesh and blood
cleanse me
sublimate
sights, sounds, thoughts, food ...
for 'tis all the stuff I ate
for 'tis the code ...
that writes my fate -
joys, sorrows, pleasure, pain...
pray be my mate,
seep through
artery and vein;
be with me,
let your deep dark tresses
hide me;
from that tyrant, time
now let me end this rhyme;
take me.
I'm yours to keep
for the night ...
Sleep .... sweet sleep.

I never had a problem sleeping ever since. ;-)
Sleep, sweet sleep. You love her and she loves you right back. :-D

unsolved ... important

One way of knowing if you are approaching unsolved problems is if you seem to be stretching the boundaries of your belief system. The axioms that limit your perception. Like two points make a line. And three points make a triangle.

Consider this ...
Try defining necessity independent of a desirability model.
A need devoid of a want.
Look around you - what you see is the rendering of the mind of a bundle of wants.
The very need to eat, to live ... is based on a want to exist.

What is truly necessary - language cannot begin to describe, the mind cannot begin to perceive (since it is a first class beggar - the mother of wants), rationality cannot begin to analyze.

Try cracking a simple problem. Consider a situation ... say -
I decide to read something. A farmer from the town calls me asking if I could come help him with work in his grape orchard. Now - there are wants here. But what is -necessary- ? What should have been done ? What is 'necessary' independent of some want .... c'est impossible, non ?
What do you really -need- ?

you may think that I'm religious ...

... but what do you think religion is ?

Religion is a set of metastable answers to important, difficult problems ... that help hold things together. (re+ligare: ligare = to bind together, also the root of 'ligament' etc.) The THINGS that these answers hold together may be the body, the mind, family, society, hell - even a company, a team within a company or a software architecture for that matter. Religion is a metastable supported version of an OS ... to ensure sustainability. This is a word bog though - but that is as close as I can come right now.

I have not accepted any ready-made answers at face value. Some of my most pressing concerns aren't addressed by religion - our scriptures come very close (the newest release being done by Gautama Buddha perhaps.) But words have limits. It was my intent to take a sabbatical from IBM last year, to try and discover the nature of sustainability by studying the ancient Indian scriptures - for this has been a thoroughly researched concept - and apply the essence to modern, current problem sets.

This was just before unsustainability hit unexpecting me - at all possible levels.
More on unsustainability and my findings in a later post.

Adding the comments to the main post - since they are really a part of the post and don't show up by default.

Transcending Reality said...

A belief system which can prove to be a binding factor. A means for peaceful co-existence. Its not an answer, rather means to find an answer. Its good as long as its followed in moderation. I guess its something which you do when in solitary. It has to be truly personal. Seeing the turns, religions take in today's world, I am better off without it. I find it redundant anyway. Causes more problems than it should solve. Whats worth a try would be to stuff like what the 'secular' Turkish government had done..ban sporting hijab in public. haha Ask me the same question a decade later and the answer would be: "I would regard it as a disease born out of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race." - Russell - Lucretius ~chetan

July 06, 2008 12:34 PM

mojibake - previously kilocoder said...

actually not a system of beliefs. But a set of principles responsible for binding. Peaceful or not. Like a set of principles that govern a system. If your body exists right now, it is because the system obeys certain principles. If your university exists as an entity - that is because there is an implicit framework that is responsible for it's existence. Religion is almost a synonym for existence - sustainability of any meme complex is necessary for existence to continue. What we see in the world is a massive dissociation between words and what they originally meant - this is exactly what I was talking about in the post where I said I lost my belief in words. You have a religion whether you believe it or not. You may not know what it is. The fact that you exist still - is proof enough of the fact that there is something holding you together. By the time Lucretius and Co. decided to see it as a disease - they had already gone far far away from what religion means. The religion I have in mind is not a set of imperatives to be followed by people. Yoga is personal. Although, yes - it is admittedly easy for a yogi to 'get' the 'cepts of sustainability. (Everything in this world has a timestamp.) Not to be confused with Dharma - 'iti dhaaraytee sa dharmaha'. Dharma is pervasive. Where anything is held together - dharma is responsible. And the principles that govern it are not personal. Where dharma is not - there will automatically be dissolution. Be it a body, a company, a family ... If you can abstract out the essence of sustainability - then you may begin to consciously apply it. (It is of course possible to do it without understanding and being conscious of it - just as great artists don't know WHY they are great artists) Now - the application of the principles of sustainability cannot be done by force, by edicts, by rules. We all know how that fails - bad managers, dictators ... To be able to manipulate the data structures in the human mind - requires a great deal more juice and subtlety than that. To establish a 'dharma' is no mean feat - if you ever see - in a small company - a person - perhaps the owner - with a great deal of 'juice' ... you will see a person who can and is in the process of establishing the dharma of his company. This is admittedly easy in a small group. When the company grows - it is not too much of a wonder when the values of the company can't be passed on the the last guy in the chain by the CEO. It just ends up being some files somewhere - or a mission statement on a desk - easy and boiler-plate enough to be forgotten. To transmit dharma - is almost like transmitting heat or light - through a physical medium. It does not happen through symbols alone, although they help.

July 06, 2008 4:11 PM

the story of a one rupee coin ... true cost ... and why I am not a financial analyst.

True cost.
What is the true cost of me working in a large company ?
My salary ? My time ? My health ?

Suppose I earn just one rupee a day. Just one coin.
Now I spend that coin on buying what I like, or on a cause that I think is worthwhile - say I feel that people who write and search for knowledge and truth should be supported. So I buy good books. With that one rupee coin. That same one rupee coin now goes to the fellow who wrote that book. What does he do - he does a similar thing. Say, he likes music - he buys a CD with that one
rupee. The same coin - the same one rupee coin moves a million times. Everybody gets what they want. And thus wealth is created. So says economics. Money moves. People get what they want. Everybody is rich. WAIT. One coin moves a million times.

One million things are made. consumed. production and consumption. A million times - the raw material is .... the earth?

energy that comes from the sun? The earth is a largely sustainable meme complex by itself. But one coin moving around a million times introduces changes a million times in that meme complex .... changes which people like you and me, people who

create technology and consume it can only begin to faintly comprehend ... the earth is not INTEREST. It is CAPITAL. (If at all it can be talked about in such simple words.) So ... do we SPEND CAPITAL in order to become wealthy, or do we re-invest a part of the interest (if there is such a thing) back into the capital and consume the rest, and in this case - CAN WE ? wicked loop ? yes?
just one rupee moving around a million times!
For a moment ... forget the ecological implications and the wealth creation aspect.
Say ... I spend one rupee on buying books (or something that you currently deem worthwhile) and then, say the next one million minus one people use that coin to gamble, smoke, drink ... or basically on destroying sustainable memes
(because I CURRENTLY feel that one of the best ways to be human is to participate in and create sustainable meme patterns and complexes - fight entropy (and a new child is just the default apex of what we are hard coded to 'create' ... an anti-entropy genetic construct, a family is the social anti-entropy construct ... and so on) ... but my mental model seems to be constantly refined and altered. And the edge ... the END of what thought as a system is capable of doing, as a tool is capable of creating is almost visible... that is another story)
so ... then what is the true ethical cost of moving one rupee through the 'market' a million times ?

It is possible to consider this as an academic question, and it is possible to be HIT IN THE CEREBRAL GUT by it.

In my case it was the latter.
And ... I closed my CFA books.

A subconscious understanding of the above was the reason I asked girls who wanted to marry me in the year 2005 - 'Will you be okay with the idea of us living only on say a couple of thousand rupees a month?' Most of them gave me funny looks - if this fellow can and probably is earning close to 30 or 40 times that amount ... why would he think of this! :)

We truly no longer know the true cost of anything. And neither do we really know what we really need. :) So ... shinier, stronger, bigger, faster ? more, more, more ? WHAT ? WHY ? The greatest of corporations, the best of our scientists don't seem to have an answer to what we SHOULD need. In the absence of that answer, they just compromise and seem to accept the easier convergent problems. Dangerous. Even more dangerous - they persuade everyone that the problems that they work on - the convergent ones - amenable to the tools of technology and science and rationality are the MOST IMPORTANT problems, and people who don't become scientists or engineers are generally not intelligent (this at least, seems to be the case in my hometown in Pune, India ... and all the most refined brains are sucked in by the Engineering profession)

This post is history. Last year. I have some answers to the difficult questions posed now. Not very easily expressible through words. Words are too mechanical.

If you don't 'get' me - you will call my words 'psychobabble'.

(ever wonder WHY many things speak louder than words? MUSIC ? and silence ? and silence backed with LOVE - even louder? Actually there are even more powerful methods of meme transfer than words and direct action. Parable that comes to mind -
when Ramana Maharshi was asked by a person - 'Why do you live here in the Arunachala mountains - when you could be down in the villages DOING SOMETHING!' - and he replied something to the effect of 'What in HEAVENS name makes you think that direct action is the most effective method of creating change, and what makes you think it is necessary!!!!')

embryos ... most of us

striving to sustain ... striving to break out of the cocoons of code that surround us ... our parents' ideas and beliefs, the ideas that books and movies and friends give us, the memes embedded in our genes ... do not push away, do not judge ... at least, till we emerge from the chrysalis (and then there will remain perhaps ... nothing to be judged.)

(From notebook ... late 2007)

the (near) end of my reading habit ...

A couple of years ago ... a question occurred to me ... is any of my thoughts an entirely original thought, or is it primarily a result of everything that I have read from childhood ? Is anything I think my own ? Can it ever be ? If the human mind is a system that is programmed by what the senses are exposed to i.e. DATA, and that in turn plays a major role not only in determining the limits of perception in the future, but also what actions are undertaken by the human body - i.e. if DATA is interpreted as CODE ... then what degree of security do we have. And should one allow oneself to be programmed by -any- book (or experience!) at all, even the Bhagvad Geeta or the Patanjali Yoga Sutras for that matter! If 'buddhi' is also programmed or colored if you will, by sensory input then we are not just full of buffers waiting to be overflowed but we are a system with a completely exposed code area that anyone can write to. (I have since discovered that it IS possible to find a mechanism that is not affected by I/O ... but that is another story)

Seemed scary.

This led me to seek answers to fundamental questions about the nature of information, and the human mind.

When I hit the limits of language as we know it - I needed to work then at another level and saw that I had nothing more to read!

Why I lost my belief in words ... and how I (almost) ended my reading habit

God. When I talk with you and use the word 'God' - I have many different memes associated with that word in my mind. And -- you -- probably have a set of other, different memes in your mind. And both of us probably are not in sync with what we 'think' is 'real'. Forget what 'IS' real. Why God - even plain words like, say -- 'western culture', when used by enough people, result in a large amount of what can best be called verbal delusion or 'vikalpa' (shabda-dnyaanaanupaati vastushoonyo vikalpahaa - Patanjali yoga sutras, Samadhi paada.)

Examine any language closely, and you will slowly realize that all words are mere pointers to reality. No wonder that ancient sanskrit grammarians recognized and studied languages and grammars -- nay, not just that but whole levels or media of communication more powerful than written and spoken language. For instance - 'paraa', 'pashyanti', 'madhyamaa' ...

Examine any language you know closely, and you will also see laws analogous to Newtons laws of motion or the laws of thermodynamics ... hell, meaning seems subject to entropy as well.

When I realized this, the first thing that struck me was, it is impossible to follow the 'yama' or rule of 'satya' or truth; if I speak or use 'common' language, so to speak. If the very nature of the language I know is untruth, how can I ever claim to be truthful!

All words are lies (and so are these! ... see the loop... beautiful, but a limitation in a tool that attempts to describe reality accurately.) So words seem to me now like シャボン玉　－soap bubbles blown by children. Beautiful, ethereal, temporal ... but not very good as tools for accurately describing reality - a use case most often attributed to languages.

So ... the end of language as I knew it.
This is from my notebook - from about a year ago.