Chance knowledge and the cumulative effect

As I was driving past a park this Saturday, I saw that a section of it was burning. I suddenly had a vivid image of the entire park burning with high flames (It is a very large park). This then caused a thought about how Rome would have looked to Nero as it burnt. The revelation – I now know why Nero (the software) is so named.

This sort of random revelation is not an unusual thing. The most important part here was that I wasn’t thinking about computers at all. The experience was quite Sherlock Holmes-ish – When he gives voice to Dr. Watson’s thoughts by saying “Such a waste” and then proceeds to explain the chain of thought in the latter’s mind. Richard Bach compared ideas to fractures running in a crystal – any could lead to any other. Others have referred to the oneness of knowledge – that given one thing, everything else could be discovered. Both seem somewhat limited ways of explaining the experience.

Chance discoveries happen in science all the time. Microwave background radiation and radioactivity  are but two examples.

I’m thinking now of the cumulative nature of scientific knowledge. Both socio-economic theorists (Farcis Fukuyama, Fareed Zakaria etc.) and scientists (Francis Bacon) assert that with the invention of the scientific method (hypothesis-experiment-prove/disprove), scientific knowledge has become cumulative. That later generation inherit the knowledge of their predecessors. And it is intuitively true. We don’t have to rediscover the gravitational principle, although we may have to prove it several times over (damned CBSE exams!).

This is brought into somewhat contrary focus by the revelational experience. The cumulative nature of the scientific method no doubt holds true when the steps are small. Not to belittle any discoveries, but some _are_ greater than others. It took a Newton to get us to gravity, and even more drastically, an Einstein to get to relativity. Both works are quite out of the league for their times. The tools they used were there, as was the a-priori knowledge. But the power of the method seems to wane when we consider efforts where accepted first principles have to be discarded.

The cumulativity assertion says that given a state of human knowledge and the scientific method – the future can be worked out again. But how does this apply when the prior knowledge has to be discarded by a leap of faith.  When accidents force the next step forward, how does the scientific principle handle it? We can say that the geniuses use informed intuition (Kekule and the structure of Benzene). But that would lead us into the myriad definitions of genius and intuition.

And that’s a discussion for some other time.

Technology, not activism, will save the environment

A lot of people are interested in preserving the environment. I admit I don’t do much about it (I’m more the armchair sort), but I am interested in it. To those who are out there doing it (planting trees, spotfixing etc.) - more power to you!! You have my respect. This post has nothing to do with you. This is about the people who are corporate bitches of the “sustainable business practices” variety. I will say this out loud and clearly – That shit don’t work. Let me explain why.

What does “sustainable business practices” mean? It means that we will continue to do business with just about enough tweaks to it so that it allows the self-same business to run a little longer. If the tagline gets us a few tax breaks, so much the better. I don’t know of any company which has drastically changed business models or made business decisions on the basis of sustainability. Sustainability is good PR, but it is faaaaaar down the table from the bottom line. The jobs I referred to exist for posterity, and to employ mavericks who are willing to work for low salaries and pointless objectives.

Think about it. In the first place, the concept that we can somehow undo the damage we have done to the environment is kind of suspect. We can stop it from getting worse if we abandon all polluting activities right this instant, but the ecology of a planet is an immense beast, and is not easily turned from its path. Apart from that, the scale at which we are screwing things up is huge. Optimizations to the existing products/processes can only buy some time before the jig is up. Besides, let’s face it – corporates don’t truly care about environment. This is not to say that people working there don’t care, but usually when “The firm comes first”, clean air comes last.

Henry Ford (the first) said – “For an idea to work, it has to be right in time, and it has to be right in price”. Meaning someone making very expensive horse-buggies in 1900 would be wrong in price, and someone making very cheap horse-buggies today would be wrong in time.  Neither would work. Today, the idea of environmental conservation is right in time, but I think that it is still wrong in price. We simply do not have economically viable substitutes for most of the stuff that is going wrong. This is why I firmly believe that the tide will turn not by activism, but by technology.

Activism is a fine thing, but it is not the solution here. It simply does not scale well. What we need is new, clean technology that performs at least as well as the current polluting setup. Only once we have these alternates is when the battle can be joined in the earnest by switching businesses to use them and making the enterprises actually sustainable.

New products that are cheap and yet eco-friendly will be immensely disruptive to the existing system. This is historically consistent (significant changes in living conditions occurs with significant change in technology) and the only hope that we have of turning the development juggernaut on its head and setting it in the right (or at least somewhat) direction. But since it is disruptive, it will face opposition, and THEN we will need environmental managers to carry the standard into boardrooms. But first that solution(s) that can be peddled has to be discovered.

So, here’s my tuppence – If you truly, deeply care about environment, go study the sciences. Try to actually solve the problem. Don’t waste your time and effort getting a corporate degree in Environmental Practices (or whatever they call it). It will be irrelevant and useless.

Intelligence and Wisdom

A trip to a forest resort the last weekend set me thinking about the differences and intelligence and wisdom. Nothing obvious happened to cause this. Our host just mentioned that he dropped out of college to live in the wilderness which he has now done for 32 years with his family. For all that, he seemed to be a happy. That set the ball rolling. So let me set out what I think about these two characteristics.

Intelligence is the ability to learning skills that allow for solution of specific problems. It is the ability to apply abstract concepts to some tangible ends or to discover further new concepts (that could also be considered a tangible end, but those who think of philosophy as unproductive are likely to differ). Intelligence manifests itself in smartness and incisive analysis. But these are only how intelligence expresses itself.

At its essence, intelligence is an outward seeking force. Given an intellect and a limited amount of knowledge, it seeks to push the boundaries of our understanding by adding new concepts and generalizations. It is the origin of rationality and of science. It causes progress (in the usual, materialistic of the word at least) – the evolution from monkey to man and from poor man to rich man. There is no point in asking Intelligence to stop. It is an ambitious force, and its march is relentless. It is its own fuel.  Its own fruits feed it to become ever greater. In a way, it is the yang that drives the world.

Wisdom is the ability to make the best, but not necessarily the most efficient choice, in a situation. It is not intuition (which is, IMO, another word for internalizing something so deeply that it comes without conscious thought – martial arts uses it, so does guitar playing), but rather an ability to judge the importance of things. It expresses itself in patience, far-sightedness, and restraint. Not that these qualities are deprived to intelligence, but wisdom is the true master of them. But these again are expressions.

On the other hand, Wisdom is an inward seeking force (Not in any mystical way, though). It tries to contract our world, reduce it to its basics. Intelligence wants the world and what lies beyond, but wisdom makes its business the setting of priorities. It allows us to stay focused on the things that truly matters to us. It is born of temperance does not invest its energy in exuberant causes. Neither is it bothered by trivial detail. Its nature is to be still. It is the yin of the world, stability incarnate.

Though either or both may be had in various degrees, it would not be correct, I think, to choose one over the other. We need one to control the other, one to move ahead and the other to restrain a headlong rush into madness. An intelligence tempered by wisdom or a wisdom powered by an intellect are formidable forces indeed.

Balance.

Because we need them

I absolutely loved Avengers. But here, I don’t want to talk about the complete absence of plot, the kickass action, Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, or the God who got bullied (Note that I just slyly did talk about all these things).

I want to talk about power. And I want to talk about free will.

The movie ends with Samuel Jackson saying – “(The Avengers will return…) Because we need them”.  No one seems to notice it, but I find it to be an extremely disturbing thought. This bunch of extremely powerful personages is to be at our beck and call because we need them!

What is it that makes a hero (in the sense of DC or Marvel)? Is it a unique ability? Is it the desire for adulation? I don’t know. But what is clear is that the motives lead to vastly different actions. Anyone seeking public admiration will of course have to perform acts of public welfare. The greater the hunger for admiration, the greater will have to be the services rendered and the possible cost of them. And the reverse works too, the more the people love you, the more you are expected to deliver. It seems fine thus far unless we realize that this is also the clear highway to megalomania. But we know that Captain America is not a megalomaniac. Neither is Iron Man (Stark is, but not his steel clad avatar), or Hawkeye, or any of the others.

What about their unique ability? This is where the question of free will comes in. Anyone with a unique ability is just that-nothing more. Does this situation rob them of the choice to not participate? Is a quirk of birth or fate enough to necessarily deprive a person of choosing what they wish to be committed to? Should Bruce Banner give in to the all-devouring god of our need and embrace “the other guy” (whom he hates, BTW). If he wishes to withdraw into the medical profession and never “Smash” again, is that not his prerogative? But alas, society gives no such choices to its mighty.

And in all this, let’s see where Nick Fury stands. He does nothing in the whole damn movie. He originally rejects Stark from the Avengers initiative because of instability. And then has the cheek to pull him in as soon as fighting begins. There is no indication that Tony Stark is any more stable at this point. He deigns to command a team of people who are infinitely greater than him in all aspects. And why does he expect them to obey? Because he needs them. It's a confidence ploy, emotional blackmail to abuse power that is not his own. The ends, however noble, do not justify the means.

”Is there trouble? Let’s call in the band of poor sods whom we insulted when we didn’t need them. Of course they will come. Don’t we need them? Our need comes before their free will.” Flashes of Atlas Shrugged anyone?

“With great power comes great responsibility” seems to me to be an incomplete statement. It is the willingness to wield power which brings responsibility. The mere possession of power is a triviality, a happenstance. It changes nothing about who or what we are. It is when we choose to exercise this power is when we face the choice of how to do it. The use of power is an ethical dilemma, which may make one a hero or a villain (again depending on who is writing the story).

In short, I found the concept reprehensible and I left an excellent movie with a rather bad taste in my mouth. I have written thus far in the context of the movie and that one line in it. But generalize and see if it isn’t true of the world and our society in general. Imagine an acquaintance, powerful in some way, but who didn’t grant you a favour because he doesn’t care enough about you. Would you feel cheated simply because you think he should do it?

Then pity the avengers.

Reductio ad absurdum

Today I had a most interesting conversation about religion with my friend Tarun Runwal. He is a confessed agnostic, I am a militant atheist. When the two meet, you know who was defending god. Both of us were slightly drunk on Urban Asia’s excellent LIITs too.

A point that Tarun repeatedly made that I found both effective and exasperating was that of the first cause. It is not a novel argument in favour of deism, but I have never personally seen it used so doggedly. For the uninitiated, it goes like this – scientifically speaking, there was a beginning. Who/What caused it? If it is explained in the first degree, then the argument can be repeated to the n-th degree without losing any validity (at least superficially). If the n-th degree situation can’t be explained be explained rationally, then what right do we have to completely dismiss god from the equation? He/She/It could have caused it.

I would like to approach this by considering the nature of questions in general. A question is valid if it is answerable, at least to some extent. A chicken-egg question is not a valid question, IMO. If every possible answer of a question can be the subject of the original question, then the question is invalid. Some readers might liken this to a situation where some senior manager asks a junior guy something. The junior guy starts from an answer that is relevant in detail to his level of expertise. The senior fellow keeps on repeating the question, the junior keeps moving to a lesser and lesser detail in his answer. This happens till both are satisfied. This is a fairly familiar scenario (at least where I come from). If no answer of the junior would ever be high-level enough, then this exercise would never end and we are forced to conclude that the line of questioning is wrong in some way.

This is the nature of a scientific inquiry. We are trying to explain phenomenon at a suitably high level. We start with an empirical hypothesis and push it outwards based on observed or proven facts, and generalize it to the level our information allows us (no more – A junior who reported imaginary things to his manager would no doubt be fired soon). If, however, we see that no amount of data or analysis is going to explain a phenomenon, we should perceive that there is a problem with the statement of the phenomenon itself.

Religion these days finds its last stand in such reductio ad absurdum kind of questions. The theologians realize that there is no logical way to solve these, and house there gods in their shelter. My argument against these is that the universe is what it is. You cannot gainsay the nature of nature. The aim of science and reason is not to indulge in endless logical frivolities, but to reveal to us the underlying laws that govern nature. As Richard Feynman famously put it, it is like watching a game of chess, of which we can only see some parts at some times. Our understanding needs to be reverse engineered from these glimpses. That being said, there is only a certain level to which this understanding can be reduced or generalised (Just like there are only so many ways to explain the move of a pawn in chess). Beyond this, causality becomes meaningless. “Why moves the knight thus?” would have no meaning in chess. The same is true in physics.

Reductio ad absurdum is a useful technique, but it should be applied in context. This is why the anthropic principle is such a powerful and effective technique in physics – it allows us to separate the crap question from the relevant ones.

Infinite regression is the refuge of the morally and intellectually bankrupt. Anybody who wants to have meaningful philosophical discussion about anything should avoid it.

Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger"

I watched Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger recently. The movie features Jack Nicholson who is by any account a living legend of cinema. Both Hollywood and Bollywood are full of stars but deplorably lacking in actors. Even in that league of extraordinary gentlemen, Nicholson is a force to be reckoned with. Neither Michelangelo Antnioni’s genius nor his fame need an introduction. So far so good.

With this movie came the crushing realization that I don’t have the ability to critically watch cinema (the critics’ choice works, so to say). I have watched a lot of movies (like A LOT of movies – thank you Aditya Mangla, thank you TPB) and fancied myself knowledgeable in such matters, but now the bubble has been burst.

While watching the movie, I was too involved with what was happening to understand what the producer meant by all that. Kind of goes back to when I was a rookie developer at Shaw and some soft-skills training tried to teach the difference between listening and active listening (listening between the lines).My impressions was the cinematography was AWESOME and the way the environment dominated an actor as dominating as Jack Nicholson was impressive (SRK would no doubt have a sad song with lots of close-up shots in the damn desert). Apart from that, I saw only the slow-ass chase, the strange female character, and the predictable ending.

True, I sort of realized what the essence was, sort of got the feeling about the movie was all about, but I had no words to put to it then. I realized I liked the movie (in a way), but I wasn’t sure why. Not until I read this excellent review that I realized what I was missing. The words ennui, escapism, identity, destiny, coincidence, existential malaise, did not occur to me as I saw the movie. All I had was the feeling that there was something behind the curtain of a rather tame mystery. I guess that is what critics are paid for – articulating concisely what others feel vaguely. I just expected better of myself.

I guess I’ll get better with practice, so am planning to watch a lot more non-mainstream movies now.

I strongly recommend The Passenger movie to everyone, but if you are a normal mortal like me, just read the review I linked above before you watch it. There can’t be spoilers for this movie; the things that get spoilt already suck here. It is the other bit which is superb.

The Great Indian Political Circus

I usually don’t think about politics, but a recent re-reading of Freedom at Midnight and The Great Indian Novel gave some interesting insights into the current Indian political circus. As is usual with my insights, it isn’t really an insight. It’s just a general mess of thoughts, cleared up and come together in one statement – Our politics is messed up because we know how to protest, but not how to govern.

I believe this is due to our political legacy.

Freedom at Midnight relates how immediately after independence, our revered leader proved absolutely incapable of administering their new found nation. They knew how to protest, how to hold rallies against government laws, but they had no experience in making and enforcing laws themselves. So when the communal backlash of the partition refused to abate, they were forced to call in Lord Mountbatten to contain the violence. Only with his behind-the-curtains intervention did normalcy return. Jawaharlal Nehru deserves every bit of credit he is given today as a leader of Independence struggle, but he is not quite the role model of leadership and governance. He, however, is the paragon of politics whom our leaders choose to emulate today.

The second part of my thought process came from The Great Indian Novel and the Anna Hazaare movement. Both refer to periods where people took to the streets in direct opposition to policies of the government (Anna ji’s case being that of protests against an absolute lack of policies from the government). Both battles were fought on the streets, and both were wildly successful in mobilizing the public against the government (actual results notwithstanding). On neither occasion did the protesting party offer a viable administrative alternative (The Janata Party government formed of Shri Jaiprakash Narain’s movement died without a whimper).

This is not to suggest that protesting is wrong or that someone who can’t be a great prime minister should just shut up. Citizen activism has its part to play in the balance of power. The strange problem is in when concept of activism and its success are hijacked. It gives the impression that whoever can muster the most people on the street can govern regardless of who holds the majority in the parliament. It is a parallel democracy where “for the people” is taken literally to be the headcount of a rally. I am not well versed with the politics of many countries but I believe that this may be unique to the largest democracy in the world.

The problem is in the complete abandonment of governance in favour of protests. Neither the ruling nor the opposition parties today choose to use the parliament as the forum for decision making, nor are election the favoured means to oust a party that has lost the popular mandate. The chosen means of everything is a “popular” circus. But as a correspondent wrote about Baba Ramdev’s dharna, when you organize a circus, sooner or later the clowns will arrive.

The business of politicians is to make policies. This is best done by sitting down and deliberating, not by shouting on the streets. Our politics is messed up because we know how to protest but not how to govern. Our political role models did not know how to govern either, and their legendary status has left an incorrect but lasting impression that their way is the way. It isn’t.