Anything Everything

Today, Panchayat Elections are being held in 7 districts, including mine, in Kerala. Though this is actually the second time, I went to the polling booths, it's technically another first vote. Not only because it's my first Panchayat Election vote, but it's the first time I cast my vote in a ballot paper. The conventional voting method is still followed in panchayats. Well... it was a nice experience.

Gone With The Wind, a beautiful novel by Margaret Mitchell showcases the horrors of war in a touching, empathising manner. Though, primarily a romantic novel, this epic also decsribes the American Civil War. After reading this novel, I pondered over the various wars fought by mankind.

Of course, the two World Wars were the most prominent ones. Among these, the second World War was the most cruellest one. There are a lot of people suffering from the after effects of the war.

In the course of a war, many people get killed, many get wounded to various degrees, many get captured (and tortured). All these are done by some people to some others, whom they've never met in life before. They do this, because, they believe it's their duty. They believe that they serve their country by doing so. Of course they are serving their nation & protecting it's people. At the soldier level, a war is a patriotic & protective act. But what is war to those who plan it?

For them, war means money. They are only interested in the financial aspects of war. To conquer a land means gaining control over the resources of that land. That in turn will be money. Some wars are fought for political ambitions too. The stronger ones can force a weaker nation to comply to it's policies. (which ultimately will earn more revenue to the stronger one)

Terrorism is one such warfare. It has 3 levels- political, financial, & religious. What we hear about in news most of the time is the religious aspect. People are motivated in the name of religion to destroy a nation & a civilization. This is only the tip of the ice-berg. There are a group of people who control these killers. They form the financial aspect. They get money for doing such barbaric acts. They pocket a huge amount & motivate groups of youth into taking arms against innocent and unknown people. But, the real villains are those who give money to those intermediates. They have political ambitions of destroying a nation. They will do anything, spend any amount to see the downfall of a nation. They may let their own people starve, to see the thousands in the other nation dead.

They suck the life blood out of people to gain nothing. They want more land, more money. There's nothing that will satisfy their blood thirst. They are vampires. They will stop at nothing. They have changed the history in the past through violent methods. They are doing it now. But, we shouldn't let them write a future with the blood of people. It's high time we should stop them, put a dead lock to their money thirsty mouth. We have so far been victimised by them. They have hunted us so far. It's time, the people, who want to live, who have dreams, who have families, to hunt down the vampires. To have a future generation who can live in peace, we must do it now.

For the past few days, I've been thinking about, what I should write. But, the more I try, the harder it is to get a topic to write about. If so, why can't I just leave it as such & use my time for some other purpose. It's because, I don't want to miss a month in my blog roll. So, here I am, writing about why I can't write.

Do I have any idea about which I wanna blabber about in my blog? Yeah! I do. But I can't converge all the particulars for a specific topic into an article. All ideas are scattered in my mind, tangled up in a messy manner. It's a hell of a job to untangle all these and to weave a fabric using these threads. Is this some sort of writer's block? Or, is my mind pre-occupied with something else?

May be, that's the reason. So, I'll have to investigate into the true reasons for this. Then I've to remedy it (if possible). Then, I'll write.

Maybe, it is just my stupidity. But after watching the following movies, I became greatly concerned about the growth of today's artificial intelligence development.

1. I, Robot

2. Artificial Intelligence – A.I

3. The Matrix

In addition to all these, came the news about a new robot having some basics of emotions, developed by some scientists. They adapt themselves with their masters such that, if two robots of the same make are brought by two very different individuals, they will soon differ in their behavior.

From basic robots that does monotonic works in industries, we have developed robots that have emotions. This pace of technology is somewhat alarming. So far, we've considered robots as machines that are programmed to do tasks that are either difficult for humans to perform, or to ease our work load. But now, the scenario has changed a bit. Now, robots are more and more human, both in structure & behavior.

Swarm intelligence is a developing area in robotic development. It is the collective intelligence of a group of robots. Robots team up together to do various chores in a collective way. This is no science fiction. Many prototypes are in the early stages of development. Of course, it has a lot of advantages. But, it is like a double edged sword. It can harm those who handle it.

We shouldn't discard these films as wild imaginations. They are more of a prophesy. We shouldn't let them happen. The 3 laws of robotics guarantee a safe future for us. But, what if the robots get more cunning than we expected and rebel against us? Will we be any match for them? Does intelligent man + un-intelligent machines be equal to intelligent machines?

In the pretext of making our lives more comfortable, we are making everything around us intelligent. And the alarming fact is that, they are also able to communicate, but now, with a server machine. What if the control system goes awry? Machines communicating among themselves. We can't hear them plotting against us. We can't eavesdrop, because, here too we need the help of machines. This sounds like total chaos. We are stranded, helpless in the midst of our own creations, looking for a way out.

Some thing is surely weird. Is it the technical brilliance that may suffocate us in the near future with it's sheer intelligence, or is it my random, but foolish thoughts about a coming face of technology that will brighten up our lives. Are my fears un-necessary? Or, did I just over react to the innovative ideas of some film makers? I don't know the answer now. But, soon we all will know!!

Most of the people around us, believe in luck. They hope they get lucky when they face problems. There are some people, who just believe in luck and does nothing to save themselves. On the other hand, there are people who don't believe in luck at all. They think that believing in luck is a superstition. But, is it really? Let's ponder over a bit.

This planet is inhabited by billions of human beings like us, not to mention the trillions of members of other species. We have to interact with both our fellow human beings and other beings, everyday. The course of our life is very much dependent on the behavior of others around us. A lot of people, directly or indirectly affect our lives. In a way, the life of every human being is dependent on all other human beings. This may sound exaggerated, but is true. This is where luck has got a role to play.

Consider a billiards table. If a single ball is allowed to roll through the table, we can predict the exact position and velocity of the ball, if other factors like initial velocity, frictional resistance, etc are known, with the aid of certain equations. But, if we roll 10 balls simultaneously through the table, it will be practically very difficult to pinpoint the activities of a particular ball, if not impossible. What will be the case of 100 balls? It's impossible. Can we predict the movement of a football, in a football with 22 players in the field? Not at all. Why?

As the number of people or objects involved in a situation increases, it is difficult to predict the state and activities of a particular one. The position, velocity and other features that helps us to identify an object is dependent on all other objects. In case of inanimate objects like a set of balls rolling on a billiards table, it can be found out with some difficulty, because they won't change their position or velocity on their own. They need the influence of some external agencies to do so. But, in the case where men are involved as in the case of a football described above, we can't say anything for sure. The activities of each player is determined by himself. He will decide whether to move after the ball, or to pass it to Player A or to Player B. It is the mind of the people that decides his action.

So, in situations where many people are involved, the final outcome is dependent on the mindsets and hence the action of all those who are involved. So, in real life where we meet many, many people, of them, many being strangers, we can't say luck is a superstition. Of course, luck is a coincidence, but there is a certain hidden story behind it.

As I've said earlier, our activities depend on the activities of many others. In some situations, a total stranger may help us out of a situation. He may be present there with his own pre-occupation. But, if he wasn't there, our entire life would have changed. This coincidence is what we call 'luck'.

The chances of us being lucky and being unlucky is in the hands of a thousand other people, many of whom may be strangers to us. As a matter of fact we are all lucky, to live this moment. But remember, we owe our lives to a million other people in this world, and a million others are alive because of you.

Most parents in India, especially in Kerala prefer to restrict the career preferences of their children to two options – Engineer or Doctor. These two are the most widely preferred career options now. Though, they both are considered equally respectable, a doctor gets more consideration from the general public and is treated with reverence. But, an engineer is just an engineer! This is partly due to the fact that, engineers outnumber doctors. Also, a doctor can save a valuable human life, while an engineer is incapable of doing so.

But, what bothers me is the attitude of the general public, who treats a mechanic as God, and God as a mechanic!

What does a doctor do? He helps people sustain life in their bodies by repairing their bodies, that are damaged by various internal or external factors.

What does an engineer do? He designs and develops new systems that are capable of doing improved tasks or improves the existing systems to cope with the current situations.

What does a mechanic do? He repairs the existing machinery, so that it can be used again without abandoning it as scrap.

And, God is the master designer, who designed and created the universe and all the living and non-living things in it.

From these above statements, we can be deduce the similarities between the doings of God and an engineer. Also, we can see how similar are the works of a doctor and a mechanic. But still, nobody accepts this. Repairing a living body of a man is not the work of a mechanic, it is that of God. Designing and creating new non-living technologies is the work of a mechanic, and not of God. Why?

Life is very, very important. That's the reason. That's the only reason. A machinery like a computer is quite similar to human brain in some aspects. If the processor is damaged due to a sudden voltage surge, the whole computer is dead. But, replacing the damaged one with a new one solves the problem and breathes new life into the machine. But a sudden surge in blood pressure can lead to hemorrhage in the brain which results in the death of a man. But, the dead man can't be brought to life by replacing the brain. That's the speciality of biological life. Once, there occurs a break in it's flow, then we can't do anything to resume it!

A burnt out fuse and a damaged kidney are not identical. Engineers do create new things, while doctors just repair existing stuff. But, the common man doesn't need the inside stories and the difficulties faced by an engineer while he develops a new technology. They just see a brilliant doctor rescuing a man in critical situation, with his skills and experience. For them, the stethoscope is a magic wand, that can make anything possible.

Developing a new system requires many sleepless nights and tons of brilliance put together. A designer must think of every possible situation the new system may face and must include all necessary safety features in it. And there lies the biggest difference. An engineer knows all about the system he has developed. He knows how it will react in a particular situation. Even if there arises a problem that he couldn't predict, he can identify it's cause and fix that bug.

But, no one knows everything about human body and mind. A doctor can't say for sure, if a surgery will correct a problem. He says there is a chance for failure. He knows, human body is unpredictable. He can't state a thing with 100% certainty.

There are flaws and accidents in the systems developed by man, that is known to him. But, engineers have two cases for everything he develops – an ideal case and a practical case. We know 100% about the ideal case, but we know only 99.99% of the practical case. This small percentage of ignorance can attribute to all those unfortunate incidents.

Ideally, 99.99% knowledge is not complete knowledge. But practically, it is complete knowledge.

The 24 hours that makes a day is divided into day and night, two contrasting characters, but are very much like the two sides of the same coin. The day is bright and clear, while the night is dark and mysterious. We are usually comfortable during the day. It is a common trend to be under the shelter of a roof before the night falls. Before the dawn of the Internet, night times were used for sleeping and some used a portion of it to complete the daytime works or for reading.

Unlike the day, the night has got a beauty and charm of it's own. As the last rays of sun disappear, a darkened sky is partly lit up by the moon and thousands of stars. That by itself is a spectacular sight. The numerous stars form many different constellations of varied shapes. They are beautiful and mysterious at the same time. They not only light up the night sky, but also fires the imagination of romanticists, scientists etc. As a matter of fact, it's the night sky that is more beautiful. It's the dark veil that the night puts on the sky that brings about her real beauty. Or, may be it's the other way round. The day puts on a bright veil and covers up the true beauty of the sky. I feel it like that.

The night usually instills fear in our minds. We are always afraid of the unknown. In the darkness of the night, almost everything is unknown. This may be the reason why many are afraid of the dark.

Like the sky, the jungle too is different at the night. Many animals find solace in their shelters, while the nocturnal hunters come out of their shelters to hunt.

Another characteristic of the night is the silence. Usually the night is silent, though the cities never sleeps. The silence and the coldness of the night usually sends a chill down the spine, if you are lonely. Even then, that silence has more meaning than all the sounds that are produced during the day. This silence can be soothing to many, and eerie to some others. The night is a set of contrasting characters.

Though day and night are siblings, they are like opponents. During the dawn, day wins and at dusk, night regains her reign. But, they have a little sister – twilight. She is the youngest and the most beautiful of the three. She is loved by both of them. She is nothing but beauty. She has the dark beauty of night and unlike the night is quite cheerful and lively, like the day. It's the time when birds return to their nests, for a good night's rest. Twilight paints the sky with bright and beautiful colors. Though she lasts only for a small time, she literally steals the show from her sisters.

P.S: M. Night Shyamalan is one of my favorite directors.