Who you?

Stare at the mirror today.
Look at its eyes
Who is it?
A First name ,  Last name?
With a temporary postal address?
Somewhere on Google Maps?
On a postage stamp of land
that the owner of the eyes stands on
claiming ownership of a unique consciousness
borne of firing neurons
and pumping blood,
identifying it as A 'Person'
with a First name  and a Last name
Somewhere on Earth.



 

Another oversimplified quantum physics metaphor

A simple web search of any keywords involving quantum physics, spirituality and god reveals articles that are a dime a dozen. Given any layman's rather limited understanding of what quantum physics is all about, not to mention most physicists not reaching any consensus on how to explain quantum physics in layman terms, means that I can add a few more intellectual sounding buzzwords to this quantum soup and get away with sounding pretty (and!) intelligent.

A concept of quantum physics that has always fascinated me is that the very act of measuring or observation changes the experiment. It forces the phenomenon being observed into a state that it wasn't in prior to the act of observation. In other words it affects the experiment. And hence another quantum physics metaphor that I would like to add to the growing list of "quantum physics explains everything".

Consider the concept of memory and recall. Say you have to commit to memory a long list of complicated calculus theorems (I don't know why you would...maybe to impress your equally dorky significant other), or a grocery shopping list for the next day (what happened to the smartphone or the old school post-it...just go along with me, will you?). Time = t0, You first look at the list and repeat it to your self. I poll you at time t1 and t2 to check how much of the list you remember. Time t3 is showtime. Now, imagine I didn't poll you at time t1 and t2 and you directly move to time t3 = showtime. You know where this is going. There is a much higher likelihood that you will remember more of your list when I polled you, than when I didn't. The very act of forcing you to recall reinforces the memory of the shopping list. The act of observation (is the shopping list in your memory?) changes the physical state of the memory by reinforcing it.

I feel very intellectual.

Very Funny

Funny does what Funny says

Funny does it for funny's praise

When Funny tries too hard to fun it up

Funny falls and can't get up

(Almost) Everybody is a Bengali

Now that I have your attention , with the Paati (pure) Bengalis' neck hairs prickling and the Abangalis ( rest of the world) wondering what they did to deserve such exaltation , or demotion, depending on how you view The Bengali.
No. it is not the Hilsa jhol, unreasonable Pujo euphoria, red bordered white saris, white shanka red paula, excruciatingly slow Tagore song singing singers in every family,  and saccharin sweet shandesh that makes a Bengali, though that helps. What defines a Bengali is a poetic mind and a philosophical bent, or poetic bent and philosphic mind. We thinks of words and ideas, lay them out, rearrange them, discuss them, frown over them, pedantically peddle them to our fellow human beings. With furrowed brows and a smirk, from the comfort of our arm-chairs, our self-worth supported by other cha-drinking arm-chaired learned pedants, we pontificate on how things are and how they should be. The arm chaired artistic Bengali  will look in horror at the plebian who gets up and says, okay my cha is finished, my ideas formulated, the rest of my learning shall be in the doing.  Oh no, the  beauty of our thoughts and words should never be soiled by the pedestrian action of reduction to practice.
So are we, the rest of the privileged world, keyboarded and tethered to our electronic armchairs, our self worth propped up by the mirroring of our words and images,  through tweets and retweets, posts and re-posts, a plethora of comfortable online petitions and an occasional feel-good donation, updated statuses of a flock of  bright parrots all perched on a 10 Gbps fiber optic line, chanting Me-too, me-too. Just like this blog post, re-posted and re-linked, waiting for X comments and Y likes. And I, doubly doomed, a Bengali sceptic and a Facebook Filosopher, an air-conditioned American Armchair Activist, so little to say of worth, so little to do of worth, yet so much to Update!

Angootha Chaap (Thumbprint Signer)

How easy it is to be reminded, that one's life experiences are but an infinitesimal fraction of the world's and one's knowledge and learning in one sphere is of little consequence in another.

Two weeks ago I prided myself on being able to speak 4 languages. A week later, stepping into the far-east, my utter illiteracy felt like a scathing slap to my misplaced hubris. Mandarin, a language spoken by over 20% of the world's population, with a beautiful pictographic script evolved from 5000 years of rich culture and history, where each character/word is laden with meaning, heavily nuanced, differently intonated,  and an art and history lesson in itself.

Yet, all I could do is make vague hand gestures, or get things written by helpful hands for me to wave to taxi drivers and tour guides. In other words, I had become LotstoDo, PhD. Angootha Chaap (thumbrint signer).