Beware of mangoes ripened by calcium carbide!

The Creator -- A Poem

The Creator
--------------------

Does God exist,
The one who created the world?
I don't know! But I know:
India won the world cup cricket.
All the prophecies of media came true.
And the media create the world!

--Sandeep Palakkal
April 5, 2011.
Chennai.

A Poem -- My Writings

My Writings
--------------------

Thou thinketh:
I entered the family life
Hence banished from the normalcy of my life
And there would be no more of my writings.

But I say unto thee:
Normalcy had never existed in my life
And my writings yearn for infinity,
No matter the world does not exist!


--Sandeep Palakkal
April 5, 2011.
Chennai.

Eurocentrism, blah blah blah....

Eurocentrism is a conscious or unconscious perspective that whatever coming from the Europe is right and true. This word had been prevalent in the last century, especially during the European colonialist era, and was used critically. So why I got interested in it, and what are the interesting things about it?

I got interested in this word because of some reasons. Recently, I heard one of my friends quoting from a speech he listened to: "...whatever coming from the West (from the Indian point of view, the West means the European and American) is regarded as science and whatever coming from the east (Asia or India) is considered as ___ (the person could not remember the word; it must be pseudoscience, metaphysics, religious, spiritual, or even nonsense)...". Whoever the speaker be, I felt this was incorrect. Science has a set of fundamental rules to accept something true. They include objectivity, repeatability, etc. For example, the basic laws of motions, discovered by Newton applies all over the world. The same must be true for anything that can be called science. And if somebody claims something is science, which is not repeatable or objectively verifiable, I will look at him with suspicion. For example, in the same talk, the speaker claimed that "it was scientifically proved that water has memory". I don't know the truth about this, but I feel suspicious! On the other hand, I have a question: do we accept everything coming from the West as true? For example, the movie Jurassic Park comes from the West (though from the United States). But do we consider it true? It's just a fantasy, according to all of us, isn't it? There are numerous science fiction coming from the West; do we consider them true?

Now a days, we have so much of exposure to what is going on around the world. I followed Prof. Richard Dawkins in Youtube. I found him talking to many religious people, taking part in debates and just talking science to us. One of these videos [1] I would like to mention here is the one where he talks with the Indian holistic healer Mr. Deepak Chopra about the relation between quantum mechanics and his so called quantum-healing process. But Mr. Chopra soon realizes that he can't argue with an eminent scientist like Prof. Hawkins, who is also a man of an extremely rational mind. Then Mr. Chopra says that he never claimed any relationship with the quantum mechanics, he used the word "quantum" only as a metaphor, and in fact, it was quantum mechanics that had hijacked the word "quantum". In a later video [2], Chopra says Dawkins point of view is "mechanistic, Newtonian, outmoded and obsolete". Here, I am confused! Who is outmoded? Dawkins or Chopra? But our point is different: is Dawkins Eurocentric just because he argues rationally, or just because he comes from the United Kingdom? I don't need to explain this point. You catch on Dawkins on Youtube and Google videos, and you will be able to judge.

A third reason why I was tempted to know more about Eurocentrism is the following. One of my friends sent me a speech titled as For America to Live, Europe Must Die [3] by the Native American activist Russell Means (according to him, he is not the Native American, which is a misnomer, but he is the real "Indian"!). He claims that all the European concepts like modern science, modern physics, modern philosophy, Marxism, capitalism, etc. have a hidden agenda of European cultural expansionism, and the proponents of the above fields were trying to expand Christanity in disguise: a version of the "secularized" Christianity. He views Karl Marx, Issac Newton, John Locke, Adam Smith, Decartes, and every other European intellectuals as travellers on the same boat: expand the European culture! Of course, expand against the Native American, Indian (my India:-)) or other cultures. He says, for example, that "European culture itself is responsible [for the sufferings of the Native Americans]. Marxism is just the latest continuation of this tradition, not a solution to it. To ally with Marxism is to ally with the very same forces that declare us an acceptable cost." I understand that this is a cultural argument. He says "After all, Europeans consider themselves godlike in their rationalism and science. God is the Supreme Being; all else must be inferior." This is a religious argument. So, I think this third point which prompted me to think about Eurocentrism is the matters concerned with identity, religion and culture. I have come across the same opposition against the "European thought" such as science, mathematics etc. among some people with Nationalist sentiments in my India, too. The Islamic problem of identity and religion, and their struggle against "the West" in the Middle-East also can be looked at from the same perspective. However, isn't it ridiculous to look at every thing European, including modern science, sharing a common ground and cling obstinately to culture and identity?

In my short search to find out what was Eurocentrism, I came across another interesting fact: Eurocentrist attitude towards Indian mathematics. Forget the nonsense of the Vedic Mathematics, which is a system "consisting of a few isolated tips, totally lacking in coherence and conceptual utility" [4] or "is only an assortment of tricks, based on simple algebraic principles" [5], and whose vedic credentials are disputed. We are talking about the "real" Indian mathematics. An overview of the Indian and Kerala mathematics of ancient times, and how the European historians had neglected and rejected to recognize the Indian contribution to mathematics, is given in Indian Mathematics: Readdressing the Balance [6] by Ian G. Pearce. This, I think, a very good and acceptable example of Eurocentrism.

I would like to end this post by discussing what the Slovenian leftist intellectual Prof. Slavoj Zizek [7] given to the online magazine Bad Subjects. He admits the existence of Eurocentrism and the Christian influence on it (even otherwise, there is no dispute on its existence or the Christian influence; but on what grounds can we attack it is the question). But he says that, as modern humans, we can't help accepting the concept of "universalism", which is clearly a European proposal, influenced by Christianity. Universalism is an attempt to show the world that there is something applicable to every human being, in any culture, religion and ideology. For example, the concept of human well-being or ethics, is universal. If you define separate ethics for Europeans, Indians, Native Indians, Christians, Hindus, Muslims and the Buddhists, then we end up in chaos (the modern world is in such a chaos now!); we'll not be able to define it! I remember Erich Fromm proposing the same idea of universalism in his book Man for Himself. 

I think the only answer to the human problem is by accepting the axiom of universalism. More than belief, identity and culture, we have to accept universalism, when defining at least the concept of human well-being. Similarly, we must accept the European(?) notion of objectivity, at least in science, so that its pursuit is satisfied. However, when these concepts are applied to human society, I think we must be careful. There, humanity, not objectivity or materialistic view, is important. Differing from Russell Means I would say that Marxism is not materialistic. It is, on the contrary, to look at the humans as humans, not as workers, and to free them from the exploitations of the forced labour and the powerful class. Marxism dreams [8] of a world, where every human being is a poet!  We can argue its Utopian edge, whether China or Soviet Union could materialize this vision, etc. sometime else.

At the same time, we must not eradicate the culture and identity of some race or ethnic group, and any attempt to do so will meet adverse and dangerous results. Moreover, concepts of universality is not only European or Christian; every other culture or religion contains it, in some way or the other. We must assimilate the good points from the individual cultures, after scrutiny, and dream of the rise of a modern, intellectual (more modern and intellectual than us) race of humanity.

References:

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-FaXD_igv4

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-OtVS-icNc

[3] http://www.dickshovel.com/Banks.html

[4] S. G. Dani, "'Vedic Maths' : facts and myths", One India One People, Vol 4/6, January 2001, pp. 20-21, available online http://www.math.tifr.res.in/~dani/ .

[5] S. G. Dani, "Vedic Mathematics" : a dubious pursuit, published in Newsletter of the Ramanujan Mathematical Society, available online http://www.math.tifr.res.in/~dani/ .

[6] http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Projects/Pearce/index.html

[7] http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2002/59/zizek.html

[8] Erich Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man, 1961.

Dare to be an atheist.

Some Virtual Reality Experiences

Have you ever experienced virtual reality? Not the artificial virtual reality we create using our technical skills but the real one. Of course, yes, if you have taken narcotics or got drunk enough. But without all these, I experienced one on last Sunday, on 26th October. I'll tell you friend, it was awesome! great!

For some reason --- of course, work related to my research, but I defer to tell you the details now --- I did not sleep for two days. Oh-oh, two nights, to be specific. In fact, I was lacking energy and enthusiasm to finish my job in hand in two days. So, I was about to give up, as usual. But thanks to my Kannada gang, they pulled me to a Malayalee restaurant to have dinner on Friday night. And we ate... we ate too much.... To quote the Malayalam novelist V.K.N., we ate to the brink of our palettes (പയ്യന് കഴിച്ചു... മൂക്കററം കഴിച്ചു.). I don't remember what I ate; maybe, I must ask Vidyadharan. It was a wonderful dinner, I had a nice time and my spirit went high. When we were back in IITM, it was twelve in the midnight and it started raining slightly. When my friends went to catch a good sleep of a night, I was tempted to go to work. And I did. Rest is an unforgettable history in my life. I don't remember anything thereafter. I worked like a dog. However, I insisted myself to take food at right time and I took a lot so that an empty stomach would not disturb me in my work. I continued my work, diligently, awake, for two days --- that is, till Sunday early morning. It was then I started seeing the virtual reality. I was doing something in the computer --- at least, I felt so --- but was unaware what it was. Perhaps, my brain had switched itself off automatically. I don't know. I had to stay in my lab till the sun rises, and as soon as I saw light outside, I started to the hostel, to have break fast and sleep like a baby. I was unable to lock the door, I had forgotten how to use the key, where to keep it, etc. After successful completion of doing the room locking ritual (I will write about this usual ritual later), I started to walk. I will never forget in my life that walk. The road was flowing like a river. I saw occasional peaks and troughs on the road. I felt the trees were moving with me. Now and then I got suddenly threatened by a ferocious animal running towards me. When I started seeing human beings in the mess, I felt they were aliens from another world. My stomach was empty, and even in my dizziness, I was aware of it. I knew that if I sleep without food, then I would wake up like a dead dog. So, I don't know how, I ate the break fast. Afterwards, I started walking to my room. There were leaves and small wooden pieces lying around, on the soil. I felt they were all snakes. With so much of fear and troubles, I walked among them. When I reached my hostel, its wall was moving! And when I reached my room, all I could do was to fall on my bed and sink into a sound sleep. That was the nirvriti --- that was the nirvana.

Unconscious Mind of a Room

Does a room have an unconscious mind? For that matter, does a home have an unconscious mind?

It was about two weeks back, a Saturday, I guess, when I thought of tidying up my room. Though I used to clean my room regularly, or irregularly, I have never tried of tidying it up, or to refresh it, or to gave it life again. You, friends of mine, perhaps know that I have been living in my this hostel room at IIT Madras for the past three years. And I have gathered a lot of books --- maths, engineering and fiction --- in my room, which, after reading or skimming through, had never kept in a proper place, but left untouched in my shelf. OK, coming back to the Saturday I was talking about, I set to clean my books and keep them arranged. When I started the job I realized they were so dusty. But that could not weaken my will. To tell the truth, I enjoyed the job --- really! A few minutes into the job, I started unearthing a lot of papers and documents. They came in a pile and ranged from the day I started living in this room. They included one of the drafts of my M.Tech. thesis, which, I remember, had been used for preparing for my thesis defence in August 2007; my admission papers in IIT Madras; my admission order to IISc, Bangalore, which I did not make use of; a lot of technical tutorials and research papers, which I wanted to read but never read (or did I?); the hotel bill I payed for the party I gave to my friends when I passed the comprehensive exam; and so on and on.... Every time I got a new piece of paper from that pile, some memory attached with if lashed in my brain. Those were all my forgotten memories, or rather, memories from the forgotten days. All these documents have been with me during these years without my being aware of them. I like mysteries. Isn't this also an exciting mystery?

I'm sure, if I go home and search my cabinets and old files, I will be unearthing a lot of my forgotten dreams and memories. Thus I started believing that every room, and every home, has got an unconscious mind --- reflective of its inhabitants' !

Don Quixote: an inspiration?

Old days should have been much better to live, I hope. Meanwhile, I know that this is a foolish hope. Yet, why I hope so is because of the kind of art that was produced in those lost times. Currently, this thought is inspired in me by the story of Don Quixote. I remember, as a small boy, as small as ten years old or so, reading an abridged comic book illustrating the story of Don Quixote, a person, thin and fragile, in his fifties, who, after reading so many heroic stories of knights, becomes insane and deluded to think that he was a knight, too. Perhaps, he must have been bored of the ordinary country life he used to be going through. He sets forth to travel around the world and foolishly reacts to everything he comes across. And, in all his thoughtless endeavours, he fails. But he believes that he succeeded in every situation and defeated everyone who fought with him. I am trying to recollect how my mind was reacting to this fabulous story. Interestingly, I was very confused; at that age, I was unable to make out why a person should behave like that. In the story, he sets forth to many heroic actions but ends up as a fool. I was confused if he was a hero or a comic character. Hero should not fail, right?

The following picture was included in the comic book I read. It illustrates Don Quixote, going mad, while reading a book. Look at the characters his imagination creates around him! In my childhood, my mind was stuck with it. Even now, looking at it, I feel some mystic sensation within.

Don Quixote going insane, by Gustave Doré. (The photo is from wikimedia
resources and is in the public domain.)

As a grown up, I understand what the author, Cervantes, was trying to tell us. Besides, particularly after joining for Ph.D., I feel like Don Quixote! Have I set myself to a task, without much thinking and preparation? Is this true in the case of my decision to get married before finishing my Ph.D.? Truly speaking, I want to find out if Don Quixote had inspired me and, if yes, how. I had procured the unabridged version (of course, translated to English from Spanish) of the book five years ago, but haven't started reading yet. It is very big, probably with 600 pages or more. I think I must read it in the near future.

Mathematics -- Pure and Applied -- and Engineering

I was trying to understand "what is mathematics" and how it differs from engineering (indeed, a stupid question to ask). I love mathematics, and I am fascinated by it, though I have no good mathematical talents. Furthermore, I know that engineering problems demand so much mathematical skills and knowledge. And many a time, my mind digress from  the simplicity of engineering to the wilderness of mathematics without my knowledge. This creates confusion as to what I am doing. A confused mind needs clarity. That is how I began to ask the above question.

I had heard that there is a difference between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. A notable mathematician of the last century, Paul R. Halmos gives clear distinction between them in his talks, interviews and books. According to him, mathematics is an intellectual discipline, done for its own sake. Though it is influenced by nature -- in the sense that a mathematician is a human being, who is a product of nature -- its objective is not the study of nature. In other words, its objective does not have to deal with any natural phenomena, or control of nature, or use of natural forces for humanity. Its objective is to play around clearly defined axioms -- which are often motivated by nature but generalized and expressed as abstract ideas so that its connection with nature has become irrelevant and invisible -- and to understand their implications completely. That is, mathematicians are after  the complete knowledge of an axiomatic system. Research in mathematics is to discover (note this: discover, not invent) any hidden knowledge in the abstract system, generated by axioms. And axioms are gods -- no questioning them, as long as they are clearly defined (there are debated axioms, too, e.g., axiom of choice -- if I am wrong tell me). On the contrary, the objective of applied mathematics is, using the Halmos' term, action; he implies physical action, or manipulating nature and its forces for some use. In other words, applied mathematics solves mathematical problems, which arise exclusively from applications. For example, suppose we arrive at a weird and so far unheard type of differential equation (I don't know if such an equation exists, but I contrive this as an illustrative example from my limited imagination) while trying to design a system. Finding out a method to solve such a problem means research in applied mathematics. Or else, it can be trying to find an efficient (fast or computationally light) method from the existing ones. Hence, applied mathematics heavily appears in physics, engineering and other applied sciences -- wherever there is action. To summarise, the pure mathematicians are after knowledge, whereas the applied mathematicians are after action.

Of course, an engineer can solve the kind of problems that an applied mathematician works on, but one must be very talented, having a good hold on mathematics. Rather, engineering is probably different. By and large, people say that an engineer is a problem solver. So, he may not really develop the mathematics required to solve a problem, but, rather, he may borrow the most appropriate concepts from mathematics to develop an efficient and practically realizable solution. This is my current thought on this.  However, I know that it is not complete. I am trying to understand this more. I guess that I should look into what the "engineers" have done in the past, especially, the greatest ones.

In the above effort, which was just an errand from my normal studies, I found a few interesting facts. I list them above, without organizing them well and without any purpose.

1. Paul R. Halmos is the first to use "iff" in the place of "if and only if" in mathematics literature (at least he claims so).
2. Paul Halmos is the first to use the small square to indicate the end of a proof in mathematics.
3. Josiaph Willard Gibbs is the first person who was awarded the first Ph.D. in the United States in engineering (strictly speaking, applied science and engineering); this happened in 1863, and he got the degree from Yale University. Why it is interesting to me is just because I, as a signal processing engineer, know Gibbs through Gibbs phenomenon. He is not a signal processing engineer, though.

When I leave this post, a few problems are lingering in my mind: What is engineering? What is a "fundamental" problem in engineering like? What can be considered as a seminal contribution in engineering:  solving a "problem" or inventing "something" new?

Stupid AMMA

Shameful, they call it AMMA -- a word that symbolizes love and unselfish service. By AMMA, I mean the "Association of Malayalam Movie Artists".  They embarrassed all the Malayalis by keeping themselves away from the ONAM celebration function organized by the Govt. of Kerala to honor the great actor Kamal Hassan [1].  AMMA says that Kamal is not a Malayali, and the Govt. of Kerala should choose a Malayali actor to honor rather than a Tamil actor.  This is a blunder -- a Himalayan blunder.  Fortunately, other associations in the Malayalam film industry did not subscribe to AMMA's views but actively participated in the program.

Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthananthan honoring Kamal Hassan on 22 Aug, 2010, at Thiruvananthapuram. (Photo courtesy Mathrubhumi Malayalam daily)

In a larger perspective, the AMMA's argument caters to nothing less but the narrow-minded regionalism, which is otherwise unheard in Kerala.  This attitude is always destructive.  The Chief Minister V.S. Achuthananthan may be right to say that the Malayali actors are coveting only fame and recognition; they have no respect for the true art.  We know this from the recent experience.  The golden age of Malayalam cinema was in the 80's and 90's.  Those days are gone.  To save Malayalam cinema from the grave peril of forgetfulness, new talents are to rise.  Then, the old, sterile idiots will be wiped out forever.  For the sake of the art I wish this happens soon.

[1] Mathrubhumi news -- 23/08/2010