philosophy

There are 67 posts filed in philosophy (this is page 3 of 7).

Solving the ten thousand year problem

While writing a short story today, I started thinking about an issue that I discovered last year. The story is set in the far future, where the dissemination of knowledge has changed so vastly that the idea of a printed page is absurd. I’ll be publishing it in the coming hours. But, as I was writing it, I started thinking about how much our culture and language will change in the next ten thousand or so years, let alone over the next hundred thousand years. That reminded me of an interesting thing I read last year – “Ten Thousand Years”.

Out in the New Mexico desert, stands a government building with a single task – to permanently store nuclear waste from the US’ various nuclear power plants, for at least the next ten thousand years. The date is so chosen because supposedly, thinking beyond that time frame is too mind-boggling to consider. It has nothing to do with Jeff Bezos’ Long Now Foundation, which is building a ten thousand year clock, thought it might as well, because both ideas are equally interesting and convoluted.

Now, one of the issues that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is facing is that of language. Since the last ten thousand years, so much has changed in humanity, that the idea that the same language, the same symbols, and the same myths that protect us today will remain even then, is a non-sequitur. English is constantly fighting to be the language of choice while Spanish, French and Chinese are growing their user base. Symbols such as the skull-and-bones are adapted, first by real-life pirates and then by digital pirates to change their meaning completely, transforming something that indicates danger to something indicating excitement and even fun. Even myths change and long-loved black cats are suddenly considered evil and the number 13 bounces around as something lucky, then not.

Thus, assuming that a sign board at the gates of the WIPP, written in English and a battery of other languages, along with ten different types of warning symbols, should be enough to deter people from entering the premises, is foolish. This is one of the smaller issues that the WIPP is facing.

So what’s the solution? While I was pondering on the course of the story, I realized that the answer would have to be a mixture of ingenuity and technology. This is how I believe the problem can be solved –

We need to build a system that’s not just fault-tolerant and self-healing, but also intelligent enough to learn about it’s surroundings. While it may seem enough to place a settlement of scientists nearby who would constantly watch over the plant, recruit future employees and ensure the safety of the rest of the land, humans have a distinct habit of dying, moving away, letting emotions come in the way of logic and duty, and overall being bad protectors of the environment. So, the solution would be to build a system that can be initially supported by humans but must eventually stand on it’s own feet. This Gatekeeper would not just prevent people from walking into the compound, but also learn new languages, understand symbols and changing economics and governmental systems and ensure that no one disturbs the deathly sanctity of the place it protects. It would be able to access the Internet and learn of new technologies to replace it’s old ones. It would learn languages and add them to it’s database, essentially creating a bookmark of human history as it goes about it’s business of preventing nuclear waste from getting out of this burial place. This would have to be a highly fault tolerant system, able to quickly analyse any potential issue such as maintenance, earthquakes, failing parts and changing technologies in order to ensure its continued service. I think only if we are able to build such a powerful system can we promise ourselves that such a dangerous material can be protected over the next ten thousand years.

Or, we could just drop it into a volcano and hope that thing eats it all up.

Word of the Day: illiberalism

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, illiberalism, quite simply, is the lack of liberal values. But that begs the question, what is liberalism? Is it the ability of a community to be forward thinking and self-critical? Is it the incessant forward march of a government without caring for the social, political and emotive values of its peoples? Or is it the protection of the freedom of expression of an author writing about a sensitive topic with the backdrop of a community to which he does not belong? Hindustan Times certainly believes in the last definition.

First, it shows that it is not only the sangh parivar or Islamic organisations that are at the forefront of such illiberalism.

Source: Liberal values are being trampled upon in Tamil Nadu

The issue at hand is that the author Puliyur Murugesan wrote a book, Balachandran Enra Peyarum Enakkundu (I am also known as Balachandran), about the life and troubles of a transgender, who is sexually harassed throughout life and faces an upward battle of identity. The protagonist belongs to the Gounder community and by now, you would have guessed where this is going.

The Gounder community decided to take offence to this ‘insult’ to their people and instead of rationally sitting down with the writer and asking for edits to the story or a total redaction, decided that the better course of action would be to abduct the author and brutally beat him up in the middle of nowhere. To add insult to literal injury, the police has filed a case against the author for provoking a riot, writing and circulating obscene content, selling a book containing defamatory matter, intentional provocation of breach of peace and causing fear or alarm to public. Wonderful, isn’t it?

HT, in their laconic article, asked an interesting question – why is it that only current authors face the brunt of such injustice? Why do authors such as Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, the acclaimed author of Devdas, who “had made uncharitable remarks about some non-Bengali Brahmin clans”, not face such public ridicule and outrage? Perhaps, if it were in fashion, political parties and illiberal communities will also start attacking famous people from India’s history books. Oh wait, they already do!

A response to NYTimes’ OpEd on Religion in India

The New York Times has published a Christmas OpEd piece (yesterday online and today in print) that talks about religious intolerance in India and how ‘hindu militants’ are forcing conversions of Muslims and Christians and has blamed our PM, Narendra Modi for not doing enough to stop this and other attacks.

Initially, I wanted to write a long and deeply researched rebuke of this kind of hypocrisy, but I’d rather let a picture say a thousand words –


Continue reading →

Real people don’t fit them

I love Jessica Hagy‘s site Indexed. It’s funny, published weekdays and is almost always spot on.

But, I found a problem with today’s post –

Stereotypes. Yup.

Jessica’s “Real People don’t fit them”


I don’t think you can portray a groups vs individuals analysis on a graph. So, I fixed it in my own way. Hope you like it and hope you check out her website. It’s pretty cool!

My version –

IMG_0233.JPG

 

Of course, Hagy’s Indexed is for fun and not to be taken as seriously as I have. But hey, when you see something wrong on the Internet, you fix it, right?

Word of the Day: Fungible

Fungibility, according to Wikipedia, is an economic term used to describe the property of a commodity whereby it is directly interchangeable with something else. For example, if you don’t care whether the rental car you get is a Mercedes or a BMW, then they are fungible. It was used by journalist Stijn Debrouwere in an awesome article about the future of newspapers and media companies in the age of the Internet, by calling his article –

A treatise on fungibility, or, a framework for understanding the mess the news industry is in and the opportunities that lie ahead.

Source: Fungible

Continue reading →

On Fear

I was recently thinking about fear, particularly that fear is a genetic gift. Our forefathers instilled it into us to ensure we stay away from predators, darkness, and other harmful things. But there are two things about the nature of fear that confuse me –

  1. What about fear of our parents? Is that genetic? Is it instinctive for us to be afraid of our parents’ anger? Or is that something that comes to us after we’re born? If the latter, think about the immense sense of abandonment and betrayal a child must feel when their parents scold them for the absolute first time. At first, it may well be a very odd phenomenon for the child – an angry parent. But slowly it would dawn upon the offspring that the progenitor is expressing a negative emotion, a negativity asserted towards them and in context of something they did recently. After that, is it because of our lack of genetic fear that some children do not pick up on fear of parents, even when faced with physical punishment; while others become so afraid that even the idea of an angry parent that their tendency to do the “right” thing supersedes all other emotion.
  2. What about fire? When the flame is big enough that we feel “hot” instead of warm, we instinctively stay away from fire. But every time I see a candle flame, I feel like I must touch it. It is an enigmatic phenomenon which just be explored by touch and that urge overpowers all logic that cautions me to stay away. Is this because fire came into our knowledge a little too late to be a part of our genetic makeup? Had it been with humans longer, maybe it would have gotten stuck into our genes as something to use, but be wary of. If that is true, I wonder what other things came too early? Could a fear of large animals or snakes or cliffs be because of such circumstances and maybe we shouldn’t be afraid of them as much as we are?

I’d love some of my readers to respond with what they think about these fears. If someone has specific knowledge about fear, I’d love to have a conversation, either in the comments below, or you can email me or find me on social media. Thanks for reading.

Word of the day: calumny

(Scott Olson/Getty Images)

According to Bing Definitions, calumny means defamation or a defamatory statement. Most certainly applied where the writer wants to depict the vilest of attacks on a person’s character, calumny is used by Sunil Dutta in his piece today, talking about the terrible tragedy currently unfolding in Ferguson, MO. He uses it as follows –

It is also a terrible calumny; cops are not murderers.

Source: I’m a cop. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me. – The Washington Post

Sunil talks about the Ferguson riots and the near-military state situation from a seat of experience. He was with the LAPD for 17 years before he started his teaching career. While some might see the article as a simple Do/Do Not list for when one is approached by a police officer, the underlying tone is that of frustration. Too often, people overreact to a casual situation when a cop is involved, myself included. Sunil explains how the officers themselves are mere humans who are trained well to be calm in all situations, but have legal backing to take action in case they feel that their own life or the lives of others is threatened.

Sunil’s explanation for police violence is that it is never brought forth against people who follow the rules, remain calm and obey orders. He agrees there are exceptions in terms of corrupt or aggressive cops, but the majority of incidents that happen are because of people who act out against cops. This might seem like a very opinionated view, but that’s exactly what’s needed right now. No one is talking from a coherent point of view from the other side. The police are being demonized by media from all over the world and no one from the authorities are talking about the investigation into the incident.

John Gruber, a blogger and Internet personality, has criticized this article by summarizing the suggestions laid out by the article as follows – “Don’t question authority or you might get beaten or shot. Astounding.” Frankly, that’s a fairly negative and populist opinion. What happened that night in Ferguson was a tragedy, but if you look at it from the side of those charged with not just uphold the law but also to enforce it, you’ll realize that there’s more to every such story than mere shades of black and white.

Word of the Day: metonym

According to Wikipedia, metonym is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is replaced by another that has a similar meaning. That is to say, you don’t want to call a thing by it’s name and you use another name in it’s stead. That is to say, you use it’s synonym instead. Essentially, metonym means instead. Now, where would you find such a convoluted word for such a simple meaning? Why, in The Hindu’s Editorial, of course! Specifically, this is how it is used in an OpEd piece I was reading today – Continue reading →

Notes for Week 19 of 2014

The last time I did this, it was week 2 of 2014. But here we are again, with a bunch of nice links to share with you nice folks. Enjoy!

 

Internet –

Which is the most popular IP among network engineers? It’s 8.8.8.8, which is Google’s DNS. But this wasn’t always the first IP to be pinged. Before this was Level 3’s not-really-public DNS on 4.2.2.2. Here’s an excellent roundup of the story behind the company across the hill.

Critical Thinking –

Here’s a very simple, very straightforward approach to critical thinking. Be advised, I love repeating this ‘program’ over and over again. Do bookmark it.

Religion –

Here’s an image explaining why religion can be a bad thing sometimes. Enjoy. 🙂

Writing Tools –

There are some really interesting writing tools on the Internet. Here are two that blew my mind with their approach – Gingko and Lines. Do tell me what you think about them.

Finally –

Speaking of writing tools, here’s one of my favorites. It’s a beautiful idea, embodied by the simple example that the developer created called “I Made Tea”. I’d really like to know what my readers make with something as elegant as Telescopic Text.