Sunday, July 19, 2009
Swami vivekananda on meditation
"Meditation has been laid stress upon by all religions. The meditative state of mind is declared by the Yogis to be the highest state in which the mind exists. When the mind is studying the external object, it gets identified with it, loses itself. To use the simile of the old Indian philosopher: the soul of man is like a piece of crystal, but it takes the colour of whatever is near it. Whatever the soul touches ... it has to take its colour. That is the difficulty. That constitutes the bondage. The colour is so strong, the crystal forgets itself and identifies itself with the colour. Suppose a red flower is near the crystal and the crystal takes the colour and forgets itself, thinks it is red. We have taken the colour of the body and have forgotten what we are. All the difficulties that follow come from that one dead body. All our fears, all worries, anxieties, troubles, mistakes, weakness, evil, are from that one great blunder — that we are bodies. This is the ordinary person. It is the person taking the colour of the flower near to it. We are no more bodies than the crystal is the red flower."
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Why could astrology be actually true
Let me at first tell you that i do not believe that human charachter or future is controlled by planets. But I still believe that astrology may be still true. Read below to understand the basis of this contradicting statement.
The rotation of planets, asteroids and Stars are nothing but periodic events. They are events in time that repeat after a particular amount of time. Human beings and other life forms are created in nature over the period of time. There are two possibilities. One is that the force of nature that controls the rest of the universe we see is same as that involved in creation on life. The other possibility is that the force involved in creation of life is different altogether but still follows some kind of periodicity.
Life is a periodic event. People are born, they live and they die. New people originate from old ones and they repeat the cycle. Nature has a plan for everything it creates. Life is a movement in a dimension of consciousness. Life seems to move around a force, just like planets move around in space because of a force called gravity. There is a force necessarily periodic in time that causes life maintains it and eventually destroys it. Gravity is periodic because of symmetry of the attracting body. So we can assume that whatever is exerting the life force is also symmetric.
The whole point of this article is that if the forces that causes both life and motion of planets are similar or of the same periodicity, then looking at them makes sense. It's like watching the petroleam prices to predict changes in stock market. It can work to surprising accuracies.
The rotation of planets, asteroids and Stars are nothing but periodic events. They are events in time that repeat after a particular amount of time. Human beings and other life forms are created in nature over the period of time. There are two possibilities. One is that the force of nature that controls the rest of the universe we see is same as that involved in creation on life. The other possibility is that the force involved in creation of life is different altogether but still follows some kind of periodicity.
Life is a periodic event. People are born, they live and they die. New people originate from old ones and they repeat the cycle. Nature has a plan for everything it creates. Life is a movement in a dimension of consciousness. Life seems to move around a force, just like planets move around in space because of a force called gravity. There is a force necessarily periodic in time that causes life maintains it and eventually destroys it. Gravity is periodic because of symmetry of the attracting body. So we can assume that whatever is exerting the life force is also symmetric.
The whole point of this article is that if the forces that causes both life and motion of planets are similar or of the same periodicity, then looking at them makes sense. It's like watching the petroleam prices to predict changes in stock market. It can work to surprising accuracies.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Analysis of Meditation and its effect in understanding consiousness
Though my direct interest would be in harnessing it to apply over computers, What is the systematic way to harness it accross the physical world.
To answer this question I would need to understand how my mind works better. Meditation would be a good point to start with.
This problem is very challenging because of the following problems at start of analysis.
1) Is there really a mind. Is mind a illusion of brain activity.
2) If we get past the first question and if the answer is affirmative about mind then, Does mind has a physical significance on physical world. To be more detailed, Can mind or thought excert any kind of physical force on world.
3) If we get past first two questions. Is the physical force strong enough to make a significant impact.
The problem of answering these questions is that we can only answer it in the reverse order. If our mind does not have any significant impact on the world we probably cannot detect it. That is if the third question fails then Second fails and we cannot answer the first one.
We have to come up with ingenious experiments to prove the existence of mind and other practical meditation techniques to use it the way we wanted. According to me the Indian sages and gurus were one of the biggest scientists because of the work they have done in this field centuries ago. But the problem with the method they practiced is that it is not re constructable. Even they themselves had little words to explain what they were doing. I have to be considerate of the fact that the problem they were dealing were of such a high complexity.
What Vedic literature gives us is a string of logically beautiful assumptions. They used meditation as a tool to ponder around this space. Meditation was what connected them from this level of consciousness to one that they considered superior.
We have to fine tune ,maybe sharpen or reconstruct such a tool from scratch to be able to answer these questions. Let us examine the tool that we use,namely meditation. Meditation is to observe passively at yourselves. What it would do is that once your thoughts subside you would be able to see yourselves as you who is separated from the world. That is you would be able to realize you independent existence. Instead of me recognizing me as sancho doing master's in computer science at University of Texas dallas , I recognize myself as a consious being which is able to take decisions completely independently.
Here is a term that we have to define before proceeding. Independence. What does it mean when i say I am independent. It means I can take whatever decisions I want. But let me tell you there is big catch in that. Consider your computer CPU. The definition for a CPU is to be a machine that executes instructions. So from our point of view it is not independent but only executes what we asks it to do. But things are different when we look from a different angle. Imagine to be your computer CPU at this point of time. You know you have the power to execute instructions. Once you get started you will execute instructions at regular intervals. To look for what to do you search your brain (Which is your memory, the only place you have) and do the next thing that comes up. We may argue that humans have a choice of doing that task at that point of time. This is becuase our brain is multitasking and this advantage will disappear if we consider multiprocessor systems. If I have two instructions running at same time and the first instruction is choose or not the second one, The illusion of independence can be converted into a program instruction were there is no independence at all. This is exactly the point where all religions give different answers. The religions that believe in fate (Christianity,Hinduism) believes that we do not have independence and that it written previously. They may modify the argument to be logical with world in giving partial independence, (Like god has chosen you to be here(a good place);;;; but god has given you the choice of doing sin and you did sin.). But this cannot be true. There is no partial independence. The basic stuff that runs us cannot suddenly change back and forth. We are either independent or we are totally dependent.
Please forgive me here in using the words such as god and religion. I do not have any religious implications here and I am not here to prove a religion. What I would be deriving is logical explanations and examples of god and religion are only used as abstract concepts which would be easier for the reader to understand. Let me continue.
Now comes the next catch. Suppose we say we are given complete independence. We should understand that we wont be able to ever realize this. Only our god someone above all of us can realize this. So according to this super guy we are independent. It does not end here. Suppose there is a super super guy above this guy who designed the super guy to make us work exactly as he wants. Then still we are not independent.
Independence is not something we can ever verify from our level of consiousness. Infact it is not something we can verify at any level of consiousness. Becuase if there is such a level of consiousness there could be a level of consiousness above it from which it might be dependent.
Let us try to define meditation. Suppose a state of computer CPU. Consider the state when you dont have any instructions to execute. Your search for instructions returned empty. That is the state when you realize something is amiss. The CPU suddenly rises to a new level of consiousness when it realizes that it was being fed with instructions and there are no more instructions.
What meditation hence is trying to do is put us to extremes of our consiousness and try to elevate our consiousness by strecthing its borders. What could be the other extreme. It would be a state when we have so much on our mind that nothing extra will go in. That is also a state when we realize that something external is coming as we are not able to accomodate it. But probably such a state may be insanity and thats why sages preferred the first one. But i am sure this state would have streched the borders of our consiousness in different directions other than meditation.
But this second reason may be the reason why very complex things sometimes gives us a pleasure. For example music. Music actually sets our mind into its own vibration that our mind is filled with it and nothing else comes in. There are chances here that we hit the other extreme of meditation here.
Either of the methods we use the strategy is to ponder over the consiousness at its borders to realize what it is. Now this would be as good as in knowing about earth by sailing accross the continent borders and drawing its map. Sure we will be able to see the map. Infact that is exactly what we have till now. Partial incomplete maps of consiousness. But it does not tell us anything about what the whole thing is about.
To know that we have to examine what our consiousness is really made off. We should at this point of time understand that meditation will not help us realize what we are. It only leaves us at the border.
To answer this question I would need to understand how my mind works better. Meditation would be a good point to start with.
This problem is very challenging because of the following problems at start of analysis.
1) Is there really a mind. Is mind a illusion of brain activity.
2) If we get past the first question and if the answer is affirmative about mind then, Does mind has a physical significance on physical world. To be more detailed, Can mind or thought excert any kind of physical force on world.
3) If we get past first two questions. Is the physical force strong enough to make a significant impact.
The problem of answering these questions is that we can only answer it in the reverse order. If our mind does not have any significant impact on the world we probably cannot detect it. That is if the third question fails then Second fails and we cannot answer the first one.
We have to come up with ingenious experiments to prove the existence of mind and other practical meditation techniques to use it the way we wanted. According to me the Indian sages and gurus were one of the biggest scientists because of the work they have done in this field centuries ago. But the problem with the method they practiced is that it is not re constructable. Even they themselves had little words to explain what they were doing. I have to be considerate of the fact that the problem they were dealing were of such a high complexity.
What Vedic literature gives us is a string of logically beautiful assumptions. They used meditation as a tool to ponder around this space. Meditation was what connected them from this level of consciousness to one that they considered superior.
We have to fine tune ,maybe sharpen or reconstruct such a tool from scratch to be able to answer these questions. Let us examine the tool that we use,namely meditation. Meditation is to observe passively at yourselves. What it would do is that once your thoughts subside you would be able to see yourselves as you who is separated from the world. That is you would be able to realize you independent existence. Instead of me recognizing me as sancho doing master's in computer science at University of Texas dallas , I recognize myself as a consious being which is able to take decisions completely independently.
Here is a term that we have to define before proceeding. Independence. What does it mean when i say I am independent. It means I can take whatever decisions I want. But let me tell you there is big catch in that. Consider your computer CPU. The definition for a CPU is to be a machine that executes instructions. So from our point of view it is not independent but only executes what we asks it to do. But things are different when we look from a different angle. Imagine to be your computer CPU at this point of time. You know you have the power to execute instructions. Once you get started you will execute instructions at regular intervals. To look for what to do you search your brain (Which is your memory, the only place you have) and do the next thing that comes up. We may argue that humans have a choice of doing that task at that point of time. This is becuase our brain is multitasking and this advantage will disappear if we consider multiprocessor systems. If I have two instructions running at same time and the first instruction is choose or not the second one, The illusion of independence can be converted into a program instruction were there is no independence at all. This is exactly the point where all religions give different answers. The religions that believe in fate (Christianity,Hinduism) believes that we do not have independence and that it written previously. They may modify the argument to be logical with world in giving partial independence, (Like god has chosen you to be here(a good place);;;; but god has given you the choice of doing sin and you did sin.). But this cannot be true. There is no partial independence. The basic stuff that runs us cannot suddenly change back and forth. We are either independent or we are totally dependent.
Please forgive me here in using the words such as god and religion. I do not have any religious implications here and I am not here to prove a religion. What I would be deriving is logical explanations and examples of god and religion are only used as abstract concepts which would be easier for the reader to understand. Let me continue.
Now comes the next catch. Suppose we say we are given complete independence. We should understand that we wont be able to ever realize this. Only our god someone above all of us can realize this. So according to this super guy we are independent. It does not end here. Suppose there is a super super guy above this guy who designed the super guy to make us work exactly as he wants. Then still we are not independent.
Independence is not something we can ever verify from our level of consiousness. Infact it is not something we can verify at any level of consiousness. Becuase if there is such a level of consiousness there could be a level of consiousness above it from which it might be dependent.
Let us try to define meditation. Suppose a state of computer CPU. Consider the state when you dont have any instructions to execute. Your search for instructions returned empty. That is the state when you realize something is amiss. The CPU suddenly rises to a new level of consiousness when it realizes that it was being fed with instructions and there are no more instructions.
What meditation hence is trying to do is put us to extremes of our consiousness and try to elevate our consiousness by strecthing its borders. What could be the other extreme. It would be a state when we have so much on our mind that nothing extra will go in. That is also a state when we realize that something external is coming as we are not able to accomodate it. But probably such a state may be insanity and thats why sages preferred the first one. But i am sure this state would have streched the borders of our consiousness in different directions other than meditation.
But this second reason may be the reason why very complex things sometimes gives us a pleasure. For example music. Music actually sets our mind into its own vibration that our mind is filled with it and nothing else comes in. There are chances here that we hit the other extreme of meditation here.
Either of the methods we use the strategy is to ponder over the consiousness at its borders to realize what it is. Now this would be as good as in knowing about earth by sailing accross the continent borders and drawing its map. Sure we will be able to see the map. Infact that is exactly what we have till now. Partial incomplete maps of consiousness. But it does not tell us anything about what the whole thing is about.
To know that we have to examine what our consiousness is really made off. We should at this point of time understand that meditation will not help us realize what we are. It only leaves us at the border.
How consistently harness mind power
Though my direct interest would be in harnessing it to apply over computers, What is the systematic way to harness it accross the physical world.
To answer this question I would need to understand how my mind works better. Meditation would be a good point to start with.
This problem is very challenging because of the following problems at start of analysis.
1) Is there really a mind. Is mind a illusion of brain activity.
2) If we get past the first question and if the answer is affirmative about mind then, Does mind has a physical significance on physical world. To be more detailed, Can mind or thought excert any kind of physical force on world.
3) If we get past first two questions. Is the physical force strong enough to make a significant impact.
The problem of answering these questions is that we can only answer it in the reverse order. If our mind does not have any significant impact on the world we probably cannot detect it. That is if the third question fails then Second fails and we cannot answer the first one.
To answer this question I would need to understand how my mind works better. Meditation would be a good point to start with.
This problem is very challenging because of the following problems at start of analysis.
1) Is there really a mind. Is mind a illusion of brain activity.
2) If we get past the first question and if the answer is affirmative about mind then, Does mind has a physical significance on physical world. To be more detailed, Can mind or thought excert any kind of physical force on world.
3) If we get past first two questions. Is the physical force strong enough to make a significant impact.
The problem of answering these questions is that we can only answer it in the reverse order. If our mind does not have any significant impact on the world we probably cannot detect it. That is if the third question fails then Second fails and we cannot answer the first one.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Life as a 4 dimensional data
I have been recently looking out for tools to visualize 4 dimensional data and other higher dimensions.
It is very hard for me to visualize a 4 dimensional object. One question I have is if such a thing is possible.
I can understand the logic of specifying that a 2 dimensional object can be visualized as a collection of 1 dimensional object and 3 dimensional object as a collection of 2 dimensional object.
Trying to apply the same concept to visualize a 4 dimensional object. To visualize a 4 dimensional object I have to assume a collection of 3d objects say cubes along a fourth dimension. What could be a fourth dimension. Time is one thing that comes to my mind, but many people have done that. Before considering time i would like to consider other possibilities. Is it possible to have a fourth dimension to space itself. Suppose in our space there is a fourth dimension say x,y,z and a. What this would mean is that at given volume of space that you see could contain more than just one thing. That is if you look along the a axis upon the world you can have infinite number of things in that space having different x,y,z coordinates.
In other words say at one x,y,z coordinate in space which is a small ball in my bedroom. I am able to see only this ball. But that space could contain infinitely more elements along the a axis. I am able to see only one thing along this a axis. Possible because I am also located at the same 'a' axis value. The same problem that a circle in a two dimensional world had.
How amazing it would be if there were more dimensions to this space than 3. And it is totally possible because we cannot assume that humans have the capability to see all the dimensions possible.
Now I would like to show you a very interesting thought. Suppose there is a fourth dimension and lets denote it by axis a. You are at a particular value of a axis. I give you a velocity in the direction of a axis and send you. For you as an object you do not have understanding to know that you are moving along a axis because you dont even know what that dimension is. All that you can see is the 3d world around you at that particular a axis value. But as you are in a motion along a axis and the world is different at every a axis value you would find that the world around you is changing. Ring Bells. This is exactly the experience we have everyday. We observe that the world around us is changing.
What I am trying to show you is that it is possible that time is a fourth dimension of space and we are moving along it with a velocity. With that I would like to add that the likeliness of this is high than just a guess, because as our universe believes in symmetry it is bit out of place when we consider space as a separate kind of dimension and time as a another separate dimension not related to each other.
Now the only point left in this argument is how to define the two words we used in this article. That is motion and velocity. It is now confusing to do this as we do not have time as a coordinate. As we are moving along a axis, the motion would be a2 - a1 where a1 is our initial coordinate and a2 our final coordinate. To be honest with you there is no reference frame we know with respect to which we can calculate this velocity. The four dimensions we know is x,y,z,a and we have motion along all four of these. If we want to calculate the velocity of this motion we need a 5th dimension from which we can do that. But for the time being let us assume we have such a dimension and we can define motion and velocity with respect to this dimension.
Implications
What this implies is that the world that we see is pre determined. It bring us back to the concept of fate. It also throws up the possibility of time travel if we know how to change our velocity along the new a axis.
It is very hard for me to visualize a 4 dimensional object. One question I have is if such a thing is possible.
I can understand the logic of specifying that a 2 dimensional object can be visualized as a collection of 1 dimensional object and 3 dimensional object as a collection of 2 dimensional object.
Trying to apply the same concept to visualize a 4 dimensional object. To visualize a 4 dimensional object I have to assume a collection of 3d objects say cubes along a fourth dimension. What could be a fourth dimension. Time is one thing that comes to my mind, but many people have done that. Before considering time i would like to consider other possibilities. Is it possible to have a fourth dimension to space itself. Suppose in our space there is a fourth dimension say x,y,z and a. What this would mean is that at given volume of space that you see could contain more than just one thing. That is if you look along the a axis upon the world you can have infinite number of things in that space having different x,y,z coordinates.
In other words say at one x,y,z coordinate in space which is a small ball in my bedroom. I am able to see only this ball. But that space could contain infinitely more elements along the a axis. I am able to see only one thing along this a axis. Possible because I am also located at the same 'a' axis value. The same problem that a circle in a two dimensional world had.
How amazing it would be if there were more dimensions to this space than 3. And it is totally possible because we cannot assume that humans have the capability to see all the dimensions possible.
Now I would like to show you a very interesting thought. Suppose there is a fourth dimension and lets denote it by axis a. You are at a particular value of a axis. I give you a velocity in the direction of a axis and send you. For you as an object you do not have understanding to know that you are moving along a axis because you dont even know what that dimension is. All that you can see is the 3d world around you at that particular a axis value. But as you are in a motion along a axis and the world is different at every a axis value you would find that the world around you is changing. Ring Bells. This is exactly the experience we have everyday. We observe that the world around us is changing.
What I am trying to show you is that it is possible that time is a fourth dimension of space and we are moving along it with a velocity. With that I would like to add that the likeliness of this is high than just a guess, because as our universe believes in symmetry it is bit out of place when we consider space as a separate kind of dimension and time as a another separate dimension not related to each other.
Now the only point left in this argument is how to define the two words we used in this article. That is motion and velocity. It is now confusing to do this as we do not have time as a coordinate. As we are moving along a axis, the motion would be a2 - a1 where a1 is our initial coordinate and a2 our final coordinate. To be honest with you there is no reference frame we know with respect to which we can calculate this velocity. The four dimensions we know is x,y,z,a and we have motion along all four of these. If we want to calculate the velocity of this motion we need a 5th dimension from which we can do that. But for the time being let us assume we have such a dimension and we can define motion and velocity with respect to this dimension.
Implications
What this implies is that the world that we see is pre determined. It bring us back to the concept of fate. It also throws up the possibility of time travel if we know how to change our velocity along the new a axis.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Analysis of Definition of Consiousness
Before we try to define consciousness or pick one of the theories from the four given before it is a very interesting question if our consciousness will ever be able to define itself.
Consider for example if i create a sub universe autonomous robots will one of those robots be ever be able to define what kind of intelligence is running in them. Let us consider a imaginary living being for example. This living being is alive. I am going to define this living being as simple as possible. This living being has a heart and one another organ and nerve that connects them. This other organ collects food and gives energy for the organism to live.
Consider for example if i create a sub universe autonomous robots will one of those robots be ever be able to define what kind of intelligence is running in them. Let us consider a imaginary living being for example. This living being is alive. I am going to define this living being as simple as possible. This living being has a heart and one another organ and nerve that connects them. This other organ collects food and gives energy for the organism to live.
Definition of Consiousness
At first let me present you the 4 theories of consciousness that are proposed by scientist of today.
1)Neuroscience
Brain causes consiousness. Consiousness is only a collective brain activity.
2)Cognitve Scientists:
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am". Evaluates consiousness by human thinking capacity.
3)Activity Theory:
you are what you do - our tools shape us
4)Distributed cognition
It defers from activity theory in the fact that people and things are considered at the same level.
Before i put my thoughts on this let me summarize what all these 4 theories tell. The first two are of one kind in which it says that our consciousness in within our skin. When neuroscience tells that consciousness is nothing but nerve patters in brain cognitive science tells that it is our mind which is again an activity of the brain. The other two theories are totally different because they consider what they call social consciousness. To put in simpler words, you are influenced by the outside world and your consciousness is a sum total of all your interactions.
1)Neuroscience
Brain causes consiousness. Consiousness is only a collective brain activity.
2)Cognitve Scientists:
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am". Evaluates consiousness by human thinking capacity.
3)Activity Theory:
you are what you do - our tools shape us
4)Distributed cognition
It defers from activity theory in the fact that people and things are considered at the same level.
Before i put my thoughts on this let me summarize what all these 4 theories tell. The first two are of one kind in which it says that our consciousness in within our skin. When neuroscience tells that consciousness is nothing but nerve patters in brain cognitive science tells that it is our mind which is again an activity of the brain. The other two theories are totally different because they consider what they call social consciousness. To put in simpler words, you are influenced by the outside world and your consciousness is a sum total of all your interactions.
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