Category Archives: Philosophy

Philosophy is never too far from physics. It is in their overlap that I expect breakthroughs.

Quantum Mechanics

Quantum Mechanics (QM) is the physics of small things. How do they behave and how do they interact with each other? Conspicuously absent from this framework of QM is why. Why small things do what they do is a question QM leaves alone. And, if you are to make any headway into this subject, your best bet is to curb your urge to ask why. Nature is what she is. Our job is to understand the rules by which she plays the game of reality, and do our best to make use of those rules to our advantage in experiments and technologies. Ours is not to reason why. Really.

Continue reading

Reductionism

In all our scientific endeavors, we use similar high-level techniques to understand and study things. The most common technique is reductionism. It is based on the belief that the behavior, properties and structure of large and complex objects can be understood in terms of their simpler constituents. In other words, we try to understand the whole (the universe, for instance) in terms of smaller, reduced constituents (such as particles).

Continue reading

Sensory and Physical Worlds

Animals have different sensory capabilities compared to us humans. Cats, for instance, can hear up to 60kHz, while the highest note we have ever heard was about 20kHz. Apparently, we could hear that high a note only in our childhood. So, if we are trying to pull a fast one on a cat with the best hifi multi-channel, Dolby-whatever recording of a mouse, we will fail pathetically. It won’t be fooled because it lives in a different sensory world, while sharing the same physical world as ours. There is a humongous difference between the sensory and physical worlds.

Continue reading

Problem of Free Will

Free will is a problem. If all of us are physical machines, obeying laws of physics, then all our movements and mental states are caused by events that took place earlier. What is caused is fully determined by the cause. So whatever we do now and in the next minute is all pre-ordained by antecedent events and causes, and we have no control over it. How can we then have free will? The fact that I am writing this note on free will — is it totally and completely determined by the events from time immemorial? That doesn’t sound right.

Continue reading

Data to Wisdom

When it comes to the amount of intelligence and experience required, we have a clear hierarchy from data to information to knowledge to wisdom. What we get from raw observation are just data points. We apply some techniques of aggregation, reporting charting etc. to arrive at information. Further higher level processing in revealing interconnections and relationships will give us condensed and actionable information, which we can consider knowledge. But to arrive at wisdom, we need a keen mind and years of experience, because what we mean by wisdom itself is far from obvious. Rather, it is obvious, but not easily described, and so not easily delegated to a computer. At least, so I thought. How could machines bridge the gap from data to wisdom?

Continue reading

Bhagavad Gita

Among the religious texts of Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita is the most revered one. Literally presented as the word of God, the Bhagavad Gita enjoys a stature similar to the Bible or the Koran. Like all scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita also can be read, not merely as an act of devotion, but as a philosophical discourse as well. It presents a philosophical stance in understanding the world, which forms (for those from India) the basic and fundamental assumptions in dealing with life, and the unknowable reality around them. In fact, it is more than just assumptions and hypotheses; it is the basis of commonsense handed down from generation to generation. It is the foundations of intellect, which form the instinctive and emotional understanding of reality that is assimilated before logic and cannot be touched or analyzed with rationality. They are the mythos that trump logos every time.

Continue reading

Do You Have a Soul?

Most religions believe that we have a soul. They don’t quite define what it is, but they are all quite sure that we have it.

A bit of reading in philosophy will lead us to the notion that the soul holds the key to our personal identity. In other words, if I put your soul in my body, then you would find yourself trapped in my body. My body would not be going around feeling that there is a strange something inside me. So your soul is expected to be the key to your personal identity.

Continue reading