I am not an ordinary man. I have what I call a flash memory. Bits and pieces of images stick onto me for reasons I cannot comprehend. Images which would have gone unnoticed by most and considered too irrelevant by others. At times they move me. At times they provide me with the fodder for my demented sense of humour. At times they even refuse to speak to me and just stay there with me...mute. I have stopped trying to reason with them anymore. I have accepted them.
I am not an anti war campaigner. I believe war leads to change and at times change is the need of the hour. But then what of the little boy on crutches at the very beginning of Kabul Express. Most of us who have seen the movie were not so impressed with it but it was this one scene which made it special for me. It said something to me. The world operates on very thin lines and one never knows when one has crossed it. Victory is only relative. Justice is but volatile. If I have given a young boy crutches for a playmate. How can I justify myself. What can I say which will placate my guilt. Should I feel guilty at all. Does my guilt alone justify my intent. I do not know. I can only feel his pain. Nothing you say about terrorism can convince me to believe that he deserved what he got. Nothing they say about US discrimination can make me forgive those who gave guns at the hands of a twelve year old. Nothing I can say about the larger good can persuade me to believe that we have not crossed the line here.
Then there is that fat dog. Out on one of my evening visits to the local bakery I come across this really fat dog and this really skinny construction worker. This poor, hungry and much harassed man was having this measly bun and this very fat dog was right there pawing the frail man with much ferocity. Somewhere the humour of the entire situation caught onto me. The tables have turned here. The hunter is the hunted now. The beggar is the chooser now. With each paw the dog would shake the man's self esteem. So much so that he gave up at the end. The fat dog has won and he sat there stuffing his already overfed self. The poor man walked away. Another victory for another covetous fat dog. I am amused.
Is it is just me or does everyone remember their lives in flashes. I thought that was supposed to happen only when you are about to die. It is like a series of flash cards which only I can link together into a coherent story. Emotions, experiences, feelings and every other neural response all trapped in a randomly sorted picture album and yet in the end it all makes sense. Kudos to the creator.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Mind Tricks
A cold winter night, a couple of friends and a casual conversation. Somewhere between such cliches was the birth of a unique thought. Not a momentary thought which is engulfed by the darkness after one burst of brilliance. This was an endothermic thought drawing fuel from within your innermost doubts and trepidation.
Let me start in mathematics. The undisputed lingua franca of the universe. Some say it is the ultimate truth. And here was a man well conversed with its ways. A natural born code breaker and the father of the Nash Equilibrium. Jhon F Nash was a Nobel laureate. A mind deep rooted in reality but a man lost in his own illusions. Professor Nash was Schizophrenic. He could see and hear those who only existed in his own imagination. On one hand Professor Nash was changing the paradigms of Game theory while on the other he was fighting a much bigger battle trying hold onto his own reality. A battle which he was almost always losing.
Which brings us to Hugh Everett and his many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. In the language of science fiction it is very similar to parallel universes or multiverses. Multiverses are a hypothetical set of all possible universes each being a probable reality. At each moment the universe splits into infinite universes, each being distinct in its future. Let me elucidate. The man on the seat next to you on the early morning bus to office might be your best friend if only you decide to engage him in conversation. But he is not. However there is a parallel universe where both of you share a drink at the local watering hole every evening. The universe is splitting at every instance, splitting into more and more parallel universes in the current set of multiverses.
With that I think the time is right to introduce you to Schrödinger's cat. Now what does a cat have to do with all of this. I assure you it does. Schrödinger's cat was experiment in quantum physics where a cat was kept confined in a box with a contraption that could kill it at any instance without the knowledge of the observer. The cat has two classical states namely alive and dead. However the cat inside the box seems to be in a state somewhere between these two states. Something like a volatile keg of explosive existing in delicate balance between two definite possibilities. Such experiments illustrate the apparent paradox that an observer can be in an apparent mixture of states.
So now I am done stating incoherent factoids. Though my cold winter evening still stays unexplained. Schizophrenia, multiverses and a cat in the middle of it all. There is a single line of thought joining them all. The mind plays tricks they say but they also say that they do not understand the mind well enough. A magician plays tricks too but to him it only a well rehearsed act. A schizophrenic sees things which do not exist, at least not in our universe. That's where I propose my catch-at least not in our universe. What if what a schizophrenic sees or hears does exist, only in a parallel universe, and his mind is capable of traversing through the time space continuum. What if Jhon Nash had a mind which has traversing across realities. What if like Schrödinger's cat a mind can be in a state of unstable equilibrium, darting across the mutiverses, merging one with the other. So there I string together my improbable theory. A cold winter evening can play tricks on your mind but what if it is not.
Let me start in mathematics. The undisputed lingua franca of the universe. Some say it is the ultimate truth. And here was a man well conversed with its ways. A natural born code breaker and the father of the Nash Equilibrium. Jhon F Nash was a Nobel laureate. A mind deep rooted in reality but a man lost in his own illusions. Professor Nash was Schizophrenic. He could see and hear those who only existed in his own imagination. On one hand Professor Nash was changing the paradigms of Game theory while on the other he was fighting a much bigger battle trying hold onto his own reality. A battle which he was almost always losing.
Which brings us to Hugh Everett and his many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. In the language of science fiction it is very similar to parallel universes or multiverses. Multiverses are a hypothetical set of all possible universes each being a probable reality. At each moment the universe splits into infinite universes, each being distinct in its future. Let me elucidate. The man on the seat next to you on the early morning bus to office might be your best friend if only you decide to engage him in conversation. But he is not. However there is a parallel universe where both of you share a drink at the local watering hole every evening. The universe is splitting at every instance, splitting into more and more parallel universes in the current set of multiverses.
With that I think the time is right to introduce you to Schrödinger's cat. Now what does a cat have to do with all of this. I assure you it does. Schrödinger's cat was experiment in quantum physics where a cat was kept confined in a box with a contraption that could kill it at any instance without the knowledge of the observer. The cat has two classical states namely alive and dead. However the cat inside the box seems to be in a state somewhere between these two states. Something like a volatile keg of explosive existing in delicate balance between two definite possibilities. Such experiments illustrate the apparent paradox that an observer can be in an apparent mixture of states.
So now I am done stating incoherent factoids. Though my cold winter evening still stays unexplained. Schizophrenia, multiverses and a cat in the middle of it all. There is a single line of thought joining them all. The mind plays tricks they say but they also say that they do not understand the mind well enough. A magician plays tricks too but to him it only a well rehearsed act. A schizophrenic sees things which do not exist, at least not in our universe. That's where I propose my catch-at least not in our universe. What if what a schizophrenic sees or hears does exist, only in a parallel universe, and his mind is capable of traversing through the time space continuum. What if Jhon Nash had a mind which has traversing across realities. What if like Schrödinger's cat a mind can be in a state of unstable equilibrium, darting across the mutiverses, merging one with the other. So there I string together my improbable theory. A cold winter evening can play tricks on your mind but what if it is not.
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