Sunday, October 29, 2006

Random musings on cricket

The champions trophy is underway and here are the way things have gone in Group B. The best team (WI) beats the two second best teams (Ind and Aus). The two second best teams beat the worst team (Eng, which is why they are at the bottom, and hence labeled "worst") . And now the worst team beats the best team. Disregarding the outcome of the Ind-Aus encounter, the end result is that WI would most likely end up at the top of the table and Eng end at the bottom of the table. The irony of the whole seeding system is that the team at the bottom of the table has beaten the one at the top. So, all in all, although all teams are consistent at times (in terms of winning and losing) and inconsistent otherwise, cricket as a whole is always random and unpredictable. Surprisingly, that is the precise element which draws hoards of people to cricket matches.

All games underlie the basic property of nature - The randomness prevalent within itself, which cannot be logically comprehended by the human mind.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Some suggested measures to increase the scope of "victimless crimes".

Since the lawmakers [2] of our modern societies are so bent upon prohibiting or punishing for "victimless crime", i have thought of a series of measures, which they can consider. Among all "victimless crimes", the first [1] of these, that should be judged is the freedom given to thought. Theoretically, people who think a lot (or broadly; I am not just referring to libertarians), would also think about a lot of bad things (proportionately, i mean). Hence, they should attract punishment.

So, how do we decide who thinks more and who thinks less, and how do we decide upon the respective cutoffs?

The answer is very simple. In fact, in countries like India, we already have a measure of that. Some of you must have heard about the reservation policy in India. As such, the policy aims to bring about social justice and get all people on the same playground. So the lawmakers have done considerable research and have recreated certain hereditary systems through which they can distinguish people below and above the bar. Now, instead of encouraging "people-below-par" to acheive their respective targets (which, obviously is very harsh), they reap benefits on these people for under-acheiving, at the same time penalising the "people-above-par", thereby bringing everyone on par. This method is guarenteed to succeed, since it would bring the parity level value so low so as to meet the standards of any person, at the same time bringing the standards of everyone above it to meet its own. Of course, I should comment that the very method of distinguishing above and below par people is beyond the purview of any rational explanation.

So much for the small digression, now by these rationalized arguments, all those who are against this policy are those whose thinking levels are significantly higher, hence are punishable under the law of "victimless crime". By doing so, we can forcefully get the thinking levels of all people at par, and hence bring more social justice to these societies. Since we can safely assume that this category of people thinks significantly at higher levels, 22.7% of the time (remember, the first rule in constituting new laws is not to deduce figures based on statistics, If the lawmakers think "its obvious", that is more than sufficient to base the law upon those numbers), these people should be put in prison, for 22.7% of the total days in every year. While in prison, these people are to be altered to become more socially-conscious and socially-sensitive at society's expense. All is not bad for the people put in prison, for they can 1) meet and get to know famous people, 2) continue watching NDTV and CNN-IBN to raise false hopes, and 3) take Management Courses to reduce their thinking standards to prescribed levels.

Footnotes
[1] The first "victimless crime" that should be punished should actually be overeating, which causes more deaths in a year, than any other known form of drug abuse; but since I am not the first one to have suggested it, i have ignored it for the purpose of this article.

[2] According to this system, elected representatives (who "constitute" laws) should be those, who would normally be at the very low end of this spectrum, and thereby be in a better position to formulate such laws, and thereby develop the whole system to become self-evolving (and drive it beyond any measure of control)

Cult Graffiti
Scene I:

Peter Griffin's IQ Test results show that he is retarded, right above “lawmakers”.

Scene II:









Lois: That’s right Peter, they are red.

Scene III:
Lois: Ok, Peter, say the word "What"?












Lois: Peter, just say "what"!















Lois
: Thats right Peter, you win.

Scene IV:

Other Notes
a) As per the same logic, i should also be punished, but remember, since I am helping their cause, the logic evolves (by now you must have understood the process of rationality) and hence inapplicable to my case (hope that, atleast now i am at par with their required standards :))

b) Recent events (A drug abuse case and the reservation controversy) and consequent reports from opinionated newspapers have instigated me to write this article.

c) The reservation policy (that has been used as a metaphor in this post) can be best described as: "Appeasment of larger sections of the society by depriving social equality to the remaining minority".

d) The screen shots for the graffiti are borrowed from Petarded, which is the fourth season episode of the animated series Family Guy.

e) In this particular episode, there is scene in which an administrator shows a chart to explain where Peter's IQ result places him - on the lower end of "retarded", right above "creationists" (which has been replaced by “lawmakers” for this article).

--Rahul


What is the exact difference between the two sets of frames (above and below)?







[Woman walking downstairs, Eadweard Muybridge, late 19th century; This image is in the public domain]

See also: Marcel Duchamp's depiction of this same motion at
http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/modern_contemporary/1950-134-59.shtml

Monday, May 22, 2006

Intermittent Flashes

.....but dice does play (t/"T)he God".

My last few days and nights have been pretty weird - incommensurable to one other.
While I was not exactly "comfortably numb", I had been dwelling into the mystery of our life and death, after mildly imparing my "motor skills" (.....as a result my thoughts were subject to lapses of concenteration)

Excerpts:
At some point in our lives, we must ask ourselves, "What is about life, that makes it worth living it?" Is it because of the randomness of Life? What about the subtle choices that one needs to make? (or is exercising them continuously at an unconscious level)

At the very basic level one is left with just two choices: life or death!
However, it must be noted that it is in only one of the states (vis-à-vis living) that one gets an oppurtunity to exercise it, if at all. So, in effect the very nature of the decision problem goes from a state of two choices to a state with no choice (a zero dimensional state)







The above decision problem is non-deterministic, something that characterizes every other "choice-problem" in this world. This is also analogous to a NP-complete problem, because every other "choice-problem" can be reduced to this (in finite steps).

--Rahul

"I'd rather sleep on my own bed in my own haven." - Moi

Notes
1) "God doesnot play dice." - Albert Einstein

2) Moi: Used by American English speakers to ironically indicate mock humility.

3) The context of the post keeps flickering, because it speaks at two different levels. One (more appropriately focussed at the beginning) is about the physiological state of the psychological mind. The other (more appropriately focussed in excerpts) is more concerened about the mental state of the psychological mind. Hence, in one tone, it tells about the state of the mind, and in the other, the thoughts that are being generated.


Point out the nearest corner in the following image (Look again!) (See: 'Pop art')
(This image is in the public domain)








Sunday, May 21, 2006

A path on the green (deliberate discontinuity)

1) Inward flow of energy.

2) Preferred focus is on thoughts and ideas.

3) Low key, deliberate and disengaged from the society ("choose-to").

4) Prefer to spend time alone (contemplating).

5) All human interaction should be voluntary and consensual.

Trey Parker (~South Park) once remarked that most people actually believe that all of them were born bad and were subsequently made good by society.

In spirit,
Rahul.

Notes
1) Referred sources: Wikipedia articles

2) About Move36: http://www.ekac.org/move36.html



Whats different in this snapshot?