Mount Molehill

When the brainless birds are barking

and the wind begins to snow

You are climbing the steps of the mountain but

there's no sweat on your brow

Is it gunshots in the distant woods, or

have your ears begun to grow

quite accustomed to all that you don't hear

but you only know

So you realize the danger's all overdone

in the name of being thorough

And the stones that begin to roll on down

are all kinda hollow

As you slip 'n' slide and you hold on tight

don't even notice anymore

Though the barking birds just won't shut up

you don't mind the snow

When the hill begins to climb up you

you'd almost swear it's a joke

In the unlikely event of an emergency

you'd rather not follow

the useless instructions of the cabin crew

but you'd rather go

in the general direction of the curvature

which is downwards though

As the night falls heavy on your eyelids

like a demon's roar

You can use the sunlight stored up inside

but use it very slow

And the moon could be your partner too

for it casts no shadow

It's getting hard to sense darkness anyway

for it never shows

The senses give up one at a time

and thoughts overflow

To the point that you can't differentiate

between then and now

So you don't even discern the dawn of dawn

but you simply row

through the river of dreams and all its streams

to the ocean of sorrow

When the mountain dissolves into the sea

all the friends turn foe

As the black turns white, and darkness is light

it's the end of the show

When you meet the master of marionettes

he's rather loath

to discuss anything that he ever does, or

places that he goes

And you realize that he was never more than

a stupid scarecrow

And after all he can only know the things

that his puppets know

For he has no mountains left to climb

no rivers to row

So you go back to making your way uphill

and never glance below

हो हो हो

ये जो है वो नहीं, और जो है नहीं वो हो भी सकता है

न हो सकना भी हो सकने का एक तरीका लगता है

पर हो न हो, है जब तक तब तक बस एक यही बहाना है

यूँ तो होने ना होने का ये खेल भी बड़ा पुराना है

होते होते जो हो जाये वो ही आखिर में होना है

हो सके तो होने दो इसको, ना होने का क्यूँ रोना है

Theory of theories

Nearly all of western philosophy seems to be struggling with the simple and yet intangible idea of ‘objective truth’. Philosophers can't come to terms with the fact that their only tool to establish truth is language, but what is true can’t be meaningfully expressed through language. The limits of language in expressing any universally agreeable truth are often overlooked. For me, this simple example usually suffices.

The statement below is false
The statement above is true

It is just so ridiculously easy to manipulate language that any truth can be suitably twisted to suit our own personal experience, and/or to create logical fallacies and contradictions for our own amusement.

This is true even for mathematical truths, which are often cited as the ultimate example of a priori knowledge, which means that they're not dependent on our perception. However, in my "experience", these truths are very much the results of our perceptions.

• Geometric shapes are essentially idealizations of the shapes we observe in nature.
• Arithmetic is almost completely an experience-based mathematical system.
• Algebraic truths are arrived at using a set of notations that follow a fixed set of rules predetermined by a human agent.

The only redeeming quality of mathematical truths is that they do not appear to change with time and space, and in that sense are indeed "universal". However, even this property is bound to come under scrutiny with the discovery of mysterious regions of the universe where spacetime itself breaks down, and objective truth loses all meaning. We try to capture our lack of understanding of these regions by calling them 'black holes', another trick of language based on our perception of colours. Black signifies darkness, both literal and intellectual. Truly, the only thing we know for certain about these suckers is that we really don't know much at all!

As soon as one person, no matter how much knowledge he has accumulated, postulates an idea of truth independent of human perception, the idea becomes just another theory. And theories can be (in fact must be) refuted, whether by simple observation and intuition or by another equally self-consistent theory. What theorists often seem to forget is that the rules ‘created’ by them will always apply to their own theories, because that is their very definition! But the universal application of any theory will always be limited to things that we can actually perceive. So unless we can perceive the imperceptible (contradiction alert), we can never come up with a ‘theory of everything’. It’s a self-defeating exercise, but it does provide some interesting insights about things that we actually can perceive. These can be used for practical purposes, but it’d be helpful to remember that we may never find what we’re really looking for.

This is, of course, just another theory.

ख्याली पुलाव

सोचा कुछ लफ़्ज़ों से खेलूं, पर अब दिमाग खाली-सा है,
सोचा खरीद लूँ कुछ लम्हे, पर नोट फटा जाली-सा है

हर लम्हा है एक खेल, है इसमें हार-जीत का क्या मतलब?
जो जीता वो तो नहीं सिकंदर, जो हारा गाली-सा है

है गाली बड़ी निराली, पर ये भेद नहीं समझे दुनिया
जो समझे उसके कानो को आलोचन भी ताली-सा है

कह दें सारे ही किस्से या कुछ को बेमौत मर जाने दें,
ऐसे तो सारे किस्सों का आकार एक प्याली-सा है

इन पैरों के नीचे से अब धरती है लगी फिसलने को
अपनी तो है वो दुनिया जिसमें हर पुलाव ख्याली-सा है

नभ ढूँढें

एक हरियाली की चादर-सी आँखों ऊपर चढ़ जाती है

बरसों की प्यासी धरती को है नीर पिलाती जब बूँदें,

चल कूद पड़ें इस मेले में और भूल चलें इस दुनिया को,

छोडें अब आँचल वसुधा का, चल आज नया कोई नभ ढूँढें

बादल पर पाँव रखा तो शर्मा कर पानी हो जाना है,

चाँद और सूरज से परे ठिकाना और नया कोई अब ढूँढें,

जिस उपरवाले के पीछे इंसान बना खुद का दुश्मन,

उस के दर पर दस्तक देने का और ही कोई सबब ढूँढें

दुनिया तो चलती आई है, ऐसे ही चलती जाएगी,

है फेर समय का, हर कोई बस अपना ही मतलब ढूंढें,

चल पकड़ समय को बांधें, फिर न निकल कहीं अब जाने दें,

है मोल समय का जिन्हें वही हर रोज़ नया करतब ढूँढें

रुकने का यहाँ पर काम नहीं, जब तक सांसें चलती जायें,

इस दौड़-धुप में कौन भला अब हुआ कहाँ गायब ढूँढें?

छोडो इस आपाधापी को, सब चूल्हे-भाड़ में जाने दो,

डालो लिबास और चलो शहर में नया कहीं कोई club ढूँढें

सरकारी बस

(कवि: प्रदीप चौबे)

सरकारी बस थी

सरकती ना थी, बस थी

हमने conductor से कहा,

"दद्दा, मन में धूम्रपान की इच्छा जगी है,

आपकी कसम, बड़े ज़ोरों की तलब लगी है

एक-आध पी लूं?"

वो बोला, "फूट गयी है क्या? दीखता नहीं?

सामने साफ़-साफ़ लिखा है - धूम्रपान करना मना है"

हमने कहा, "मालूम है, पर एक बात बताइए दद्दा,

कानून क्या अकेले हमारे लिए ही बना है?

वो जो सबसे आगे बैठा, सुट्टे पे सुट्टे ले रहा है

गाडी से double धुआं तो वही दे रहा है,

उसे क्यूँ नहीं रोकते?"

Conductor बोला, "उसने मुझसे पूछा कहाँ था?

पूछता तो उसे भी रोकता,

आप नहीं पूछते तो आपको भी नहीं टोकता"

हमने कहा, "लेकिन ये तो बेईमानी है,

सरासर अन्याय है, कानून का मजाक है,

हमारे साथ पक्षपात है, यात्री-यात्री में भेदभाव् है,

जनता के साथ षड़यंत्र है"

वो बोला, "इतनी रेजगारी क्यूँ खर्च करते हो?

एक ही शब्द में बोलो लोकतंत्र है

लोकतंत्र यानी हमारी democracy,

जिसमें हर नागरिक जैसा चाहे करने को स्वतंत्र है

पीने वाला बीडी पी सकता है,

मैं उसे रोक सकता हूँ,

आप मुझसे धूम्रपान की आज्ञा मांग सकते हैं,

मैं आपको डाँट सकता हूँ,

आप मेरी complaint कर सकते हैं,

ऊपर वाला मेरे खिलाफ action ले सकता है,

Union मुझे बचा सकती है,

आपकी complaint रद्दी की टोकरी में जा सकती है,

आप court की शरण में जा सकते हैं,

जहाँ वकील cigarette तो क्या, आपकी चिता भी सुलगा सकते हैं

बस बाबूजी यही हमारा मंत्र है,

और आज़ादी का मूलमंत्र है,

यहाँ कोई भी फटीचर कानून का मजाक उड़ाने को स्वतंत्र है,

इसी का पहला और आखरी नाम लोकतंत्र है

लेकिन बाबूजी, बहस करने से क्या फायदा,

भाड़ में जाने दो कानून और कायदा,

ये सब बातें व्यवहार में निरर्थक हैं,

एकदम country हैं,

इस समय हम मामूली बस conductor नहीं,

इस सरकारी डब्बे के मुख्यमंत्री हैं

हमसे हाथ मिलाइए,

तलब ज्यादा लगी हो तो डिब्बी निकालिए

और एक क्या, २ cigarette सुलगाइए,

एक आप पीजिये, दूसरी हमें पिलाइए"

The Importance of BS

Science.

What does the word mean? I bet it means something different to each one of us. For a word that's not even properly understood by most of us, it affects our everyday lives more than most things. For instance, Google Images believes science is mostly about some test-tubes, an evil cackle, and a bad hair day.

Seriously

To me, it's not exactly the pursuit of any specific goal, but more of a way to look at everything that surrounds us, most of all ourselves (because no matter how insignificant we are in the cosmic scheme, we remain our biggest mystery). It has mostly made sense so far, and if any group of people says they don't believe in it, they would be simply lying because they live by it most of the time.

So what about science? I surely am a big believer, more than most others perhaps (even though I don't understand a LOT of it). But I'm not a complete believer, because I can't get rid of the feeling that it is after all, just a way of looking at things. And unless ESP is still taken seriously, it is completely based on the senses, I guess. Stuff that is 'beyond' senses, like time, gravity, numbers, even adolescence, is something that science doesn't really understand, and has been struggling to control since forever. Of course, entropy, relativity, quantum mechanics, and The Matrix trilogy are beyond senses too, despite being concepts created by some of us. This is why it is highly likely that you'll go through life without understanding any of them.

It's especially funny to me that our entire existence is a race against time, and there isn't much we can do about it because time as a concept is as vaguely defined by scientific theory as it is by pretty much any other source. My source at God's office defines it thus - "Time is an essential part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motion of objects."

Somewhat disappointing. The problem with it is if you view the source, it contains different links for each of the terms used to come up with the definition. And it's not the usual wikipedia shit either, where each sentence can lead to following a maze of links, basically arriving somewhere but getting nowhere. Nope, in the case of time, every word in that sentence is important. Without understanding 'durations' and 'intervals', it's impossible to even begin to perceive time. But these terms derive their own meaning from the concept of time, which makes the whole thing a recipe for brain explosion. Even by our most sophisticated definitions, time is the 'fourth dimension', while we can only perceive three. Simply put, we do not understand our greatest frenemy even though we crib about it all the time.

In order to deal with our own shortcomings and define time in terms of what we understand, we have even tried literary tactics like metaphors; one of the most enduring ones is that of time as a river. When the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "You can not step into the same river twice", he was not narrating the rules of the least fun river game ever. What he meant was that the river flows continuosly, and every time you step in, you're testing different waters. He was actually talking about what we now call the second law of thermodynamics, better known as the 'arrow of time'. It means time flows in one direction only and there is no way we can experience the past, at least not through sensory perception. Because the past is not something tangible, we were there but we're not sure if it exists anymore. As for the future, sometimes if we plan well enough we may be able to play out a scenario exactly as it was in our head. But mostly it doesn't happen, and the stuff we're eventually left to deal with may not have been a part of the original plan at all. Countless sci-fi movies/books later, time travel still remains an enigma, at best a thought experiment in physics/philosophy/literature. It's almost unnerving that far from understanding time, we barely even understand these very thought experiments we come up with to deal with the vagueness.

But wait, how can I say it's not possible to sense the past when I do it every time I look up at the night-sky (or even a photo album)? Most of the stars outside our own galaxy are millions of light-years away. This means we view their light from a time before humans existed. Here's where time really grabs us by the balls – contemporary theory says that the rate at which time passes is actually different for all of us. It depends on the speed at which we move, so it is practically the same for all the inhabitants of this planet (even Usain Bolt), because the difference is so small at 'normal' speeds that we are incapable of perceiving it. This makes time an intensely personal phenomenon, and even more of a bitch to understand.

Others have said that it's not time that flows, but us that flow through it. The Man from Earth includes two very varied and yet similar definitions, both excellent and yet meaningless.

"Time is just a subjective sense of becoming who we are, from what we were a nanosecond ago, to what we will be a nanosecond later"

"The Hopis see time as a landscape, and we move through it slice by slice"

No it's not a subjective sense, cos it was here before us. It's not dependent on our perception. Kurt Vonnegut had a better idea when he wrote 'Slaughterhouse 5', or 'Timequake', or any of his many books that discuss our inability to cope with time. He stretches the river analogy to discount the 'arrow of time' and attributes it to our own perception. In other words (the words of this guy, no less), “There is no future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.”

Of course, no one has actually ever come unstuck in time, and no fatal lab accident actually ever left the victim alive but liberated from the shackles of time. So it becomes more like a direction-less ocean through which we can only swim in one direction. This reminds us all these definitions are just attempts, and by no means the truth.

So I'm an incomplete believer in science? What the fuck is that? Well kinda. Since I consider these things beyond science and beyond senses, let me call it BS (is that a pun? well, it's unintentional). Even as we invent new jargon to essentially talk about the same stuff, BS remains forever beyond us. What's most exciting about it is, that it may not necessarily just be a scientific answer to the Why You Were Here (WYWH) question, or even the more poignant Y He Was Here (YHWH) one. It could be more than that. It could be a way for history to understand itself and the people who made it. A way to understand what faith really means perhaps, other than a pyschological disorder (which is broadly how science sees it).

Let's think of a religious figure, say Gautam Buddha. Imagine his story in today's context. If the heir apparent to a multi-billion dollar empire renounces the world and simply leaves in search of salvation, he'd be promptly tracked down and relegated to therapy. Yet in his time, he managed to calm down people who were so different that they have never gotten along otherwise. To a large extent, Buddhists even today manage to eschew violence (and when they do decide to kick ass, they kick something mighty - think Xaolin monks and Sri Lankan army). Our current mode of learning does not allow us to understand people like Buddha. But it's not the fault of science or scientists, they teach and follow what according to them is the most sensible way to understand reality. I think the same way, but never without possibility of an alternate way.

Anyway, the point is, most religions are an imperfect way of looking at the world which is based around a perfect being. They're imperfect because they espouse principles that basically label human nature as imperfect. That doesn't seem to make sense. How can we deny what pleases us in order to get more of the same stuff in the afterlife? But there's an important lesson in there too, something that can be followed without any of the other ritualistic flapdoodle that defines religion (that's still the fun part though). The lesson is to not always 'believe' what senses tell you as being the absolute and infallible truth. To remain open to the possibility of the 'beyond' part, even if the future holds a scientific explanation for it.

Science on the other hand accepts human nature as a given and tries to understand it. Unlike religion, it is a pursuit of a perfect way that doesn't need that perfect being. We haven't found that way yet, although high-fives are permitted, Science.

But what about BS? Is it unimportant because the questions it asks are meaningless and impractical? To an extent, yes. Mostly because BS isn't anything in itself, it's just stuff that science doesn't have a handle on - yet. To believe in BS is not to disbelieve in science, but simply to realize we have remained as far from certain answers as we ever were. As a kid, the first time I encountered the Big Bang Theory in school it didn't make any sense to me. What did it mean that the universe is expanding? Expanding into what? And since when? If it is expanding it must have a boundary. What lies beyond that boundary? Because universe is defined as literally EVERYTHING, there can't really be anything beyond it, can there? Also, what about the Big Bang itself? If it happened at a point in time, what happened before that? What does it mean to say nothing existed? That was the first time I understood what 'mindfuck' actually means. Years later, I came to understand that the question is scientifically inaccurate. Everything kinda screws up under boundary conditions, be it the actual Big Bang or the question of what lies beyond. Science defines time to begin with the universe, and believes the universe's boundaries are impermeable. If a fictional spaceship attempts to cross over to the other side, the boundaries will simply expand since the spaceship only 'exists' within the universe. This reality is what allowed somebody to build that spaceship, in fact to be born at all. How can we try to understand a reality where we don't even exist? But that is exactly what lies on the other side. So we're surrounded by an infinite opaque wall and it certainly makes more sense to live our lives within that wall without bothering too much about something we might never truly understand. But it still doesn't hide the reality of the universe and our own shortcomings.

BS is also the reason art exists at all. Strictly speaking, all subjects are 'scientific' in the way they are taught, as the approach is based on scientific reasoning. But as we move away from studying and experimenting with nature and attempt to study 'humanities' in any way, we start tugging at the boundaries of an alternate reality. Psychology, philosophy, sociology, even economics accept a large degree of unpredictability in all their theories, despite being 'sciences'. Writers and artists take this to the extreme, and sometimes if they're good enough, they can make us believe in their reality, if only momentarily. Most of literature/art is our portal to another world. This is how art critics get away with a lot of actual BS. The more an artist is 'out there' in his creation, the better it is for the critic. By deliberately freeing themselves from the shackles of reality, and yet trying to describe it, a painting by Picasso or a story by Marquez challenges our senses, and therefore defies any 'sensible' appreciation. This is also why ancient stories were mostly 'fairy tales' or 'mythology'. In the absence of scientific knowledge, fantastical elements such as flying sorcerers and anthropomorphic animals were what made these stories interesting. Although hippies (if they still exist) are probably the only people who take 'magic' seriously anymore, the popular appeal of fantasy literature is more than it ever was. Thanks for all the BS Ms. Rowling!

How about Hollywood (and of course, Bollywood, the hindi cousin with infinitely more appetite for BS)? Movies mostly find their origins in literature more than in nature. Sure, not all of them are based on books but they're still stories and do have a written screenplay, which is not too different from a play. Just like books and paintings, movies often seem to paint a picture of reality that is not really 'real', and can range from awe-inspiring to hilarious. Why can't a single bullet ever find the protagonist? Why do random strangers seem to continually bump into each other for no reason save a convenient plot requirement? The reason movies seem to defy laws of nature is that they are totally meant to be that way! And not just sci-fi/action stuff either, unbelievable things happen in nearly ALL movies, including biopics. That's their appeal. Of course, highly improbable stuff happens in real life too (that's kinda what this post is about), but not at the same frequency and not to the same person always. Movies isolate and exaggerate events from real life. In reality, you are the hero of your own life, but then everyone else feels the same way about themselves. Obviously all of us can't kick ass like Dirty Harry, because so many random reality-defying coincidences usually don't happen to a single person. Think of it this way: how many people do you know whose life could be made into a movie that you'd want to watch?

All kinds of storytellers therefore understand the appeal of BS. It's what makes their stories more than a collection of perfectly sensible scientific facts. When you look at it this way, it's really all about BS. We totally crave non'sense', because what's new about sense?

The importance of BS lies not in understanding it, but simply acknowledging it, and hoping for our current belief system to somehow explain it someday. Above all, not dismissing it as a big load of BS.

Anyway, if you've managed to ride this stupid BS train of thought so far, here's how Wikipedia defines the second law of thermodynamics mentioned earlier:

"an expression of the universal principle of decay observable in nature."

Scientific explanation or religious discourse?