Oneironaut simply stands for ‘A person who explores dream worlds’. With all the euphoria about Inception, I decided to write a bit about it myself. Actually, I knew I was going to write this when I had first seen the trailer of Inception.
So, Inception and its supposedly complex storyline are being discussed all around. Many praise Nolan for having thought of such a brilliant idea. Dream in a dream in a dream in a ….I actually lost the count while watching it. More importantly, I was thinking of the absurdities involved, which I’ll try to list down in a later blog. This blog I reserve for trying to project the main idea within Inception.
Many claim that Dreams is Dreams is an original idea used in the movie. However, I must protest when you say that it is an original idea. Dreams have been studied by ancient Greeks and Indians in great measure. Many people have had much more brilliant insights about dreams and dream processes. Edgar Allen Poe has written a poem called ‘Dream Within a Dream’. Two of my most favourite stories about dream worlds are by the same author. Based on my previous post, you must have guessed right. It is Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and the two stories are ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass’. Alice, the ultimate dreamer, has taught me more about dreams than most modern books or movies (with the exception of The Matrix)
I cannot describe the exhilarating feeling I had as I read the book ‘Through the Looking Glass’. I could not believe that we humans had such rich imagination. As I’ve always held true ‘Our own imagination can sometimes astound us’. Very soon after reading that book, I saw the Matrix. The impact that one movie can have on your life is huge. That movie inspired me to construct my own theories of the workings of world around me. Anyone who has completely understood the Matrix, will realize that Nolan can never replace a Wachowski. I’ll write a lot more about the Matrix and the not-so-easy-to –see references in the movie in the blog that I’ve mentioned earlier.
Thus, if one wants to analyse Inception, I suggest you look at other aspects of the movie. Dreams in Dreams added to the mysticism of the movie, but were not the cornerstone of the movie.
The central point of Inception, however, I soon realized was not dreams in dreams, but the point whether inspiration can be artificially generated. In other words, can ideas and inspiration actually be placed inside your mind by external sources? This is certainly among the less researched items.
Let us for the moment assume that thoughts can be placed in your mind. The basic trouble with this particular subject is that, we cannot now distinguish between original thoughts and thoughts that have artificially been placed. This raises many philosophical questions. Suppose all the ‘original’ ideas that you have are actually fed to you through some yet-to-be recognized source? When you cannot distinguish between original ideas and placed ideas, why should you choose one over the other? The basic argument here is astonishingly close to the basic argument in the Matrix/ Alice in Wonderland etc. i.e. when you cannot make out what is real and what is not, is it not possible that everything is unreal?
Think about this for a second. So many geniuses(or as some prefer to use, genii) have come and gone. If ever we found out that inception was possible, should we really give credit to these geniuses? Is it (not) possible that somebody simply planted the ideas in their head?
I believe that the day is not far when we may see both, the creations of worlds like that of the Matrix and the inception of ideas. Basically, the technology for both might end up being very similar for they both need to trick the mind. Lets see what the future holds.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Hands Around My Throat
I woke up with a start. The old nightmare and my mobile's alarm had once again jerked me out of sleep. The nightmare had haunted me for about a year now. Today, the nightmare though, seemed to be slightly different from every other time. Partially awake, I looked around my room. My room, my personal sanctuary, has always been a source of peace for me. My room, apart from being large, also has an attached balcony, which is accessible through a set of transparent sliding doors, currently covered by orange and yellow shaded curtains.
In my state of awakening, after disabling the alarm, I was still very confused whether I was awake or still dreaming. This was because the room felt very unreal in a mystical way. The sweet humming caused by the fan and rippling of the curtains was blissful enough, not the mention the faint glimmer of light from the small gap at the bottom of the curtains leading to a state of semi-darkness, which made my room look so unreal.
I looked at the mobile at my bedside. It said 6:45. My first question was “morning or evening?”. Believe me when I say that one year at B makes this question extremely reasonable and sane. Before I could answer the first question, another question immediately dawned; “What day is it?”. What with classes and assignments and sacrosanct deadlines, the need to know what day and time overpowers most other needs in this place.
As I sat up on my bed, I don't know why, perhaps because of the clairvoyant and ethereal atmosphere in my room, I decided to ignore the day and time and concentrate on my dream. I remember watching Alice in Wonderland (Disney's 1951 version) just before I fell asleep. Sometime in the middle of the sleep, I assume, the dream started. It was the usual one; funny and peculiar to start with. The details of the dream were flowing away like grains of sand in an hourglass. I tried to recollect parts of the dream; I think I was standing at the edge of a cliff, playing a violin. The cliff seemed to be quite high and down below was the frothy sea. A good breeze was blowing and I could smell the salty air. A little distance from me, I could see a look-alike playing a grand piano and a bit yonder, I could again, quite astonishingly, see another look-alike playing a guitar. Though they seemed to be look-alikes, I had the eeriest feeling that they were actually me. Then came a younger man, who looked a lot like a younger me. He was writing something onto his notepad. As he passed by me, I could make out the numbers '101' scribbled on the pad.
Then came a content-looking middle aged man. I did not know who he was. He stopped by, heard us playing the music (I'm unable to recollect the tune), smiled at us and walked ahead. Then, came a young girl, who enquired from me about the middle-aged man's whereabouts. This girl, though a complete stranger to me, seemed somehow familiar. I showed her the path that the middle-aged man had taken; she muttered something which sounded like 'the wrong path' and went away. Then, and this is where the dream starts turning nightmarish, came a rather stern looking fellow. This fellow, handed me a world map and asked me to find 'Erewhon'. Thanks to Samuel Butler, I knew that such a place did not exist. I tried to point this out to him, but he just kept pinching me and ordering me to search harder. Then, came a whole bunch of young chaps who were shouting at the top of their voice 'I found Erewhon, why can't you?'. As they approached nearer, the sea breeze stopped. I turned around and saw that the water had disappeared and there was only a dark, seemingly bottomless pit visible. This was the least of my concerns because soon something even more dreadful was happening. I could feel arms, reaching out from the darkness, inching towards my throat. Soon, those cold hands were around my throat, choking me. Almost everytime, this is the part of the dream, when I wake up with a start.
However, today was different. Today, the dream went a bit further. The White Rabbit, from Alice in Wonderland, came hopping by. He held a watch in one hand and a torch of fire in the other. As he came closer, through the light of the torch, I could finally recognise the owner of the hands that were throttling me. With enormous surprise, I found out that those hands belonged to another look-alike of me. But this time, unlike others, I was sure that this was no look-like. It was indeed me, not someone else. Before, I could ask myself, why I was throttling me, I heard a loud bell ringing somewhere. I saw that the source of the bell was the watch that the rabbit had. I tried to tell him to stop it, but before the words came out, I had woken up to bell sound of the alarm on my mobile.
I could not remember more details about the dream, but I'm sure a lot more happened in it. The surprise at the end of the dream today seemed to be an inner visualization of the state I was in. So, I did what I could not in the dream; I asked myself 'Why am I throttling myself?'. I found that there was no convincing answer forthcoming. It was almost an earth-shattering result for me. Every construct in my mind about the nature of the world seemed to have gone for a toss. Then, as if it were a signal from above, a gust of air from the fan had forced the curtains open and sweet sunlight streamed in. The room glittered golden and I realised that I had discovered myself this morning. I walked to the balcony and saw the dew on the petals of a nearby rose. The smell of a rose had never been so intoxicating. I picked up my guitar and started to string my favourite tune. I'm quite sure that I won't have the nightmare anymore.
In my state of awakening, after disabling the alarm, I was still very confused whether I was awake or still dreaming. This was because the room felt very unreal in a mystical way. The sweet humming caused by the fan and rippling of the curtains was blissful enough, not the mention the faint glimmer of light from the small gap at the bottom of the curtains leading to a state of semi-darkness, which made my room look so unreal.
I looked at the mobile at my bedside. It said 6:45. My first question was “morning or evening?”. Believe me when I say that one year at B makes this question extremely reasonable and sane. Before I could answer the first question, another question immediately dawned; “What day is it?”. What with classes and assignments and sacrosanct deadlines, the need to know what day and time overpowers most other needs in this place.
As I sat up on my bed, I don't know why, perhaps because of the clairvoyant and ethereal atmosphere in my room, I decided to ignore the day and time and concentrate on my dream. I remember watching Alice in Wonderland (Disney's 1951 version) just before I fell asleep. Sometime in the middle of the sleep, I assume, the dream started. It was the usual one; funny and peculiar to start with. The details of the dream were flowing away like grains of sand in an hourglass. I tried to recollect parts of the dream; I think I was standing at the edge of a cliff, playing a violin. The cliff seemed to be quite high and down below was the frothy sea. A good breeze was blowing and I could smell the salty air. A little distance from me, I could see a look-alike playing a grand piano and a bit yonder, I could again, quite astonishingly, see another look-alike playing a guitar. Though they seemed to be look-alikes, I had the eeriest feeling that they were actually me. Then came a younger man, who looked a lot like a younger me. He was writing something onto his notepad. As he passed by me, I could make out the numbers '101' scribbled on the pad.
Then came a content-looking middle aged man. I did not know who he was. He stopped by, heard us playing the music (I'm unable to recollect the tune), smiled at us and walked ahead. Then, came a young girl, who enquired from me about the middle-aged man's whereabouts. This girl, though a complete stranger to me, seemed somehow familiar. I showed her the path that the middle-aged man had taken; she muttered something which sounded like 'the wrong path' and went away. Then, and this is where the dream starts turning nightmarish, came a rather stern looking fellow. This fellow, handed me a world map and asked me to find 'Erewhon'. Thanks to Samuel Butler, I knew that such a place did not exist. I tried to point this out to him, but he just kept pinching me and ordering me to search harder. Then, came a whole bunch of young chaps who were shouting at the top of their voice 'I found Erewhon, why can't you?'. As they approached nearer, the sea breeze stopped. I turned around and saw that the water had disappeared and there was only a dark, seemingly bottomless pit visible. This was the least of my concerns because soon something even more dreadful was happening. I could feel arms, reaching out from the darkness, inching towards my throat. Soon, those cold hands were around my throat, choking me. Almost everytime, this is the part of the dream, when I wake up with a start.
However, today was different. Today, the dream went a bit further. The White Rabbit, from Alice in Wonderland, came hopping by. He held a watch in one hand and a torch of fire in the other. As he came closer, through the light of the torch, I could finally recognise the owner of the hands that were throttling me. With enormous surprise, I found out that those hands belonged to another look-alike of me. But this time, unlike others, I was sure that this was no look-like. It was indeed me, not someone else. Before, I could ask myself, why I was throttling me, I heard a loud bell ringing somewhere. I saw that the source of the bell was the watch that the rabbit had. I tried to tell him to stop it, but before the words came out, I had woken up to bell sound of the alarm on my mobile.
I could not remember more details about the dream, but I'm sure a lot more happened in it. The surprise at the end of the dream today seemed to be an inner visualization of the state I was in. So, I did what I could not in the dream; I asked myself 'Why am I throttling myself?'. I found that there was no convincing answer forthcoming. It was almost an earth-shattering result for me. Every construct in my mind about the nature of the world seemed to have gone for a toss. Then, as if it were a signal from above, a gust of air from the fan had forced the curtains open and sweet sunlight streamed in. The room glittered golden and I realised that I had discovered myself this morning. I walked to the balcony and saw the dew on the petals of a nearby rose. The smell of a rose had never been so intoxicating. I picked up my guitar and started to string my favourite tune. I'm quite sure that I won't have the nightmare anymore.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Of Paul
The odds now are 1 to 256. Vitually impossible in my opinion. Is it really possible that there may be powers and abilities such as precognition after all?
Lets rewind. It was the start of the WC. I, personally, am not quite inclined to football. However, I did enjoy watching the passion and zeal that was clearly visible when the teams fought (They reminded me that we as humans have remained humans, despite the slow coldness that is creeping in due to Machine age). So, with faint interest, I saw the match-ups and cleared my schedule to fit in some matches which, I felt, would be interesting to watch. Most of them had Germany in them. My interest in Germany was because of the 2002 WC, which was the first time I had witnessed a WC on TV and in which Germany finished second. Despite being second, Kahn standing in front of the goalpost, with his determination to fight for the nation, left quite an impression on my impressionable, young mind.(I think he conceded only 3 in the whole WC, though I'm not quite sure). So, I watched the first few matches of Germany in WC 10'.Few events were unexpected, few weren't. It was when Germany defeated England, that the media started reporting of an Octupus named Paul, in some German city's(I think Oberhausen) aquarium. Reports claimed that Paul was psychic and had correctly predicted the results of the matches that Germany had played in. Initially, as was expected from me, I rubbished the issue and assumed it to be a freak incident. I waited for the Octopus to be disproved. But it never happened. More matches came by and more of his predictions were coming true. A small voice in my head starting bothering me. That small voice was used to viewing a sane world, where predictions meant dabbling with probabilities and no one could ever be sure of anything.
Soon, it became 5 out of 5, 6 out of 6 and it went on. It now becomes 8/8. Thats 1 in 256 chance of occurrence. Nostradamus had better odds.
I sat down and started thinking. There has to be some explanation, I told myself. I started googling for some analysis by experts which might help me understand how it happened. However, nothing solid surfaced. Infact, claims such as 'is the most intelligent invertebrate' only caused me greater bother. So, the next thing I did was to collect data about the event itself. At this point, I decoupled the event into 2 things (i) The manner in which Paul picks(assuming he is not psychic) and (ii) The fact that teams won as per the picks. These are two totally different things if we are to assume that Paul is not psychic. Most of the work below is just to try and understand point(i). Point (ii) coincidentally happening alongside (i) has actually been the cause of the hysteria. I'll leave point (ii) for a later blog. Here are some of the things that I found out and my conclusions from them.
1) Including the Euro Cup, the octopus has picked the German flag 11 out of the 13 times that Germany played against another. In the entire Euro Cup, Paul had always Germany. In WC, the only two times when Paul failed to pick German flag, was against Serbia and against Spain.
11 out of 13 times. It is more likely that he can commit a mistake 2 times out of 13, than him correctly picking 11 times. Hence, I firmly believe that Paul has been a victim of Pavlov's Classical Conditioning (by which a dog learnt to salivate just by hearing a bell) by which it has been trained to recognise the German flag.
Here is what I think must have happened. Over the preiod of its life, the keepers of the aquarium, must have fed the octopus in a certain fashion. They must have always fed the octopus by providing it food in two transparent containers. One of the containers must have had the German flag and the other must have had the flag of some other nation(say X). The trick that they must have used is that they must have kept X container's lid completely shut, i.e. no matter how much force the octopus could have applied, he would not have been able to open the X container. Hence, he would be forced to open the container having the German flag. Over a period of years, and being fed everyday in this fashion is enough to train humans to pick the container having the German flag. And the best part is that, the creature needs intelligence
to be trained in this fashion. Hence, the part stating that Octopi are the most intelligent invertebrates also fits in well.
Since, they are not as intelligent as humans, it is quite possible that they may make a mistake in choosing the containers during the WC. The error rate is 2/13 i.e. about 15.4 %. This number is more 'peaceful' to me than 1/256.
Now, if the above is true, I would assume that PETA could start investigating!!
2) The Octopus has always favoured flags with a dominant amount of Dark Red/ Black in them. This was very interesting to me, because literature claims that they are coulor blind and can at the best differentiate different shades of grey. In all its 14 matches (including Euro Cup), given a choice between a light shaded flag and a dark shaded flag, it has always picked the dark shaded ones. In some cases, where the shading of the flags have been similar, it has made a random choice. This can explain why it once chose Germany over Spain(Euro) and why it then chose Spain over Germany(FIFA WC). 2 occasions, 50 % chance; sound probability supports it.
The theory of evolution may also provide support to the dark shaded flag theory. Octopi are denizens of the deep sea. They find safety in caves which are dark. They find danger in the light as they are visible. Hence, instinct always tell octopi to head for dark areas. I don't claim this to be the exact reason as to why they choose dark shades, but it could a strong contributing factor.
3) The chance that the players might themselves be influenced by the so-called prophecy also exists. However, I'm assuming that the players would be rational enough to give very little weightage to an octopus and more weightage to their experience. Having said that, I'm not totally ruling out the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' possibility. There is a finite, reasonable chance that it is possible for the players to be influenced.
I hope I've provided some food (mussels and oysters actually) for thought. And I hope the world grows a bit saner before jumping on the bandwagon. I must admit that it is remarkable that such an event occurred, but, forgive me, if I don't call Paul a psychic.
Lets rewind. It was the start of the WC. I, personally, am not quite inclined to football. However, I did enjoy watching the passion and zeal that was clearly visible when the teams fought (They reminded me that we as humans have remained humans, despite the slow coldness that is creeping in due to Machine age). So, with faint interest, I saw the match-ups and cleared my schedule to fit in some matches which, I felt, would be interesting to watch. Most of them had Germany in them. My interest in Germany was because of the 2002 WC, which was the first time I had witnessed a WC on TV and in which Germany finished second. Despite being second, Kahn standing in front of the goalpost, with his determination to fight for the nation, left quite an impression on my impressionable, young mind.(I think he conceded only 3 in the whole WC, though I'm not quite sure). So, I watched the first few matches of Germany in WC 10'.Few events were unexpected, few weren't. It was when Germany defeated England, that the media started reporting of an Octupus named Paul, in some German city's(I think Oberhausen) aquarium. Reports claimed that Paul was psychic and had correctly predicted the results of the matches that Germany had played in. Initially, as was expected from me, I rubbished the issue and assumed it to be a freak incident. I waited for the Octopus to be disproved. But it never happened. More matches came by and more of his predictions were coming true. A small voice in my head starting bothering me. That small voice was used to viewing a sane world, where predictions meant dabbling with probabilities and no one could ever be sure of anything.
Soon, it became 5 out of 5, 6 out of 6 and it went on. It now becomes 8/8. Thats 1 in 256 chance of occurrence. Nostradamus had better odds.
I sat down and started thinking. There has to be some explanation, I told myself. I started googling for some analysis by experts which might help me understand how it happened. However, nothing solid surfaced. Infact, claims such as 'is the most intelligent invertebrate' only caused me greater bother. So, the next thing I did was to collect data about the event itself. At this point, I decoupled the event into 2 things (i) The manner in which Paul picks(assuming he is not psychic) and (ii) The fact that teams won as per the picks. These are two totally different things if we are to assume that Paul is not psychic. Most of the work below is just to try and understand point(i). Point (ii) coincidentally happening alongside (i) has actually been the cause of the hysteria. I'll leave point (ii) for a later blog. Here are some of the things that I found out and my conclusions from them.
1) Including the Euro Cup, the octopus has picked the German flag 11 out of the 13 times that Germany played against another. In the entire Euro Cup, Paul had always Germany. In WC, the only two times when Paul failed to pick German flag, was against Serbia and against Spain.
11 out of 13 times. It is more likely that he can commit a mistake 2 times out of 13, than him correctly picking 11 times. Hence, I firmly believe that Paul has been a victim of Pavlov's Classical Conditioning (by which a dog learnt to salivate just by hearing a bell) by which it has been trained to recognise the German flag.
Here is what I think must have happened. Over the preiod of its life, the keepers of the aquarium, must have fed the octopus in a certain fashion. They must have always fed the octopus by providing it food in two transparent containers. One of the containers must have had the German flag and the other must have had the flag of some other nation(say X). The trick that they must have used is that they must have kept X container's lid completely shut, i.e. no matter how much force the octopus could have applied, he would not have been able to open the X container. Hence, he would be forced to open the container having the German flag. Over a period of years, and being fed everyday in this fashion is enough to train humans to pick the container having the German flag. And the best part is that, the creature needs intelligence
to be trained in this fashion. Hence, the part stating that Octopi are the most intelligent invertebrates also fits in well.
Since, they are not as intelligent as humans, it is quite possible that they may make a mistake in choosing the containers during the WC. The error rate is 2/13 i.e. about 15.4 %. This number is more 'peaceful' to me than 1/256.
Now, if the above is true, I would assume that PETA could start investigating!!
2) The Octopus has always favoured flags with a dominant amount of Dark Red/ Black in them. This was very interesting to me, because literature claims that they are coulor blind and can at the best differentiate different shades of grey. In all its 14 matches (including Euro Cup), given a choice between a light shaded flag and a dark shaded flag, it has always picked the dark shaded ones. In some cases, where the shading of the flags have been similar, it has made a random choice. This can explain why it once chose Germany over Spain(Euro) and why it then chose Spain over Germany(FIFA WC). 2 occasions, 50 % chance; sound probability supports it.
The theory of evolution may also provide support to the dark shaded flag theory. Octopi are denizens of the deep sea. They find safety in caves which are dark. They find danger in the light as they are visible. Hence, instinct always tell octopi to head for dark areas. I don't claim this to be the exact reason as to why they choose dark shades, but it could a strong contributing factor.
3) The chance that the players might themselves be influenced by the so-called prophecy also exists. However, I'm assuming that the players would be rational enough to give very little weightage to an octopus and more weightage to their experience. Having said that, I'm not totally ruling out the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' possibility. There is a finite, reasonable chance that it is possible for the players to be influenced.
I hope I've provided some food (mussels and oysters actually) for thought. And I hope the world grows a bit saner before jumping on the bandwagon. I must admit that it is remarkable that such an event occurred, but, forgive me, if I don't call Paul a psychic.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Elections at B
When the Academic Coucil Elections were conducted last term, I had a feeling that something was wrong, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it. So, today morning, I decided to try and work out what it was that was bothering me.
To those of you who aren't aware of Academic Council, it is an elected council at my institute, which acts an interface between the students and the institute. Last term, 5 people stood up for elections. 4 were to be elected finally. The election was held in the procedure below:
1) Each student has the right to vote.
2) Each student was given a piece of paper to write. He/She was expected to write exactly 4 names (Any deviations from this were discarded in the counting phase). These bits of paper were then put into the ballot box(the standard secret ballot procedure)
3) Simple counting ensued and results announced
Now, please stop reading for a while and think if everything seems OK. Did we, through this process, really end up choosing most preferred candidates? The answer to this question, in my opinion, is NO.
My reasoning for the claim is that we did not take the internal preferences of each student into account. I believe that each student internally sets up ranking for each of the candidates. For example, if A,B,C,D and E were standing for elections, I would have my own assessment and ranking as C>B>A>E>D. Hence, based on this, I would cast 'a vote each' for C,B,A and E. But surely, 'a vote each' has not really taken my internal preferences into account.
As an illustration, let me make it a bit simple. Let us assume that 4 people are standing for elections. There are only 3 elected seats, hence, only 3 out of the 4 will finally be chosen.
Let me also assume that there are 6 people voting. Let their votes be
P1: A B C
P2: A D C
P3: D A C
P4: A D B
P5: A B C
P6: A B C
Now, based on this, you can swiftly see that A has 6 votes, B has 4, C has 5 and D has 3. So, A B and C are elected. But now a question arises. Note C; this candidate has been only the third best preference of 5 of them and not all preferred by a sixth. Do you really think it is right for him to get elected? This is an issue which will always crop up if internal preferences are not asked for.
Now, suppose I take the internal preferences(I'm assuming it is the same order in which the student has voted i.e. for P1, A>B>C>D). I decide to attach a ranking to the preferences. For example, for P1's choices A>B>C>D, let us give 3 points(votes) to A, 2 to B, 1 to C and 0 to D.
If I were to do this for all the 6 and add up points for each candidate, then I'm in for a small surprise.
This time, A has 17 pts, B has 7, C has 5 and D has 7. And now A B and D will be elected.
This particular solution of A B and D being elected seems like a more optimal solution to me than choosing A B and C. The reason I say this is, since we took internal preferences into account, we have ended up by maximising the group's overall utility.
I welcome any other viewpoints. I have not factored many other real life factors such as regionalism, students making internal preferences without even having an inkling of each candidate's agenda, human errors in casting and counting. These factors are important because, I think, it makes the election more of a popularity contest instead of the utility maximisation mechanism. However, for the moment, I'm neglecting these facors.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
When I started writing this, I had some ideas about writing my grand theories of the mysteries (no more) of life. However, time does not permit me to write more at this moment......
All I can say is that, most of my theories finally end at the question 'What For'.........
There seems to be no logical way of answering that question and some of my blogs-to-come will only be an attempt at understanding and answering the question...
Thats it for the first blog.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)