Monday, 25 April 2016

On Tolerance, Intolerance and Infinite Tolerance

 On Tolerance, Intolerance and Infinite Tolerance


Engineering is all about fixing limits and tolerances and achieving them. Civil engineers have been using their plumb bobs and spirit levels, Mechanical engineers their Vernier calipers and micrometers and Electrical engineers their multi-meters and so on for a long time to check that their structures, machines or installations are actually built exactly as required. If there is a large deviation, the structure may look like Leaning Tower of Pisa, the machine may make terrible noise (if it works) and the electrical gadget may get overheated or cause a short circuit, all leading to premature failure and resulting in heavy loss of property and perhaps even lives. This would be totally unacceptable. However, absolute perfection is also not achievable in the practical world. As small deviations from the target values may not really matter, they need to be tolerated. But the question is how small is small?

Engineers having deep knowledge and vast experience in their fields come together to decide appropriate tolerance levels for different parameters used in engineering and set upper and lower limits for them. These values are specified in various Codes, Guides, Standards etc. supposed to be followed in practice. Exceeding any of the limits can be a cause for repair or rejection. However, some deviations may be reviewed case by case, considering the design intents, nature of duty etc. and minor non conformances accepted as a concession. It may be said that generally engineers work within a narrow band of tolerances. You may call them 'intolerant', but it is for good of the society.

Some engineers are refining processes and tightening quality assurance measures to achieve 'six sigma' or 'zero defect'levels. Some others are making their products/ systems more and more 'fault tolerant' by using superior materials, accommodating wider margins on input parameters, adding fault detection and alarm systems, auto-correction mechanisms etc., so that their products/systems can withstand wider fluctuations in external factors.  It means they are making their products/ systems more tolerant.

Most of the things in life are not quantifiable or measurable like in engineering. Still we individually have different tolerance limits for them. For example how much spicy or sour or bitter food one can eat, how much one can remember, how loud music one is prepared to hear etc. Every one tries to live within his limits. If he crosses them it may cause suffering.

We generally use words 'tolerable' on 'intolerable' for the behavior of other persons interacting with us. Actually 'tolerance' means 'mutual adjustment' in interpersonal relationships and 'intolerance' means lack of it. We can bear the unpleasantness in our exchanges up to our tolerance limits and react, sometimes violently, if it crosses the limit. These limits are not fixed and depend on many other factors such as mood, our relationships and prejudices. Social environment also makes a difference. 

Tolerance or mutual adjustment is the foundation on which long term relations are built. A family can peacefully stay together only if every member can accommodate the other members tolerating their behavior, fancies and idiosyncrasies. If it is not possible, the intolerant member tends to move away. In earlier times all members of the family used to have a close bond. It has been weakening as the individuals' tolerance levels are reducing and the families are disintegrating.  

There are only one or two children in each family now a days and their busy parents are unable to spend some quality time with them. So they try to compensate that by spending money and giving their children whatever they ask. As a corollary the children discard anything they do not like. When parents strive to give their children the best of everything at an early age, they are sowing seeds for materially insatiable monsters that are prone to sloth, apathy, avarice and fear. This gives rise to a new disorder called Parent Induced Wastefulness (PIW). When these children grow up they are unable to cope up with the real world and develop an intolerance for it. They can neither complete their studies, nor hold on to any job nor stay happily with their family. 


Tolerance is considered to be a great virtue as it is a binding force uniting the family and the society. Sant Eknath was able to forgive the miscreants who repeatedly threw mud on him whenever he was returning home from a river after taking bath. He simply walked back, without saying a word, and took another dip in the river. There are stories about other saintly persons who also preached and practiced forgiveness (क्षमा), indicating their high level of Tolerance. However, it is not possible for normal human beings to attain that status. They will flair up when their temper reaches flash point because of mismatch between their expectations and the reality, exceeding their tolerance limits.  

Word 'Intolerance' had suddenly cropped up in the news reports, when some little known 'Intelligentsia' went on returning their awards as a protest towards some perceived intolerance. Media created a sort of hype, sometimes going to such ridiculous levels that their noise about 'intolerance' itself became intolerable.  We hear terms like 'Infinite tolerance' in philosophical or metaphysical discussions about an infinitely huge void, whatever that means. 

Highly interesting exchange of views on this subject are compiled in this blog. 

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Ashok Malhotra :
          I think "Intolerance" really means "failure to tolerate" or "unable to absorb an issue that's against your natural instincts" or even to "impulsively react to an issue before even absorbing the matter".
   Only the humans are endowed with a large three stage brain: The cerebrum that fills up most of the skull, involved in remembering, problem solving, thinking, feeling n control movements. The cerebellum, at the back  under the cerebrum, controls coordination and balance, the brain stem, beneath the cerebrum in front of the cerebellum, connects the brain to the spinal cord and controls automatic functions such as breathing, digestion, heart rate and blood pressure etc.
   Size of female brains is about 130 cm3 smaller than men. But it is in the use of our cerebrum that we humans differ from other life forms n within ourselves.
  Those who react more impulsively, will be categorized intolerant. I think the  humans have a great capacity to learn n evolve and can be trained to be tolerant.
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K.Natarajan :
Nostalgia on schooldays, after the session with Ashok Malhotra ji!

Medulla oblongata is probably the technical name for brain stem, which I have read in my school days.
The react-response control function is the privilege of the brain when man is awake.The transition from react to response is what is accomplished by 'enriching ' the brain, which, I think, is the unique privilege of man.
The instinct of self preservation is embedded in the 'react' function, which, like the shutdown function in a reactor, do not wait for a seasoned analysis and command-response- from the brain but acts on the spur of the moment as a best effort to 'save'., under quick provocations, like the involuntary jumping back with the fast approaching truck.
When man goes to sleep, Nature, amazingly, passes on the essential controls to Medulla oblongata, which partially adopts the control functions, like the involuntary action with mosquito bite in sleep!
All of us have reasonable built up capacity in brain for a proper response-tolerance-,if we can curtail the urge to react,immediately, no great training is required!
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Ashok Malhotra
  Thanks for remembering the "school days" the Malgudi days, the Chandamama, the Garth clips. There is only a zero between 8 n 80.
  Coming back to the subject, there is a paradigm difference between an individual's intolerance response, where the fight may be over a common interest item, e.g. the age old saas-bahu one and that of a crowd, a community, a country or a religious sect's response, where more complex issues like historical conflicts, ideology, dominance etc come into play and the the tolerance levels go down considerably, some thing like a common denominator factor e.g. inter conflicts between the Muslims, Christianity, Jews, Hindus communities etc. Inter sectoral conflicts are now diluted due to many social reforms, though not extinct as yet.
    Some time back we had discussed the wealth disparities n one conclusion was that the communal tolerance levels are decreasing now because of social disparities.
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Mohan Rao :
Where is Intolerance
As you can see from the subject title, Intolerance starts with an “I”. This ‘I” in intolerance should tell us that it is the person who feels intolerant is the one who primarily suffers from it, rather than the object of that intolerance, be it a person, a thing, or an act, or whatever else it may be. So, remember, it is always better to be tolerant, than be intolerant.

As engineers, we know what tolerance does. Two parts can move or fit relatively better if correct tolerance is provided for with proper allowances in machining of parts. As you get down to zero tolerance, parts chafe at each other and with less than zero tolerance (or intolerance), things don’t fit and have to go back to the shop for refit. But don’t feel sorry for yourself if you are intolerant. It comes with the human baggage. Soon I will tell you why we have evolved with this ‘tolerance/intolerance’ thing in our bag. But act on it to turn yourself into a tolerant being rather than an intolerant pest. Your wellbeing depends on it.

We are programmed (by the power that be) to have the power to understand the universe we are brought into. The key to this power is in separating this universe into what the Chinese call ‘yins’ and ‘yangs’ or simply two opposites (negatives and positives) such as day and night, love and hate, up and down, full or empty, light or darkness, war and peace. Think about it:
we tend to separate everything we sense (see, hear, smell, touch or taste) and sort them as good or bad. Often we even find fifty shades in between yin and yang in our quest for exactness. Half of them we tolerate and half of them we don’t. Where we don’t we improvise. Where we don’t like either, we improvise again. Rain or shine. Rain we take an umbrella, shine we take our umbrella again if we don’t like the shine in too much tropical sun.  There are times where we don’t have the power to improvise. Then we simply don’t have a choice. We run away from it or find a shelter. More to understanding the situation. As I said earlier, we are what we feel.

Our senses play games with us as to who we are. Imagine for an instant someone who cannot see, hear or even unable to feel other senses (smell, touch or taste). Be in the shoes of such a person and try to meditate in your mind what you will be feeling like. The universe will be a total void and unimaginably incomprehensible. Or you may feel that the universe is a mess of a blob with nothing in it to separate. Or some such thing. Such a person will be under the total mercy of someone else to survive if at all.

Here is the key to turn the tolerance-intolerance situations around in your favor. Meditate on each situation and you will find an answer. Peel the problem like you do with an onion, until you explore the intricacies of the problem, causes and solutions. If you keep on peeling you will ultimately find that there is nothing more to peel, and ‘nothing’ is all that is left.

You will come to the revelation that the tolerance-intolerance situation is simply your own creation and it really does not exist.
If you are meditating on a love-hate situation, you will find that love is more enduring than hate and you will be finding ways to change the situation for the better. If lactose-intolerance is your problem you will find the solution would be to go for lactose-free milk or do away with milk altogether. Whatever the situation be, you will come to the realization that the problem really does not exist in the mind of the ‘power that be’ and that it is just a silly game played in your mind by the sense-relations that
you created for yourself at first encounter.

Always realize that separation, love or hate, war or peace or whatever yin and yang, is your own creation. Two things cannot exist. Only one thing is justifiably the right thing. There is only tolerance, there is no room for intolerance. There is only love and no room for hate. The same mind can be your friend in sorting out the mess it creates. Without your action it can be your enemy too.
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Ravi Rustagi :
Nicely put in engineer’s lingo.
There is a practical problem still, as Firstly most politicians and religious leaders are not engineers.
Secondly the key point is both interacting parts are engineered to accept mutual tolerance per well defined technical rules.
Unfortunately, this is not the case in resolving current issues facing the world- such as terrorism, reservation, religious zealots etc. The usual cry is: Let the other leader be tolerant, not me!

I would think all leaders who matter be sent to mandatory school of management training in tolerance, acceptance of mutual love and understanding and of course yoga. This must be the pre-requisite course 101, before an MP takes a seat in the Parliament for example. There are minimum qualification and training requirements even for a low level engineer, why not for the powerful leaders?

If such a course, be conducted in a foreign country, so much the better.

As an optimist by nature, I am hopeful Mohan Rao, your beautiful idea will take practical next step.

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Ashok Malhotra
A case for Intolerance:
    It may appear that all forms of Intolerance are bad, but that is not at all the case. The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are central to the issue of "intolerance of all forms of evil or अधर्म". The image of Lord Vishnu itself embodies "Giving or forgiving, Patience, Prepared to fight n readiness for a war sounding", all together with the four arms. That's the complete picture n ideal for the mankind. Both tolerance and intolerance are complementary and have their time n place. Thanks
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Another justification of INTOLERANCE:

Kiran Dixit <kiran.dixit@gmail.com>
To npcil_retirees@googlegroups.com Apr 17 at 11:11 AM
Recently there is an ongoing debate on tolerance and intolerance. a general impression is created that tolerance is a great virtue and intolerance is evil. Some thoughts/ comments on this
The words tolerance, tolerant, intolerance etc., originate from verb to tolerate, which means to condone some ERROR, committed by some person, group, machine, system or manufacturing process.
Tolerance means permissible Error Band.
For an ideal person or ideal machine, no error would occur and hence no tolerance is necessary. However in real life situation, when no one is perfect, errors have to be accepted with due provisions for accommodating them. These provisions for accommodation decide what is permissible error i.e. tolerance.
Thus tolerance is accepting some error (or unacceptable) as fait accompli.
Tolerance always has finite limit. Accepting a single part, outside tolerance band can cause unacceptable malfunctioning of machine or system.
Non conformance due to error beyond tolerance band, can be reviewed and judged by only those knowing reasons or provisions for acceptance. Those who do not know such reasons should be intolerant to any error beyond tolerance limit
Intolerance is essential in many situations. some examples
Any QS/QC/QA MUST necessarily be intolerant to deviations from specifications/drawings. Only the designer, who knows design intent can decide on disposition. Others must refrain from making any judgement
Management of a company must be intolerant to habitual non performers
BSF personnel must be intolerant to infiltrators at international borders
During a war the army must be intolerant to enemy
In the context of debate in media on this subject, some observations
The slogans such as "Bharat ki Barbadi", " Bharat ke Tukade" etc. are very clearly unacceptable and beyond any permissible tolerance band. If considering these as unacceptable is intolerance, such intolerance is perfectly justified.
Some media persons (Presstitutes) are intimidating general public to consider such persons (b*****ds giving such slogans) as heroes, and that is also beyond any tolerance band
In Historical situations, intolerance was necessary. Consequence of tolerance have been severe. Some examples
In 1938, Chamberlain (British PM) and other allied leaders, showed tolerance to Hitler and condoned the act of gobbling up of Austria and Czeckoslovakia, so as to prevent war. But such tolerance did not prevent World War II. Finally Intolerant Churchill stepped in to fight the war and won.
King of Calicut was unduly tolerant to Vasco de Gama. In any other country, the foreigner would have been arrested, disarmed and then welcome
Prithviraj Chauhan was tolerant to Ghori many times. Ghori was absolutely intolerant at the first opportunity itself.
Freedom struggle of India would not have been possible if the leaders and public had been tolerant to foreign rulers
The intention here is to say that intolerance is not always bad and tolerance is not always good.

These are my views. Those who dislike, please exercise use of tolerance button on keyboards (delete)
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Shakti Sharma <shakti1947@gmail.com>
You have excellently analyzed the two. Like mother some time she tolerate the mistakes of the child & other time thrash also and She is right. Thanks for sharing the good thought.
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Ravi Rustagi

Dixit ji has described that Intolerance can take many forms not only in modern politics, but since the olden days of Prithvi Raj Chauhan.

When I was in work, special consultant was hired to educate all managers on the problem of sexual harassment in american companies. Stealing company trade secrets and sexual harassment were labeled zero tolerance.

Would you believe Zero Tolerance rule against sexual harassment has been promulgated in schools across America? It is definable and measurable like inspection and quality control in engineering. I read in the news paper that a 5 year old boy had kissed a 5 year old girl student in the class. This was considered unacceptable, and the boy was sent home, not allowed to rejoin the class. Sort of rustication….

Another issue of ugly intolerance has been in religious matters. I had attended the World Religion Summit in the United Nations in New York in year 2000. A definition of tolerance was formulated- 'respecting all religions, not to disrespect, abuse any other religion, not to convert the faithful men and women of other religions by force or inducement'. It appears very logical, and the Millenium Summit had a consensus view but finally the proselytising faiths did not let it go through.

So my dear friends, the definition of Tolerance must be of Mutual Acceptance that All Faiths are Sacred and Valid, and no Faith should be Allowed to Claim Superiority over Any Other Faith.

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Mohan Rao <mohanrao227@gmail.com>
To npcil_retirees@googlegroups.com Apr 22 at 8:14 AM

Rustagi Saab and Friends:

I am pleased that your post has come up under the topic of ‘Tolerance and Intolerance’. Ideally, I agree with what you say, i.e no faith should be allowed to claim superiority over any other faith. My concern however is how we can advance this ideal in societies and the world at large. So much of blood has been shed in mankind’s history over two millennia over religions and with so much of bad blood, intolerance, fanaticism, the task seems to a formidable one. The adage that religion is the opium of the people seems to reflect our dilemma.

All faiths have evolved, grown, often misunderstood and mistreated, documented and re-documented by humans towards reform. The humans live in the real world that basically behaves like a market place. That seems to be however an historic undercurrent in some faiths that erroneously thinks often that it has the truth and none else and which surfaces as sectarian issues. All types of human pressures come to bear, in such cases orating, teaching, sermonizing, even cajoling, and ultimately proselytizing, threatening with severe ideas of sin, punishment, societal pressures to convert, inducements, and in general intolerance over a section of the population for religious reasons, etc. Even taxation, wars and genocide have been used in history to put undue pressure and change society. The weaker sections of society (the poor, the uneducated, the vulnerable) often succumb to these pressures and my hunch is that developing countries suffer more than developed ones and countries dominated by a single religion find it more difficult to prevent religious pressures put by the religious majority and the local institutions on the minorities. Often governments themselves committed to one religion may try to influence its religion over the minorities using its powers on education, immigration, employment, demography, segregation, etc. All this is common knowledge.

What do we do? Perhaps a whole range of measures like secular education, clear separation of faith and politics, even legislative steps may be required where religious tolerance is lacking to change the current paradigm? But who is to bell the cat? The world as we see it will have to change and commit itself to the view that religion should be a matter of personal choice and the national ethos in every nation should promote this view and work against forces of proselytization and social factors involved. For countries that are on the flipside of this notion, there will have to be a paradigm shift, if things have to change.

The world being a community of nations has to bear a responsibility as well and institutions such as the UN have to worry about these issues which I do not see happening now. Before the ‘utopian’ ideal that Shri Rustagi talked about can exist, there is the historical baggage which has to be shed in which often nations themselves promoted the opposite in the past, of establishing religious states and even at the expense of minorities leading to bloody crusades and genocide.

There may be reason for hope despite the current state of affairs in some countries. Overall the civilization has moved forward in the direction of pluralism, non-intervention by the state in the religions of people, and the notion that religion is one’s own journey in finding a meaning in life and meeting one’s God of his choosing. There is hope for a world where different religions meet one another not in illwill but in peace.
Tolerance and intolerance are both human nature. Our task is to ensure that religions live together in peace and with mutual respect and understanding, which requires enhancing our values of tolerance and suppressing forces of intolerance.

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Ashok Malhotra
Role of Religion in the Tolerance-Intolerance Tussles:
   Sh Rustagi n Sh Mohanrao have aptly brought out the Religion as the biggest influential factor affecting this ideological tussle. Generally it is often easier to define a problem, necessary as a first step, than to suggest solutions.
         In a society, the opposing forces always follow the 3 Newtonian laws, as in physics e.g.
  1. Action n reaction forces are equal n opposite till acted upon by a third force, (normally remaining dormant) e.g.the entry of females to some temples as was recently directed by the Courts.
2. A tradition continues to be in vogue(tolerated) till it is diverted by the force of intolerance, e.g. the sati pratha, sacrificial killings etc.
3. Rates of Changes in the Social Structures are directly proportional to the Public, Democratic or Statute forces applied against them, e.g. the Social Liberation n Reservations for the Backward Classes, Equalities for the Feminine Class from the Patriarchal Societies n Family values, Dowry laws, Parental laws, Property rights, Social Equalities, what not.
   Hope we will move to strengthen the Reformist Forces. Amin.
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A View on the "Politics and the Political class"  (Partly a reaction to Sh VCA views on political class)
   Now a days Politics has assumed an abusive intonation, or a dust bin, any thing rejected by even a small section of the society is dubbed "political". Is this picture realistic or perceptive?
    Politics is defined as "The art of the possible". Or in a way "finding a way through the murky path".
    All those who have handled PRO or front desk jobs, would be aware how tough it is to handle people. But that is exactly what our Leaders are meant to do. The present imbroglio of "dirty politics" is not unlike the case of "one fish making the whole pond filthy". The positive side rarely sticks, n the negative side gets enlarged.
     Inspire of a few things lacking, ours is one of the best Constitution as far as "for the people, by the people" is concerned, not for National GDP though. Many Times I am very much impressed by the arguments n speeches of our Leaders in the Parliament n outside, but also equally disappointed by the obstructions created for functioning n reforms.
  The dirt associated is two dimensional: 1. The struggle to dominate, Influence Voters, and be in power by hook or by crook.
2. The Corruption associated with the wielding of Power.
     The positive aspect, by n large is "the Sustenance and not Subversion of Governance".
     Summing up this monotonous issue, but a necessary reminder once in a while is :
    "Our failures are not systemic but mostly in planning and execution (corruption included) that need to be eliminated through hard work n dedication". Thanks for the stand by.
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Mohan Rao :
 Real-time systems and distributed RT systems have something analogous to human situations. A reasonably tolerant person can become intolerant in the blink of an eye. It is fallacious to think that in human situations there is all the time in the world to 'fix' a bad situation. The un-premeditated real-time crimes that take place between individuals and groups everyday everywhere are no
different than similar situations that RT and DiRTs have to handle in the C&I world. In both cases, solutions have to be achieved in a nano-second environment.
In Nuclear, the situations get still worse: with some truant reactivity addition, power rise can take over faster than you can control perhaps even with a well-designed real-time system. It looks like a war of electrons: one the one hand, in RT (distributed included) computer control systems, the electrons in the system have to work fast enough to be tolerant of the speed of the process it is trying to manage; without which situation will be intolerant and the reactions will be to shutdown the process (sorry for my
clumsy lingo. I am not a C&I kind of person). In a nuclear reactor situation, electrons in the RT system have to compete with the neutrons in a reactor. It must have been a challenge to Shri Chandra in developing his book particularly dealing with reactor systems. I agree with Malhotra Saab's observation that both tolerance and intolerance are complementary and have their time and place. My problem is how we can operationalize this view in a world where a nuclear war or any other human folly can be triggered in a fraction of a second and the situation can degenerate faster than anyone can control. Don't we have the sword of damocles hanging on mankind ready to fall? So far we survived the Cuban missile crises, the Cold War, and perhaps some more situations with no more than a 'dent'. How can we be sure that the next crisis will not be a write-off?
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Ashok Malhotra
   Extending the DPHS systems or their further extended versions to managing the human affairs is a fascinating idea.
      But definite trends towards this are visible n imminent.
     With the development of Quantum   computing, Robots programmed to act like the Humans and Humans, by n large, trained to act in predictable ways, the merging point doesn't seem to be too distant.
      But of course that will be the "Brave New World" of Aldus Huxley and George Orwell's "1984" combined.
   A lot of us may then be lamenting about the "Good Old Days of 2020", the natural n human beauty, the flora n fauna, the enigma of God n faith, the joys of childhood, the joys of journeys, of meetings, n separations, n relationships, of literature n poetry, not the least of group activities (npcil included) n many more.
    There is so much joy in the "Unknown n Nature", though some pains as well.
   How would you like to Relive this life?
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Ashok Malhotra
   Extending the DPHS systems or their further extended versions to managing the human affairs is a fascinating idea.
      But definite trends towards this are already  visible n imminent.
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K.Natarajan :
"The un-premeditated real-time crimes that take place between individuals and groups everyday everywhere are no different than similar situations that RT and DiRTs have to handle in the C&I world. In both cases, solutions have to be achieved in a nano-second
environment. "

This is  true in the case of a nuclear bomb, where no control is possible and we just have to say 'Jane dho' With the gift of delayed neutrons by Nature,  in a nuclear reactor, the control systems have enough time to assess and act, ie, to respond.
as is the case in real time human situations.
That is why I  put the response control function  as  the  unique privilege of the  human brain . The transition from react function of lesser animals to response function of man  is what is accomplished by 'enriching ' the brain,  by knowledge, intellect, information etc etc.which again ,  is the unique privilege of man.
Problem comes when man perceives every action by others as a bomb situation and try to REACT quickly,  ie  Intolerance.
The right move should be to absorb, think and act, ie. RESPOND,    meaning Tolerance,  as in a well designed control system!
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Mohan Rao
Malhotra Saab: It appears to me that intolerance and infinite tolerance are synonyms. In today’s world, without this synonymity, future would be unthinkable. On the top of this if I take your earlier advice that tolerance and intolerance are both necessary for the world to function, the whole range of emotivity, tolerance, infinite tolerance and intolerance, all seem ‘symbiotic and synergetic’.
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Ashok Malhotra
Really, Mohanraoji, if you say so, it must be true. We are dealing with the vicissitudes of human mind- the most enigmatic of God's creations.
    Liked your expressions "he whole range of emotivity, tolerance, infinite tolerance and intolerance, all seem ‘symbiotic and synergetic’."  
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Yet another form of Intolerance:
FROM V.C.AGRAWAL
Some big named have been taken who perhaps have total GYAN of of our grate Maha Kavaya THE RAMAYANA.and its विवेचना। There is nothing with me to do analyses as I am not the authority blessed by All Mighty to do any such sort of analyses.The very first page of Ramayan very clearly indicates that RAMAYANA HAS BEEN WRITTEN BY GOSWAMI TULASI DAS WITH THE BLESSINGS OF LORD RAMA AND WITH THE PERMISSION OF LORD SHIVA.
The person doing the analyses if not blessed by God is totally not authorized to do any sort of analyses. Ramayana also clearly say in big words that many such PANDITS will erupt to mislead public in this ERA  कलयुग॰
Me being a very small do not know much about analyses. But religiously read RAMAYAN daily past almost 50 years and daily found new meanings as I further read.
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Anand Ghare
Dear Agarwalji is permitted to find a new meaning every time he reads, but nobody else should do that. Really घोर कलजुग!
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S Dayal
Jaakee Rahee Bhavanaa Jaisee
Prabhu Moorat Dekhee Tin Taisee
        -  From RAM Charit Manas
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anand ghare <abghare@yahoo.com>

Sorry Agarwalji for my 'intolerance'. However, I do not still subscribe to a view that NONE has any right to say anything about certain scriptures and thought it is intolerable.In my openion. ALL books are meant to be read and understood. Not to be just worshiped. If the language is not currently in use, you have to interpret the meanings of some words as per your ability.

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Shah Nawaz Ahmad
I wouldn't agree more Ghare Bandhu The fear of being wrong dulls all creativity. I think that's why all scriptures dwell on seeking forgiveness And inculcating kindness, which is another form of forgiveness
So let us discuss But discuss with sensitivity ABG thus did great ho!
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Ashok Malhotra
    Now I know what Einstein meant by "Time Warp", also revealed is "Infinite Tolerance" .
    Dear All, I Pray: Let this topic be never Ending n last till Eternity, so, every day a new meaning is revealed".
    Also why Salman Rushdie, the author of "Satanic Verses" wrote this book n is suffering the ignomity for life, from his sect at least.
   "हम को मन की शक्ति देना, मन विजय करें,
    दूसरों की जय से पहले, खुद को जय करें।"
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Shah Nawaz Ahmad
We are all small children in front of Tulsidas
I wonder whether Tulsidas would have liked to put many injunctions to our interpretation, and understanding
Poetry is not to be understood it needs to be revelled IN!
and i, Tulsidas is outstanding poetry!! lets revel in the various hues of his poetry beautiful
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From: Rustagi

Silence and Revelation are different techniques from Argument and Doubting. Swami Vivekanada travelled places till he met his master Ram Krishna, and gained para-vidya. In fact, history is on record that no one gained truth, except by Silence/Revelation/Guru Grace.
Thank you Ahmad bhai.
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Ravi Rustagi
May I present the following bits of my mind.

1. The debate on intolerance can be summed up in two parts-
i). Everyone has a right to speak his mind, even if the voice is shaky, because it is his mind, and it is his tongue.
ii). No one, however has a right to speak other’s mind, like Tulsidassji’s mind in our ongoing debate, except a right to express his own shortcomings or ignorance with a desire to know better or remove personal ignorance. Take the example of Arjuna questioning Krishna left or right, because it was Arjuna’s right to ask question and dispel his ignorance pertaining to yoga. But Arjuna never ever expressed disbelief in Krishna’s preachings. This is called Shraddha, absence of all disbeliefs or misbeliefs. Shraddha is a virtue, Shansaya is a vice.
श्रद्धावाॅंल्लभते ज्ञानम्. संशयात्मा विनश्यति [BG 4.39, 4.40]. This is a fine line of demarkation between Shraddha and Sanshay. What is important is our motive Bhav, the purity of mind.

2. Let us be clear! we are very ordinary folks, compared to Tulsidass ji the rishi of his era. I fully support what sh VC Agarwalji asserts that the debate should not lose focus. Our purpose is to gain knowledge through interpersonal exchanges, rather than to show off one-up-manship or cause disrepute to any chaupai in Ramayana. I also agree that no one has a right to doubt any chaupai, in scriptures unless one can rise to that lofty level. The ‘misunderstood' freedom of speech is mostly in terms of political issues of today, and day to day living style in society, but not for religious scriptures.

3. There is no other lofty example of tolerance in the world, as India. Why? Because India’s ancient religious values are not frozen in time and continues to assimilate not only other religions, but also science, democracy and modern trends, without losing its identity for promoting the spiritual quest over outer forms and dogmas. The British tried to eradicate pride in india’s past through condescending and inaccurate interpretations of the Vedas, but failed. Therefore, the distinguished members of our Group must take pride in our ancient cultural heritage and religious past, if we are to remain tolerant.

4. Let us remind ourselves how lovingly we pay homage to the departed friends, regardless of Hindu, Muslim, or Christian etc, inspite of many shortcomings the departed soul may have. It is because it is human nature to think the good a friend has done. Paying eulogy is an opportunity to regain our tolerance or dispel the ugly intolerance from our minds and hearts. But why reserve kind and loving words only for the dead? Wisdom requires that we constantly nourish the power of Love, at least after retirement. I do feel that more sweet words and Love has become a part of me, after joining the Group.


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 K.Natarajan
"The un-premeditated real-time crimes that take place between individuals and groups everyday everywhere are no different than similar situations that RT and DiRTs have to handle in the C&I world. In both cases, solutions have to be achieved in a nano-second
environment. "
This is  true in the case of a nuclear bomb, where no control is possible and we just have to say 'Jane dho' With the gift of delayed neutrons by Nature,  in a nuclear reactor, the control systems have enough time to assess and act, ie, to respond. as is the case in real time human situations.
Problem comes when man perceives every action by others as a bomb situation and try to REACT quickly,  ie  Intolerance.
The right move should be to absorb, think and act, ie. RESPOND, meaning Tolerance,  as in a well designed control system!  
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Thursday, 7 April 2016

Evolution of Engineering and Serendipity

16/08/2016: A new addition on the latest example of Serendipity is added at the end.

13/04/2016: Some additional paragraphs added to include 'nuclear engineering' and take the journey up to present age .  
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The first early man who wielded a club in his hands got a 'leverage' over others. The first man who used a sharp edged flat stone as a tool or a weapon used the mechanical advantage of 'inclined plane' and another man who noticed that a bent branch of a tree springs back when released, used it to throw a stone or a stick with this 'spring'. Perhaps some time later, another early man realized that rolling a round shaped log or stone is easier than pushing, pulling or lifting and carrying it. He can be said to have discovered 'the wheel'. All of these events had occurred in prehistoric days, but the lever, the inclined plane, the spring and the wheel are used in some form or other ever since and in most of the machines or mechanical gadgets even today. It may be a coincidence that वामन , परशुराम, श्रीराम and श्रीकृष्णअवतार of दशावतार of श्रीविष्णु भगवान  used no weapon, परशु , धनुष्य  and सुदर्शन चक्र in the same order. Discovery of fire, another epoch making discovery was perhaps made in parallel and independent of search of getting mechanical advantage. All of them would fall under 'serendipity'

Mechanical engineering was primarily put to use to develop effective weapons to fight wild animals, tame domestic animals and also to conquer and lord over other people. जिसकी लाठी उसकी भैंस !  has been the law of jungle. The weapons were also suitably modified to make useful tools to cut, dig, shove etc. in initial period and then for more sophisticated uses such as transportation and even production of goods after the 'civilization' of mankind. Once the fire was brought under control it was also used to extract and shape metals to desired forms to make better weapons, implements and tools. Thus evolution of mechanical engineering and also metallurgy has no known beginning and is going on for millions of years. However, it got a major breakthrough when steam engines were invented to convert heat energy into mechanical energy.

when the early man, who was initially a hunter, stopped wandering and started cultivation and farming, he built houses to live and roads to take his cattle and carts. Humans beings social animals, they formed villages and lived in groups. It was the start of 'civilization'. The activities of building houses, other structures, roads, bunds, canals, drainage etc came under 'Civil' engineering. This branch is also as old as ancient civilizations.

Man was fascinated by the natural chemical reactions and went on making experiments with various metals, nonmetals, salts, minerals and chemicals. When he was successful in getting useful outputs in a predictable way, he worked on optimization of the processes and 'Chemical engineering' was born. Main motivations for this branch were to make explosive weapons and useful medicines, paints, ink etc. and also the hunt for a magic formula of converting copper or iron it to gold.

For some reason, Electrical engineering was born much later, less than a couple of centuries ago. This branch further developed into electronics, computer, communications, Internet etc. in leaps and bounds and its rate of growth is much faster than any other branch. But, why did it make such a late entry? That too through 'Serendipity' in Michael Faraday's experiment! Some technological as well as metaphysical aspects are discussed in this interesting blog.

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Simple Definition of serendipity for refreshing memory:
: Luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for
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K.Natarajan on EVOLUTION of  ENGINEERING from EPICS ERA!

The long gap in the evolution of engineering knowledge,  with the first revolution as late as 1700, and the second with Electricity after a still further  200 years, followed  by leaps and bounds development of other engineering branches, was reminiscent of my erratic KNOWLEDGE CURVE  proposition mail, a few months ago!

I revisited the thread to find a reference to the Indo-Lanka  bridge of Ramayana  built by  'monkeys'. (VANARAS would have been a more  dignified  word,  Mohan Rao ji), which reminded me of our ancient engineering  as depicted in our epics.
Vishwakarma was the architect of  the illusory palace in Mahabharata, where the  pandavas  stayed.
His son Nala is mentioned as the architect, the task given on the advice of the sea god along with an assurance to Rama that he would support it from below, of the  bridge  over the sea to  Lanka.(quoted by  Mohan Rao  as Hanuman,  who was  more of a devotional, emotional  type than an engineer )
The Ramayana  story goes that Rama prayed to the sea god for three days for help in crossing the ocean. With no response, he got angry and aimed his formidable weapon, Brahmastra, at the sea. Thereupon, the sea god appeared before him and said 'I cannot help you by  going against my Dharma, which is my Depth, as much as the Fire god cannot  be cool, against its Dharma of being hot, to oblige anybody!'
However, the sea god obliged Rama within its Dharma by making the above suggestion and offer.
The story goes  that the vanaras had to cut every tree within  sight and break the rocks (what would our environmental protagonists say now?) to build the bridge, not reaching the unfathomable Depth, but supported at the bottom by the obliging sea. (by some augmentation of the force of buoyancy ?)
My reference to this version is an English  Srimad Ramayana by D S Sarma. (which also refers to Jabali persuading Rama to abandon the exile mission, in addition to numerous net references, I found on my curiosity)
My emphasis is on the proclaimed  Depth Dharma and the consequent floating bridge built, supported by the sea god , which according to the epic, must have disappeared or dissolved in the depth, once the purpose was over, not being built on Terra Firma.
Unmindful of this, we hear stories that the mountain bridge could still be seen in the ocean ( even claiming that some NASA pictures support this, without any  official  denial or confirmation), and it is of mythological significance and could not be destroyed, thus standing in the way of a proposed project for sea route , SETHUSAMUDRAM SHIPPING CANAL  project,  issue suddenly becoming sensitive because of religious overtones.
Politics and religion crossing swords, with no solution, Factual engineering assessment kept at a distance.
Another incidental information is that, while detailed engineering information is provided on the  CIVIL eng aspects of the bridge construction in Ramayana, other  engineering aspects  like flying by Hanuman and  Rakshasas, Aviation,  missile weapons used, Asthras,  etc are not covered to that detail and simply attributed to  boons given by gods, to chosen individuals,   sought after  painstaking penance  ( tapas)., not taught in gurukulas also, (where other martial arts, in addition to intricacies of vedas, were taught),  as one can read in epics. This  may be significant with some claims made about our knowledge on aviation and missile technology in  Idhihasa  period.
It is also pertinent that  apart from  conventional weapons like bows and arrows, swords, spears, daggers, tree trunks, stones maces etc on one side and the god given astras on the other extreme, no hint was made about explosive devices, chemical or nuclear, not even as a conjecture of imagination.
this brand was to evolve later.
  Such gifts of Tapas  as boons from gods, the ultimate weapons used in the epic battles to bring them to a final close,  could well have been  the poet's privilege, like our modern Harry Potter's imagery projections.
Just some stray thoughts on engineering knowledge as revealed  from Epics
As an after -thought , to make the story on Evolution of engineering    complete, I am adding a piece of an old mail on Knowledge curve, dated mid june,15 (hoping  on the short life of our Memory!)

"Sometimes a simple but epoch making discovery may elude mankind for centuries, even millenniums!
as happened with Electrical Engineering putting its origin very much  later to  that of other engineering branches.
All the branches of engineering, starting from the oldest, Civil,  had an imperceptible beginning in history , at some conducive period, and steady growth,  acquiring the name itself at a later stage of  Consolidation(!), including the latest Nuclear,
- Nuclear Engineering, the latest ,as an example, could not have happened earlier, as it needed the growth of other supportive technologies, till the right time-

Civil has its origin in oldest Harappa civilization days, with houses and drainage systems  built,
Mechanical , to as old as invention of wheels,
Chemical to the ancient Alchemist who tried to make gold etc;
After the discovery of FIRE and WHEELS, probably in the beginning of Common Era ,  the technological growth was in rapid strides, spurred by NEED and GREED , starting from experiments to make gold and tools, even without  the yet to evolve  Electrical Engineering.

As against the above, in my perception, Electrical Engineering has a  defined date of birth, if the discovery of electricity could be taken as the origin, which  came  very much later,  less than 200 years ago, from now  ( civil, mechanical and chemical  being thousands of years old ), a  discovery which may fall under Serendipity?

Lightening, static charges, rudimentary chemical batteries, all ingredients for Electrical, were known to mankind thousands of years ago.
The materials needed like magnets, metal wire, supporting technology in other areas, were  all there for the asking, ready for deployment, all these times.

Still it took ages, before Mich Faraday could accidentally rotate a wire coil in between the magnetic poles, to sense and DISCOVER  ELECTRICITY,   actually  as late as 1830CE, for this Engineering to get established, as we know it today.

a BRANCH, which became pivotal for the growth of other branches , which was epoch making by its own right ,too.,
a branch which paved the way for other much sophisticated   branches to follow like electronic and computer engineering ,
a branch that suddenly jerked up the KNOWLEDGE CURVE to a steep positive slope!

What a tremendous change it would have made to History of  Civilisation (Technology?) if, a big IF, the serendipity of the discovery of Electricity had happened at a logically much earlier timeframe!
Why was Nature  holding this from mankind for that long!
Puzzle to ponder!"

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Anand Ghare (Myself):

We have not been taught advances in science and technology in a chronological manner. So I am not exactly aware which instruments or gadgets were available to detect electric current at what point of time. Perhaps Michael Faraday's coil might have just produced a spark. Was there any galvanometer at that time? I have read a story that The PM of England at that time asked Faraday, "What is use of your discovery?" A confident Faraday humorously replied, "Sir, You may be able to tax the electricity some day."

What I feel that The wheel was giving mechanical advantage that anybody could understand and hence it led to several other series of inventions. Similarly effects of fire (heat and light) were easily sensible, so a lot of work was done to control it by choice fuels, explosives etc.

However, the lightning was a momentary phenomenon (still uncontrollable) that produced more fear than curiosity. Rudimentary batteries also would not have produced more than just sparks. As I remember Michael Faraday also found the connection between electricity and chemical reaction (rather dissociation) as he thought of connection between electricity and magnetism. Further spurt of advances in electrical engineering were made possible as the measuring instruments were developed. That was in turn possible because of advances in Metallurgy and Chemical and Mechanical engineering, Glass technology etc.

These are just my thoughts and are open to correction.
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K.Natarajan :
History of electricity
I would put in a small note in response to the materialistic portion of Ghare ji's comments, the metaphysical heights of the thread being much beyond me.

The difference lies  in distinction between static and commercial electricity. The static sparks and other manifestations were known around 2000 BCE! Benjamin Franklin's experiments  in 17th century with kites and lightening only established electricity as static electricity and whatever Ghareji said are true.
Volta made some progress  in introducing dynamism to electricity, a little bit later, with  chemical means of producing sustained  electricity,origin of voltaic cells, but nowhere near large scale application.
 It is  only after the discovery of electric motor, by Farady in mid 1800, that the dynamic evolution started, followed by electric bulbs and lighting, Edison, small scale generation and transportation to light a street(first time in Newyork) and very rapidly followed by large scale generation, transportation and application, wireless electricity, with Markoni discovering radio and more and more sophisticated branches coming, like computer, digital and  net, in increasingly compressed time-scale!
The non availability of  measuring instruments does not appear to had been a serious handicap.
The philosophical surmise was, while  in other branches,the development was gradual but making progress, there was a large delay  between pre CE awareness  and productive  application  in as late as 1800 CE., for Electrical Engineering.,
and on Nature's peculiar Hyde and Seek game,not amenable to any Karma theory!
Only a curious thought, no great topic for discussion!

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Anand Ghare (Myself):
Thanks Natarajanji for recounting the brief history of static and dynamic electricity.  I had tried to explain that other forms of energy such as heat, light, sound and flow of water or air can be directly sensed by our sense organs and hence they were better understood and used by mankind earlier. An electric shock can also be sensed, but it is rather frightful and in a different category.
Electricity was popularized by inventions of Edison who offered a complete package from generation to utilization. It grew by leaps and bounds thereafter because of advantages over engines.
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Some additional thoughts:

K.Natarajan :-
We all know:
The time scale evolved by historians for the history of civilization, consisting of the Preneolithic age, Neolithic,  followed by the Paleolithic Period, or age of chipped-stone tools, commonly classified as Stone Age, and followed by the Bronze Age, Iron Age, or early period of metal tools before the advent of Modern Era, all based on Tools and Metals.

Possibly a further subdivision of Modern Era could emerge, based on Energy Utilisation like
Natural Energy Era-  utilising the naturally available resources  like water pumps, windmills, sail boats etc,
Electrical  Energy Era -ushered in by the discovery of electricity and fostered by feed of fossil fuel,
to be followed by
Nuclear  Energy Era.

The last mentioned comes last  since  it could not have been there  earlier as a controlled energy source, as distinct from uncontrolled fission-fusion energy in the sun from time immemorial, requiring  as it does, a fundamental need for some form of enrichment of naturally occurring materials,  like enriched uranium, or heavy water, or nuclear grade graphite,  which  would be possible only after a certain level of industrial revolution.

That is what I thought, until I came across this very illuminating article  on the Mysteries of Nature,  about nuclear reactors being active naturally, even  before the dawn of civilization!,
without any human Design  or Control !

which I would like to share with the readers, for reading pleasure at leisure!

Click here for the article.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/early-earth-04n.htmlhttp://www.spacedaily.com/news/early-earth-04n.html

K.Natarajan :
While some branches of engineering, got gradually evolved even without a name, electrical falls under accidental discovery, serendipity,  where as Nuclear Engineering is special in that, at a certain point in evolution, man saw a possibility of this new engineering, moved ahead in search of it and CONSCIOUSLY DEVELOPED that from scratch!

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Anand Ghare (myself)
 Historians might have given some names to different periods of history based on the archeological finds and their carbon dating. However, it may not mean that the tools made of stone or bronze or iron were being used in certain time bound specific periods by homosepians all over the world, especially when the means of communication were so poor.

The living habits have changed so fast in the last few decades that I have seen use of firewood in a चूल्हा, kerocene in a stove and liquefied petroleum gas in burners and also electrical coils and hot plates for daily cooking. I have also seen the grinding stones as well as the food processors and know some people who have both in their kitchens. I read a post today written by a NRI in UK stating that he took a stainless steel खलबत्ता to pound and crush groundnuts to make chutney, because he does not enjoy the taste of powdered groundnut chutney made in a food processer. All this in the short span of my life. What would have happened over time periods of centuries and millenium? The point I want to make is that the so called ages were overlapping.

If we use the 'use of energy source' as a criteria to redifine ages, I would say
1. Animal power- mainly for agriculture, (including drawing water from wells) and transportation apart from dairy.
2. Natural resources like wind for sailed boats, wind mills, flow of water for water wheel and barges to transport to downstream
3. Heat engines (burning coal, firewood, petroleum products, natural gas) for directly driving machines (converting heat in to mechanical energy)- Begining of the modern era of Industrial revolution and still continuing in case of vehicles.
4. Electrical power: conversion of heat or water pressure first in to electrical energy and then its use to drive machines through motors - Started about a century ago and continuing.
5. Nuclear power: It appeared on the horizon in mid sixties but did not actually arrive with a bang. It is coexisting with conventional types, hydro and thermal and may thrive perhaps after exhausting all relatively inexpensive fossil fuels. Thereafter it will co exist with natural resources like Solar and wind power, as they are on come back trail.

It is true that nuclear power was 'CONSCIOUSLY DEVELOPED that from scratch!', but the underlying basic principle was perhaps a sort of 'serendipity'. Discovery of radioactivity, that of fission reaction and detection of neutron itself were not planned actions to my knowledge. I think they were noticed when the scientists were reseaching for something else. Enrico Fermi and his colleagues successfully developed the original 'pile' to create sustained and controlled chain reaction in a safe manner. They could achieve that with great amount of determination and dedicated efforts after many attempts had failed and the pile was rearranged again and again after studying the earlier results.  Rest of the journey of nuclear power has been at the initiative of 'those magnificent men' who developed engineering of core, shielding, process systems and the most important of all fail-safe control systems.
'    

The natural reactor described in the link just produced heat and cooled down. That heat was not purposefully utilized. It may remain as a 'wonder' of the nature and a subject for study by the nuclear scientists.

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A new addition to Serendipity:

UC Irvine Accidentally Invents a Battery that Lasts Forever
Joins Play-Doh and champagne as the world’s best unintended innovations.

BY JONATHON RAMSEY APRIL 27, 2016
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NEWSTECHUC IRVINE BATTERY
- STEVE ZYLIUS / UCI

What do Viagra, popsicles, Corn Flakes, Ivory soap, the kitchen microwave, and champagne have in common? They were all discovered by accident. Add ultra-long-lasting nanowire batteries to that list, thanks to a team of researchers at the University of California Irvine. The average laptop battery is rated anywhere from 300 to 500 charge cycles – completely full to completely empty to completely full again – longer if you don’t use it all up before recharging. The UCI nanobattery endured 200,000 charge cycles over three months “with 94–96% average Coulombic efficiency.” It was effectively still brand new at the end of the experiment.

Let’s go conservative and say the average laptop battery lasts for 1,000 charge cycles, its capacity noticeably diminished after about two years. If that laptop had UCI's nanobattery it would easily last for 400 years (if 1,000 cycles = two years, 200,000 cycles = 400 years). That’s long enough for that laptop to share a name with, but be far less useful than, an actual brick. If UCI can apply its findings to commercial uses, there’s a revolution coming throughout the electronic landscape.

The advance happened when UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai “was playing around” in the lab and coated a set of gold nanowires in manganese dioxide, then applied a “Plexiglas-like” electrolyte gel. Under normal circumstances, nanowires – highly conductive but thousands of times thinner than a human hair – are useless after no more than 8,000 charge cycles because their fragility causes them to crack during charge and discharge loads. At the end of three months, however, the researchers found the nanowires in Thai’s gel-coated battery still intact. They suspect that the gel “plasticizes the metal oxide in the battery,” imbuing the nanowires with flexibility, which equals longevity. Thai said, "The coated electrode holds its shape much better.” The school published its findings in the American Chemical Society journal Energy Letters.

We’re a long way from an immortal, practical battery, though. In 2007 scientists at Stanford came up with a nanowire configuration that got a nanobattery through 40,000 charge cycles. The lead researcher said at the time that manufacturing needed “one or two different steps, but… it’s a well understood process.” Nine years later we’re still carrying charging bricks and fighting over public USB ports.

http://www.thedrive.com/news/3208/uc-irvine-accidentally-invents-a-battery-that-lasts-forever
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University of California, Irvine researchers have invented nanowire-based battery material that can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times, moving us closer to a battery that would never require replacement. The breakthrough work could lead to commercial batteries with greatly lengthened lifespans for computers, smartphones, appliances, cars and spacecraft.

Scientists have long sought to use nanowires in batteries. Thousands of times thinner than a human hair, they’re highly conductive and feature a large surface area for the storage and transfer of electrons. However, these filaments are extremely fragile and don’t hold up well to repeated discharging and recharging, or cycling. In a typical lithium-ion battery, they expand and grow brittle, which leads to cracking.

UCI researchers have solved this problem by coating a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell and encasing the assembly in an electrolyte made of a Plexiglas-like gel. The combination is reliable and resistant to failure.

The study leader, UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai, cycled the testing electrode up to 200,000 times over three months without detecting any loss of capacity or power and without fracturing any nanowires. The findings were published today in the American Chemical Society’s Energy Letters.

Hard work combined with serendipity paid off in this case, according to senior author Reginald Penner.

“Mya was playing around, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it,” said Penner, chair of UCI’s chemistry department. “She discovered that just by using this gel, she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity.”

“That was crazy,” he added, “because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most.”
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Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom

New additions are made at appropriate places. These individual pieces are not put in a chronological order. They are arranged in a logical sequence, to the extent, as per my 'instinctive wisdom'.
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These terms are talked about frequently and appear to have some overlap. It is told that Information is derived from Data and subsequently Knowledge from Information and finally Wisdom from Knowledge. This appears a neat pyramid or a straight line block diagram.
However, Intuition also plays some role at each stage, from selection of type of data and the size of the sample to criteria for screening and selection at various stages. Since intuition is not yet fully understood it appears to be 'i' factor. It may also be influenced by knowledge of past experience, bordering with wisdom. That creates additional feed back loops in the block diagram and changes shapes of the pyramid.
 To illustrate this point let us give a few pages of identical data sheets or some complicated pictures or recording of various sounds to ten volunteers and ask them to independently note down important information and draw conclusions.   Each one will have his own intuition and ability of grasping, recognition, differentiation, prioritization etc. and previous knowledge and experiences. I think we will find that their findings will not be identical.

I am keeping this aspect open for further discussion and will update the blog as I receive further comments.

The discussion we already had in a separate chain is posted to this blog.
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The chain of mails started from just a link to a video showing a 12 year old self made girl dancing.
S Dayal wrote: "This 12-Year-Old Girl Is A Superstar, And She Learned Everything She Knows From Watching YouTube Videos! http://m.coviral.com/this-12-year-old-girl-is-a-superstar-and-she-learned-everything-she-knows-from-watching-youtube-videos/"

There were some comments on pros and cons of watching internet. We will see them later. The discussion then turned to the topic of this post
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S Dayal :
From the Knowledge management point of view first comes Data.
From a set of data we derive information.
From a set of information we derive knowledge.
... by knowledge we derive Wisedom.
The example of data can be temperature of a place at a noon.
When we collect temperature over years, we group them and call them as Seasons.
Seasons average temperature data, tells us that over years, it is rising.  That is Knowledge.
Now with this knowledge we can predict the average temperature of next year.  If we are more knowledgeable, we can correctly tell the temperature for coming decade.
That is how, Information is derived from Data and subsequently Knowledge, finally wisdom.
Above logic falls in the domain of KM (i.e. Knowledge Management).  There can be a physical or even a metaphysical approach to above may be leading to ... प्रलय !

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Anand Ghare :

I was not able to watch the video on my poor internet connection, but I understand from text that the little girl has acquired amazing proficiency in dancing just from U tube. That means she has acquired a great level of skill. Where does skill fit in the ascending scale of Data, Information, knowledge and Wisdom?
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Dilip Vishwaroop clarified :

I reproduce the Dictionary meaning describing " Knowledge " below :
Knowledge :
: information, understanding, or skill that you get from experience or education
: awareness of something : the state of being aware of something
Above definition clearly places Skill as a Sub-Set of Knowledge.
Knowledge in fact has a strong bond with Experience. A person becomes Knowledgeable only after gaining Experience or in other words - Knowledge is gained / acquired only after Internalising Information or more simply after Information is put to Practical Application. Through experience one comes into face to face with the intricacies of putting information to practical use.
By repeatedly executing Tasks (without Failure / least failures) related to certain Data or Information, one acquires Skill. Greater Skill is an indication of one's ability to execute Tasks efficiently, elegantly, and in an Error-Free manner.

Wisdom is One's ability to decide which Knowledge / Information is to be utilised where (profitably, suiting the Target / Goal), under the current Circumstances.
Thus the " Decision Making " ability necessarily demands possession of Sufficient Knowledge (envisioning full Pros and Cons) about the Situation where a Decision is required to be taken.
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Ashok Malhotra :
   The dictionary meaning of "intuition" or other similar words is as follows:
"1. knowledge or belief obtained neither by reason nor by perception
2. instinctive knowledge or belief
3. a hunch or unjustified belief
4. (Philosophy) philosophy immediate knowledge of a proposition or object such as Kant's account of our knowledge of sensible objects
5. the supposed faculty or process by which we obtain any of these.
   So it has a distinct disconnect from the rest of the four subject terms, howsoever I have experienced its more frequent usage in our Indian context specially the ladies who seem to have a stronger since of "Intuitions", with a fair amount of success rates, why and how, no one has any explanation. Perhaps therein also lies the key to its mysteries, if someone can take up a scientific study.
   There are, of course, many unexplained mysteries of Nature and I have a large book on them published by the Readers Digest.
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K.Natarajan :
The blogs on the perceptible gap between KNOWLEDGE ( which , to a large extent, can be acquired and cultivated by working on the INFORMATION available) and WISDOM, which was spoken of as the assimilation of knowledge, implying the same possibility of cultivation,(all well explained by Vishwaroop ji) was very stimulating.,
Reminding me of the common usage as interchangeables of Protection System and Shutdown system!
This rejoinder may be a bit off the mark, and seek your indulgence!

Knowledge is cooking of data, consisting of information accumulated by senses- observing, feeling,  hearing etc -with tools made by intelligence, like facts , ideas ,study, research, investigation, experimenting, skills and surmises included, all in the preview of mind and intellect., the 'tools' being 'manmade'

Wisdom is the cooking of Knowledge,  the  POTENTIAL to apply knowledge to the greater scheme of life, sometimes bypassing that also! It’s also deeper;  involvng the why and how of meaning and reason,  what our ancient sages called ' the search for Brahman' , the 'tools' conceived by Intelligence  being of no avail!

With a difference that In the present day world, there can be lesser equivalents of Brahman in the financial, engineering , medical  etc domains!

I have often thought about the many 'knowledge' books and institutions and used to wonder why a lot more had not bridged the gap to achieve the Wisdom, figuratively to mean the highest level of achievement.
We have not seen many Buddha s , in the religious field, or many Bhabha s or Einstein s in the materialistic world, which is odd if we accept that wisdom, the hallmark of these great people is achievable by  man made effort.

The inevitable conclusion is that in the cycle of senses, mind, observation, information, intelligence  and processing leading to knowledge ,  all are in the reach of man to varying degrees, depending on dedication and effort, but, BUT the final stage of Wisdom is beyond this. That requires an extra spark!

All the Gurukuls of the past or present day institutions and books could produce scholars, superb doctors or engineers  but would not provide the extra  filip  to make a Buddha, a Warren Buffett or an Einstein!
They can build knowledge but cannot give wisdom.

We all know about the karma doctrine ( if a member of this group  does not know, he must have been in deep sleep for the past one year!), a portion in our control by effort and a portion which we have just got, called as Sanchita and  Prarabtha karma, vaguely explaining the inequalities in birth  between Dharavi and Altamount Road!

The wisdom falls in the later prarabtha  karma. If we can view life as a combination of deterministic and stochastic processes, the wisdom (and the crude equivalent of material wealth) is more of a stochastic nature than deterministic!
Not everybody can become a Sankaracharya or a Bill Gates by any amount of training and committed pursuit.

With years of study and research, we may interpret the Vedas, that is knowledge.
The ancient sage must have given that casually , effortlessly, that is wisdom.
Crudely, the dancing girl of the first blog acquired the skill by effort, by ' watching YouTube millions of times'. That is Effort, knowledge.
The girl who performed on YouTube, effortlessly, could be wisdom!
Even by skilful emulation we cannot become originals!

The best amongst we mortals, with hard effort and dedication, reach the summit height possible of Knowledge and we reward them for that. Exceptional persons in the Wisdom category are Nature's gift to us and we respect them for that.

GRSrinivasan has rightly stressed on Application, what he calls as Deployment of Knowledge, how an individual at a high level, either spiritually or materialistically,  applies what he has acquired by his own effort, Knowledge,  or  God given by previous karma, or whatever, Wisdom
The difference in Application is as much as we see in a Narayana Murthy,  a Azim Premji, a Tata on one side and Vijay Mallya!  on the other side
Or a Sankaracharya, a RamanaMaharishi on one side and the many god men we see today!  on the other.

I am not saying anything new! Just a different way of cooking knowledge, WITHOUT WISDOM!
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Ashok Malhotra :
Knowledge vs wisdom:
I am reminded of an example. Einstein was once asked: A cyclist starts from A @ of 10km/hr for point B at a distance of 15km. Simultaneously a bird starts from B @ of 20km/hr, touches the cyclist wherever he is n comes back to B, back to the cyclist n so forth till both are at B. Question is: how much distance the bird covered.
   After a while, the scientist replied the question correctly as 30km. The person enquired, so you were wise enough to solve it by logic, n not by summing of a series equation. The scientist replied: yes that's how I solved it, by summing the series equation. The wise Sol. was : as the cyclist travelled for 1.5hrs, the bird covered 1.5x20=30km.
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K.Natarajan :
What had been covered earlier was the gap between Information and Knowledge.
This could be mathematical.
What I ventured to cover, a bit hesitantly, is the gap between Knowledge and Wisdom.
This could be an area of surmise and hence the running back and forth!
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Anand Ghare:
The excellent analysis showing the gap between knowledge and wisdom by Natarajanji has made a very valuable addition to the debate. "Nothing new" he might have said, but not so clearly known to most of us, perhaps relearning for some.  I understood the 'i' factor associated with it, as hinted in my earlier response, more clearly

I may add my bit. In my view 'wisdom' does not mean only restricted to that of the great seers or successful persons listed by Shri KN. Even a small ant is wise, through application of her acquired knowledge or through God given instinct, to choose which food particle to be picked up and carried to her anthill. So are all humans. Some are much more wiser than others in some respect. Hence I think the example given by Malhotraji, is an example of wisdom. Some may call it parallel thinking!


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Mohan Rao :
On the subject of knowledge and learning and the Internet I see a pattern of evolution which merits some attention. In forest sciences, there is conceptual idea called climax forest. The idea behind it is that as forests get destroyed over time, usually due to fire (from the hoofed animals striking on stone surfaces and creating fire), they rejuvenate themselves and in each stage, they get better and better, self-perpetuating, lushier, more diverse, and after a number of stages we have what ecologists call climax forests. So do we in almost every human endeavour given the time, to build and rebuild, and examples are many. Human communication was recorded for future in Vedic times by memorizing and chanting of mantras until, scripts came into existence and people scribed their communication on to papyrus etc for storing the info for future. That is how the Vedas and epic literature got preserved for a number of generations. Lithographic printing (thanks to Gutenberg) came very much later and once they came in, printing of communication made giant strides and pretty much everything from tomes to flyers got printed and still are. Papyrus became a museum item.

With the ability to digitize information, the age of printing seems to be gasping to survive because of the capability to communicate online. I can see, as time passes by, creating and storing info and retrieving them as easily as you store them is becoming the norm given the ability to store incredible amounts of information in various media, including cloud storage systems. Learning has never been easier. Entire libraries and university curriculums and coursework are going online.

At every stage of repro, reality to cognition, cognition to articulation, articulation to reception, reception to evaluation and  reciprocation, communication loses quality and depth. Words in my view have become a poor currency for communication. In many cases, such as  Beethovan’s sixth symphony, its magnificent flash of consciousness, human love and the music of the soul simply cannot be reproduced by words. “I cannot find the words to say it” is a common every day complaint among the humans.

In his hypothesis of Homo Intelligens, Yonegi Masuda compares the new threesome, computers, media and the robots to the frontal lobe, the vocal chord and the fingers, which brought the Homo Sapiens to the stage of Homo Intelligens after several millennia of evolutionary development. Now the stage has come for another giant leap in terms of communication from the digital and Internet age aided by technological extensions still on the drawing boards, global communication layers of networks, cortical extensions (brain-machine interfaces, etc) which should provide a range of new media for knowledge and learning, a climax of instant decision making capability to the humans where ever they spread their wings (Homo touristus). The Internet may be the stepping stone for this metamorphosis. Not with words, but like osmosis, with an innate ability to immerse oneself in a sea of information and culling what you want, in the silence of your mind and soul.


Ashok Malhotra :
  A very well explained expose on data, information, knowledge n wisdom and the futuristic trends in this domain foreseen by Mohanraoji.
  To my mind, whilst there is no doubt on explosion of data n knowledge and its availability to everyone via the climax forests, cortical extensions or Homo Intelligens, the key issue of "Knowledge Management leading to Wisdom" is going to be the most precious phenomenon and will remain in some gifted few human mind's domain (not all  brains, mind it) till the time the deep secrets of our brain n its thinking process are revealed n replicated as a first step being tried by the Russian tycoon.
   To illustrate my point about the difference between knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, let me link below an article in today's ToI about the most important current issue of "Choices of American Presidency" which may impact the Americans n the world equally in future, and the choice is not simple but has to be made today through our wisdom, not knowledge alone. As Socrates said "Wisdom comes by sharing n discussing the knowledge". Thanks.
The Simpsons saw 'Prez Trump' 16 years ago http://toi.in/jDs_5Y @timesofindia
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G.R.Srinivasan :
 I want to add a final step after attaining knowledge/wisdom to what is mentioned by Dayal. Deployment of knowledge acquired is the one that proves the pudding. Many may remember our addition to CRs  a column "achieved during the year compared to targets" in place of (or in addition to) bright and intelligent which was in GOI CRs. This is also the practice in private industries where some companies use an American system called balance score card. It is observed that deployment is not at all proportional to knowledge and many times a lesser knowledgeable person is more productive.
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Mohan Rao :
I agree with your statement that how the brain functions is going to be the Achilles heel in finally coming to grips on finding wisdom in a neo-computer. I would like add a couple of points though:

Wisdom has been somewhat interpreted as a mystique, something that is given to you by the powers above, and is not only erudition but also esoteric, a God-given gift, etc etc (like the Oracle of Delphi). I have a feeling that this idea of wisdom is oversold by the story tellers. Perhaps it helps pandits, astrologers, psychics, crystal ball gazers and people of that genre in establishing their practice of making difficult decisions for the general public at storefronts. They all have self-professed ideas of their prescience, wisdom, or whatever they profess (tarot cards, astrology charts etc) but they fall short of wisdom, and some people tend to flock to them if they see that their decisions indeed worked well.

In reality, wisdom is nothing but good judgment, ability to make the soundest decisions often on one’s feet or in a heartbeat.  Decision-making at scientific/technical levels is an old art and most of us have confronted this in our professions. There are tons of people who make this their living, specializing in various mathematical techniques (Monte Carlo techniques, needs and criteria analysis, various what-if analysis, risk analysis etc) and cross disciplines to offer their services (I know a young friend of mine who worked with Stephen Hawking on String Theory and was later hired by a London bank to carry out financial risk assessments).

With respect to wisdom of computers, Artificial Intelligence(AI) is a fast advancing field and does the work of converting information into computer wisdom. There are now chatbots (talking robots) to talk to you and guide you at hospital ER triages, at shopping malls, libraries etc to guide you through. There are robots marketed to make your coffee in the morning, to work at hospitals at nano-scales to work their way through veins and arteries cleaning up plaques etc in heart patients and in various body parts doing chores asked to by the Meds. These are only examples. As in HMT Bangalore where machines build machines, there are robot factories where robots build robots. We are not far from computers that replicate the human brain and robots that can carry out whatever tasks are required to be done from interstellar spacecraft to nano-robots that can do the minutest of jobs. Russians are talking of major breakthroughs in building humanoids with electronic brains by 2045.

Internet has now become ubiquitous in terms of knowledge management (storing, searching, retrieving etc). In the next few decades we may see a world poised to deploy countless computer systems that convert knowledge to so-called wisdom (i.e. decision-makers) and tens of thousands of robotic humanoids that do the bidding of the computers in assisting humans along our journey on this planet. Newer issues (real or imaginary) will emerge whether with the power of the human brain, these systems will remain docile to the human or be self-centred, emotional, self-replicating and try to take over the world and be able to wage a war with the humans leading to an Armageddon (in lighter vein), as some of the sci-fi films of today seem to be ready for the ride on the silver screen.

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Anand Ghare :
I was remembering some very simple meanings of the terms Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom.
Data (generally raw) is just a bunch of some numbers, letters, words etc.
Information is when the relevant Data is picked up and arranged or organized (Phone nos. in my personal Directory)
Knowledge is gained when that information is utilized for some purpose.
Wisdom is to know which information and knowledge to be used at which time and how, seeing pros and cons etc..

Thanks for giving me more insight on these terms.
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Raghavan Varadhan :
Where does "Intuition" fit in?
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S Dayal :
In (a simplified) Knowledge Management domain there are                                                                                             Intuition,    Skill,   ...
1.  Data                                        v             v
2.  Information derived from data               v             v
3.  Knowledge derived from info                 v             v
4.  Wisdom derived from knowledge               v             v


Intuition, Skill ... and many more similar attributes, fall under Cross-Functional areas.    Intuition is required in (1) data collection, (2) Deriving information and so on till  ... (4) Knowledge.  Same is true for Skill ... or any other attribute as well

For example, now GM and Tesla are doing research in anti-skid brakes, in their cars.  They are collecting 32 parameters (DATA), in real-time, of single component of the car BRAKES !
I was surprised by just by the number of parameters itself, leave alone the mechanical components of the brake.   (1) At what speed the brakes are applied by a driver (2) At what distance, the driver feels safe / unsafe to slam on the brakes ... well the rest of the information falls under the envelop of confidentiality.  In the commercially launched product, they do agree, that they will reduce the number of collection of the real-time data, for their real time anti skid braking system.

Gregor Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants: plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. With seed color, he showed that when a yellow pea and a green pea were bred together their offspring plant was always yellow.  The INTUITION (genius) of Gregor Mendel was in select the number SEVEN, at the time, when there was no microscope, or electron microscope to identify the Genes.

It was only the discovery of electron microscope, it was found that Pea plants have only Seven Genes !

Every research begins with a hypothesis and then subsequently collection of (1) Data ... leading to a new (Wisdom) theory, invention or even a simple innovation.
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Anand Ghare:

Which and how much Data should be collected seems to be depending on Intuition!
OMG!!!  We have i or j factor here also!

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Other comments on Internet learning:
S Dayal :
This 12-Year-Old Girl Is A Superstar, And She Learned Everything She Knows From Watching YouTube Videos!

By Nenad on March 16, 2016

Adilyn Malcolm has proven that the internet is the ultimate learning tool for those with a passion. She is a 12 year old girl who has learned how to dance to dubstep with just her iPad and YouTube videos. Thanks to the ability to pause and rewind, she has said that that learning has never been easier.

Sometimes she has had to watch videos “millions of times” in her own words, but the video is which she showcases her skills speaks for itself. All the dedication is definitely worth it as her moves are flawless and soon enough she will be the one inspiring others.

We live in a day and age where knowledge is readily accessible for those who want to learn. Adilyn has an incredible talent for dance and her dedication and practice have taken that to the next level.

Other than YouTube, she has had no professional instruction. It’s amazing to see what the technology of today can help people achieve. Take this for an act of inspiration.

More at

http://m.coviral.com/this-12-year-old-girl-is-a-superstar-and-she-learned-everything-she-knows-from-watching-youtube-videos/

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Ajay Chakrabarti :
LATEST  STUDY IS SHOWING  TOO MUCH  DEPENDENCE ON INTERNET IS NOT GOOD FOR THE BRAIN.
OUR TRADITIONAL WAY OF LEARNING IS BENEFICIAL FOR THE HEALTH OF THE BRAIN IN THE LONG RUN.

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S Dayal :
Steve Jobs, has said that, "Getting information form the internet is like, drinking water from the fire hose.
Internet does give, plenty of information, but it also gives ZERO experience.
Internet is just a medium, like newspaper, radio or a TV.  The authenticity of the contents available on internet may need validation or cross check from an independent source.

Any amount of internet or Artificial Intelligence, can not beat the natural stupidity of the human beings.

Internet as a learning tool for all the students for all the subjects? ... is still an open ended question, indeed.

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Ashok Malhotra :
There is a lot of gap between the "information" and "knowledge". It's the same as food n digestion of food products.

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Friday, 18 March 2016

Complex numbers and algebra of human life


Those who have studied Mathematics at college level must have studied Complex numbers and most of the engineers would have used them to solve many problems. A complex number is expressed in the form a + ib where both 'a' and 'b' are real numbers and 'i' is the imaginary unit, equal to square root of −1. In this expression 'a' is the real part and 'ib' is the imaginary part of the complex number. The real and imaginary parts are as different as apples and onions. They cannot be mixed up by direct addition or subtraction and there are special rules for their multiplication and division. What these complex numbers have to do with human life?

It is generally believed that every living person has a body and a soul. The soul or आत्मा leaves the body at the end of its life and goes to heaven, hell, स्वर्ग, नरक, जन्नत, जहन्नुम etc. or gets into another new body taking birth or just rests in peace or may become a spirit and keep haunting. These are some divergent common beliefs. However, what is the role of the soul or आत्मा  when the person is alive?

Scientists mainly influenced by Physics have not found any practical method of detecting the soul or आत्मा or measuring its properties. So they do not have any scientific evidence of its presence. As per the present medical knowledge, all organs of the body function or do their कर्म  as instructed by their brain, another part of their body. The brain has a rational part intelect (बुद्धी) and an irrational part mind (मन). However, we are also told during our upbringing that consience, जमीर, विवेक , nature (स्वभाव) of the person nurtured by conditioning during upbringing (संस्कार) play a dominating role in deciding his actions. These are mostly associated with his soul or आत्मा. Rather that is the main driving force in many situations.

This combination is described in a complex number theory by a brilliant mechanical engineer, Shri Raghuveer Rustagiji, who is also a philosopher and योगी .  He had once suggested that nothing in nature is simply scaler but a vector quantity, A+iB. Which leads us to a combination of a real no and a virtual or illusionary quantity. To see it in part would be misleading the self.

This was further discussed in quite interesting as well as intriguing manner as given below.

Mohan Rao :
 I consider that the totality we all live in has plenty of our sensual perception on the one hand, and whatever is beyond perception which we may call the ‘Absolute’ or ‘what makes up the total’ on the other. To use math symbolism we may note the totality as I + iF where I stands for the Infinite (i.e. Infinite or what lies beyond our perception; I is also the subjective pronoun one uses for identifying one’s own Self is an interesting co-incidence) and F the finite part of the ‘totality’ which of course is our perceptual illusive reality, hence iF.

There are two ways of seeing ‘totality’ of our existence. As a worldview, one can live inside the finite world, the one we have put together by our sensual and analytical knowledge and ignore the ‘Infinite’ or the ‘Absolute’ which would then be an atheistic worldview and one can be perfectly happy in it, although people like Buddha have said that such a world is the cause of our sorrow. On the other hand, one can have a worldview centric to the Infinite and try to achieve self-realization by a process of meditation and thereby claim that they have the truer world devoid of the virtual or the illusive sensual world in it. If one doesn’t compartmentalize one’s worldview into either of these ways, by default, we live in an I + iF world and be either perfectly happy with it or lament about it pointing to the sources of misery in the finite world.
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Ashok Malhotra:
  Frankly, I have not devoted much time on this "discovery of truth" perhaps because, like all others, winning the daily bread took all the energies.
  There is no doubt that at any given time n space, there are multiple realities and platforms. Long back I had read that it is impossible for the human mind to comprehend God, Universe, Life, Nature, Reality, call what you may, because the unit of our mind is much bigger than theirs. It's like measuring a cm with an inch scale. That's why Krishna had to "reveal" to Arjuna its virat roop, or the rishis talk of attaining higher levels of consciousness for salvation n truth, kundalini जागृति etc.
   So Sir I don't even try to understand these truths n realities from our finite angles, as we know them, though mathematically I would have preferred the equation to be F+iI than I+iF since the finite or reality part can not be in the virtual zone, as we, being finite, may all vanish in the virtual zone without a trace.
      By the way, I am curios to trace the path Einstein went on for his  "Theory of Relativity", if you have any references.
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Anand Ghare :
We may call our being as I+iF or F+iI, but 'I' is said to be 'infinite nothingness,' whatever it means. So it cannot have any finite value. F has certainly some sensible value and we keep trying optimising it.
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Ashok Malhotra :
Another thought on F+iI 's existence, perhaps a postulate:
       In nature, every thing, living, nonliving, micro or macro cosmos exists in duality as mutually dependent/supportive. Nothing exists in isolation, even the speed of light, time, matter, many other constants, space, gravity  etc long thought as unique values exist & vary relative to something else. So we may be on a right path of thinking about F+iI..
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Mohan Rao :
Re your question regarding Einstein: What Einstein has taught us is that whatever we hold today as incontrovertible proof of something may be foolishly outdated as time moves on, in the same manner that Newtonian mechanics became to be known as a very limited worldview of the clockwork of nature when Einstein started developing his theories on relativity. In the I + iF formulation of totality as we discussed earlier, alas, we have already seeing holes such as in Swiss cheese.

Our first exposure to Einstein’s work : Among his views: Motion through space is a meaningless concept; only motion relative to material bodies has significance; physical laws are independent of the frames of reference, etc. etc. The wellknown findings he came up with relating to relativistic effects moved us from Newtonian worldview to the larger universe as they saw it at the time (i.e. space-time continuum, gravitational effects, relativity etc.). Peeling this layer of the totality by Einstein changed our view to a great extent. I remember, at the turn of the millennium, he was branded as the Person of the Century by a noted newsmagazine (interestingly followed by Mahatma Gandhi in the second position).

At a personal level, it seems to me that Einstein was deterministic and his statement that God plays no dice is wellknown although this view came back to haunt him as the Quantum Mechanics grew later on and randomness in nature at the quantum mechanical level and uncertainties came into the evolving view of the universe.

 With this background, it is an interesting topic to figure out what these developments do to our I + iF formulation of totality. If we ignore for the moment the universe prior to the big bang and the fabric of space outside of the space-time cocoon we live in since the big bang, pretty much the entire universe seems to be trending to be deterministic and hence finite. The only unknown pertains to the question what else is there in the universe and what might have happened before the big bang. This is the grey zone left where scientists continue to speculate about (already there are tons of work and postulations in scientific literature such as multiple universes, dark energy, further knowledge about the space etc etc.).

On the whole, it is like peeling an onion as I mentioned elsewhere. In the first stage we learnt about the Newtonian mechanics, which served our purpose for a while. When we peeled further, outward from our “terrestrial” reference we found the relativistic effects, which explained the larger universe since the big bang. There may be more peels to pare. Either we may reach a stage in the future where ‘whatever is’ is all pared and we find as the Upanishads suggest, nothing particular to write home about, or we may be into an endless bonanza from an exercise of peeling layer by layer, finding more layers to worry about, more patterns of existence and newer rules of the game to explore etc. The I + iF formulation may finally be unsolvable at which point the I(nfinite) may be meaningless to pursue any further. As Nietzsche discussed denial of God in his works we may be able to say: The Infinite is dead because what is left of it to explore may be so remote, so intractable and most of all may be of little interest.

What the rishis wondered in the opening of the Rig-Veda however would still ring true:
“There was not then what is, nor what is not. Who knows the truth? Who can tell whence arose this universe? Who knows when came this creation? Only that Infinite who sees the highest heaven. He only knows whence comes this creation and whether it was made or uncreated. He only knows, perhaps he knows not” (adapted from translation by Juan Mascaro).

Karen Strong, Author of “A History of God” concludes not surprisingly that a state of “un-knowing” is built into the human condition.
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S Dayal :
Einstein statement that God plays no dice ... was re stated by Stephan Hawking.
God, not only plays dice with the World, sometimes he throws the dice, from where they are not retrievable.
Obviously, Hawking is referring to Black Holes.
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Ashok Malhotra :
    There are times to integrate n times to differentiate to enhance our understanding. But here we are in the  "nowhere" zone. From holes in cheese-space_time continuum-quantum mechanics-dice throwing-what else. Yes the state of unknowing is built into our nature, as I said the same in different words "measuring cms with an inch scale. The symbol of zero also contains some space.
   So where are we? Lost in all this maze or Godly web. Thanks any way for some  flash lights.
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Mohan Rao :
Totality is all there is in the cosmos and beyond.  Totality can be considered either as Infinite, or as Finite. In the Infinite, we consider all that is God-centred, timeless, beginning-less and endless and other abstract notions (scientific as well as theosophical) that we may notice to exist in the cosmos. In the Finite, we consider all that exists in the physical cosmos, including our own place it, the solar system, the planet and physical existence that fill our everyday life. For some, Infinite may be an illusive or imaginary notion, not grounded in their perception of reality while perceived reality is all there is. For some others, Infinite may be the only reality (rather than faith) and the Finite an illusory part created by our sensory perception, limited and impermanent. For some others, totality may be a combo of both Finite and Infinite to various other degrees.

As human beings we are individuals in this totality and each may have differing views. There are some who are hard-wired to lead a God-centric life  for whom God is all there is and there are some to hold an atheistic view and focus only on the anthropic part of the equation. Then there may be some who see themselves as a hybrid of the two and holding either the Infinite as reality and Finite as illusory or vice versa.

To find meaning in life, we need to search our souls to see what line of thinking we believe in or if we find alternate expressions for our being and our place in the cosmos. We need to reflect to ourselves our interpretation of the Totality and find out where we lie in the spectrum of  these  expressions. Like in vector analysis, one can contemplate and quantify the relativity of the Infinite and the Finite in various ways and orient one’s spiritual compass for navigating our lives in different waters. Knowing where one’s spiritual compass is directed to is, from my life’s experiences, helpful for dealing with one’s trials and tribulations. On the other hand, some may feel that they are already aware of their spiritual position and re-thinking all these matters again is a waste of time.
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Ashok Malhotra :
Current Sub Subject: Conception and Stretch of "Totality" in the Finite n Infinite Zones, its Connect with Individual Life, or in a nutshell, me n my universe:
           Now, if Philae-Rosetta can land on the comet 67P, New Horizons can fly past the Pluto after a 11 yrs journey and a Russian tycoon can plan to upload his brain to a computer, hoping to "live a virtual life for ever", we might as well be permitted to pHyLoSoPhIsE a bit into these unknown zones, where our peers n  scriptures have also played lead roles.
    As known till now, these zones can be experienced in 3 known ways, though Christianity also recognises service to the invalid as well; 1. Scientific Principles 2. Faith Trust n belief. 3. Bhakti Tap n Revelation.
    As a trained mind in Sciences, only the  mathematics has concepts of infinity, space, time, n penetrated the micro cosmos to a fair degree, rest are only postulates, even the quantum mechanics, theory of every thing etc are not exact sciences. Lets hope the Russian succeeds in his effort on mental replication and we may better understand "consciousness n virtual life".
   The other two means are propped by the Religions of the world in various degrees n forms, quite disconnected from the  "Scientific Principles".
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Raghavan Varadhan :
When iF becomes a Blackhole, Totality is nothing but Infinite Nothingness as Anandji would like to call it. Upanishad calls it "Purnam". Raghavan.

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Mohan Rao :
Right now, I see at least five ways of conceptualizing totality as under:
Simply we can express totality [T] (i.e. whatever ‘is’) in five ways to start with:

A.  [T] = [I]
B.   [T] = [I] + i[F]
C.   [T] = [F]
D.  [T] = [F] + i[I]
E.   [T ]= [I] + [F]

Legend:

A: God is all there is. I stands for Infinite, implying he encompasses whatever is, is infinite, limitless, transcendent, supreme, absolute and is non-objective consciousness that shines on us. Totality is all God-centred and that is all there is, [T] = [I].

B: This is a God-centric anthropic view of who we are and how we co-exist with the supreme. Here we recognize that there is an additional component we consider to be a manifestation of [I], the Finite, consisting of all of our sensory knowledge. The finite is sense-driven, subjective, limited  and cannot be considered as either absolute or supreme.  It is an illusory or imaginary quantity, hence [T] = [I] + i[F].

C: This is an atheistic view that does not recognize the God-related components in totality and considers only what are anthropic views that consist of physicalities all of which are considered real and not illusory, [T] = [F].

D. This is a gnostic view that nonetheless recognizes that there things besides [F] that are not human-driven and are spiritual matters as those discussed in the Infinite but intuitive and pervasive, unknown and unknowable and beyond our intervention or capitulation. The latter are illusory or imaginary, hence [T] = [F] + i[I].

E. Lastly, E is the agnostic view, both God-centric [I] and anthropo-centric [F] views are considered real and considered a part of our totality [I] + [F].

If a computer like HAL comes into life in Russia, it may beat us all and find out the meaning of totality and we may have a computer-generated sense of it. One of the postulated ideas in current cosmology consists of countless universes that are more multi-dimensional than the one we have fantasized about. There may be a neo-Einsteinian view of the Totality, the Infinite, virtual lives, 11-dimensional math, travel between universes and simultaneous upswings and downswings in various corners of the new cosmos, etc etc  one day. Knock on wood they say.

I have made myself a toy for this topic to play with. I have two sealed but empty cartons with a slot on the top (like ballot boxes) and have marked it [I] and [F]. As time passes by and as I get new “revelations” I jot them on a note and drop in the right box. I plan to go back to these boxes, collect all the bits and pieces and see if ideas change over time or get outdated because of the Russians (in lighter vein).

I think we should close out this topic at least for the moment.
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Thursday, 10 March 2016

THIS MAN OWNED AND DROVE THE SAME CAR FOR 82 YEARS!!!!

   
Rolls  Royce Phanton I 1928
    THIS  MAN OWNED AND DROVE THE  SAME  CAR FOR 82  YEARS!!!!
         Mr. Allen Swift:  Born - 1908 - Died 2010 (or 2005?)



This man owned  & drove the same car for 82 YEARS. (or 77years)
         Can you imagine  even having the same car for 82 years?
         Mr. Allen Swift  ( Springfield , Massachusetts ) received this 1928
    Rolls-Royce  Piccadilly-P1 Roadster from his father, brand new -
    as a graduation  gift in 1928.
         He drove it up  until his death last year ... At the age of  102!!!
         He was the  oldest living owner of a car that was purchased  new.
         Just thought  you'd like to see it.
         It was donated  to a Springfield museum after his death.
         It has 1,070,000  miles on it, still runs like a Swiss watch, dead silent
    at any speed and  is in perfect cosmetic condition.
         82 years -  That's approximately 13,048 miles per year (1087 per  month)...
       
1,070,000 that's  miles not kilometres!!

That's British  engineering of a bygone era.
       I don't think  they make them like this anymore  .

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There are a few inaccuracies in the report given above and some additional information is available.
The man in the photo is Allan Swift of West Hartford, CT and the car he posed with was his 1928 Rolls Royce Phantom I, which he bought new and drove for close to 77 years.  Swift died at the age of 102 in October of 2005. In the 1920’s the British based Roll Royce company had a plant in Springfield, MA where 2,944 vehicles were produced. In 1994 Swift was presented a crystal Spirit of Ecstasy award by Rolls-Royce Motors for holding the record of the longest ownership of one of their automobiles.
Further details are given here:
https://www.truthorfiction.com/allan-swift-rolls-050613/

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/12/27/man-drives-rolls-royce-for-78-years-then-makes-museum-donation-t/

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Comments on Rolls Royce:

Rolls Royce cars biggest strength was that they were very rugged.  So much so that, once some one who purchased  RR Car never came back to buy another one.
His car continued to serve him in a trouble free manner.
So much so that the RR Company's one of the reasons of failure was, its trouble free service.
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Rolls Royce are model cars even today. I remember we had 2 such vintage cars in the BHU Engg College Auto Shop and the i/charge would take us for a ride one day, stop it at the start point of an up slope, put in 3rd gear and show us the  upclimb smoothly. Also he would emphasise that you open the engine bonnet, hit any where with a small hammer n nothing will happen. When I visited my College 3yrs back I specifically asked to see these cars, still there, though not running now. Thanks
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FYI the RR cars you are mentioning at BHU are Silver Ghost and Silver Shadow.
Incidentally, I graduated from the same university.  They also had a very old truck, of the era, when even the differential gears were not implemented in the trucks.
BHU also had a full scale, 12 cylinder air cooled radial engine to power the propellers of the fighter planes of WW II.
Truly a great place of learning, for me.
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Yes, you well remember their models. Excited to hear it Mr Dayal. May be professional Siamese Twins of an earlier birth, same college, same job, same post-retirement pursuits.
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In fact Rolls and Royce were the two persons.
One had put in his money and the other one had put in his technical expertise.
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.
.
........... and Some sideline talk in a lighter vein:

In a lighter vein, I hope he did not change wives either
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No jokes about the ... wives around International Women's day.
Take care ...
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care taken
words withdrawn
i can't say, in the words of our leaders.. i was mis quoted
i can only say
i was mis-written!
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In lighter veins:
Today,being a thursday, the philosophical attitude takes over.
  I was just wondering "what comprises fun or a joke" Are we trying to entertain others or sometime obliquely putting a jibe in its garb, mostly the former I guess, but like a ghost and inspite of ourselves, sometimes our alter ego beats our conscious mind. I realized as to why characters like Johnny Walker, Mehmood, Mr Beans, Charlie Chaplin, Sardarjis and many others became so popular and successful in life just by being funny. The common factor being they made fun of them selves and made every one happy n no hurting. May be useful to avoid misuse of "in lighter vein".
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IN LIGHTER VEINS,
Well given   and   Well taken !
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Nothing escapes your eagle eyes. I bow for your indulgence.
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Wish I could do that (drive )with my Maruti 800 of 1985 which is as good as new. Alas registration renewal!

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Wednesday, 2 March 2016

Interesting figures of speech: Paraprosdokians and Aphorisms

I am not a linguist and not at all good in use of classical English language. I may not be able to differentiate between what is called 'Paraprosdokians' and 'Aphorisms', but both are very interesting figures of seech to read. So as a sequel to the smart answers, I am continuing with these amusing as well as thought provoking sentences.
So read these sentences and enjoy.
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*Some more witty sentences have been contributed by Mr.Mohan Rao as 'Phyllis Dillerisms...' They are added at the end.

Paradox, Axioms, Rules ... Laws contributed by Shri S. Dayal are also added at the end.
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Contributed by Mr.Mohan Rao :
 First time I heard about paraprosdokians, I liked them.
        Paraprosdokians are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected and is frequently humorous. (Winston Churchill loved them).

        1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

        2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you ..but it's still on my list.

        3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear
        bright until you hear them speak.

        4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

        5. We never really grow up -- we only learn how to act in public.

        6. War does not determine who is right, only who is left.

        7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

        8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

        9. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

        10. In filling out an application, where it says, "In case of emergency, notify..." I answered "a doctor."

        11. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down
        the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

        12. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

        13. I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

        14. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

        15. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

        16. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

        17. I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.
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A paraprosdokian (/pærəprɒsˈdoʊkiən/) is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but they also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a form of syllepsis.
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Examples:
"He was at his best when the going was good." —Alistair Cooke on the Duke of Windsor
"There but for the grace of God—goes God." —Winston Churchill
"If I could just say a few words… I'd be a better public speaker." —Homer Simpson
"If I am reading this graph correctly—I'd be very surprised." —Stephen Colbert
"On his feet he wore…blisters." —Aristotle
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." —Groucho Marx
"A modest man, who has much to be modest about." —supposedly Winston Churchill, about Clement Attlee
"I like going to the park and watching the children run around because they don't know I'm using blanks." —Emo Philips
"I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." —Mitch Hedberg
"I sleep eight hours a day and at least ten at night." —Bill Hicks
"I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." —Will Rogers
"On the other hand, you have different fingers." —Steven Wright

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Some comments and more examples are:
'We need not be frightened by the high sounding name of this  fairly familiar style of Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde"

A quote from the cover page of a "Book Of Quotations"
Do not quote, tell me what YOU know !

"All that I know is that I know nothing – Socrates"

"Peter de Vries is also well known for such formulations:
e.g. Deep down he is shallow."

Everybody wants to park his car in shade, but nobody wants to plant trees.
Similar examples are:
Everybody wants Electric Power, but nobody wants a Power Station near his place.
Everybody wants Canal water, but nobody wants to give land for building dams.
They also have valid reasons why this happens. The basic reason is selfishness.

In other words every body wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die ?

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Aphorisms

A SHORT, POINTED SENTENCE THAT EXPRESSES A WISE OR CLEVER OBSERVATION OR A GENERAL TRUTH

1. The nicest thing about the future is... that it always starts tomorrow.
2. Money will buy a fine dog... but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
3. If you don't have a sense of humour... you probably don't have any sense at all.
4. Seat belts are not as confining... as wheelchairs.
5. A good time to keep your mouth shut is... when you're in deep water.
6. How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark . .
to become a teenager who wants to stay out all night?
7. Business conventions are important... because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.
8. Why is it that at class reunions... you feel younger than everyone else looks?
9. Scratch a cat (or dog)... and you will have a permanent job.
10. No one has more driving ambition than the teenage boy (or girl)...who wants to buy a car.
11. There are no new sins... the old ones just get more publicity.
12. There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 a.m... like, it could be the right number.
13. No one ever says "It's only a game"... when their team is winning.
14. I've reached the age where... 'happy hour' is a nap.
15. Be careful about reading the fine print...there's no way you're going to like it.
16. The trouble with bucket seats is that... not everybody has the same size bucket.
17. Do you realize that, in about 40 years... we'll have thousands of old ladies running around with tattoos?
18. Money can't buy happiness... but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Cadillac than in a Na no
19. After 60, if you don't wake up aching in every joint... you're probably dead.
20. Always be yourself because the people that matter don't mind... and the ones that mind don't matter.
21. Life isn't tied with a bow... but it's still a gift.REMEMBER...
22. POLITICIANS AND DIAPERS SHOULD BE CHANGED OFTEN... AND FOR THE SAME REASON.
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An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός aphorismos, "delimitation") is a terse saying, expressing a general truth, principle, or astute observation, and spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.Aphorism literally means a "distinction" or "definition". The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. The oft-cited first sentence of this work (see Ars longa, vita brevis) is:
Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience deceptive, judgement difficult.
The term was later applied to maxims of physical science, then statements of all kinds of philosophical, moral, or literary principles.
In modern usage an aphorism is generally understood to be a concise statement containing a subjective truth or observation, cleverly and pithily written.
A well-known example is
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
— Lord Acton
 Courtsey.. Wikipedia
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Phyllis Dillerisms... 

Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age.
As your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing?

Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?

The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public.

Best way to get rid of kitchen odors:  Eat out.

A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.

I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford.
Then I want to move in with them.

Most children threaten at times to run away from home.  This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.

Any time three New Yorkers get into a cab without an argument, a bank has just been robbed.

We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve years telling them to sit down and shut up.

Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room.

What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.

The only time I ever enjoyed ironing was the day I accidentally got gin in the steam iron.

His finest hour lasted a minute and a half.

Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.

My photographs don't do me justice -they just look like me.

I admit I have a tremendous sex drive.  My boyfriend lives forty miles away.

Tranquilizers work only if you follow the advice on the bottle - keep away from children.

I asked the waiter, 'Is this milk fresh?' He said, 'Lady, three hours ago it was grass.'

The reason the golf pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing.

You know you're old if they have discontinued your blood type.

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S Dayal: Paradox, Axioms, Rules ... Laws

Kauffman's Paradox of the Corporation:_
The less important you are to the corporation, the more your absence is noticed.

The Salary Axiom:_
The pay raise is just large enough to increase your taxes and just small enough to have no effect on your take-home pay.

Murphy's First Law for Wives_:
If you ask your husband to pick up five items at the store and then you add one more as an afterthought, he will forget two of the first five.

Miller's Law of Insurance:_
Insurance covers everything except what happens.

First Law of Living_:
As soon as you start doing what you always wanted to be doing, you'll want to be doing something else.

Weiner's Law of Libraries:_
There are no answers, only cross-references.

Isaac's Strange Rule of Staleness_:
Any food that starts out hard will soften when stale. Any food that starts out soft will harden when stale.

The Grocery Bag Law:_
The candy bar you planned to eat on the way home from the market is always hidden at the bottom of the grocery bag.

And Here goes the last one !!

Lampner's Law of Employment:_
When leaving work late, you will go unnoticed. When you leave work early, you will meet the boss in the parking lot !
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