Belief systems and mind control

Why is a belief system developed? This is not the subject of the post.
Should you be concerned if your belief system is based on reality and rationality? This post assumes that a belief system based on reality should be followed. Essentially, belief systems based on fiction and irrationality need to be discarded.
Should you change your beliefs when you find that it's not based on reality and/or it's irrational? Yes. (A consequence of 2nd point)
Now you could develop your own belief system either from scratch or by modifying the existing "standard" systems. The other choice would be to follow a system with nothing else than faith(read blindly). Based on the previous statements, such a system is better not followed. Because faith is irrational.

I want to narrow down the content post to the specific point of faith-based "standard" systems. I think an existing "standard" system is much like an algorithm.

What is the problem with faith-based algorithms? Often, there are no facts and no logical reasoning as to why follow them. Some algorithms define strict rules and these rules must be enforced to the fullest extent.The algorithm inherently asks the user to trust it. In fact, the issue becomes severe, when the fundamental rule of the algorithm is to trust it. Why is that an issue? Because when the first rule is to trust it and the second rule is to follow the rules fully, the user is left with no other choice but to stay in the system.

Let us define an optimization problem where the user has a lot of algorithms (points) to choose from and he has to find the optimum one (local or global optima). The optimum algorithm is defined as the one that best improves the life of the user and hence necessarily be based on reality and facts. The basic tenet of optimization is to find a local optima first and then make sure that you (at the very least) try to find the global optima. When the faith-based strict algorithm is the first point the user finds, the algorithm per se makes it impossible for user to try to find a global optima or any optima for that matter because of two things - 1. It restricts the user to search for any other points. 2. By default, the algorithm cannot be questioned and therefore it can never be sure if the point is an optima in the first place.

Faith-based belief system is probably the most brilliant of algorithms. It employs an extremely smart self-defense strategy which completely prevents the un-installation (removing from the human's mind) of the algorithm (belief system) and furthermore, it prevents the user from ever installing (believing) another algorithm (belief system). Thereby, it puts forward the best defense and completely eradicates the possibility to switch algorithms based on performance. This is probably the most frustrating optimization problem ever encountered. Once installed, never removed. Once believed never changed.

If this happens in a computer, the best option would be to start it in safe-mode and delete the damn thing. Now, if only humans had a safe-mode option... And in extreme cases, re-install the operating system itself. Rarely possible in humans without completely destroying the brain. Makes me think, computers are less vulnerable than human brains.

In a larger context, the more people that follow faith-based belief systems, more the herd-mentality (groupthink, bandwagon effect and so on.) If and just "if" the faith-based belief system was developed for political reasons, as a means to control and take advantage of people, then the groupthink would lead to disaster for the mankind. What about the ones who developed it for self-centered political reasons? They would be winning a lottery!

Political strategies relying on mind control are the most effective ones out there. And developing and propagating an irrational faith-based belief system is the first step to complete mind control of mankind. What about people who notice this, discard and follow other belief systems? Now, that's a problem since the person doesn't even care about the belief system in the first place. This would be extremely unwelcoming to the persons who developed faith-based belief systems with the intention of gaining absolute control of mankind. Well, there are certain faith-based that have smartly solved this problem. The solution: Aggressively oppress these "rebels" by either isolation (jails) or total eradication (capital punishment).

Stone the rebels! To death!!

Smart, isn't it?

Chemical

Lessons for Lovers

Romantic love is mental illness.  But it's a pleasurable one.  It's a drug.
It distorts reality, and that's the point of it.  It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw.
- Fran Lebowitz
 

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

- Robert Frost
 

One type of love originates in the hypothalamus (a part of the brain also present in other animals).  It is programmed into DNA. A chemistry between lovers is not just a turn of phrase; it is a torrential release of brain chemicals and hormones.

Chemistry Chart

Testosterone - This hormone, produced in both men and women, regulates sexual desire and too much is counterproductive.
Progesterone - A testosterone antagonist, it lowers sex drive (in the pill as well).  It is a mild sedative and has a calming effect.
Estrogen - Makes women sexually attractive and more receptive.  


Phenylethylamine - A neurotransmitter released by a region of the brain called the hypothalamus, produce in capillaries and in catecholaminergic terminals.  Phenylethylamine, or PEA, causes you to fall madly in love with someone.  It is a natural form of amphetamine that floods the regions of the brain involved in sexual excitement.  It generates feelings of euphoria.  But it doesn't work alone when you are attracted to someone.  People who profess high passion for each other have equally high levels.  So-called "love at first sight" causes a circulatory surge.  The decay rate means the effects last only 18 months to five years in a given relationship - long enough to procreate and protect a child during early years of life.  Affairs and second (or third) marriages can cause the clock to be reset.
Dopamine - Involved in the "attention-getting" phase of attraction, it signals the brain that a reward is possible and helps to focus the attention.  Under the influence of dopamine, people are more talkative and excitable.  It is released when a person smokes a cigarette (one of tobacco's addictive components) and is a factor in attention deficit disorder.  It promotes action.
Serotonin - Helps to control mood and reduce its fluctuations.  A shortage of this brain chemical is widely associated with depression, so antidepressant drugs such as Prozac are designed to increase serotonin levels (as can pleasant conversation with your friends).  High levels make you feel good about yourself and encourage mate selectivity but it may sometimes increase violent behaviour and thrill-seeking when levels are too high.  Lower amounts are associated with less discriminating choices of mates and overly aggressive sexual behaviour.
Norepinephrine - Adrenalin: this neurotransmitter gets your blood racing and primes you for action.  As part of the "fight or flight" response, it floods the brain while you are deciding whether to kill or kiss.
Prolactin - Decreases sex drive, especially in men.
Endorphins - Produced in the brain; released in response to touch and sex, they produce overall positive feelings.
Oxytocin - Secreted from the pituitary gland, it bathes the brain and reproductive tracts of both women and men.  This chemical wash increases sensitivity to touch and encourages grooming and cuddling in both sexes.  It reduces stress-causing hormones in the body and influences bonding between adults (friends as well). It keeps relationships together after phenylethylamine has decayed.  "Touch deprivation" depletes the supply and sends people running to their hairdresser or masseuse.  Consuming several alcoholic drinks can decrease it. Stimulating oxytocin levels generates affection.  Oxytocin and its role in affection is one reason for such youthfulness.
Vasopressin - Hormone produced by the pituitary, it is an antidiuretic (causes water retention), increases blood volume and also blood pressure.  It is identified as the "monogamy molecule" and modulates testosterone.  It levels extremes of feelings (including anger), and increases focus in lovemaking.
Chocolate - The fats in dark chocolate trigger the brain's production of natural opiates.  Three compounds in chocolate enhance a feeling of well-being: anandamide, a cannabinoid which activates the same receptors in the brain as the active ingredient in marijuana and two compounds which increase the appetite.
Pheromones - Chemicals in the body that send signals to others through a subliminal passageway of scent called the vomeronasal system.
DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) - Secreted by adrenal glands, it is a weak androgen.  Most sex hormones and and pheromones are derived from it.  Males and females have roughly equal amounts in their bloodstream.
Cultural belief in passionate love forever is misplaced!

Source: http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/drugs/you_dont_need_love.htm

The Rubber Duck Method

This might be of help while debugging a code or solving a problem. :)

1) Beg, borrow, steal, buy, fabricate or otherwise obtain a rubber duck
   (bathtub variety)
2) Place rubber duck on desk and inform it you are just going to go over
   some code with it, if that's all right.
3) Explain to the duck what you code is supposed to do, and then go into
   detail and explain things line by line
4) At some point you will tell the duck what you are doing next and then
   realise that that is not in fact what you are actually doing.  The duck
   will sit there serenely, happy in the knowledge that it has helped you
   on your way.

The perfect combination of humor and advice! 
 
Source: http://lists.ethernal.org/oldarchives/cantlug-0211/msg00174.html

Sleep, among other things

3:29 AM

Is there something wrong with the clock? I wonder, as usual. I guess I am just living in the wrong side of Earth. I am sure 80% of the people in my campus are sleeping right now. It is too late even for the students who sleep 'late' at night. It is but early morning. Just an hour or so before the early birds wake up. 3 AM is supposed to be the darkest hour before dawn. I also read somewhere that due to this reason people often refer to 3 AM as the 'devil's hour'. 4 AM is supposedly the 'brahma muhurtam', an auspicous time. People are advised to wake up (and get up) at 4 AM and pray to God. One person takes this belief even further and conducts IIT-JEE coaching classes at 4 AM sharp in the morning. Of course, he strongly believes this will make the students understand every bit of information that is taught in the class. I just sigh. Poor little kids during the height of their teenage years being woken up by alarms(when termed more appropriately parents) before 4 AM so that they are in time for the class. And ironically, this coaching centre is very popular at my hometown, ranks first in the minds of many to-be-students-and-parents-of-students-of-IITJEE-classes.

Now, for an average teenager this is perhaps a torture. But, I would gladly welcome it. My attention-span, motivation, alert-ness and energy starts rising at 1 AM and peaks at 3 AM and begins to gradually fall down around 7 AM or so. Ironically, my classes start at 8 AM :-). This isn't a new thing though. On a fateful day, I was born at 9 PM and I remember my parents telling me that I, as a child, would sleep all day and wake up bright at 9 PM when my dad and uncle come home from work and lovingly hug me. This often means sleepless nights for my mom and dad. Poor mom and dad. For no fault of theirs, they had to fight of sleep for the entire night. I hear its common for children to wake up randomly at midnight screaming, but boy, I was sweet in that I was a lot more predictable. Gradually, as my adolescence started, my parents could sleep :D. And I would be the one watching my younger brother sleep. It had become less and less difficult as I got used to it. Getting used to the late night snacks stolen from the fridge, the books(fiction and non-fiction alike) which were my best friends and my imagination. Imagination - day dreaming should be the term but I find it very inappropriate. Night dreaming? This term is useless at best. Everyone dreams at night right? Fantasy sounds better.

Much thanks to my curiosity, I gathered there is a circadian rhythm that tells the body when to sleep, eat and wake up. Mostly feedback mechanisms that sense sunlight, temperature, stress etc. I wonder if my professor of the Advanced level course on Control Systems I take should look at this. It doesn't need a controls prof to understand the controllers is running haywire. Of course, the What? and the Why? will perhaps be a lot harder to answer. Now I shall pause this stream of thoughts and get back to the the "Midnight Sun" by Stephenie Meyer...

4:15 AM

The novel's interesting. Fiction has always amazed me. Especially the fantastic and the supernatural. The cause for this indulgence is perhaps just the hope of something different, different than what the world had offered to me till now. Again it is a strange hobby for someone who feels revulsion towards the beliefs that are not proven completely. Most of the times, people find me annoying when I point out that what they believe is true is just a belief and not a fact... yet. Like belief in religion, avoiding cutting nails on the tuesdays, avoiding rahukalam while going out, turning back if you see a cat cross your path and definitely turning back if it's a black one, avoiding non-vegetarian foods on thursdays etc. The list seems endless. Some of them are downright foolish beliefs. Some of them are unproven and intricately laced with the mysterious and the unknown-

An interruption as a I glance at my notes and the things-to-do-today list. I have a class for two hours starting at 8 AM and one hour at 1 PM. Should I try to sleep again? The morning two hours should be easy if I don't sleep till then. The 1 PM class should be the harder thing to endure and more importantly to attend on time. Sleepless nights and heavy lunches spell doom to the productivity of afternoon schedules. Usually Thursdays and Fridays irritate me because of the afternoon schedules. But today should be good. I have slept for 13 hours in the last two nights. That, by experience means that I can last till the tonight. At times, I really feel like changing the 24-hour to make it 72 hours or something of that sort. Anyway, now for a little indulgence... something different.

Slices of time

t=0, t=0+e, t=0+2e, ...

It is all about awareness of different slices of time. Everything is still at each instant. Awareness just moves from one slice of time to another. Non-living beings are things that are without this sense of awareness. Living beings usually can only sense one slice of time at a time. Simultaneous awareness of more than one slice of time would cause terrible confusion from which the only way out is stopping the awareness as it becomes too overwhelming to deal with.

What if you don't resort to the state where you run away from awareness? What if you are prepared; armed with the knowledge that reason, harmony and clarity will be lost once you become aware of more than one instances of time. Maybe, you can be prepared to see that which only few have seen.

Dreams are an indicator of the potential of simultaneous awareness. They are but a leap towards the aspect of multiple sensations of time. But, dreams are often forgotten. They are termed as unreal because the awareness is inconsistent with the state of slice of time that a human is more readily aware of. What if dreams were awareness of a state of a different slice of time. Would you then call them real?

What is real? Only the awareness of states that make sense together? Only those that
are consistent with each other?

Is it that, missing the finer slices of time that would induce a sense of consistency of the "unreal" dreams, is sufficient to call an instance of time as unreal?

The slices of time are pre-determined and free will is just an illusion. You are only here to sense the instances of time, not to change the state of the slice of time. But then, it is much difficult to convince a man who is blinded by the illusion of freewill, that there is no reason, no greater purpose and no significant meaning. The sense of nothingness is too hard to endure. For we all have been brought up with ideals, morals and ethics. That there is a greater purpose that we are supposed to serve.

The only thing there is to learn, is perhaps, that there is nothing to learn.

30Q

Apparently, someone else is more worried about my rusting blog than me. This post is just another way to while away the days of jobless winter vacation. ;)

1. Last movie you saw in a theater?
A. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (Long long ago...)

2. What book are you reading?
A. The A.B.C murders by Agatha Christie.

3. Favourite board game?
A. Scotland Yard.

4. Favourite magazine/s?
A. Never bothered about magazines much.

5. Favourite smells?
A. Uh... I don't think I know its name.

6. Favourite sounds?
A. Keeps changing.

7. Worst feeling in the world?
A. How about happiness? :P

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
A. My music playlist.

9. Favourite fast food place?
A. None.

10. Future child’s name?
A. No clue.

11. Finish this statement. “If I had lot of money I’d…?”
A. Spend it.

12. Do you drive fast?
A. No.

13. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
A. Er. Now I'm really doubting if this tag is directed at everyone :P

14. Storms - cool or scary?
A. Cool.

15. What was your first car?
A. Yet to own one.

16. Favourite drink?
A. Black coffee.

17. Finish this statement, “If I had the time I would...”?
A. Get bored.

18. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
A. :|

19. If you could dye your hair any colour, what would be your choice?
A. :)) Mine is the best!

20. Name all the different cities/towns you’ve lived in?
A. Hyderabad, Chennai.

21. Favourite sports to watch?
A. Swimming.

22. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you?

A. Just one?

23. What’s under your bed?

A. A cat :P

24. Would you like to be born as yourself again?
A. Yes.

25. Morning person, or night owl?
A. Night owl.

26. Over easy, or sunny side up?
A. No idea what this question means.

27. Favourite place to relax?
A. My room.

28. Favourite pie?
A. Never had a pie!

29. Favourite ice cream flavour?
A. Butterscotch.

30. Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?
A. None!

Star-crossed Lovers

"If you wish to converse with me, define your terms" - Voltaire

A discussion is trivial if the so called "arguments" involved are no arguments at all. Instead, it should be termed "Rant race". And it's even more fun when someone is talking to himself.

A: Are you clear on what I meant?

B: Yeah! But you don't understand me-

A: Yes, I understood you.

B: No! But you aren't doing it-.

A: I'm not going to do that and I understood what you said.

B: Then, you didn't get what I'm saying-

A: :|

Things like this happen because of the mental filter in our brain. We don't always hear what the other person says. Actually, that other person has an equally good chance of not meaning a word he says.

When did "Understanding" become equivalent to "Agreement" ?
and "Contrary opinion" become an "Insult" ?
"Selfish" = "Cruel" ?

Basically, if people talk to each other in two different languages, say English and French; we easily get the point that it isn't a conversation. There is no 'interchange of information'. "Language Barrier" is the figurative phrase used to indicate this type of difficulty.

Now, if two people converse in English and still have difficulties such as the above, can we attribute it to "Mental Barrier" ?

Define your terms - says Voltaire.

This might be a nice theoretical solution though not very feasible. We can't cross-check with a dictionary before we speak every word. We can, however, do this when we value debate per se and when we get the hint that the "argument" is tending towards rant race.

It's usually taken that a clearer understanding is reached with attentive listening. This might not be so true, when the speaker itself says things that they don't mean. One of the worst things that can happen is two people meaning the same thing in their head and still fighting about it.

Some of the minds who have thought about this problem suggest the "Common sense" theory. It is believed that for the most part a specific group of people think in a specific way.

Things are not all good with the "common sense" theory. As my cousin says, 'But what is logic? I doubt many people will agree on that'

If many people don't agree on a neutral word like "logic", common sense theory is doomed.

(Oh and by the way, I think the word 'logic' is neutral - just so that you 'understand' :p)

There are two things that you can do to minimize the problem of a rant race -

1. Stop talking altogether. (This works well when applied in the middle of a rant race too)
2. Define your terms and argue with only those people who define their terms.

Neither of the alternatives is extremely pragmatic, perhaps "Language" and "Communication" are star-crossed lovers.