Reaching There

Nassim Nicholas Taleb I was watching Nassim Nicholas Taleb talk on his book Antifragility : Things that Gain from Disorder on Authors@Google. I was going through an interesting article on  Why Your IT Project May Be Riskier Than You Think on HBR. A new term " black swan " caught my imagination and a few hours later I ended up with Taleb's talk. Disclaimer - I haven't read the book yet so this is not a book review but a way to motivate myself and justify either buying the book or at least borrowing it from somewhere. I'm currently trying to laboriously and lethargically read the book The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver. So it would be some time before I can put my hand to another one. What I found interesting in Taleb's Antifragile talk? So coming back to Taleb's talk there were a few key takeaways that managed to stuck in my mind because of the lighthearted conversation of the author as well as the simplicity of the idea; these key...

Politics and political satire go hand in hand. A little bit of Googling on these two keywords would result in the likes of Aristophanes  (called the prince of ancient comedy) to the modern day political satires in The Daily Show and The Colbert Nation on Comedy Central for those familiar with American television (or what's left of it after the flooding of realty shows that seem to defy rationality and creativity alike). I'm a big fan of The Daily Show which tags itself as political comedy and fake news. The show manages to bring out the ridiculousness of the various so called "news" channels which have become sources of sensationalist media that impregnates facts with heavy doses of fiction to bloat the straight facts to a state of perpetual chaos and bytes of information that can be fed to people through tubes rather than be chewed intelligently. IMHO! - Political parties are social unit of people whose aim is to gain authority and hopefully create enoug...

All of us have a lot of questions that seem to popup on a regular basis in the curious minds. Do I have a purpose in my life? Where do I come from and where am I going? What is life and death? I believe it's perfectly "sane" to think about these questions seriously and do research to make the answers more clearer as we progress in life (or as we come a day closer to an eventual death). I recently saw a video of a debate between Richard Dawkins and Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury. The topic of the debate seemed a very appropriate topic to listen about from two learned minds - Human Beings & Ultimate Origin. I wasn't expecting any answers to my questions but the curious nose leads to various directions and sometimes I let it lead me (yeah, guilty). The debate on Human Beings included the theory of Natural Selection propounded by Charles Darwin more than hundred & fifty years ago. The idea of tree of life that began in a primordial sou...

I started delving with the ideas of atheism and spiritualism lately. It all started with a comment that religious faith is blind with ignorance towards scientific methodology of evidence or mathematical proof. You can read more about the post here .  Which lead to further contemplation on the topic, which seemed to have permanently ingrained itself in my mind. However I realized there was a fundamental difference between Western atheism,   Abrahamic   religions and   Vedic   spiritualism. I'll only go into atheism and my spiritualism. Western atheism arises from the debate between creation versus evolution. Modern scientists refuted the claims such as Earth was at the center of the universe or the universe is a few thousand years old. Over the course of Western history it was proven the infinite magnitude of universe (even multiverse). Thus evolved the modern science, which included stalwarts like Sir Issac Newton, Nicolaus Copernicus  and other open m...

I'm stripping layers of my skin; when I write. It's a wonderful feeling within; when I write. I'm holding nothing back and there's no fear. All of me is out there for you; loud and clear. I'm surprised how much I had to say; to You. Words like steps on water; just going through! I'm completely naked; stripped of all ego now? On the gates of time, ready to take the last bow?

There is a chasm of fundamental difference between atheism and religion as defined by the humankind.  When I say atheists I refer to all the men of science who need a mathematical or logical proof of life beyond our life. These are the self-proclaimed men of proof that believe that factual evidence leads to lesser evils; evidence leads to intelligent human beings behaving rationally and morality is an outcome of human evolution, from hunters to builders, rather than a faculty that draws power from a moral code of conduct defined by greater consciousness. The supernaturalistic beliefs lead to irrationality and religious zeal ultimately ending in bigotry. That's their problem with religion and hence the atheistic call for freedom from such beliefs that are non-scientific. Religion in today's (since recorded human history) world has been reduced to belief in miracles and pestering requests for materialism from a supernatural being. The fundamental philosophy points th...