I have been confronted by many on the topic of free will - A gift from God that separates us from animals and angels.
This is followed by another topic – “Soul” the ultimate survivor which lets us enjoy our free will.
Although there are these floating theories about Soul and Free Will, I was looking for a more genuine definition for the same. Hence, during these confrontations, I picked up a couple of words that were mostly used with "Free Will" and "Soul".
Below is my search to find if these human traits are only restricted to human, making us the blessed creatures on the planet - "Creationist" - don't read further!
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1. Culture
Art, theatre, literature, music, religion, architecture and cuisine – these are the things we generally associate with culture. Clearly no other animal has anything approaching this level of cultural sophistication. But culture at its core is simply the sum of a particular group's characteristic ways of living, learned from one another and passed down the generations, and other primate species undoubtedly have practices that are unique to groups, such as a certain way of greeting each other or obtaining food.
Even more convincing examples of animal cultures are found in cetaceans. Killer whales, for example, fall into two distinct groups, residents and transients. Although both live in the same waters and interbreed, they have very different social structures and lifestyles, distinct ways of communicating, different tastes in food and characteristic hunting techniques – all of which parents teach to offspring.
2. Mind reading
Perhaps the surest sign that an individual has insight into the mind of another is the ability to deceive. To outwit someone you must understand their desires, intentions and motives – exactly the same ability that underpins the "theory of mind". This ability to attribute mental states to others was once thought unique to humans, emerging suddenly around the fifth year of life. But the discovery that babies are capable of deception led experts to conclude that "mind-reading" skills develop gradually, and fuelled debate about whether they might be present in other primates.
Experiments in the 1990s indicated that great apes and some monkeys do understand deception, but that their understanding of the minds of others is probably implicit rather than explicit as it is in adult humans.
There are now several studies that show evidence of theory of mind in primates, on chimps, rhesus and monkeys.
3. Tool use
Some chimps use rocks to crack nuts, others fish for termites with blades of grass and a gorilla has been seen gauging the depth of water with the equivalent of a dipstick, but no animal wields tools with quite the alacrity of the New Caledonian crow. To extract tasty insects from crevices, they craft a selection of hooks and long, barbed tapers called stepped-cut tools, made by intricately cutting a pandanus leaf with their beaks. What's more, these animals understand the function of tools and deploy creativity and planning to construct them.
4. Morality
A classic study in 1964 found that hungry rhesus monkeys would not take food they had been offered if doing so meant that another monkey received an electric shock. The same is true of rats. Does this indicate nascent morality? For decades, we have preferred to find alternative explanations, but recently ethologist Marc Bekoff from the University of Colorado at Boulder has championed the view that humans are not the only moral species. He argues that morality is common in social mammals and that during play they learn the rights and wrongs of social interaction, the "moral norms that can then be extended to other situations such as sharing food, defending resources, grooming and giving care".
Francys Subiaul of the George Washington University and his colleagues showed that captive chimpanzees are able to make judgments about the reputation of unfamiliar humans by observing their behaviour - whether they were generous or stingy in giving food to other humans. The ability to make character judgments is just what we would expect to find in a species in which fairness and cooperation are important in interactions among group members
5. Emotions
Emotions allow us to bond with others, regulate our social interactions and make it possible to behave flexibly in different situations. We are not the only animals that need to do these things, so why should we be the only ones with emotions? There are many examples of apparent emotional behavior in other animals.
Elephants caring for a crippled herd member seem to show empathy. A funeral ritual performed by magpies suggests grief. Was it spite that led a male baboon called Nick to take revenge on a rival by urinating on her? Divers who freed a humpback whale caught in a crab line describe its reaction as one of gratitude. Then there's the excited dance chimps perform when faced with a waterfall – it looks distinctly awe-inspired. These days, few doubt that animals have emotions, but whether they feel these consciously, as we do, is open to debate.
6. Personality
It's no surprise that animals that live under constant threat from predators are extra-cautious, while those that face fewer risks appear to be more reckless. After all, such successful survival strategies would evolve by natural selection. But the discovery that individuals of the same species, living under the same conditions, vary in their degree of boldness or caution is more remarkable. In humans we would refer to such differences as personality traits.
From cowardly spiders and reckless salamanders to aggressive songbirds and fearless fish, we are finding that many animals are not as characterless as we might expect. What's more, work with animals has led to the idea that personality traits evolve to help individuals survive in a wider variety of ecological niches, and this is influencing the way psychologists think about human personality.
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So common guys, get up and pick your plan B… cause plan A doesn’t seem to be working :)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
The NET is Brimming!
Remember how disheartening it was to know that some john.smith has already bagged that perfect email id you always wanted – that’s nothing compared to the difficulties you would have getting an internet connection for your computer after 2011.
As of this month 85 per cent of the 4.3 billion available Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which identify devices connected to the net, are already in use. Within three years they will all be used up, according to a report by the OECD. "The situation is critical for the future of the internet economy," it says.
The report urges governments and businesses to upgrade from the current version, IPv4, to IPv6, which effectively has an unlimited number of IP addresses. IPv6 has been available for more than a decade but service providers have been slow to adopt it.
So guys, before its too late – go grab the net :)
As of this month 85 per cent of the 4.3 billion available Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which identify devices connected to the net, are already in use. Within three years they will all be used up, according to a report by the OECD. "The situation is critical for the future of the internet economy," it says.
The report urges governments and businesses to upgrade from the current version, IPv4, to IPv6, which effectively has an unlimited number of IP addresses. IPv6 has been available for more than a decade but service providers have been slow to adopt it.
So guys, before its too late – go grab the net :)
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Most believable flicks
After the latest Science fiction flick Iron Man, I thought it would be interesting to list a few that really deserves to be in the science category and not all Fiction.
So here is my honest try – I have picked 5 sci-fi movies that go against the grain and has some accurate plausible science involved :)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Despite being made before the first moon landing, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke's masterpiece is a strikingly realistic depiction of space travel.
It envisions interplanetary spaceships that use a variety of techniques to allow people to exist in zero gravity – some sections rotate to generate artificial gravity, others have walls covered in Velcro (or something similar) so that crewmembers wearing suitable shoes can walk across them.
Among the film's neater details:
All scenes in outer space are silent – sound does not travel in a vacuum
The stars do not move past the ship – for there to be a visible motion of the star field, the ship would have to be travelling at close to the speed of light
The crew eat paste-like food and only drink liquids through straws.
Additionally, crew members are shown coping with the boredom and routine of a long, straightforward trek across empty space.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
The central character, Joel, discovers that his girlfriend Clementine has erased her memories of their relationship. Heartbroken and embittered, he goes to the company that performed the procedure and asks them to erase his memories as well. However, as the procedure gets underway, he realizes that he wants to keep the memories after all, and begins to resist.
Sensibly, the film depicts memory as essentially a network of links. In its frenetic second half, Joel is asleep while the technicians "operate" on his mind. We follow as he careens from recent memories of his relationship to those of his earliest childhood.
As he encounters each memory, it is identified by the technicians and erased, leading to spectacular sequences of him running through bookshops while books disappear from the shelves and escaping from a house that is disappearing one wall at a time.
Alien (1979)
This sci-fi horror has a number of realistic touches, such as the use of suspended animation to keep the spaceship's crew alive during decades-long interstellar travel (no implausible faster-than-light travel for these astronauts).
It makes the list, though, for the vicious creature the crew encounters, in particular for the finer details of its life cycle.
The alien goes through three stages over the course of the film. It begins as an egg, which produces a kind of head-sized spider, equipped with a strong tail and a vaguely reptilian appearance. This attaches itself to the nearest living body and, while clamped over the face, implants an embryo into its victim's stomach. It then falls off and dies. The embryo survives by feeding on the victim's digested food. Eventually it breaks out (in the least pleasant way possible) and runs amok on the ship.
Every element of the life cycle can be found in nature, variously in parasites, robber wasps and social insects. Much of the film's suspense comes from the filmmakers' decision to let events unfold without too much explanation – the viewer has to piece the life cycle together for themselves.
Gattaca (1997)
It is one of the few films to tackle the issue of genetic determinism: how much are we really controlled by our genes? Vincent (the central character) out-competes genetically-superior characters mostly through sheer strength of will. Does that mean that genetic testing really cannot predict how people will perform – or does it just mean we haven't found the genes for willpower yet?
Solaris (1972 and 2002)
This Russian classic makes the list not so much for the specific science it portrays, as for its portrayal of the limits of science and of human understanding.
Psychologist Chris Kelvin is dispatched to a space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris, to find out why the crew has stopped responding to messages from Earth. He discovers them in a state of emotional breakdown, and is soon in the same condition himself. After falling asleep on the station for the first time, he wakes to find his wife Rheya, who committed suicide years before, next to him.
Somehow, and for no reason ever made clear, Solaris has brought Rheya back, constructing her using her husband's memories. Solaris itself is equally inexplicable, creating bizarre geometric shapes across its surface that may or may not be alive.
Despite being a trained psychologist and an educated man, Chris cannot even understand his wife. How then, the film asks, could he possibly understand something as alien as Solaris? Devotees of quantum mechanics and the consciousness problem will no doubt sympathize.
I also feel the Bladerunner deserve to be in this list - however, there a conflict in my head!
Thank you IMDB for the minute details like character names and plot, as its been quite some time since I watched these movies :)
So here is my honest try – I have picked 5 sci-fi movies that go against the grain and has some accurate plausible science involved :)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Despite being made before the first moon landing, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke's masterpiece is a strikingly realistic depiction of space travel.
It envisions interplanetary spaceships that use a variety of techniques to allow people to exist in zero gravity – some sections rotate to generate artificial gravity, others have walls covered in Velcro (or something similar) so that crewmembers wearing suitable shoes can walk across them.
Among the film's neater details:
All scenes in outer space are silent – sound does not travel in a vacuum
The stars do not move past the ship – for there to be a visible motion of the star field, the ship would have to be travelling at close to the speed of light
The crew eat paste-like food and only drink liquids through straws.
Additionally, crew members are shown coping with the boredom and routine of a long, straightforward trek across empty space.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
The central character, Joel, discovers that his girlfriend Clementine has erased her memories of their relationship. Heartbroken and embittered, he goes to the company that performed the procedure and asks them to erase his memories as well. However, as the procedure gets underway, he realizes that he wants to keep the memories after all, and begins to resist.
Sensibly, the film depicts memory as essentially a network of links. In its frenetic second half, Joel is asleep while the technicians "operate" on his mind. We follow as he careens from recent memories of his relationship to those of his earliest childhood.
As he encounters each memory, it is identified by the technicians and erased, leading to spectacular sequences of him running through bookshops while books disappear from the shelves and escaping from a house that is disappearing one wall at a time.
Alien (1979)
This sci-fi horror has a number of realistic touches, such as the use of suspended animation to keep the spaceship's crew alive during decades-long interstellar travel (no implausible faster-than-light travel for these astronauts).
It makes the list, though, for the vicious creature the crew encounters, in particular for the finer details of its life cycle.
The alien goes through three stages over the course of the film. It begins as an egg, which produces a kind of head-sized spider, equipped with a strong tail and a vaguely reptilian appearance. This attaches itself to the nearest living body and, while clamped over the face, implants an embryo into its victim's stomach. It then falls off and dies. The embryo survives by feeding on the victim's digested food. Eventually it breaks out (in the least pleasant way possible) and runs amok on the ship.
Every element of the life cycle can be found in nature, variously in parasites, robber wasps and social insects. Much of the film's suspense comes from the filmmakers' decision to let events unfold without too much explanation – the viewer has to piece the life cycle together for themselves.
Gattaca (1997)
It is one of the few films to tackle the issue of genetic determinism: how much are we really controlled by our genes? Vincent (the central character) out-competes genetically-superior characters mostly through sheer strength of will. Does that mean that genetic testing really cannot predict how people will perform – or does it just mean we haven't found the genes for willpower yet?
Solaris (1972 and 2002)
This Russian classic makes the list not so much for the specific science it portrays, as for its portrayal of the limits of science and of human understanding.
Psychologist Chris Kelvin is dispatched to a space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris, to find out why the crew has stopped responding to messages from Earth. He discovers them in a state of emotional breakdown, and is soon in the same condition himself. After falling asleep on the station for the first time, he wakes to find his wife Rheya, who committed suicide years before, next to him.
Somehow, and for no reason ever made clear, Solaris has brought Rheya back, constructing her using her husband's memories. Solaris itself is equally inexplicable, creating bizarre geometric shapes across its surface that may or may not be alive.
Despite being a trained psychologist and an educated man, Chris cannot even understand his wife. How then, the film asks, could he possibly understand something as alien as Solaris? Devotees of quantum mechanics and the consciousness problem will no doubt sympathize.
I also feel the Bladerunner deserve to be in this list - however, there a conflict in my head!
Thank you IMDB for the minute details like character names and plot, as its been quite some time since I watched these movies :)
They Just Won’t Stop!
I had been to the United Arab Emirates for vacations the last December – and boy, couldn’t believe my eyes to vitness the development that have happened over the past 10 years.
A country which was highly dependent on petrol and natural gas exports, have come a long way – to today, where they are almost independent on natural resources for their expansion.
I remember the days when only sand safari and belly dancing where the top most things to do in UAE
As I talk more about my experience, I realize how UAE has come in realization with a blend in nature and the metropolis that it is today.
Places like Jabal Hafeet exhibiting natural hot spring to SKI Dubai a manmade Skiing joint. And who would want to miss the amazing open beaches in Jumeriah.
Finally when you take a breather, would you come across the fliers like Palm Beach Resort Island - the man made island and the first 7 start hotel of Burj Al Arab.. the list just keeps growing.
However, I am here to talk about a new venture that UAE is into – “Zero Carbon City”
Yes, you read it right – the first zero carbon city built on nothing but renewable energy.
Solar power, in the form of photovoltaic panels, concentrated solar collectors, and solar thermal tubes will provide 82% of the city's energy needs.
An additional 17% of the city's power will come from burning composted food waste in a highly efficient method that developers say will emit greenhouse gases at a rate 10 times lower than if the food were allowed to decompose in a landfill. The remaining 1% of the city's energy will come from wind turbines.
Smart urban planning that employs traditional designs, such as wind cooling towers and narrow streets aligned along a southwest by northeast axis to maximize shaded areas, will further reduce energy needs.
I know its not a leap rather a small step, as eventually, some would say the amount of energy required to built up a place like that would take a carbon economy in itself. None the less – I’m glad to see us stepping into the next era of reusable energy –
Good day folks!
A country which was highly dependent on petrol and natural gas exports, have come a long way – to today, where they are almost independent on natural resources for their expansion.
I remember the days when only sand safari and belly dancing where the top most things to do in UAE
As I talk more about my experience, I realize how UAE has come in realization with a blend in nature and the metropolis that it is today.
Places like Jabal Hafeet exhibiting natural hot spring to SKI Dubai a manmade Skiing joint. And who would want to miss the amazing open beaches in Jumeriah.
Finally when you take a breather, would you come across the fliers like Palm Beach Resort Island - the man made island and the first 7 start hotel of Burj Al Arab.. the list just keeps growing.
However, I am here to talk about a new venture that UAE is into – “Zero Carbon City”
Yes, you read it right – the first zero carbon city built on nothing but renewable energy.
Solar power, in the form of photovoltaic panels, concentrated solar collectors, and solar thermal tubes will provide 82% of the city's energy needs.
An additional 17% of the city's power will come from burning composted food waste in a highly efficient method that developers say will emit greenhouse gases at a rate 10 times lower than if the food were allowed to decompose in a landfill. The remaining 1% of the city's energy will come from wind turbines.
Smart urban planning that employs traditional designs, such as wind cooling towers and narrow streets aligned along a southwest by northeast axis to maximize shaded areas, will further reduce energy needs.
I know its not a leap rather a small step, as eventually, some would say the amount of energy required to built up a place like that would take a carbon economy in itself. None the less – I’m glad to see us stepping into the next era of reusable energy –
Good day folks!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Whoz the President?
A couple of days back, i saw some pundits discussing the results of a poll in the magnums US of A.
What interested me was - 9 out of 10 Americans said in a poll that they would vote for an African-American. However, when asked if they knew any friends who wouldn't - more than half said they did!
I could draw some parallel to this with my own experiences during college life - where one is morally forced to provide the right response; although one never believed in it!
As the all powerful, world economy dependent elections are heading our way - I feel, people are still secretly racists. They might give great reviews on not being bigots; but once inside the voting booth, its just their values and principles that counts!!!
Herez what i concur the elections are gonna come down to -
Obama will get nominated and exit polls would show 95% of African-American votes for him. This would frighten all the racists who hadn't planned to vote and drive them to cast a vote - thus handing the election to Mr. McCain.
What interested me was - 9 out of 10 Americans said in a poll that they would vote for an African-American. However, when asked if they knew any friends who wouldn't - more than half said they did!
I could draw some parallel to this with my own experiences during college life - where one is morally forced to provide the right response; although one never believed in it!
As the all powerful, world economy dependent elections are heading our way - I feel, people are still secretly racists. They might give great reviews on not being bigots; but once inside the voting booth, its just their values and principles that counts!!!
Herez what i concur the elections are gonna come down to -
Obama will get nominated and exit polls would show 95% of African-American votes for him. This would frighten all the racists who hadn't planned to vote and drive them to cast a vote - thus handing the election to Mr. McCain.
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