"Fish! Is that true?"

Today, I read an extremely interesting piece of speculative work. It goes something like this - imagine that there's this Amazonian electric fish, that is very intelligent, in fact as intelligent and sophisticated as you or I. However it has the special ability to perceive electric fields. It has this sense in addition to others such as taste, sight and so forth. Now, how does it communicate to us the way it perceives the world around it through the electric eyes? (pun unintended.)

If I were a superscientist from the future, I can study the entire process of the fish sensing the electric data, right from the sensors on its skin to the neural pathways in its brain.
I can map out the entire flow diagram and say, "Hey fish, this is what's going on in your brain."
The fish says, "Sure, that's what's going on. But I also feel electric field. Where's the feeling in that diagram?"
"What's that", I ask.
"That's part of the actual, ineffable experience of the field, which I can never seem to convey to you because you're totally field-blind."

We can study the neurophysiology of this fish and figure out how the electric organs on the sides of the body transduce electrical current, how this information is conveyed to the brain, what part of the brain analyzes this information and how the fish uses this information to dodge predators and so on. Fine, but we'll never know what it feels like to sense electricity. For us, it will always remain a third-person account.

For centuries, philosophers have assumed that this gap between brain and mind poses a deep epistemological problem - a barrier that simply cannot be crossed. Modern day devices such as the transcranial magnetic stimulator - an extremely powerful, fluctuating magnet that activates neural tissue with some degree of precision can be used to try out such experiments. People who have been blind from birth, and whose visual pathways in the brain haven't degenerated have reportedly perceived light through this device, even though their eyes are completely insensitive to brightness.

Consider now another possibility. Suppose there was some elaborate method by which the brain of the fish was directly linked to a strategic part of our brains, would we be able to perceive electricity? This procedure is theoretically possible. What then of the mind-body barrier that the philosophers were talking about?

Pink Floyd: High Hopes

Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun
Along the long road and on down the causeway
Do they still meet there by the cut
There was a ragged band that followed in our footsteps
Running before time took our dreams away
Leaving the myriad small creatures trying to tie us to the ground
To a life consumed by slow decay

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide
At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed of world

****

Encumbered forever by desire and ambition
There's a hunger still unsatisfied
Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon
Though down this road we've been so many times

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder
With friends surrounded
The dawn mist glowing
The water flowing
The endless river
For ever and ever.

The sixth 'dogma'

Now when I look back, though my semester wasn't one of the greatest, it is still a vivid recollection. It started off with a bang, what with my girlfriend and I going to movies bunking classes! And then, getting totally involved in my numerous projects, of which one of them being academic, the others being short term goals like finishing that next calvin and hobbes book! Then the trip to Chennai, for that national conference. This experience brought to me a whole world of academicians and their seriousness in their respective fields. Hmm... now coming to the bad, and the ugly parts of the last few months. The highlights must be placed on the terrible academics and the worse-still exams themselves, and not to speak, the spat with my girl. But as they say, all's fine when all's done. I happened to find myself with a job in hand. I got back my time and space, which I hadn'd had during my 'project days'. Now there's some time for breathing, not that I was stressed for time earlier, but yes, I was stressed about other things. But most importantly, i got my love, my life back. My hope, my feelings, my emotions... I got my 'self' back. This must be what they call "the armyman coming home" feeling. I am myself again. I can give, emote, laugh, feel and care for myself and my girl again. but look at the vagueries of life, all this I feel when she just returned back to Australia. That the sad thing though. Nevertheless, the number '6' has always had its effects on me ever since I learned that it is my numerological number (though I don't believe in stuff like that). Semester 6 has come and gone, my life had gone but has come back.

Torn Love

I fell in love with a precious stone,
Shared his sparkle and his ground.
Leapt with him on that wave we see,
And beckoned the cosmic black.

The bank was then, still and withdrawn,
And a silent river used to be torn upstream,
I lay beside my overwhelming love,
Unmoved by the shadowy goliath.

I watched one and then another stone pass,
Writhing and tussling the silent river
I bid adieu to such friends and foe,
As I lay beside my overwhelming love.

Soon the colors of the leaves changed.
They died and fell apart, as I gauged
The storm arrived and the sea fell prey.
And the lightning struck, making me a prey.

He watched me go, to the farthest land.
Where his eyes couldn’t sense his pursuit.
It was then he shouted loud, for no avail
He stretched to shoulder my pain, much in vain.

I emerged to pierce the oblivion,
To break- free from the demon’s dance.
It was an intense struggle against fate.
And all that I had seen in the past.

The nights now spoke louder than the days.
The fort of strength shattered across.
And I watched him go to the farthest land.
My faith and soul collapsed.

I bit the dust and tumbled down every rise,
I could only hang on to the memoirs of the spring.
When he had echoed the refrain of eternal love,
When his touch shielded the fragile sill.

How did the seasons change, so quick?
while I was raising a lovely castle at the edge.
I had pinned hopes and adorned it with life.
And I had pleaded him to be a part of it.


I lost a world, I blame the gem.
But the gem was after all, only a stone
He shared a magical stride with me.
And vanished ‘ere I could disagree.

When I'm gone

The murmur of the blooming bud,
Voices no silence when I leave.
The rains don’t stop.
No kitten cries, when I leave.

The land’s warm, reserves aplenty,
No love is scarce when I leave,
Amidst a tear and a half,
They say good bye when I leave.

The stream of thoughts, a bright blue,
Will soon seep down, once I leave.
They will caress what they have got
Once I leave

Then they will detect, a poster or two
Which says – ‘ I miss you’, once I leave
They will see another and notice a void
Once I leave.

Past that, they would accelerate their life
And gear it up, after I leave.
They would linger engaged, hear no song
After I leave.

Mono-sight’s a boon, while they bond
The oaths don’t matter after I leave.
Glory of their own is enough to spice it up
After I leave.

The prospects at the far end,
The celebrated past, triggers them, after I leave
They look baffled at the distant horizon,
And wonder whether they are bereaved.

They wander about, panic struck,
Wild about the soaring pitch.
They find my absence odd
And what they did wrong, long after.

Then they pretend that they see nothing absurd,
And claim life to be a roller coaster,
They agonize their present, offend the long-gone.
And reflect what they did wrong, long after I’m gone.

They play a game and watch the moon,
And parade that night, their triumph too soon.
While their heart thumps, and misses that beat.
Wishing profusely to be with the forlorn.

The crave cant wait, nor the lonesome sky
They want me back, long after I’m gone
The story does not end until I’m found.
Long After I’m gone.

Will be back!

After my last exam, I waited for the bus outside the Mac building, which was an intense hub of activity, much unlike the rest of Canberra.Students, mostly Chinese, hung about the place, discussing the exam paper. Their presence failed to have any affect on me. I stood dreaming about the next fifteen days. I was going back home after finishing one year at uni. I wondered if life would have been any different if i was studying one of the popular courses at VTU. I concluded that the difference is more than i can comprehend.

• After shifting off campus I had realized the difference between apathy and tolerance.
• I had known the power of silence and their different types.
• I had understood what it was to walk home alone at 11:30 pm in the night after a tiring day spent at the uni library.
• I had discovered the true 'fun' of hanging out at a coffee club.
• I had discovered that culture hardly plays a role between individuals when they have the same wavelength.
• I considered the importance of networking.
• I knew what it was to safeguard your true nature in the midst of emotional turmoil, stressful environments and lonely nights.
• I learnt the importance of internet banking.
• I habituated smiling.
• I was now used to environments characterized by cold winds, pollution-free air and non judgemental people.

I guess the list continues and so does the journey. But i still long to be back home, to listen to the 'lamest' of kannada songs on FM, meet friends and have extended conversations.

Emotions: Feelings to die for

A few millennia ago, due to certain ‘mistakes’ on the part of mother nature, sea-bound whales chanced upon land. The rest, as they say, is history.

A quick survey of the phenomena concerned with the surroundings and the development of nature around that time leads us to a chilling question – did the animals kill themselves emotionally? Did the animals, with their well developed brains evolve too fast emotionally for their own good? Did the plants and trees, with their lack of decision-influencing brains have an ‘emotional’ edge over the animals and insects?

Well, owing to the obvious absurdity on the scale regarding the questions above, perhaps not. But of late, socio biologists have come up with a new claim – animals unconsciously time their demise. This revolting statement manifests itself to many spheres of conclusions, some seemingly far fetched. Take for instance the salmon, which swims upstream and up waterfalls. A totally suicidal mission in the interest of a bizarre homing and nesting habit. A mistake in evolution. Or, consider the sad story of lemmings. Lemmings are known to actually commit suicide. Each 4 years there is a cyclic demographical boom of the lemmings (small arctic rodents) followed by a desperate massive migration during which many die throwing themselves into the rivers, lakes and seas. It has been regarded as a collective suicide, conscious or involuntary, caused by over-population.

The attention which I wish to draw is to be focussed on the emotion behind such decisions taken by animals. Even psychologists of today have agreed that emotionally weak people are medically the toughest nuts to crack, if an otherwise easily and totally curable disease afflicts them. Plants, which as such suffer few diseases when compared to animals, seem to get over them in the course of an evolution interval or two. Rarely does a particular species of plants suffer from the same disease years on end. They totally adapt to the environment, and quickly.

This draws us to another question – the role played by emotions in mentally advanced species of organisms in the ability to adapt to new environments. Here though, the answer is obvious. The better the brain better is the chance of survival over diverse environments. But the answer pertains to only a long term quo. According to noted socio biologist Edward O. Wilson, 85% of all organisms with a reasonably advanced brain structure showed signs of mental depression when something they liked, or were used to, were taken away from them. Which means, in a way, the more mentally (and hence emotionally) developed an organism is, the chances of its survival in a new territory or environment is diminished. Not just that, even a small change in the DNA structure in the genealogy of such organisms has wide spread changes in its emotions, as is explained by the case of lemmings.

Before we conclude, let us examine a few more cases of over-development of the emotional instinct has made the fauna seem like fools before the ‘brainless’ flora around us.

• In a natural reserve in Zimbabwe, chased from their pride, luck seemed to have encountered a pair of old hungry male lions. They cornered a warthog, but the animal escaped in the last moment in a den. One of the lions, pushed by the hunger, tried to follow it, but he got trapped in the narrow hole. His partner tried to help him, pulling him out with the paw, but when the trapped lion started roaring of pain, he stopped. The trapped lion died asphyxiated, and the next day, his partner hardly managed to pull out his corpse. Sooner, the second lion was found dead next to the body of the other. He had refused to go hunting, and died of hunger.·
• This case occurred in Ostiglia (in Italy): Franz, a German shepherd dog, was lying on the railways line, near the railway station. Workers always chased away with stones the dog, but soon after the dog returned, and one day, the dog met with the Verona-Bologna train, and was run over. Franz had lost his master, condemned two weeks before to one year in jail. Since she had disappeared, the animal refused food, haunting through the city, like a suffering soul missing a beloved one
• Some birds, with a more complex behaviour, can suicide, like parrots. In a pair of pet love birds, the male got an injury that killed him in one hour. The female, witnessing the sufferance of her partner till he died, imitated all his movements, like she would have suffered the same way like him. She kept on imitating this even after her partner died, and this had a harming effect on her inner organs. Her vitality dropped, and she died soon.
  

Drawing congruities with human behavior in the same light is too obvious, and unnecessary. As we are at the threshold of a vast era of new-age discoveries and inventions, much attention has been diverted away from the essence of man, and the human soul. For, examining within the deep insides of our spirit has wrongly become synonymous to emotional weakness. The not-so-mystic ‘mystic’ yogis of India have long held it that salvation can only be achieved with disillusionment of worldly entities, and emotions.