Body and Mind

“When a thousand people believe some made-up story for a month--that is fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years--that is a religion, and we are admonished not to call it fake news in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful.”

-  Yuval Noah Harari

As never before the nature has now indicated that there is a need to recognize the limitations of humans. Forces beyond the immediate control of man do not differentiate by wealth, religion, colour, creed, caste, sex and such material realities of the world. We also know that matters of the body are controlled by science and that of the soul by your thoughts. Your thoughts are shaped by many things including religion. Your thoughts (mind) can control your body only to an extent beyond which may be only science can revive it.

 Why are we scared of religion? Why are we scared to debate religion and religious practices? If we had started the discussion a decade back, we would surely have made a lot of ground in understanding religions better. It is apparent that followers of the same religion have differing perceptions of their respective religion. Perceptions are a combination of knowledge and sentiments. Sentiments are transient, fickle and most times do not follow any logic. Accumulation of knowledge is a deliberate and continuous action. Where knowledge is shallow, sentiments override thoughts and actions. There is a constant need to reinforce knowledge. This can be done only through continuous learning – public debates facilitate learning. As a consequence, hurting religious sentiments is a misnomer.  Psychologically sentiment is an abnormal condition. While there can be a condition of religious sentiment, being abnormal it cannot be hurt but only aggravated.  Sentimentality is an emotional state disproportionate to the situation, and thus replaces extreme and generally unthinking feeling for normal ethical and intellectual judgment 

As such, it is very important that we debate religion.

Being critical of religion and religious practices is a must for an evolving society to free itself from archaic practices of the medieval era. Instead of shying away, discussions on religions and methods should be encouraged in a thinking (wo)man.

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Data analytics – made easy

Data analytics is the most current issue that is gripping the world in all what it does, what it does not do and what it ought to do - all about handling Data and Artificial Intelligence. Cloud computing, data analytics, data mining, AI and dash board are some of the “hot” areas expected to drive businesses, science and technology, social issues, climate change, international relations, trade, war and peace, space exploration and plain entertainment, among others, in this century. Most of us remain oblivious to the technical aspects of voluminous data storage, data mining, data analytics and AI and are interested only in the output – statistical or predictive.

The practice of data management has been in existence since earliest lifeforms inhabited this Earth. The most primitive data storage, brain, and processor intelligence are as old as it can get. For millions of years people stored information in a single place – their brain. Unfortunately, the human brain was found not large enough to store the data of, say, a village, a town, a ship, a Nation; various types of logs, registers and such records were invented to store large amount of data, outside the brain, for processing as required. Technology has leapfrogged and now we have all sorts of media where large amount of data can be stored and retrieved relatively easily.

The amount of data that can be stored in a brain varies from person to person, depending on immeasurable such as memory power and intelligence et al… In ants and bees, for instance, the resilience comes from the data/information needed to sustain them that is encoded in their genome. Unfortunately, man has to retrieve and process data from memory to coordinate his actions. This mandates a high quality and integrity of data stored in the brain. The quality and integrity of this data is important to get the correct output. Memories and accelerators like interests, passion, processes and motivators that lead to actions, all reside within the brain in the unconscious, subconscious or conscious state. The data in each of these layers is variously used during our routine activities and inactivity. The actions are initiated by a trigger, an external event. The quality of the output I dependent on the level on intelligence which resides in the uppermost layer, consciousness. Here too, the adage “Garbage in Garbage out” is relevant.

In the normal course, we do not bother to arrange our data storage for optimum use. We do not find time to do that. Often, we are forced to repair data of the storage devises attached to our computer. In the digital world, cloud computing has taken data analytics to a different level. We humans (animals) do not have the luxury of “Cloud” computing while still in this world. Our onboard computer (brain) also requires periodic maintenance. THIS is the opportunity of a life time to realign our brain, so to speak.

1.    Scan for viruses

2.    Repair bad sectors.

3.    Rearrange Data into appropriate “compartments” / sectors.

4.    Delete unwanted and corrupt data

5.    Zip your data to create more storage. Zipped data can be retrieved on as required basis, using immediate triggers – like using old acquaintances for recalling events when you meet them

I have found simple ways to store and handle data in my brain (physically everyone has one). Some rules:

1.    Use firewalls to protect contamination of data: for eg. Do not discuss matters on Social media…use the platform only for communication and entertainment.

2.    Avoid listening to prime-time TV; they are known to carry very damaging viruses

3.    Put in checks to validate data received before adding to storage.

4.    Use codes to retrieve and process data – e.g. My code when I step out of the house is 5: car keys, wallet, phone, sun glasses, house keys. As I step out, I count from 1 to 5. Storing and processing numbers is easier, occupies less space and more efficient than processing letters and strings.

The list is not exhaustive; you may add more ways…