State of the Union

“Mr. Vice President. Mr. Speaker of the House. The members of the Congress. My fellow American citizens.

The state of the union is terrible…and I have managed to do that in just one year. Single handedly. Just look around you.

To begin with, I have by now managed to offend people living in almost every country. I started with Mexico, as you may remember. Then I went after China. However, my masterstroke was calling the entire continent of Africa as a “shithole”.  No president in history has done such a good job in such a short time. This is what you get when you elect a stable genius to run the country.

It gets even better. Those who I have not offended are laughing at us. By my idiotic positions on issues, total ignorance of how the world runs, and a compulsive need to insult anyone who does not agree with me, even the folks in white countries…the good countries…are wondering who is running the great United States of America.

When you look inside our country, there is almost no minority that is not pissed off. By not condemning the White Supremacists, ignoring the demands of the African Americans, and insulting Hispanics, I have covered a lot of ground. May be there are some minorities left out but I will get to them eventually.

Moving on, I have made sure that our country will not participate in any effort to fight climate change. I don’t believe in science and I am convinced that the whole thing is a hoax. If the sea level rises and drowns the liberal cities on the coasts, so be it. Good riddance. I will move to Norway before New York gets flooded.

As you must have noticed, I have managed to pass a tax bill that benefits me and other rich folks. The rest of the country, the poor and the middle class…they will get nothing. Still, I have managed to convince those idiots that I am doing everything for them. Ha ha. Also, let’s not forget what I have done to the next generation. They will get saddled with a huge deficit. What better job could I have done of wrecking their future?

I know, I could not repeal the Obamacare, but I have dealt it such a blow that it will fail. There is nothing to replace it, because I have no clue what healthcare is all about. I just wanted to go after the black president who was born in Kenya. You are right in observing that I have reversed the course on everything he put in place.

I am trying very hard to eliminate all who are involved with investigating me. I managed to get rid of Comey and have done my best to destroy FBI.  I would have fired Mueller if it were not for the weakling of a lawyer who works for me.  Worry not; the Justice Department will not dare to touch me. I am their boss. I will dissolve the whole department if it comes to that.

Finally, I am hard to work on destroying the free press. I have a simple formula: Just call everything most of them report “Fake News.” The only exception is the truth reported by Fox News. I wonder why no one else though of it. Simple. I am the best president you have ever elected.

Fellow citizens, I have achieved a lot in one year. There is more to come. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Good night and God bless you.”

Pleasure of art

In my retirement I end up spending a considerable amount of time pursuing art. This includes learning about art (paintings, music, photographs), admiring what the masters have created, and doing my own little art creation (in the form of photography and digital imaging). As I do that, I ask myself why is art such an important aspect of our existence? What makes it so?

I found that this is an active area of investigation by all types of people: Neuroscientists, philosophers, psychologists, evolutionary biologists, behavioral economists. Here are some interesting nuggets I discovered.

According to a story in Huffington Post (5/18/2011), “New research by Semir Zeki, Professor of Neuroesthetics at University College London demonstrates that viewing a beautiful work of art creates the same chemical response as love. Both experiences trigger the feel-good chemical dopamine.”  Aha, there you go. Good old domamine. “There is a reason why art has served as a means of soulful self-expression for centuries upon centuries. All forms of art, from painting to dancing to music, are very personal and emotional experiences — both for the artists and the viewers. While it is a common experience to fall in love with a certain artwork, scientists now have evidence that shows the brain reacts similarly when viewing artwork and when falling in love.”

A more scholarly explanation is found in a paper written by Mohan Matthen (“The Pleasure of Art” in Australasian Philosophical Review, 2017). He writes that art appreciation is a “facilitating pleasure”, or f-pleasure, that is learned. This is distinct from f-pleasures that nature provides, such as what you get out of drinking cold water when you are thirsty. He distinguishes f-pleasure from a more primitive relief or r-pleasure, which includes things like coughing, sneezing, defecation, relieving an itch or orgasm. (I am relieved to note that the pleasure of viewing art is different from what I get when I go potty J)

He further proposes that a necessary ingredient for deriving f-pleasure is a “nexus”--- a coordinated group of mental and bodily ‘preparations’ that encourage, ease, and optimize the physical act. The learned f-pleasure, which includes art or music appreciation, requires formation of its own nexus. He goes own to say, “Aesthetic pleasure arises from a difficult and costly mental engagement with an object and activates a learned nexus that seeks to maximize the pleasure of this mental engagement. We judge objects to have aesthetic merit when they are a good fit for our aesthetic psychology. Aesthetic pleasure comes from contemplating something intellectually and, in the case of visual and performing arts, perceptually as well—focusing on the object and its properties.” 

OK, so now I know why I like certain types of music and not others, or why I find appreciating the more recent Western Classical music difficult---because it does not fit with my aesthetic psychology.

Dr. Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale University is author of a book titled "How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like." Ira Flatow, the host of Science Friday on NPR, interviewed him.

According to Dr. Bloom, “The starting point for a lot of our pleasures is that they're biological adaptations. It's why we like food. It's why we like sex. It's why we like the company of other people. And it's also why we have a curiosity. It is very beneficial for an animal like we are to be motivated to explore the world and to get a flush of pleasure from discovering new things.” It is this curiosity that has brought art as a way of getting pleasure.

Dr. Bloom has an interesting taken on the importance of the “essence” of art in the degree of pleasure we get out of it. “We get pleasure from something, it's not merely based on what we see or what we hear or what we feel. Rather, it's based on what we believe that thing to be. So, in general when we look at a painting, you don't just look at the patterns of color and the shapes and the perceptual input. Rather, you try to reconstruct what went on its creation. What's its history? What's its real nature? And that determines how much you like it.” This is why an original work of art fetches a lot more money than a copy although they both look identical.

“If you think you are drinking an expensive wine, you get a far more pleasurable reaction, even at very low-level pleasure circuitry in the brain, than if you think you're drinking cheap swill. So another way of looking at it is you can enhance your pleasure simply by learning more about something, where it comes from, how it works.”

This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you can increase pleasure by knowing more about a work of art (or wine). On the other hand, your propensity to pay more for what you think to be an authentic item makes you susceptible to deception.

In summary, I can go on and enjoy a work of art because it will be just like falling in love. In doing so, I will get involved with difficult and costly mental engagement while further developing my learned f-pleasure nexus. Finally, I will increase my pleasure by learning that the painting I bought for $10 at the neighborhood pawnshop is an authentic Monet. J

Protesting in this day and age

In spring we went to a protest. We gathered in the Copley Square in Boston, shouted slogans, waved placards and listened to politicians. We were protesting against the Muslim Ban, something we felt deeply about as being unjust. After protesting for a couple of hours, we went to a neighboring restaurant for lunch with a friend we had bumped into. Then we went home and posted on the social media about our noble deed.

We felt good. We basked in the glow of having done our share to defend our nation against the onslaught of idiotic moves by a moron that we have elected as our president.  And, thanks to the social media, we burnished our image as patriots who stand up against injustice.   Some of us even claimed that we were following in the footsteps of our forefathers who participated in successful movements of their times.

All very positive for us, but did we produce any results? The Muslim Ban got snared in the judicial system as being unconstitutional, which probably would have happened even if we did not protest.

In a fine article in The New Yorker titled “Do Protests Work?” (August 21, 2017), Nathan Heller cites a number of recent situations where it did not. Two of the examples are Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. No US policies have changed because of the former, and only three police officers have been found guilty because of latter, with just one receiving a prison sentence. The largest single day demonstration in the US history, The Women’s March, was impressive, but did not do much to change the course of the new administration headed by a misogynistic president.

In finding the reasons why the protests have lately failed to produce results, Heller cites the Civil Rights Movement of the past as one where success was achieved. “It happened piece by piece under politically entrenched and physically threatening conditions.” “The keys to success were the structure and communication patterns that appear when a fixed group works together over time.” “Once, just getting people to show up required top-down coordination, but today anyone can gather crowds through tweets, and update, in seconds, thousands of strangers on the move.”

In other words, it required an organization and a leader to create a movement in the past. Neither is needed in today’s digital age. That seeming strength is also a weakness in terms of results achieved.

Another factor is the motivation in joining a protest. In the old days, success was defined as achieving the objectives of the movement. The participants in the Civil Rights movement, or India’s Freedom Struggle, would have felt like failures if the minorities were not given equal rights in US or, in the second instance, India did not become independent.

That is not the case today. One objective of protest, as per Heller, is to “make ourselves feel virtuous, useful, and in the right.” If we solidify our brand on the social media as a result of our action, we have achieved something. I admit this is a bit cynical, but I do believe that on a personal level our loyalty to the cause has become less important than it did in the past. As long as we get good FaceBook posts out of it, our efforts are not totally in vain, even if the objectives of the movement are not achieved. That lowering of the “commitment-bar” to enter a movement leads to a poor success rate.

So, the social media strikes again. Just as it has encouraged the dividing of our society into tribes, this modern way of communication has forever reduced the effectiveness of a popular way to bring about change.

What a Faustian bargain!

NRA's response

We are grieving the loss of life in Nevada. Some of the folks who lost their lives were NRA members, who will be missed (as the end of the year approaches and we don’t get their dues).

This tragedy would not have happened if people listen to us. As we said, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” The folks (idiots) attending the concert were not carrying guns. Perhaps they were even prevented from carrying guns.

So, we propose that the government pass several legislations to prevent such events from happening again (and making our supporters, the gun manufacturers, wealthier).

First, we will insert an important question that every gun purchaser will have to answer. “Are you a good guy or a bad guy?” If he says, “bad guy”---bam, no gun for him. This is our way of ensuring responsible gun ownership. (We are so clever.)

Second, every concertgoer should be made to carry a gun. If they don’t have a gun, the management will have to loan them one ($). They need to be high caliber automatic weapons ($$$$). Only then can a shooter with a powerful of weapon be stopped.

Just imagine if such legislation were in effect, all the concertgoers in Las Vegas would have opened fire at the hotel where the shooter was located. At least one of them would have stopped him (if that means bystanders and other guests in hotel getting shot, too bad--- just collateral damage).

Third, we are proposing that bazookas be made legal. Just imagine all these bazookas pointing toward the hotel and firing. The shooter would have definitely been hit (the bazooka manufacturers need to diversify their market from just supplying to the military).

Fourth, in these days and age, we have modern technology. A drone can be pretty effective at stopping a shooter. Our military has proven their effectiveness in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Just imagine a drone circling with hellfire missiles above the concert. The shooter would have been vaporized when a hellfire hits him (Yes, probably the hotel would have vaporized too, but that is collateral damage. The drone and hellfire missile manufacturers are also looking for diversification).

We are going to appeal to your congressmen to make these legislative changes (should be easy, most are in our pockets. If not we can buy a few more. We have money).

Don’t forget, we are the protector of the second amendment. Without us, you would not have the right to carry assault weapons, which you richly deserve (and our gun manufacturers would have been poorer).

Note: For those not familiar with NRA, it is the National Rifle Association, a powerful gun lobby that believes in not giving an inch on regulating purchase and ownership of guns in USA. Thanks to them and their stranglehold on the lawmakers, US has a higher incidence of guns violence per capita than any other developed country…by far.

Science vs. miracle

A vast majority of people in this world believes that god created universe and everything in it. A small minority of us are of the opinion that everything can be explained by science, which has already has made tremendous stride in uncovering nature’s deep secrets, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Then there are those in the middle who believe that we need to go beyond science to explain many aspects of our universe and our experience of living in it. Here are some examples of items they put forth in support of their belief.

1.     There is a soul that resides in the body and leaves when a person dies. If you believe that to be true, many things can be explained. For example, soul can be the entity that makes a collection of chemicals “alive.” Soul is also the “thinker of the thought” or what gives us self-awareness. If you believe in rebirth, soul provides the way a person can be reborn, by going from a person who has died to the one who is about to be born. However, people like me would say that there is no evidence that a soul exists* and there is high likelihood that emergence of “life” from self-replicating chemicals would be explained by science someday not far in the future. Self-awareness, or consciousness, could be just a function of brain that has not yet been explored or explained, but that does not mean it will not be. According to a well-known author Yuval Harari (Sapiens, Homo Deus), conscious brains is probably a byproduct of nature making intelligence that can reason about itself and its environment. Finally, the concept of rebirth serves to provide a soothing message to those bereaved by the passing of a loved one, that he/she has not gone forever, but born elsewhere. However, as far as science is concerned, it just does not make any sense.

2.     There has to be purpose in life, some deep meaning why we exist. There could be, but what if there isn’t? What if nature just does its own things, following the rules of physics, with no plan, no “meaning”? Why isn’t that an acceptable way of looking at things? Why do we need everything to have a meaning? Indeed, there is a school of philosophy behind this assertion…existential nihilism.

3.     There is a mysterious energy or force that directs what goes on. There are mysterious entities such as dark matter and dark energy in universe that science is investigating. However, I don’t think this is what the folks who believe in the mysterious force/energy refer to. They believe in a mysterious force that is directing how and where life should exists and that remains an active participant in our lives. On the surface, this sound very much like the concept of “Intelligence Designer,” often mentioned in place of god by folks who are of scientific bent but do not think science can explain everything. True, we don’t know for sure what is reality. However, if there is an Intelligent Designer, then who created him/her/it? A super Intelligent Designer? Who created him/her/it? Wouldn’t we get into an endless loop trying to reason out of that one?

4.     “It can’t be a coincidence that I got help exactly when I needed it.” My response would be---why can’t it be?

5.     Wouldn’t the creation of an organism violate the second law of thermodynamics---by reducing entropy? If you are not a student of science, this refers to the fact that universe goes from order to disorder; low entropy to high entropy, and an organism represents order and so low entropy. However, a deeper dive illustrates that entropy can reduce if the system is not isolated. An increase in entropy somewhere else more than compensates for that reduction, thereby keeping the second law intact. So, this argument does not apply.

6.     Can universe emerge from nothing? Yes, it can. As explained by a theory called Quantum gravity, universe can and always will appear from nothing. Such universe can have matter and energy as long as the total energy, including the negative energy associated with gravity, is zero (from “A Universe from Nothing” by Lawrence Krauss). Could this universe include an Intelligent Designer? I believe that it does include a designer, in the form of laws of physics. To make it intelligent would need an intelligence maker and we will be back in the conundrum expressed under point 3.

7.     How can such complexity in life be created without some intervention? Given enough time---billions of years in this case--- and a process that incorporates variations in living organisms, coupled with natural selection (Darwin’s Theory), living things of enormous complexity, including humans, can evolve. The key here is “given enough time.” A very readable book in this area is “Your Inner Fish” by Neil Shubin.

In summary, as Steven Weinberg, a physicist, says (ref. the above book by by Lawrence Krauss), “Science does not make it impossible to believe in God, but rather makes it possible not to believe in God. Without science, everything is a miracle. With science, there remains the possibility that nothing is.”

I agree with him.

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 *  Note: When I say this, I am presented with “scientific” evidence that shows that soul exists. Much like climate change, there are people who work on alternate science. So, once you are convinced of any of the items above, including the existence of soul, to be true, it is always possible to find someone to back you up. This is a clear manifestation of confirmation bias, in that you selectively look for evidence that confirms what you believe in and discard the rest.