"When I am with you and my thoughts are at rest and there is nothing to say, then I will know that my search has ended." Links Anand Musicophile IIMcatwalk Satish The guy who bores you here is Sreekanth, Indian, ex-Software Engineer, management student(IIM Ahmedabad) Enthusiastic at worst, ecstatic at best. View My Guestbook Sign My Guestbook Archives 03/01/2002 - 04/01/2002 04/01/2002 - 05/01/2002 05/01/2002 - 06/01/2002 06/01/2002 - 07/01/2002 07/01/2002 - 08/01/2002 08/01/2002 - 09/01/2002 09/01/2002 - 10/01/2002 01/01/2003 - 02/01/2003 02/01/2003 - 03/01/2003 04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 << current

Life 'n' Love                                                         Indian Social Bookmarking  Music  IIMs and CAT       Tuesday, May 28th, 2002 Simpson's Paradox This is an interesting paradox from statistics. It is not exactly a paradox because there is no logical contradiction. It can be stated as "Aggregate proportions can reverse the direction of the relationship seen in the individual pieces". (There may be a better, comprehensive way to state it.) Let me explain it. Let's say Me and Anand throw stones at a spot for two hours and in the first and second hours both, he gets a better percentage of hits than me, still I might end up with a better agrregate percentage of hits. Sounds unbelievable. Take this example: HITS THROWS % HITS HITS THROWS % HITS Me: First Hour 73 100 73% Anand: First Hour 75 100 75% Me: Second Hour 4 8 50% Anand: Second Hour 30 50 60% At this stage he has defeated me in both the hours of contest, isn't it? But see the aggregate results: HITS THROWS % HITS My Total 77 108 71.3% Anand's Total 105 150 70% See Me is Better than Anand! Well it's not as tough as it looks, it's just that the percentages in the second hour of throwing were generally low and I cleverly threw less times. So looking at the data in two different ways gives two different pictures. So moral of the story is, I am the clever guy.(kidding, when will they introduce a tag for kidding in HTML?) Tuesday, May 28, 2002 (0) comments   Wednesday, May 22nd, 2002 What can be done to avoid a war? The possibility of a war between India and Pakistan is very real today. For anyone who understands the situation between India and Pakistan atleast to some level of detail, this is probably the last moment to think up some way we can solve this problem without a war? I can understand people who will say that war is the only solution. But I can also understand a spirit of peace, that at any moment, however bad, looks for a peaceful solution. Is there any option left? Anything at all? Please put in your thoughts. Wednesday, May 22, 2002 (0) comments   I opened the door and looked out. There were stars and darkness. I wondered why there is darkness when there are stars? Maybe they are too far. And in their distance, too much distance is so similar to absence, the default is darkness. If there is nothing, then there is darkness. I walked out and turned around to find that the door was no more there. My door to the world has been lost. Am I engulfed in this darkness forever? But then I do not dislike this darkness, do I? This is the same as when the eyes are closed and the mind is distanced from all thoughts. Except there are no stars then. And I certainly don't dislike that. But it was never happened that I have ever closed my eyes and distanced my mind from all thoughts and was never able to return. This is new. And I wonder if this darkness is inside me, my thoughts, their absence or outside. Or is the sense of inside and outside just an illusion and that I have just been liberated from that illusion. Liberation certainly hasn't brought me to heaven. This interestingly is more closer to the description of hell. But then I do not remember what the difference between heaven and hell was. I walked towards the stars. They vanished. Now I am in total darkness, alone. I couldn't feel my body anymore and now I feel no distinction between the engulfing darkness and and me. I am one with it. One with the universe. Thursday, May 16, 2002 (0) comments   Tuesday, May 14th, 2002 Language I was just reading this at itismylife and felt like writing on a thought, which has occupied my attention for some days now. It is just that we take language for granted and don't think of the reality, but just ideas and the language. To be more clear, there is some reality out there in the world. We perceive it through our senses and we have an internal algorithm, which separates the common from the uncommon(this criteria may be different in some cases). Then if something is worth thinking, we think about it (I leave that there for the time being) and if it's worth commenting on, we subconsciously choose a language depending on whom we are speaking to and convey the thought or whatever is perceived in that language. The reality maybe different, the perception maybe different, the thought maybe different, the final output in the language maybe totally different. This may sound abstract. Why do we subconsciously perceive, convert it to idea, and following some rules into thoughts or language? Is it necessary? I am not saying it is necessary or otherwise, just wondering why it has to happen everytime! This and other similar thoughts lead me to one final conclusion about human ways. We are just taught this and that and we are just acting. The world probably is just a stage. It is not naturally so, but we make it so. And then this acting becomes so subconsious a process that we forget it as even existing. We just take language the final output as a natural phenomenon. Ofcourse no doubt there is a need for language. But do we use it only when needed? (For example look at me now sitting and typing out all this :-) ) And then as more and more people here and there use different ways of communication we classify these languages into names. This is English, this is Hindi, this is French and what not. Then we discuss why one language is better or worse, which language to use etc! Naming, classification and making rules to follow have become almost natural to man. Probably it is required. But then we end up seeing these names as reality. Aren't they just names to identify the reality, but not the reality itself? Is this Maya? Tuesday, May 14, 2002 (0) comments   Friday, May 3rd, 2002 One World: An old Idea revisited An aside comment in the previous entry led to an e-mail discussion with a friend and it resulted in this thought: "How were countries formed? Some religion based, some language based, some race based etc. And now we are speaking of countries having people of many religions, languages, races etc and being proud of this fact too!!! Also they take extra effort to maintain their pluralism or atleast proclaim so. So the foundations based on which the country-concept was formed have been shaken, isn't it? And the direct logical extension of this change is the removal this country concept. :-) Maybe that's a bit too ahead of the times..." Rigveda says: "Ayam nijo paro veti ganana laghucetasam Uttacharitanam tu vasudaiva kutumbakam" (The para below is from here) Only base minds reckon whether one be kin or stranger Men of noble conduct take the whole world for their home(family) Mystics of all lands have felt the same and Jung classified it under the great archetypal experience of Unus Mundus - the One World, the Totality and Interdependence of all things. If that is true then there is no way a man is a stranger on any part of the world, and nothing can be alien or hateful to him. But the Veda warns that only Noble Minds can reach this conclusion. I don't what Noble Mind means. Maybe Brahmin. But that's not the point. The point is about OneWorld. What do you think? Friday, May 03, 2002 (0) comments