Buzzing with the Comp. Sci.

I remember for one birthday a friend gave me a custom-made chocolate from Thomas Sweet (for those of you not in the know, Thomas Sweet is a Princeton-based (it has 2 stores in Princeton, 1 in New Brunswick, and 1 in Washington, DC (as a kid I thought it was a giant conglomerate, and I admit that biased me somewhat, but I've come to recognize its moderate size and in a more objective analysis say awesome, P-town-style awesome (very objective, non?) Ice Cream/Chocolate store that pretty much rocks (ROCKS THE HOUSE (As in Rock the House by Gorillaz (GORILAZZZ!!!))

Back to my anecdote, anyways a friend gave me a birthday a custom-made chocolate (actually 2 but essentially one in its united concept and singular gift-y-ness), which was shaped as a computer and a mouse. She felt it fit my character and likely it was one of the pre-made custom-made options (yeah that's an oxymoron but you get the point). In actuality, people have been assuming for a looong time that I'm super-good with computers. Now this is often done by my friends and is based on my occasional computer-jargon mentions, my sometimes-serious membership in the computer club, my number of computer classes, my moderate computer-news knowledge, and now in college my computer-minor-ness. It is also done by near strangers and while I emphasize the slightness of this and the unconsciousness of this and the speculativeness of this, but there might be a little bit of stereotype-ness (I'd hesitate to say racism because of the unavoidable strength of that charge and also because Indian as a race is a kind of iffy concept (especially when you group North (Indo-European Languages and in NW often white/Iranian looking) and South (Dravidian Languages (although C. India has mostly Indo-Eur. lang. and is a mixed and/or separate cultural zone) and dark skin (although some of the NE, like Bengal and Bangladesh has dark skin) Indians) there since I'm an Indian of decent intelligence (of course the common assumption that I'm smart also might have a little bit of stereotype-ness to it).

But now let me deal with the truth. Let me first establish in terms of nowadays I have a wide-range of moderate computer skills (such as HTML, Java, C++, and some XML and PHP) (if this seems a bit odd to mention, I'm a little aware that a persistently background-searching potential employer might stumble here and I just want to set the record straight (I'd like to point out that my awareness of this doesn't mean I'm not being honest here)), but here with this truth I'm dealing with the overview of my life. Again, let's deal with the truth of the situation. And the truth is while skilled with computers, I'm really not the mad-programmer-master that people occasionally assume I am (again, little bit of stereotyping there).

I can pretty confidently say I was exposed to computers relatively early in my life (relative that is to people in my cohort (ie people of my birth-year)). See (I'm always nervous about using see at the beginning of a sentence, but it does have an attractive activeness and energy, even if it does sound a bit underly-formal) around the beginning of the age of home computers (mid-1980's-ish), my father was given a computer to work with, and being only semi-capable with it and also wanting to expose his kids to new knowledge, he got my oldest brother to help out with his comput-inating. This started my oldest brother's love affair with the computer which made him an absolute computer master by the time I was capable of wielding a mouse. Thusly me and my siblings have had since earliest youth a decent competence of technology, however this wasn't the same as becoming as competent as my oldest brother.

In fact, because of my oldest brother's competence, computer-wise I was always in his shadow. From time-to-time I've made a sudden burst of interest into computers, partly assisted by my brother, but on the other hand whenever there was a need for important computer-ness, my brother was there, so I didn't really need to develop that and my personal interest didn't expand enough to overcome the lack of need. There were avenues which could have led me to becoming computer interested, my mild youthful interest in gaming (although not online games (although yes for free/shareware games)), my mild interest in electronic presentation and media tech, my desire to maximize my computer's performance, etc. But none of those really took off and were usually interrupted by new interests or new stuff on TV.

But one thing that did intrigue me was the possibilities given by programming, to a degree job-wise, but more importantly the possibilities of creation in programming. The powers of programming can in theory create anything, and even if the possibilities are limited by current knowledge and tech, that never stopped me from pondering (for example, despite the insane ambition of it I attempted to create a self-sufficient artificial intelligence in high school). Yet even this avenue of computer-ness was slowed by my distaste for memorization and the foreignness of the computer world and strangeness-to-foreignness of that world (this is in part the fault of computer-savy people who often fall into the category of techno-bigots (people who belittle those without tech knowledge and rank themselves based on tech knowledge) (although I admit sometimes I even act the techno-bigot every now and then). It was in college that the job-wise possibilities of programming really appealed to me, and I started Rutgers with the vision of being a computer science-major, however this failed under the stress of pretending I was more tech-savy then I actually was.

And then a funny thing happened, under the influence of new job-worries, I took on a comp. sci. minor, which was more my speed computer knowledge wise. But the occasional, more paradigm oriented computer classes + my logic-based math classes (where math and comp-sci. start to mix) + my desire for increasing my computer's performance (a different computer but one which slowed and weirded with time) + once more, the possibilities of the computer world tricked me into believing. And suddenly, having studied the basics of computer science for a good while, and having lost my fear of it, the more intermediate comp. sci. concepts no longer seemed so difficult. And now...

Well, I can't say I'm a mega-expert, but I'm pretty knowledgeable, and more over I'm enjoying computer science again. Every concept carries new possibilities, new cross-uses, new abilities for my grand ambitions, and now, comp. sci. carries a little bit of a buzz for me. Maybe I'll never get into that mega-expert slot, but I now have some good hope for learning how to do interesting and highly useful stuff with computer science and never stopping in that learning. Maybe my war with computer science is finally over, and the dividends of peace are starting to come in. Perhaps... but only God knows what the future holds...

(Quick possible news flash: Because of my growing interest in computer science, I just might start a comp. sci. blog (under my legitimate name), similar to my history blog and math blog. It's still only a possibility and contingent on me not getting buried in work, but stay tuned.)

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Covertibility! Convertibility! I'll convertibility your face!

Evening, all! It's been a while since I said hi to my adoring audience, so, well then hi! Well, now to the meat of the matter, that is to say the center of the matter, well, damn I'm hungry, but I probably will be going for food within 20 min., even if it does mean I might have to interrupt my session for a moment, but that just means you're a jerk. Understand? Do you understand?

I'm a history major, but overall to say fully, I'm more of an amateur in most everything a little bit. With history it's just more than a little bit, perhaps a lot, but I'm not really an expert, at least not in any particular field of history. With history, I know a bit of everything, but I'm never as good as the experts. It's often the case that I'm able to discuss matters with my professor but ultimately I'm generally outclassed by them. However, every now and then I'll outfox them a little in fields outside their specialty. When people ask, I tell them my specialty is World History. I know some about China, I know a good deal about India, I know a bunch about the US, a little about Mexico, some about Poland, a little about Ireland, and some about overall political history. It's never enough too blow somebody away in an argument, but I can hold my own in casual conversation. However, when faced with someone who prepared an argument, I often falter. They generally have researched some expert info in the field they're talking about and that usually crunches me.

It occurs to me often that I ought to simply pick a field and specialize, but usually the dilemma is I lack the patience in a single field and I have a curiosity that demands I indulge a little in all fields. This is true for general knowledge as much as it is for history. So I'm a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.

It's not a bad life, but when I deal with old fields of knowledge, ones that have been well developed and such, I find that I can't follow the latest research. And while I might be somewhat interested in the latest research, it's not say more so that I am in any other field. So while I might not understand all the abstractions in economics, I'm not more interested in that than I am in say all the abstractions of political science or philosophy. It would be bad policy to then say because I can't choose look at nothing, so I picked history. Within history, perhaps I have picked nothing, but that's because there's still enough in the lower levels of different regional histories and different aspects of world history to keep me occupied and engaged. But I must wonder. When it comes to making decisions on big items like climate change, globalization, different issues of morality, etc., what I do if I can't follow those great abstractions in the fields?

One course, is an ad hoc approach, which is to study very narrowly a small issue when it comes up. If you've got an amateur knowledge in a field to begin with, it is usually possible to at least get enough of a sense of a narrow issue to make a choice. But when you get to bigger issues with deeper complexities, things become harder. Sometimes the only way to understand an issue is to become an expert in the subject, but to do that would require far more effort than you can give. What to do then?

My reaction then, and this is my recommendation to others as well, is to find a trusted source, based on your basic knowledge of the field, who seems to know what they're talking about and seems to be honest and trust him. And lacking that, perhaps it is best just to go with consensus.

However, the recent times have brought a new depth to this dilemma. Nowadays fields meet and intersect. A political decision might involve economics, physics, philosophy, and a dozen other fields. And the experts within these fields, even when there is a consensus with the fields, often passionately disagree. Part of the problem is that while an expert in one field might be the master of it, another field which has implications for his field might be a complete mystery to him. This unknown field however might have experts who know nothing about his field even though it has implications for their field. Now many people might assume that if you're an expert in one field, if another field has implications for yours, you can easily pick up the basics of that other field and understand the implications. But that often isn't the case. High level sociology concepts that require years of study to understand might have implications in economics but might have a basis completely different than the rules of economics which an economist might be familiar with. Thus the economist might be as mystified by this sociology concept as the lay person but on the other hand the sociologist might be mystified by general economics.

Furthering the dilemma is the fact that most fields usually insist on the predominance of their own field in any dispute. This makes deciding matters difficult, and at times a matter of uneven guesswork. The only hope for resolving this I think, is creating covertability. That is making it easier for concepts to be transfered from one field to another. A good example of this is new work in psychology and economics, which gives psychological factors economic value allowing them to be translated into economics. Similar work must ultimately take place in all fields, until there is finally a fluidity between all research.

I suppose this all amounts to advocating for a general field theorem (a physics concept where all energy (and since energy and matter are convertable all matter) is united as the manifestation of a single force), for all knowledge. Given the difficulty of coming up with a general field theorem for physics, I cannot imagine one for all knowledge will be any easier.

So we are left with guesswork. With no definite rules for convertability we are left with figuring out as much as we can and then seeing what "seems" like the best choice, where "seems" means relying on that black box (a mechanism sealed up so that you cannot see how it works but which produces some outputs from inputs) which is our unconscious. Our unconscious is an immensely powerful black box mind you, but it is one that usually lacks consistency as it tends to often conflate tangentially related matters as if at random (although there probably is some logic to it, if we can ever figure out what it is). And since we use tools that lack consistency it is not hard to imagine different people, trying with all good will to reason their way through problems coming to different answers. Even if they're both educated, even if they are both experts in parts of an issue, or know many different experts on many sides of an important issue, there will be disagreement.

This is of course assuming that experts within a given field agree on a matter, which is an utterly false assumption no matter what the field. But my point is that with complex issues that stretch across multiple fields, even if there is a consensus, even a well-accepted, and understood consensus in each of those fields regarding the issues, that does not mean that the issue will be resolved, even if every party tries all in good faith.

So we are left with inevitable disagreement. And whenever the possibility of passionate disagreement arises we are left with the specter of conflict. And so we must live with that.

Anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Got to have faith, sort of

So in this session of my blog I have decided to ventue out into philosophy. Is this a good idea? Perhaps, time will tell. I dunno if I really should use this venue for philosophy, my sessions in this are never that well organized and I don't care to organize them that well because this is a blog. If I want to write an essay, use an essay forum, if you want to write a rant, blogs are fine. Yet this is not formal philosophy, and these ideas are perhaps not well enough formulated to deserve a full essay (also I get anxious about writing full essays, so it's a little additional work to get over that and I'm feeling lazy). Besides, I can always rework these ideas formally later. And finally, perhaps the most important reason, this venue is one I can easily use and which has a vague chance of getting some views.

Ok, now for the ideas themselves. This is something I've been thinking about for a while, lots of people say I don't just believe I know for their ideas. This is common for certain types of Christians as well as for more materialist people (I don't mean greedy, I mean those who do not consider spiritual matters important). Honestly, I don't think this is possible. We all start out with some beliefs. This might be the belief in our senses, a belief in reason, or a belief in our friends, family, or the local preacher. The physical world offers no particular reason you should believe any of those sources (of course to even consider the reasons you should believe in those sources you must believe in reason, but I'm describing stuff not giving advice, or at least not directly giving advice). We can say that our instincts or biology tell us to believe this or that, but there is no reason to believe in this or that. In a universe with nothing but reason, good and evil have no meaning, because there is no inherint reason to do one thing or the other or nothing in fact. Well, perhaps doing nothing has the advantage of simplicity. We can say that we should preserve life, that that is a natural motivation, and maybe nature does advise us that life is precious, but there is no reason to believe nature.

Ultimately, we have to go with our instincts though, because our instincts are our most basic guide to the world. Based on those instincts we will consciously and unconsciously start to believe certain things. We also might adopt certain types of processing new beliefs, what I mean by this is, among the beliefs we have we might also believe that when faced with a new idea we should listen to our feelings, or we might believe we should listen to our reasoning, or that we should listen to our conscious or unconscious. And then we use these beliefs to shape how we view the world and what ideas we accept or reject and what new beliefs we accept or reject. This is how we think.

Here's the problem. If this is so, it is very possible for two people to be completely justified in disagreeing with each other on fundamentally different and conflicting views. Contrary to the ideas of some, instincts are not simply our basic biological urges, they are also shaped by our experiences, they are in fact a part of our subconscious. We are all different, and thus our subconsciouses are different, and thus our instincts are different, and since our instincts determine our most basic beliefs, thus our basic beliefs are different and may be conflicting. How do you resolve such a dilemma? We like to think we have some common ground in our beliefs but there is no reason for that. Our common biological urges could be so overwelmed by our experiences that our instincts bear little resemblence to them. So what do we do?

We could say let by-gones be by-gones, but that neglects the fact that certain beliefs require actions, sometimes ones that force us to react. Sometimes conflicts arise. Is there any hope for resolution of these conflicts. Me, what do I think? Maybe, if there is a spiritual plane of existance (which I believe) and there is a God who is absolutely good (again which I believe) maybe he can guide us to a resolution. Perhaps. That is something I'd like to believe, and perhaps I do. Maybe. But sometimes what we believe is shrouded by the mists and shadows of the curtain between our conscious and unconscious minds, and the barriers between God and man can sometimse be great, so what do I believe? I'm not sure, but I like to think I believe in hope and love. So yes, yes I believe that we can resolve our problems if we can try hard enough and open ourselves up to righteousness. Well, that's what I believe.

Well, that's my philosophical session. A little bit of a mess if I do say so myself. But it does have a point, an idea, and it gets it across as only a blog can. With a good amount of feeling, with a little less than perfect clarity, with an almost stream of consciousness air, and with often poor grammer. That's really all I have to say for this session, so it take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. (I thought I'd use this ending again, but maybe I'll start using "Goodnight Folks!" though it looks ackward written out like that.)