Ship of Theseus

In this blog post I promise not to gab about what a masterpiece the 2013 National Film Award winning and critically acclaimed movie Ship of Theseus is. But I do wanna share two thoughts from the movie which I find particularly profound (as you might have guessed this film though from Mumbai is not very Bollywood-y):

1. The Ship of Theseus Paradox

"As the planks of Theseus' ship needed repair, it was replaced part by part, up to a point where not a single part of the original ship remained in it, anymore. Is it, then, still the same ship?
If all the discarded parts were used to build another ship, which of the two, if either, is the real Ship of Theseus?"

2. An expert piece of dialogue on the ideas of free will and existence

"U for Unilateralis Cordyceps. The fungus enters an ant's body through its respiration. It invades it's brain and changes how it perceives smell, because ants do everything they do from their smell of pheromones, right? So this microscopic little fungal spore, then makes the ant climb up the stem of a plant and bite hard on a leaf, with an abnormal force. The fungus then kills the ant, and continues to grow, leaving the ant's exoskeleton intact. So, a small fungus drives an ant around as a vehicle, uses it as food and shelter and then as the ultimate monument to itself. And when the fungus is ready to reproduce, its fruiting bodies grow from the ant's head and rupture releasing the spores, letting the wind carry them to more unsuspecting food. There, our entire idea of free will down the bin.
One single small fungus spore does that to an ant. You have trillions of bacteria in your body. How do you know where you end, and where your environment begins."

I will reserve my commentary on these two ideas for later but do take the time to reflect on them whenever you feel like!

 

Poetry and the First World War

Studying Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est (it's a brilliant poem...you should read it now if you haven't already) in school, I find myself often wondering just how limited our exposure in general is to poetry during the First World War. Sure, it's a great poem but it being the only one students generally read from that period, I feel, makes us view the War in a particular way--The Bad Way.

Don't get me wrong. I understand that the horrid imageries Owen presented in his poem are probably very close to reality (fun fact: This poem though it may seem like it isn't autobiographical in nature; it's a purely fictional narrative). Here is a bit for you to get grossed out :)

"If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace 

Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; 

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud"

And while I'm all for disillusionment and propagating the truth and uncovering lies behind masterful propaganda, I feel like there are so many more perspectives that we have missed out on. What about the women who stayed behind and supported the war effort by working tirelessly in the high-hazard ammunition factories? What about some other soldiers who would like to us to view them as martyrs and not just lambs to slaughter?

I couldn't agree more vehemently that all war and suffering is wrong. But my point is why can't the system let us come to that conclusion ourselves? Why is it that after all these years we are still deprived of information and viewpoints? With all due respect, the Great War had more to it than Owen's sentiments of disillusionment and shock, at least from the literary point of view.

So in that spirit, I present before you a poem which I think embodies some of these sentiments. It's called Non-Combatants and it's been composed Evelyn Underhill. This poem reveals the participation of women in the war; how they stayed back at home working, sacrificing and waiting nervously for their sons and husbands to return. I hope you'll find this perspective refreshing (I have put my favourite lines in bold)!

NON-COMBATANTS

NEVER of us be said

That we reluctant stood

As sullen children, and refused to dance

To the keen pipe that sounds across the fields of France.

Though shrill the note and wild,

Though hard the steps and slow,

The dancing floor defiled,

The measure full of woe,

And dread

The solemn figure that the dancers tread,

We faltered not. Of us, this word shall not be said.

Never of us be said

We had no war to wage,

Because our womanhood,

Because the weight of age,

Held us in servitude.

None sees us fight,

Yet we in the long night

Battle to give release

To all whom we must send to seek and die for peace.

When they have gone, we in a twilit place

Meet Terror face to face,

And strive

With him, that we may save our fortitude alive.

Theirs be the hard, but ours the lonely bed.

Nought were we spared—of us, this word shall not be said.

Never of us be said

We failed to give Godspeed to our adventurous dead.

Not in self-pitying mood

We saw them go,

When they set forth on those spread wings of pain:

So glad, so young,

As birds whose fairest lays are yet unsung

Dart to the height

And thence pour down their passion of delight,

Their passing into melody was turned.

So were our hearts uplifted from the low,

Our griefs to rapture burned;

And, mounting with the music of that throng,

Cutting a path athwart infinity,

Our puzzled eyes

Achieved the healing skies

To find again

Each wingèd spirit as a speck of song

Embosomed in Thy deep eternity.

Though from our homely fields that feathered joy has fled

We murmur not. Of us, this word shall not be said.

Ethics of Automation

My friend told me about a debate she went to where she had to argue that restrictions should not be imposed on companies to replace human workers with robots. The more I think of this, the more complex this issue looks like. Is automation ethical? How do we weigh the good with the bad? From which perspective do we look: the worker or the employer or the society at large?

The best way to make a decision is to read a lot into it. So I came across a blog which was pretty on point in addressing this issue. What it essentially said is that the morality/ethics of replacing workers with robots is utilitarian, i.e., it depends on how many people it benefits. So even if automation leads to a few workers losing their jobs but in the long run the society as a whole benefits from it, such a replacement should be morally acceptable.

It also pointed out a few concerns though. What if we go farther in time, perhaps to a point when robots have replaced all human labourers. But such a situation wouldn't arise. Think about it this way. The goal behind automation is to reduce the cost of employing humans and produce better goods faster and in a cheaper way. So the goal is to maximise profit. But for a company to make profits by selling a particular product, there have to be some people who can afford to buy it. Now if all jobs are replaced by robots people wouldn't earn anything and therefore this decision of the company would backfire. But there are other options like reducing most jobs by automation, a scenario which sounds very dystopian--picture the masses out of work or underemployed while the filthy rich people at the top enjoy the benefits of automation.

Of course there are questions like will robots even be able to replace all human jobs, even those that require thinking? Artificial Intelligence is going to be the game changer. And I will reserve my views on it for a later time.

Now, since I've presented the bad side of things, let me also talk a little about how robots might prove to be incredibly useful in the future. A lot of our jobs that require virtually no thinking and can simply be termed as 'drudgery' would be replaced and these could give way to newer, more exciting jobs ("Chief Developer of All Things Awesome" maybe).

I personally feel automation is going to be the best thing ever and we should all look forward to it. Plus, this is not the first time something like this is happening. How about thousands of years ago when we invented writing? Did no one think about all the messengers who were going to lose their jobs memorising and communicating messages, a job that could now be done with a piece of ordinary paper and some ink? Since we know this kind of change will come, it becomes a question of when and not if, and therefore our job as a people should be preparing for such a change when it does occur.

Just exam things

I have always been fascinated by my generation's (myself included) ability to postpone things to the last possible moment when they an be done. Case in point: exams.

My finals start next week and everything looks so daunting, yet there is the implicit understanding that somehow I'll be able to do everything. So while others solve chemistry numericals and find X, I find myself listening to The XX (amazing band!!) (anyone else notice the brilliant thing I just did with X and XX; wow i'm awesome) on repeat while drooling over Allison Janney's perfect face.

Oh and by the way, I have a bad throat. So it's not just my procrastinating tendency but also my physical inability to study that is forcing me to...well...not study. Some time later this week you should expect a rant about our failed education system and how everything is messed up (coping mechanism #2). So, bad throat. Courtesy the little ice cream I ate and the little-er(?) coke I drank at Duracell Bunny's birthday. Did it turn out well? No. Will I do it again? Probably.

Life According to Sam

I was on browsing on Youtube a few days ago and a video popped up in the 'Recommended For You' section: "My philosophy for a happy life." I had seen it here before a couple of times but having nothing better to do (except maybe study for my finals that start next week) I clicked on it.  And it was incredible.

So this video is a TED talk given by a 17 year old boy named Sam who suffers from progeria, which is basically a syndrome caused due to a genetic aberration, in which the ageing process in your body is super-accelerated. Most people with progeria die around 14 years of age.

What struck me particularly was how Sam was speaking about things. He starts off by telling us about how he had always wanted to play the snare drums in his high school's matching band. But the whole apparatus weighs around 50 pounds, while he weighs a little over 40. But he didn't give up. He got in touch with an engineer who custom built a snare drum just for him which weighed just 6 pounds.

And what was so interesting about it was how little of progeria came up in the entire video. He talked about how he loved to hang out with his friends in the marching band and how he loved to spend time with his family. Sam who has so little to thank for when compared with a regular person his age is probably the happiest and most satisfied person I've seen in my life. Because he chose the things that define his life. And although he swears he acknowledges that living with progeria is an important part of his life, there are so many other things that are so much more important. And he's kinda just fine with it.

Somewhere in the video he mentioned that he wants to be an engineer when he grows up because he loves playing with legos. And that is a perfectly normal aspiration, which is what makes it so extraordinary. He knows he isn't going to live long but if you'd only be hearing him speak and not actually watching, you'd never be able to tell.

Sam passed away in 2014 when he was 18. He mentioned in his talk about the time he was interviewed on NPR and John Hamilton asked him the question 'What is the most important thing that people should know about you?' And his answer was simply that he has a very happy life.

Here is the video in case you're interested. You should also check out the HBO documentary 'Life According to Sam' that he was featured in.