1:50 pm, June 1, 2011

Norcross, GA.

Explanation of David Copperfield's illusion (Death Saw)

(My explanation is below)



There are 2 persons. The other half of each of their body is hidden by the legs of the table/platform. To test my guess, I predicted that he can't cut or reattach his body without closing the box because otherwise it would be very hard for the other person to come and go without us noticing. And you can see, my prediction is right.

Grey

I was once, so happy.

I have to know

Why did this happen to me?

Just another proof that this is not a fair world.

Why do I expect fairness or justice? Is it a wise thing to expect?

If not, how can I get rid of this expectation?

How can I accept bitter reality?

How do I know what is in my control and what is not?

Why are you doing this to me?

When in my life

I'm on my way from misery to happiness today
I'm on my way from misery to happiness today
I'm on my way to what I want from this world
And years from now you'll make it to the next world
And everything that you receive up yonder
Is what you gave to me the day I wandered

I took a right, I took a right turning yesterday
I took a right, I took a right turning yesterday
I took the road that brought me to your home town
I took the bus to streets that I could walk down
I walked the streets to find the one I'd looked for
I climbed the stair that led me to your front door

And now that I don't want for anthing
I'd have Al Jolson sing "I'm sitting on top of the world"

I'll do my best, I'll do my best to do the best I can
I'll do my best, I'll do my best to do the best I can
To keep my feet from jumping from the ground dear
To keep my heart from jumping through my mouth dear
To keep the past, the past and not the present
To try and learn when you teach me a lesson

And now that I don't want for anything
I'd have Al Jolson sing "I'm sitting on top of the world".

Mystery of mysteries

The biggest mysteries are never any mysteries at all.
The greatest mystery of nature is, there is nothing mysterious about anything in the end. It entails everything in its emptiness. Wraps up a whole world in void.

The wind of change

It's changing right before my very eyes. Fading away into the fog of past, never to be found again.

Nothing is same.

O Fortuna

I will come out. Victorious.

Hahahaha

Hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahha.........

Frozen

Nothing stays.

Rare

Couldn't find a good human being.

When quiting is ok

I quit. Because it's better to quit one thing to keep from quiting everything else.

Clarity in the Fog

This existence of ours, and the experience of life as a whole, is very vague at the best, if not completely obscure.

Amidst this unendingly confusing entanglement, there might be, however, couple of truths that manage to hold consistently enough.

The first of them is - everything we experience is transient. All things have an expiry date.

Slippery

Trying to capture an idea with words is like trying to run on slippery ice wearing flat shoes.

Because neither our concepts, nor our words are exact. And yet we spend our entire life doing exactly that, while arguing over definitions of things that are only abstractions in the first place, with words that are even more vague.

Whoever you are, please help me get through this. This is really unbearable.

Truth about justice

Justice is not the prevailing standard. Let's not pretend so.

Remember

Divergent thinking

Passion


-Autonomy
-Mastery
-Purpose

Remember

Divergent thinking

Passion


-Autonomy
-Mastery
-Purpose

In Life

There is one thing we don't have much to waste - time.

My Freedom

If I have to compete against luck, so shall I. This is my life, and this is going to happen my way.

Another Pearl

Ethics is a serious drawback.

Now

Absolutely alone.

blurry

making sense collapse on itself
nothing is there when we go deep enough

again and again it goes
nearing death

all tangled up, smoky and dreamy
cant wake up
sleeping thousand times
trying
blurred

what gives, rush, impulses drive
only going into deeper coma
inescapable

Why

I sacrificed so much. Why couldn't they return even a fraction of it, even if not by sacrificing, but at least by showing the smallest amount of appreciation?

Even if I overlook my own happiness, what is gained by them after all? It really didn't have to be like this. Or may be it doesn't really affect them so much as it affects me.

Am I so much in delusion? Can I ever wake up?

Ok

"Only those who dare to fail greatly
can ever achieve greatly."
- Robert F. Kennedy

Didn't I say so already

There are lots of ways of being miserable, but there's only one way of being comfortable, and that is to stop running round after happiness. If you make up your mind not to be happy there's no reason why you shouldn't have a fairly good time.

- Edith Wharton

Like it

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
- Frank Tibolt
All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
- Benjamin Franklin

Hard

Why cant I find a solution?
What is the real issue?

Wake up and look around

Contrary to what many scientists say, hell is very real. We are living in it.

How much

O I love mathematics.
But do I love enough.

Rock n Roll

I am all I need. There is no good in looking outside.
All sorts of human communication corrupt happiness.

I think I agree

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."
- Albert Schweitzer

Can I

I am almost failing. Tantalizingly close.

Preparation

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation."
- Arthur Ashe

QQ

"If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes."
- Andrew Carnegie

QQ

"Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you."
- Arnold Palmer

Life in a Dream

I live in my dreams. They are real.

I think this one is useful

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.
- John Ruskin

Far

It takes a life-time to understand life.

QQ

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
- Helen Keller

Summary

A hope without reason, can cause an inescapable suffering.

Void

Nature is not kind. It's not cruel either. It just doesn't care.

Kick 1

Wake up.

QQ

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Women want mediocre men, and men are working hard to become as mediocre as possible.
- Margaret Mead

Looking back

I lived a good life. Yes, I did.

QQ

"It's time to start living the life
you've imagined"
- Henry James

Delusion

I am still not awake. This is very painful.

QQ

"Never give up, never, never give up."
- Winston Churchill

Reason and Meaning

1. The concept of reasoning is falwed. I really need to write a book on this matter, or at least an artcile elaborating on it. In short, the idea that, if certain event B occurs (almost)always after event A, then A is the reason of B. It is a big fallacy. This only tells they happened so, so far. The term 'reason' should be reserved for something other than just coincidence. Yes, all in science so far, we have mistaken coninncidence for reason. Like the tune of a music, there is just one underlying law in this universe. There is no causal dependency between any two events in the universe. All events are causally linked directly to only one underlying rhythm. That rhythm itself if the mother or the equivalent of creator.

2. The concept of meaning is flawwed. I need to write more on this as well. It could be a separate book or a separate chapter in the book about reasoning. The idea is, the concept of meaning has no element of reality. It's an artifact of our cognition. Outside our thinking, there is no existence of meaning. No existence means that, there is no verifiable effect in nature that can give positive evidence of meaning. On the other hand, there is no phenomenon in nature that needs a meaning to be explained and it is not possible also to have a consistent description of nature by assuming meaning's existence.

Right you are

64 kilo bytes of RAM

Two elderly couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other," Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?" "Outstanding," Fred replied. "They taught us all the latest psychological techniques: visualization, association, etc. It was great." "That's great! And what was the name of the clinic?" Fred went blank. He thought and thought, but couldn't remember. Then a smile broke across his face and he asked, "What do you call that flower with the long stem and thorns?"
"You mean a rose?"
"Yes, that's it!" He turned to his wife, "Rose, what was the name of that memory clinic?"

That's a good one

A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a Harley motorcycle when he spotted a well-known heart surgeon in his shop.
The surgeon was there, waiting for the service manager to come and take a look at his bike.
The mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hey, Doc, can I ask you a question?"

The surgeon a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic working on the motorcycle. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take valves out, fix 'em, put 'em back in, and when I finish, it works just like new. So how come I get such a small salary and you get the really big bucks, when you and I are doing basically the same work?"

The surgeon paused, smiled and leaned over, and whispered to the mechanic...
"Try doing it with the engine running."

Life used to be good!

Oh gosh.. do I miss 24...
and Family Guy,
and Futurama!

Damn it!

24 is having a vote for the best lines in season 6. Almost every single line was awesome. They all rock. Some of my top favorites:

"Drop your weapon"

"First lets make something clear: the only reason you're still conscious is because I don't want to carry you"

"I give you my Word"

"Do you understand the difference between dying for something and dying for nothing? the only reason i fought so hard to stay alive from China was because i didn't want to die for nothing...today i can die for something... my way, my choice..."

"You think you know about pain? You don't know anything yet."

‎"you know me, you've read my profile"

"Give me the names"

"i'm done playing games. i'm going to take out your right eye, then i'm going to cut out your left, and i'm going to keep cutting you into you tell me what i need to know."

"You're going to tell me what I want to know, It's just a matter of how much you want it to hurt."

"If you are lying to me, I'm gonna make this the worst day in your life. You understand me?"

http://www.jackbauersgreatest.com/main_ff.php

A nonsense of popular condolence

I guess I need to spell it out loud here. The most common approach I have seen to console a sad person is something like this. They ask the sufferer to look at other people's condition, which are possibly much worse. And then because of that comparison, they expect the sufferer to get some hope (? that more pain is waiting?) or solace (?that you are better than your brother?) or something (I don't know!) that would make him/her feel better.

Well here is the rub. How in the world, is another one's suffering making my suffering any less, if not more? As a person I feel actually much worse when I find that it's not only me, but someone else also is suffering. Isn't this the natural reaction as a sentient being? How am I supposed to feel any better by looking around and finding people that are suffering even worse, on top of my own suffering mind?

It's like gaping another person's broken car to get solace, instead of fixing one's own broken one. It's really nonsensical.

The Hardline of Nature's Ethics

Death is not a cruel event by itself - but, things that lead to it could be.
Death is the final deffense mechanism to take a being out of suffering, when the pain is beyond the limit. Hence it is actually a mercy.

The Power of Indirection

"There is no problem in computer science that can't be solved by another level of indirection."

I believe this is still valid, if we drop the phrase "computer science". Just another level of indirection :)

Thank you, Vincent Freeh.

The primary factor

Happiness is mainly a property of your mind, not a derivative of your state of affairs.

At least, I would like to believe it that way.

Innovation

The fundamental precondition for innovation is probably the ability to remove the superfluous relations among concepts that constrain our thought from leveraging the complete freedom of the truth. We must open our mind to an unprecedented level and constantly challenge the limits set by our current understanding of the universe. Only this level of courage can take us closer to the truth.

Dreams

I dream of walking along very narrow cliffs many a times. This link is interesting.

http://www.whiteestate.org/sop/2000/story.html

Some of my other recurring dreams include:

Mazes, a building or structure with many stories and doors, I am not finding my destination in there. Most of the time I will start from somewhere and then when I try to return there, the path would seem to have changed, even if I remember the map.

In other dreams, I will be traveling on some sort of vehicle or something, but my body would be held so high above that thing that I could fall off any moment. And there is this strong feeling that nobody around me seems to be noticing that.

Sometimes, I will be traveling on very weird roads. Mostly with very narrow and stiff edges. There are other people on these roads.

Or it could be that I am in a journey, or in a place or in some situation where I am in imminent danger of loosing balance and falling from a high altitude. Interestingly, I hardly remember any dream where I actually fell. But these dreams makes me anxious and uncomfortable.

Indeed

"Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers."

"Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry."

Lazarus Long (Longest lived human science fiction cahracter, 1912 - ? {ranges from 2125 to 4000}, (From the author Robert Heinlein):

Three pillars

Kindness
Honesty
Intelligence

I shall never deviate from these three,

QR

"It has been my philosophy of life that
difficulties vanish when faced boldly."
- Isaac Asimov

Lie

A 'lie' has a very powerful reproductive system.

To exist is to change.

I think it applies to me as well

The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.
- Nikola Tesla

QQ

No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.
- Thomas Mann

The Secret of Life

Is not about the self. It is about the others.

Beyond

Every time I've followed the chain of reasoning down to the furthest I could, the last thing I explored, has been love and kindness; self-explained and completely satisfying

The Spirit never dies.

Could you Pause?

I never liked the fact about time. It flows and makes everything disappear into the unreachable past. I don't like it. I want things to stay. I want it to persist.

Things that exist in time, are never ultimate. They are to be overlaid by new events every moment. This illusion is unbreakable.

Definition

Reality is something we do not have control over. The all powerful, therefore, doesn't have a reality.

This Time

The problem is, it's too damn real.

For Example

Things you can not make bigger by stretching:
A Heart

Numbers

The concept of numbers would not exist, if there were no two things that are same, at any level.

Essence

What is the fundamental difference between information and energy?

QQ

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
- Hunter S. Thompson
Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.
- George Santayana
CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.
- Arthur C. Clarke

Pride

Ugliest of prides are of those possessions, one has been bestowed upon, without much effort.

Principle of maximam doubt

If you could afford to doubt something, doubt it.

Living in Future

It's not only what happened, that shapes the mood; instead it is mostly about what is anticipated.

Questions are being satisfied, but, not with answers.

The Equation

In the totality of life, the essential problem is almost never, a lack of resources. It is lack of intelligent actions.
Lack of sensible decision in one sphere of life could lead to lack of resources in another sphere. And once resources get scantier, the problem becomes a little bit unsolvable, the amount by which the decision was off from the perfect one in the other sphere, to be exact.

Example:
You earn certain amount of money. To grow and live the happiest possible life with that income is a different proposition than increasing the rate at which you earn. To earn more is what I will call, the problem in the other domain with respect to optimal use of what you’ve got. Given a specific income level, there is a worse way, a better way and the best way to use it for achieving maximum happiness. It could be investing wisely, balancing your life-style with your income or many other techniques. The goal is always to increase total happiness. Investing wisely for example does not mean you put up so much for the future that the happiness you will be able to reap in future with the saved money is actually less than the sacrifice you are making today. There is always the best trade-off between different uses of money to achieve the greatest possible happiness. But the subtle point here is, the limit of this happiness is curved by your income level too and that is in a different domain of problem. The amount of money you have is a limiting factor set in the domain of using it wisely.
But if you follow carefully, the argument of lack of resources not being the problem applies to that ‘other domain’ too, and this goes recursively indefinitely. It is not true that you cannot earn more. Given a certain level of potential (intellectual, physical, or whatever it is), you can always find a way to earn the maximum that is possible. Again the limiting factor here is outside the domain, namely, potential, physical possessions for example. Reiterating the point, with the same potential it is possible to earn at different levels only though different levels of intelligence applied in making decisions.

Put in so nicely

"In the words of John Lennon: Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. At The Motley Fool, we firmly believe that saving for tomorrow is not about sacrificing today -- it simply requires striking the right life-money balance. So we'll end this lesson with your moment of Foolish Zen: Living rich and getting rich are not mutually exclusive"

It stays, it glows.

The light of truth can't be extinct. It is only overshadowed, and only for a while.

Up it goes

Pieces are gradually falling into place.

Is it so

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
- David Russell

Don't take my sunshine away.

Power of Understanding

Trying to understand something intead of letting the feelings take over, has always done wonders for me.

Intelligent Morality

If there is ever a conflict between an intelligent decision versus an honest one; guess what: take the intelligent one. Intelligence is the only light you can trust upon. Rest are illusive, evasive and almost always ugly.

Love is self-explained.

A Minimal Human Being

I understand when people make mistakes. I make so many myself.

I also understand, though do not appreciate, when people are being dishonest. After all, we need to often fight with our instincts to remain honest.

But, I absolutely do not understand, how people can be devoid of kindness. The quality of kindness and compassion for others, should be so basic and inherent within a human being, that I can not account for cruelty by any thinkable means, be it lack of money or education or whatever. As soon as one is human, one has to have this quality. It is so essential, a human elemeent. I seriously get clueless when I see people acting cruel for no apparent benefits whatsoever.

What I am doing Right

Finishing what I start.
Not wandering much while thinking. If I need to change focus, resuming where I left off.

Meet up

My aspirations should dictate my schedule, not the schedule of others. If company is in need, I will almost always find somebody out there with the same aspirations as I do.

Can't oversay

Patience is not always natural. But it sure helps.

Horizon of intelligence

The horizon of our knowledge is limited by the extent of questions we can form.

I have more freedom, than I had suspected.

I need to exercise my ability to choose more usefully.

Reality, Truth

In a sequence of logic, not all paths are unique. So I need to soften up bindings of argument leading to a conclusion.
There are almost always a second perspective. And that one may not be any less ideal than the first one.
Reality seems to be multi-faced at least, if not multi-origined. The idea of 'either true or false but not both' may not be honored at the deepest level of reality.

Realization of Life

The holy grail of all the philosophical questions, the meaning of life, the essential truth about existence - I am one more step closer to it.

Echo

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld