Technology of Spirituality - A Talk by Khurshed Batliwala aka Bawa

(the way people reacted after i told i am going to work for Art of Living...hehehehe)

There has been so many things that have been said after i joined Art of Living. Fortunately, (some might say unfortunate), this was what i wanted to do, and i realised that through this organisation the scope of achieving what i wanted to do was immense.

This post is to basically give you an idea as to what i've been doing over the few months. So, to start of with, this talk that i am going to post was actually first given by Bawa at TEDx, Goa. He was previously invited by TEDx Chennai to talk on the topic - Inspiration.(I mean for Yes!+ people, just his very presence would have summed up the topic :-) :-) :-) ). That talk of Bawa was not as appealing(for us) as it is on a Yes!+ course, but nonetheless the organisers loved it and they wanted him to be at TEDx Goa. And this time the topic that was given to the speakers was Innovation. Most us of did not have a clue as to what the content was going to be. But once he came back to Bombay and showed us the presentation that he did for the talk, we were completely blown away.

The talk is about as the heading says - The Technology of Spirituality.

What is spirituality/spiritual practises/meditation, the factors which govern it and how does this damn thing work. Sounds like some economics class but i tell you it is as interesting or rather even more interesting than it looks like. He takes us through our Indian History and Ancient Texts and arrives as to how we can utilise these techniques to enhance and widen our opportunites to grow as an individual. We actually need it more right now than how much our ancestors required it during their times. I can tell you that this talk will give you a completely new definition of what spirituality is(and give you the exact meaning of what it really is), and will break all the existing notions that people have towards it.

This is what i've always wanted to do. To showcase what are country really represents, our culture, traditions and the knowledge that we possess. The things that we show through are media is not what we are, it's just very bad replication of what the west are doing. And what we are giving to our society is the worst from the west. We need to start a revolution of sorts and the people who can really make a difference are people like us who are capable of identifying what is right and what is wrong. I can only offer you what i have to give, but it is up to you to take that step forward if you want to make a difference to the society you are living in. :-)

So, here it is - The Technology of Spirituality

Hope you guys enjoy it. :-) :-) :-)

Jai Gurudeva!!!

Love

Abhiram

Monty Python's contribution to E-mail

How spam got it's name

and,

the wikipedia write-up.

Alive and Dead...part 4

I never really written a part 4 of anything before...this is a first for me...yayy!! Actually I have never written a part 2 or 3 either...I apologise for taking a little longer than i expected but with Valentines day just over, I was for the large part mulling over suicide...Quantum suicide that is :) (I get the feeling this is going to be a very very long post...so if u have some work to do, finish it and then sit down)
Now before I get down to it,I am going to have to repeat a couple of things which some of you might have already realised(if u have, dont read the next few lines) but for the benefit of those who did not---> the coin toss example I gave you was just an example, an analogy. It seemed simpler to explain with a coin toss rather than to start off with atoms and electron states. What did you people think?? That there exists states which were actually both head and tails for a coin?? Ridikulus!! :P
In my last post, I had talked about the cat experiment and the famous Copenhagen interpretation. Before I explain the concept of quantum suicide, lemme introduce another interpretation of QM which is very quickly gaining ground on the Copenhagen one. Lets first talk about what an "interpretation" means.
In science, a theory is accepted when in a very basic sense its internally consistent ie one idea of the theory doesnt contradict another and the theory can predict with great accuracy the results of experiments. Over the course of our existence, scientific theories have always sprung out in the pursuit of explaining our observations. Newton did not get up one fine day and formulate his 3 laws of motion or his theory of gravity. They came about by extensive observations of movement of the planets and comets (pls dont tell me you actually beleive the Newton-apple story!!). Bohr and other QMists did not out of the blue, come out with the basic postulates/ideas I had given before. It was how they believed the systems should work to explain the results they had obtained thru experiment and as long as their ideas were internally consistent and would explain the results they have already as well as predict for future experiments, the ideas or their "interpretations" is assumed to be correct. But that does not mean that there cannot be other interpretations. If you and I can come up with a new set of ideas which would satisfy the basic constraints that a theory should very rigorously, then voila!! we have a new theory in our hands and the coveted 3AM call from Stockholm
not far away.:)
I would be right in assuming that the idea of a "collapse" at first and maybe even now does not sit well with many of you. It didnt either for Hugh Everett III, one of the most brilliant minds of our time and probably one with the saddest of stories(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Everett_III). For his PhD dissertation, Everett suggested another interpretation of QM which went to form the infamous Many Worlds theory!! (Now thats a PhD dissertation!!). When Everett proposed this idea and spoke to many of the Copenhagenists like Bohr, etc he was ridiculed and termed an 'amateur' with no idea what QM really meant. This eventually led to him quitting his research in physics and moving onto algorithms for optimisation( OR and EM students might come across his work sooner or later). However for a while now, his many worlds theory is gaining increasing popularity and catching up with the Copenhagen interpretation( and for whats its worth, it has definitely won me over).
The many worlds theory is an idea which sounds a lot more appealing cos we have come across it a lot, in movies, on TV, fiction stories, they make a very good read. But trust me, the concept of many worlds isnt just fiction. It is a very real science and one whose mathematics is a little simpler than the one related with the old interpretations(one of the main reasons why its gaining a lot of popularity nowadays). As the name suggests, the theory implies that there exists many worlds, probably infinite in number in which one of every possible outcome has occurred and these multiple universes do not interact. That is anything that could have possibly happened in the past did actually happen but in different universe to the one you are in. To put it simply, consider the Schrodinger cat experiment again. The old interpretation means that the cat will be "alive" or "dead" only after you observe it. This means you, the observer caused that. But in the many worlds theory, the cat is either "alive" or "dead" even before you observe but you in THIS universe will see only one of the two outcomes.Still confusing? Very simple, if I opened the box and saw a dead cat it means the cat was dead even before I opened the box BUT in another universe (which is instantaneously created by the mere fact that the cat could have been alive) I will open the box to see a live cat but since the two universes cant interact or communicate with each other, we only behave as though one of the things happened!! Think about it, makes sense doesnt it?
This effectively means, everytime you perform an experiment and it can have any one of possible outcomes, everyone of the outcome does occur but you continue to exist in the universe where you see the outcome that you get. And the 'you' in the other universe might have got a different outcome but to him/her that is the outcome of the experiment.OMGGG!!! this means the power of choice literally SPLITS the universe everytime!! My friends, do not underestimate the power of choice that you possess!!
Now lets get down to the fun part of what this means. I started off, talking about Quantum suicide. This is an infamous implication of the many worlds theory. Lets say one day a person A suffering from a broken heart, decided enof's enof and takes a gun to kill himself. He pulls the trigger and one of two things can happen. The gun either fires or it doesnt, which implies the A either lives or dies. Now the many worlds theory states that the universe splits to accomodate both outcomes, ie both events occur but we in this universe experience only one of them. If the gun fires and A dies, he is dead and the universe cannot split based on him pulling the trigger anymore but it can continue to split based on other things like say B who is in love with A decides to take up that gun and pull the trigger.
But but..its a lot more interesting if the gun doesnt fire and A lives. It means we are in the universe where A lives and... Now A can once again pull the trigger==>there is a chance of one of two possible outcomes happening AGAIN!! Again the universe will split and will continue splitting till he dies.This is the concept of Quantum suicide. But waaaaaiiiittt a minute, even if he dies, it means the act of pulling the trigger has created an universe where he lives and if we just kept doing this, there will always be an universe where he continues to live. Does that mean the person will live forever?? Infact thats exactly what it means. The person will infact attain what is called QUANTUM IMMORTALITY!! uahahahahahahahaha but it will occur in only one of infinite universes!!
Its quite amazing to think that reality isnt a straight line but infact a brach in a huge tree of time!! Anyways this theory and the Copenhagen interpretation predicts results which are the same or very similar for a wide range of experiments and hence there is no way for us to correctly determine which one is right and the other wrong. Infact finding actual cases where one theory might usurp the other is focal point of research nowadays and is a sure shot way to win the Nobel. Maybe they are both wrong!! Maybe there is something out there that we have all been missing!! Ahh the wonders of this universe!!
Chal, I shall take up no more of your time. Hope u guys enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed it writing it. I shall see you in part 5 :)

Natesh
ps: a little cartoon explaining the many worlds theory. one of my favorites. I had put this up in FB a while back. Note the reference to the cat right at the end :D
http://abstrusegoose.com/240

Alive and Dead...part 3

This was supposed to be the last post in this genre of sorts but due to the encouragement i have got from most of you, I intend to continue writing on related topics as long as i can. Plus it wouldnt be fair, if i spent soooo much time discussing the basic postulates and ideas of QM and only spend little time on all the weird things it predicts which is where ALL the fun lies :) (rubs hands in glee)
After i used the coin toss experiment as the example to state the basic ideas, i was asked by those who already had a fair idea of QM why i didnt use the infamous Schrodeingers cat example. Well i had my reasons. For one, i was saving the best for last and the cat is definitely one of the best :) and i did not want to confuse anyone (lol as if i have not already!!). I did plan to use the cat as the example to explain the basic ideas but then i felt it would be ironic to use the very thought experiment that the legendary Schrodinger came up with to ridicule the results we would get if we simply extended QM to the world around us.
Before I explain what the worlds most famous cat is all about, I need to tell you people about something called the Copenhagen interpretation. It is just how a bunch of scientists, notably Bohr decided to interpret QM in..well u guessed it..Copenhagen (these physicists arent very creative with names are they??). It is the most widely accepted interpretation of the ideas.In short its what I have stated already in part-2 but these guys decided to give it a really really cool name.
A quick review of what these guys said, so that u dont have to go to part-2 and recheck it: 1) if the 2 possible states of a system is X(like heads) or Y( like tails), then any in between state called the superposition is also possible(and there are infinite number of them!!)-->which is like both X and Y at the same time!! 2)the moment u try to observe/measure the system it will "collapse" and give you either X or Y only!! Cool??
The Schrodinger cat experiment is just an experiment to oppose the way the Copenhagen gumbal interpreted QM.Ok now this is how the experiment was setup (note: no real animals were actually used in the experiment!! lol its just a thought experiment like Einsteins box, Wieners friend and my personal fav Maxwells demon) Now lets say there is this big big box in which this experiment is going to take place. We are outside the box and there is no way for us to know whats happening inside until we open and see. Now inside the box there is a substance(lets call it chemical X...aah i do miss the powerpuff girls!!) ,a cat and a Geiger counter( which is just an instrument to measure radiation/light whatever..nothing fancy!!) which is connected to a gun or laser or bomb or poison or knife..ur choice, as long as it can kill a cat!! Notice i said just a cat..i will not mention live or dead cat, because i cant possibly know yet!! I am on the outside :) (cue on the outside by stained!! \m/ )...confused already?? read on...
Now lets say this chemical X is such that, it may emit radiation( light is very simple terms) or it may not. And the counter is such that if it detects light it will activate the poison gas and kill the cat and do nothing if it doesnt detect anything. So this basically implies if X gives out light, the cat dies and if it doesnt,the cat lives. Since X can be in a state where it gives out light or in a state where it doesnt, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the chemical can be in any state between the two: a state where it is giving out light and not giving out light at the same time.
Now just extend this to the cat and behold what happens!! Since the cats life depends on chemical X, its in state "alive" when X doesnt do anything and "dead" when X emits light. Sooooo if X is in a state between those two, then so is the cat!! Its somewhere in a state when it both alive and dead at the same time!!
"Ooooohhh that sounds incredible!!! Cant i just take a quick peek in and see what an "alive and dead" cat looks like very quickly? I promise to make it real quick." Hmmm well go ahead, you can try but u wont be able to!! Why not?? Simple, the other part of the Copenhagen interpretation, you observing will destroy the system and what you will find is either a live cat OR a dead one.
Hmmm so what does this all mean?? That if we dont look, QM predicts that zombies exist?? :D Definitely NOT!! Like I said, it was just Schrodingers way of ridiculing the Copenhagen interpretation. Does this mean QM is of no real use to us?? Can it never be applied to the everyday world around us??Yes it can , QM can be extended to the world around us but it must be done properly. CM can be obtained as a special case of QM...hmmm let me put it in a better way...QM will behave a lot like CM when its applied properly. But because CM works so well for the things around us, it is in no danger of being replaced by QM. Trust me, you do not want to be calculating complex vector products and applying Hermitian operators if someone asked you to find the velocity of a something say a car...as tempting as it might be!! :)
But as we go to the smaller and smaller things, like my prof says, CM fails miserably!! and as out there as it sounds QM very beautifully explains all experimental results.
Anyway I have explained the Schrodinger cat experiment as simple as I can to the best of my knowledge. Like before, if you guys have any questions, hit me on gtalk or leave a comment and i will try and answer to the best I can. oh w8...or else u can BUZZ me :D lol its kinda nice...lets see if it catches on....

natesh
...solving a 12800x12800 matrix :(

ps: this post will definitely not be the last in this miniseries... there are a LOT more fun things to talk about :) trust me if u liked this, u will love what i have planned next :)

Alive and Dead...part 2

Alright guys, i am back again after a couple of Lost episodes... I just realised I have been building and hyping the subject up without actually giving anything that can make you go oooooohhhh and aaaaahhhh...i shall not waste anymore of your time, but at this very last moment i shall repeat this---> QM unlike CM is very abstract and something we cant easily relate to, even though i wont be going into the related mathematics of it. QM does lack that intuitive appeal i mentioned before and will be anything but obvious. Ok? Lets start...
Since I am avoiding talking about atoms and electron states, the simplest eg i can think of is that of a simple coin toss. Now this can be heads or tails, which is pretty clear (and this is what CM will equivalently predict) but what QM says is that not only is head and tails possible but so is any "state" between head and tail!! "omggwtff??" you ask... very simple, if u say heads and tails are two possible things a coin toss can give you, the postulates of QM will prove that a state in the form of 0.6head and 0.4tail is also possible!! Note: this is not heads or tails...this is both heads AND tails at the same time!!! What thats just ridiculous?!!?That doesnt even make sense!! Well guess what... its actually possible!!
"Hmmm ok ok, i have known u for years nut and i believe what u just said, as ridiculous as it sounds.Now if these "superposition" (thats what they are called) is also possible, then how come we have never measured it?? surely its not possible that everyone over the course of 1000's of years making millions of measurement missed something so different" Good question!! This is where another postulate of QM kicks in. Lets see if we all agree what measurement is. A measurement in a way is like taking a really really long stick and poking the thing you wanna measure from a distance and see what reading you get. CM assumes that you making a measurement or taking this stick and poking the thing doesnt actually make a difference. A fairly sane assumption if you promise not to poke too hard or for too long. If this actually was true, then your question would be very valid and we should have seen this "superposition" states by now. But QM is more detailed and says you observing( ie measuring) actually does affect the system, infact it affects in a very big way. In such a big way, you actually destroy it!! YOU have caused the system to collapse!! (For those who are really interested, look for the phenomenon of wave collapse) Hmmm so if i destoyed it, will i always get zero as the answer you ask?? Not really, when i say the system collapsed, I meant it collapses to give you a certain set values. Am i sounding too out there?? Cool,I will get back to the coin toss example...what this last few lines means is, if the coin actual could be in heads AND tails (superposition) state,you trying to measure it will cause it to "collapse" and it will end up giving you heads or tails like CM!!
"Aaaahhh thats just highly convenient da nut!! U are effectively saying this "superposition" state exists but you cant show it to me because trying to show me will destroy everything!! yaaru kadhula poo suthare??" My thoughts exactly and ejjactly what i asked my prof but i didnt quite pose it that way!! lol Since i promised not too go into the deep maths of this, my best answer is to just trust me, its how it is, no matter how counter intuitive it sounds. (For those read more on wiki but have some questions, hit me on gtalk and i am up for a talk anytime!! :D ) Now lets stick with the whole coin analogy. QM says if we did the whole coin toss act a very large number of times and find out how many times heads turned up and how many times tails turned( in short there probabilities), you have mathematical thingamajings to back calculate exactly what superposition state it was in!! But I gave you this to indicate that while CM is "deterministic" ie you can say for sure that this what you have, QM is what we called "probabilistic" or everything is a probability!! Yep everything is a probability. It can have a very high probability or low probability but everything comes with a probability!! You dont say anything for sure!!
You can ask me "will you come to school today?"
CM answer: " i will!!" QM answer: "the probability of me coming to school is pretty high"
I think i have basically covered everything as simple as i can possibly can (ps: the truth is, it was put to me in an even simpler way but i am not as good as my prof). I am going to let you guys read over this a couple of times before it makes sense because it took me several days involving sleepless nights and banging my head on the wall kinda action before it started making sense. I will end my mindless rambling with one last post on the various weird things QM can actually predict..some of which is plain ridiculous (even by QM's standards) and some which actually turn out to be true...


Natesh
...trying to calculate the band structure...


PS: To those science students who have come across eigenvalues and the eigen equations, lemme continue a little bit more. The rest,I warn you, I have been raring to become technical and I shall do so here. The various values that system can collapse to is obtained by solving the corresponding eigenvalue equation when acted upon by the respective operators(dont ask...long story!!!)
Why these values?? the truth is we actually dont know!! YES!! A fundamental postulate in the most researched theory in physics and we dont know!!
Why does the system collapse? This was unexplained for a very long time till the theory of decoherence was proposed (a while back).I shall not even try and explain what this is because it gets very very messy and confusing!!

Alive and Dead...part 1

No no no, i am not talking about blog...its pretty much heading towards the dead side but NOO we shall not let it...COME ONNN!!
I was hoping the blog would be overflowing with posts by now...tch tch...but since its not,u are forcing me to do the unthinkable...I wanted to post some mindless timepass but i am actually going to post something that could be useful, maybe even a little educational...
Before I dive into what i was about to write, I want to share a small anecdote which now brings a smile to my face everytime I think about it. It was about 5 yrs ago and many of you here were sitting with me in KPR's sirs class(I respect that man too much to even imagine not calling him sir even on paper!!) ...anyways i am digressing, it was before the board exams and we were discussing one of his revision papers which we had answered a while ago. As he was giving out the answers, one of our pasanga(think adi it was you) gets up and asks sir if the answer could be X and Y. He looks up and in his usual low voice says "U can be either be dead OR alive but not dead AND alive at the same time". It was a good analogy to counter the doubt and we had a good laugh.
Fast forward many years ahead, to about a few months before i write this and I open the wikipedia page for Schrodingers cat--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat To those who did get this and its immense significance, u need not read on but for those who this page left you with more questions than answers, let me introduce you to the wonderful journey that is Quantum Mechanics(QM). No no do not worry, the rest of this post will not be technical and filled with complex equations, though they do form an integral part of it. I shall for the most part explain the basic ideas in simple words and convey what i know and leave you wondering on how beautiful and mysterious the world around us works.
U might ask...now wait a second, werent you studying electrical engineering?? Isnt quantum mechanics a very "physics" like subject? When and how did you end up learning it? and is it possible to even put something that is sooooooo scary in simple words??
Yes quantum theory for the most part deals with atoms,molecules and all the small thingys but with our electronic gadgets becoming smaller by the day, the need for electrical engineers to know this theory is quickly becoming very relevant. And yes, believe it or not, it is actually POSSIBLE to state the basic ideas of quantum mechanics in simple words. For many yrs now, like many others, I too have related the vast subject of QM with complex equations and derivations running for miles but over the course of the last 6 months, I have been shown that it is only one small part of what is undoubtedly the most powerful theory available!! And for this I shall forever be thankful to Prof.NGA, my QM teacher and academic advisor.
If you guys havent realised it already, I have developed an unhealthy obsession for the subject devouring whatever i can get my hands on, and it gets me excited everytime i find something new that it so brilliantly predicts!!(yes yes i need a life, and maybe a girlfriend as well lol). As gun once said, "i will marry QM if i can"!!, well he didnt say QM, he was talking about math but i definitely will!!
Lets start with a little history shall we...we all know our Newtons laws and the physics based on those 3 laws is referred to as Classical mechanics(CM). For a very very long time, to almost about 120 yrs ago, CM was considered to be the end of physics, it seemed to explain everything so nicely-from planetary motion to our everyday world with a very good degree of accuracy and the 3 laws had what we scientists (ahem ahem :P ) call "intuitive appeal". U read newtons laws and it makes sense dont they? It makes sense to a level that you think "hmmm thats quite obvious, why did he have to call that a law!! its common sense!! stoopid newton!!" The reason for this is that the laws fit beautifully with things around you and u can relate to them. You see a table in your room and if your not moving it with some force, it wont move but always stay there aka Newtons 1st law. I will come back to this intuitive appeal again. Anyway we had CM and everyone was happy, but...but... a few scientists went poking around with atoms and did this experiment and that and found that the experimental data was quite contrary to what CM says it would be. (To the science students, these will include experiments with black body radiation, the photoelectric effect, atomic spectrum, etc) Anyways the most notable among those who proposed a quantum theory( note: quantum comes from the greek word 'quanta' meaning discrete amounts) include Max Planck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck) and Niels Bohr(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr). Note that both went onto receive the Nobel for there work in this theory. However their ideas werent so widely accepted at first because it meant leaving the safety and comfort of CM and embracing something new and possibly dangerous (in its implications) :)
If you were to look into the history of science, the stories of Bohr is actually quite interesting. The final boost to QM came from Einstein himself who suggested something quite revolutionary (which later is the wave-particle duality proved by DeBroglie in his Phd dissertation!!! oops.. getting a little too technical??) Anyway Bohr strongly opposed Einsteins idea even though it would perfectly support the idea of QM. However Einstein later went on to prove his idea(through photoelectric effect) and receieved the Nobel for it.(Yes it is amazing that Einstein did not actually get the Nobel for his e=mc^2, the worlds most famous equation!!) Anyway Bohr did an whole 180 shift and embraced the idea which he had once vehemently opposed(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr–Einstein_debates). To balance the books, Einstein became less loyal to the QM he had helped prove when Heisenberg came up with the very famous Uncertainity Principle...the very famous statement by Einstein "God doesnt play dice" is a small jab at this principle. Anyway this is how the theory began and from then onwards, it hasnt stopped with more and more scientists coming up whole new ideas that shook the very way we viewed things, soon leaving the realm of science and venturing into the philosophical and metaphysical!!
I promised to state the basic postulates but digressed a little too much into the history...I shall stop here and let you catch your breathe and prepare yourself for the mind boggling journey ahead(if you are brave enof to take it)...

natesh
how deep does the rabbit hole run??

ps: agent, i hope u are reading this...hopefully it should help you understand the QM part in study of dreams if you come across it..