Science – Parts Per Billion

Deconstruction – reading between the lines

Logic always talks about ones and zeros. But when logical, philosophical arguments end up in a paradox we discover a totally new understanding about reality which is neither one nor zero but a spectrum. Jacques Derrida’s basic urge through deconstruction is the rejection of the duality or presumption, and seeing beyond what is shown using the limitations of language. Deconstruction helps to come out of the duality of any argument by putting relative meaning at the center instead of loyalty towards the signs used to show the meaning.

Jacques Derrida’s philosophy for the better understanding of the reality

Language and its purpose

Questioning is at the core of philosophy. Philosophy’s main pursuit is always to create an understanding about the subject of interest. It provides a way to create a basic and concrete understanding of the subject. It is a way to understand the creation and things that are beyond creation. Philosophy is the process of formalizing any concrete understanding so that a new evolved, more absolute understanding could be built upon that foundation.

The means to create such understandings are languages; it could be any language, of symbols, pictures, sounds, geometries, etc. Language serves as the most important tool to formalize any thought, idea, proof, postulate. So, every component of the language has to mean something to create a bigger meaning; like in speech, every word means something. When I say ‘child’ you will see a human young-ling, when I say ‘apple’ you see a red fruit of that particular shape, and when I am saying apple, you are sure that I am not talking about ‘oranges’, because orange is associated with something different looking ‘fruit’ (some would even think of an iphone when I say apple!). This shows that just like how atoms create molecules thereby the object, in similar sense, words of basic meaning create an expression and thereby some context which shows what we mean when we are saying them together to convey a bigger meaning.

Just like atoms of different elements from the periodic table come together in different permutations and combinations to create variety of compounds and infinite objects rather the whole universe, in the same sense every component of given language carries a value – a meaning which builds a narrative, an expression to create a context, a logical statement; a set of such logical statements together can point to some truth, some fact. If used in smart ways, it can help us to discover the hidden sides of our understanding. That is roughly how science and mathematics work.

But you know what? When we are investigating the boundaries of our understanding, we see that they all end in paradoxes, some self-referential paradoxes. Take for example, Epimenides paradox (the Cretan philosopher Epimenides of Knossos) as follows:

Epimenides, a Cretan says, “All Cretans are liars”.

Now what does this convey? Prima facie it feels like all Cretan people are liars, but then you see that person who is saying this is also a Cretan that makes him a liar, so he too is a liar. But if Epimenides himself is liar then what he said is also a lie, meaning that Cretans are not liars rather they are veracious. If Cretan’s are veracious then what Epimenides says is truth meaning that all Cretan’s are liars and this means Epimenides is also a liar. We end up in a loop, a self-referential paradox.

In the end, the sentence does not make sense, logic, the sentence is meaningless.

What happened here?

We used a language medium to create a meaning which helped to create newer understanding but that new understanding led us to bigger confusion, meaninglessness.

Here, I pose a very important question –

if the context of the sentence is meaningless does that mean that the words from which that sentence is made – words which have their own individual identity, their own absolute meaning a context are also absolutely meaningless?

What if we encounter same situation in the philosophical endeavors? as they are the building blocks our overall understanding of the creation and things beyond creation.

This is where the philosophy of deconstruction given by Jacques Derrida comes into light. I will try to explain deconstruction by building on some ideas. (you will see in the end that nothing “absolute” makes any sense or doesn’t even exist. That is also why deconstruction was rejected by many great philosophers but it has a valid point to prove.)

The flow of thought presented hereon is roughly like building an understanding and then challenging that idea because it does not present the best model of how our reality, our consciousness work.

Logocentrism

Western philosophy is based on the foundations of ‘the reason’. The Greek word logos (λόγος) literally means word, discourse, or reason. So, logocentrism considers language as the expression of reality and hence stands as a mediator between conscious and reality.

It is very important to understand that every type of understanding, knowledge building, sharing, communicating activity is associated with language. You need a medium to give a proper structure to what you are thinking and let others comprehend it. Logocentrism focuses on that.

As we have seen already that use of language in certain way could create meaninglessness, self-referential paradox, does that mean language is failing to create better truths? What exactly is happening? If language and logic is paradoxical then the reality which they are explaining must also be paradoxical but that is not the reality we live in (if it would be paradoxical, then reality would not exist, the paradoxical elements would annihilate each other)

This means that there is something lying beyond the territories of language which we are not able to comprehend and translate which could solve this paradox of language.

(Park this first thought in your mind for some time)

Plato’s definition of reality – Platonism and The theory of forms

Plato called out for “essence” of everything that exists. Essence represents that absolute truth which we try to define using ‘forms’, the forms are ideas which are non-physical, timeless, absolute. The forms create reality but they are beyond our grasp because of our physical limitations.

So, building on the theory of forms Platonism believes that in surety that there is something truly pure and absolute at the bottom – at the root of existence. It supports the existence of abstract objects which are believed to exist in the realm which is different from sensible external world and our internal consciousness.

So, when you try to comprehend the Platonism and logocentrism together, you will appreciate that language and the logic it conveys, the meaning, the context it conveys is the foundation of how we understand the creation, the philosophy itself and the products of philosophy.

Language creates an objective pivot to create absolute ideas whose correlation yields into higher truths. Language creates ‘meaning’, ‘context’, ‘logic’ according to the Platonism.

(Park this second thought)

Semiotics – Language as signs

If language is so important to understand the true reality, it becomes very important to create a structure, rules, grammar to use it effectively. Semiotics deals with these ideas.

A sign is an important part of any language, one can say that any language is made up of signs. Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the two founders of Semiology established the two components of sign as signified and signifier. As these both words are self-explanatory – signified is the one which is of interest (also known as the ‘plane of content’) and signifier is how we are observing thereby expressing the object of interest (also known as the ‘plane of expression’).

So, in written language when I am saying apple, you know I am talking about the fruit called apple which looks red, tastes tart-sweet, is crispy-crunchy in texture when one takes its bite.

(This is the third thought to be parked)

Aufhebung – the sublation

In the modern western philosophy, which considered the language as the path leading to ultimate truth the idea of sublation created ‘logical’ revolution. The language as a tool to develop logic and this logic then leading to the investigation and discovery of the ultimate truth became really vital. For logic to remain ‘logical’ one needs to define the basic objective sides like right or wrong. A given idea must be right to exist in reality otherwise, it is wrong and is invalid. We build many arguments of right and wrong to lead us to the absolute understanding. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is known to develop the idea of sublation. Aufhebung literally means ‘to suspend’, ‘to abolish’.

For example, darkness is the condition when there is no light. If a place is called ‘lit’ it means that there is no darkness. So, this dualism created through sublation gave the greatest philosophical power to language and thereby logocentrism. When something is not good it is called as bad, when there are enough logical arguments like such ‘binary oppositions’, one can reach to the absolute truth as far the logocentrism goes. The process almost becomes objective, self-sufficient, and mechanical, there are no chances of human error when we are handling philosophical treatise; this is the same foundation through which judicial systems created the structure of law.

(the fourth thought to be parked)

Deconstruction

What came first – chicken or the egg? meaning or language?

Just recall the four ideas which we parked before.

Jacques Derrida is the philosopher who developed the ideas of deconstruction who solved the paradox of the logic in the logocentric philosophy.

It is important to accept that wherever a paradox arises there lies an opportunity of the creation of a new branch in our knowledge system. The deconstruction is that new branch which got created here. Derrida rejected the idea of Platonism. His work in deconstruction is highly inspired from the philosophy of phenomenology. Phenomenology is the study of fundamental nature of subjective consciousness and experience.

One would get confused to appreciate the matter of subjectivity in a philosophical discourse but phenomenology presents some valid points when we are questioning the reality and developing its understanding. How can subjectivity guarantee absolute truth?

Life was always there even before chicken and egg and also in both of them

Did you get my point?

The moment we separated egg from chicken and posed them as two distinct objects the famous question about their existence in timeline becomes meaningless. In the same sense, other similar questions have exactly same meaningless fate – what is life and death? what is good and bad? what is right and wrong? what is truth and lie?

Derrida pointed out that the moment we create duality in any argument we are losing some important information which could have showed us the ‘real’ reality. Maybe reality is not just two sides of the coin, maybe absoluteness itself is not ‘absolute’. In the attempt to create purely logical arguments, we lost the possibilities to see the real context behind the existence of these arguments.

Derrida strongly promoted the idea that meaning was always there, language is just a way to convey that meaning. Using language to find out new meaning does not lead to newer meaning because this ‘structured’, ‘logical’ language has already submitted itself to the already established two sides of the result – it will either be ‘right’ and if it is not right it will be ‘wrong’.

(Now bring that first parked thought of logocentrism – idea that language is the expression of the reality)

As the logocentrism goes, language is the mediator between consciousness and reality.

Now read the lines below:

This is an example taken from internet. Fact is that every average, normal person can read and understand this. Our brain is always on energy optimization mode. It never reads each and every letter to make a meaning out of the given word, it looks at the bunch of symbols to make sense out of it. This is small example to show that meaning is more important than the symbols, signs used to convey that meaning.

If we were to strictly submit to the rules of English vocabulary and grammar, this presented sentence is senseless to all of us. That is why complete loyalty to language instead of meaning is of no use as Derrida says while explaining deconstruction.

(now bring the remaining thoughts parked in your mind)

Meaning is relative

In deconstruction, Derrida talks about how we understand anything, any idea and how logocentrism, structuralism limited our understanding. The example of scrambled words helps to identify the idea of difference – Derrida called it Différence (as in French pronunciation). Whether I call it difference in english or différence in french, you understand what I am talking about because you get the context (that we are comparing something and this is the word to establish the gap between that comparison)

When I say apple how do you know what I am talking about?

You understand that I am talking about a fruit based on the context of my speech. Otherwise, there are definitely some people who would thing of an apple as an iPhone. So, when I say an apple, you think of a class of fruits, compare other fruits with ‘this’ one, this happens really fast and we are unaware of it after some time. This is true because when I am saying apple you are sure that I am not talking about oranges or any other fruits.

When I am saying dog, you know it is dog because it is different from cats, cows, horses. You are sure of the dog ‘animal’ because it is different in some sense than other animals.

Do you see what is happening here?

Our association of given word to any object whether it may be tangible or intangible is not absolute and self-reliant. It is relative. It is built based on how it differs from another objects. This is really important to understand and appreciate when one is trying to understand deconstruction.

The logocentric and linguistic tool that we are tying to use to understand the absolute truth has its limitations of preconception. The logic has already defined its two states of existence. That is why the language based on such logic will be filled with paradoxes and will never yield newer truths.

Derrida posed validity of his idea of deconstruction by showing the limitations of semiotics.

Take speech as the language of philosophy to find the absolute truth. There is a moment in Christopher Nolan’s movie inception.

We always initiate our thinking by creating certain arbitrary point as a pivot to build logic upon it. Here, the person was told to not think about elephants and in order to not think about elephants he had first defined what elephants are – where he paradoxically first thinks about elephants – to not think about them! Did you see what happened here?

Derrida says that even though the ‘sign’ which goes as the fundamental block of language as semiotics show, it is not self-reliant, self-established. For a sign to signify something specific, it has to differ from the other objects on certain attributes, the meaning of that sign will be relative.

The Swastika used by Nazi is a holy symbol in Hindu culture which signifies well-being. (you definitely are aware of its meaning in western civilizations)

Meaning of signs is always relative, contextual.

It is our complete loyalty to symbols which misleads us, where in reality the symbols are mere media to convey the meaning, context and not the other way around. Meaning created signs, language, language does not create meaning. That is exactly why complete and blind submission to language in the pursuit of truth leads to dead end.

The purpose of language/ signs in deconstruction

(recall the fourth idea of sublation, duality in logic)

Derrida attacked the semiotics by showing its limitations.

Now, we already understand what is signifier and signified. Derrida argued that if there was no difference between signifier and signified there would not be any purpose of existence of the ‘sign’.

To explain this argument in simple words, if you are not told about the varieties in the citrus fruits, you cannot tell which one is Lemon, which one is Mandarin, which one is Lime, Pomelo, Kumquat, Grapefruit, Bergamot and Citron.

If you don’t know the difference, everything would be lemon and orange

The relative difference between objects and ideas gives them their meaning. That is exactly why surrendering to strictly assigned meaning would steal the idea of its real nature. The idea would lose its other aspect due to the loss of information during formalization.

So, deconstruction shows that meaning is relative. When a sign is presented, a language is used to build an idea, it invites all its attributes and its contradictions. Again, Derrida says that blind surrender to formal attribute would never help in revealing the true nature of reality.

That is exactly why deconstruction also challenges sublation. According to deconstruction, there are never two extremes of any idea, attribute, sign. If we give into the idea of good-bad, black white, right-wrong we are losing the crucial information which lies in the spectrum that exists between these two ends. If we are able to create different levels in between these extremes of sublation we will discover new ideas.

When we talk about darkness, we know what brightness is, the relation between these two extremes helps us to understand each other. It is also true that there is some limitation in our vision which makes it impossible to perceive the constituents of the darkness, darkness is not darkness in itself, it is made up of other spectrums of light like infrared, ultraviolet. (This is just a scientific example but same can be implemented in purely philosophical treatise)

Deconstruction

So, Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction challenges the logical dualism and the purity, absoluteness of language – a powerful tool and foundation of the philosophy.

Derrida attacked logocentrism by showing the flaws in the structuralism, Derrida showed that language is actually fluid while conveying the meaning instead of being completely static.

Derrida proved his point by showing our preferences for the languages. For discussion he took preference of speech over writing.

Speech involves various modulation while expression which is not possible through writing. Even though writing has certain symbols to signify those periodic gaps they cannot replace the advantages of speech.

Now, when an overly complex idea is to be presented, in order to review the train of thoughts again and again, written language is more effective than speech. Wherever you have to ‘technically’ present a thought, written communication is better, when you want to preserve an idea forever written communication is better than speech.

This is where we realize that there is nothing like the best and the worst. Each language has its own characteristics which can be only understood and appreciated once we see the difference between them. The differences between them show that there is no hierarchy among them. There value proposition is relative.

Now the moment I bring in today’s recorded audio-visual medium which is the most popular language of documentation, writing and speech will seem trivial, but they still hold their value in certain aspects.

The meaning of deconstruction as Derrida says is to break down the language to understand what is also does not mean. Our human instinct and training in language pushes us to stick to the predefined notion of the language whereas we forget that our understanding of that very notion emerged from its comparison to other parts. Derrida through deconstruction urged that while looking at something to understand seeing what lies beyond its appearance will give you the real understanding.

Why seeing beyond what is shown is important? Because the understanding with which we are trying to interpret what is shown was never absolute, it was created only because of the difference between what it is and what it is not.

This is where deconstruction starts to confuse everyone. Derrida called this puzzlement “Aporia”.

Why the idea of deconstruction felt wrong? And is it really wrong?

The tool Derrida used to explain the notion called deconstruction itself becomes the weapon to destroy that same idea.

The very first thing to understand deconstruction is to remove the presumption which logical language, logocentrism gives that these are fully defined, singular objects which are being discussed. The moment object of discussion becomes singular, we lose the possibilities to see its other attributes. To deconstruct is to remove the preconception that there is something really absolute that we are trying to discover.

It’s like searching for star emitting only infrared light by using the camera which only works in the visible spectrum of light, because you assumed that there is only visible light and where the light is not there it is only dark. You won’t even be able to appreciate that there are some stars which emit different type of light. You presumption of duality of dark and light prevented that different knowledge of your reality. Only relative understanding of the light waves can help you appreciate that there are some waves which are different from others, which are on a ‘spectrum’.

Derrida’s ideas were controversial because most of the critical ideas in philosophy, mathematics are built upon clear distinction between objects and their fixated meaning and attribution.

Even for the word deconstruction, people attributed it to rejecting what the language conveys and accepting rather its opposite.

Deconstruction is not just breaking down any idea to expose its flaws. Deconstruction rejects the complete loyalty to the focal point of discussion while inviting the references which created our so called ‘focal point’. Most of the times our trained brain seeks for exact opposite which is where deconstruction gets misinterpreted.

Conclusion

Derrida’s basic urge through deconstruction is the rejection of the duality or presumption, and seeing beyond what is shown through the language. When we are talking about something we interpret what is our ‘subject matter’ because we know the differences between other subjects and ‘this’ subject. When we appreciate such differences the meaning becomes fluid instead of static, the thinking becomes analogue instead of digital ones and zeros. Possibilities open-up instead on being ended in the paradoxes. Whatever we are thinking about and establishing as the singular truth is inherently non-singular because it always needs its other counterparts to justify its position.

Many religious wars were waged because of remaining loyal to the religious languages, script and not understanding what they actually meant, many laws were exploited because the loopholes were discovered based on understanding only what they meant. This keeps on happening.

Deconstruction becomes very important tool to critique the ideas given in any discussion where the final pursuit is meaning and not the formality.

For Derrida’s deconstruction the ‘Aporia’, the puzzlement is not a sign of weakness rather it is the sign of maturity.

Derrida’s deconstruction thus showed that only fancy formalization of philosophy will not help us to understand the reality. We have to get rid of our loyalty to the idea that there is something really singular out there which would define everything in the end. Meaning is not what the language is conveying structurally, it is also what lies beyond that which is not conveyed. The things which are not conveyed are the line of comparison to define the worth of the things being conveyed.

“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?”
Zhuangzi, Chuang Tsu: Inner Chapters

P.S. You will appreciate the ideas of deconstruction more if you watch Denis Villeneuve’s movie Arrival (2016). The movie beautifully shows the gap between language and meaning and also how potent the ideas of deconstruction are!

Logarithmic Harmony in Natural Chaos

Mathematics is one powerful tool to make sense out of randomness but bear in mind that not every randomness could be handled effectively with the mathematical tools we have at our disposal today. One of such tools called Benford’s Law proves that nature works in logarithmic growth and not in linear growth. The Benford’s law helps us to make sense of the natural randomness generated around us all the time. This is also one of the first-hand tools used by forensic accountants to detect possible financial frauds. It is one phenomenal part of mathematics which finds patterns in sheer chaos of the randomness of our existence.

Benford’s Law for natural datasets and financial fraud detection

People can find patterns in all kinds of random events. It is called apophenia. It is the tendency we humans have to find meaning in disconnected information.
Dan Chaon, American Novelist

Is There Any Meaning in Randomness?

We all understand that life without numbers is meaningless. Every single moment gazillions and gazillions of numbers are getting generated. Even when I am typing this and when you are reading this – some mathematical processing is happening in bits of the computer to make it happen. If we try to grasp/understand the quantity of numbers that are getting generated continuously, even the lifetime equivalent to the age of our Universe (13.7 billion) will fall short.

Mathematics can be attributed to an art of finding patterns based on certain set of reasoning. You have certain observations which are always true and you use these truths to establish the bigger truths. Psychologically we humans are tuned to pattern recognition, patterns bring in that predictability, predictability brings in safety because one has knowledge of future to certain extent which guarantees the higher chances of survival. So, larger understanding of mathematics in a way ensures better chances of survival per say. This is oversimplification, but you get the point.

Right from understanding the patterns in the cycles of days and nights, summers, and winters till the patterns in movements of the celestial bodies, the vibration of atoms, we have had many breakthroughs in the “pattern recognition”. If one is successful enough to develop a structured and objective reasoning behind such patterns, then predicting the fate of any process happening (and would be happening) which follows that pattern is a piece of cake. Thus, the power to see the patterns in the randomness is kind of a superpower that we humans possess. It’s like a crude version of mini-time machine.

Randomness inherently means that it is difficult to make any sense of the given condition, we cannot predict it effectively. Mathematics is one powerful tool to make sense out of randomness but bear in mind that not every randomness could be handled effectively with the mathematical tools we have at our disposal today. Mathematics is still evolving and will continue to evolve and there is not end to this evolution – we will never know everything that is there to know. (it’s not a feeling rather it is proved by Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.)

You must also appreciate that to see the patterns in any given randomness, one needs to create a totally different perspective. Once this perspective is developed then it no longer remains random. So, every randomness is random until we don’t have a different perspective about it.

So, is there any way to have a perspective on the gazillions of the numbers getting generated around us during transactions, interactions, transformations?

The answer is Yes! Definitely, there is a pattern in this randomness!!

Today we will be seeing that pattern in detail.

Natural Series – Real Life Data

Take your account statement for an example. You will see all your transactions, debit amount, credit amount, current balance in the account. There is no way to make sense out of how the numbers that are generated, the only logic behind those numbers in account statement is that you paid someone certain amount and someone paid you certain amount. It is just net balance of those transactions. You had certain urgency someday that is why you spent certain amount on that day, you once had craving for that cake hence you bought that cake, you were rooting for that concert ticket hence you paid for that ticket, on one bad day you faced certain emergency and had to pay the bills to sort things out. Similarly, you did your job/ work hence you got compensated for those tasks – someone paid you for that, you saved some funds in deposits and hence that interest was paid to you, you sold some stocks hence that value was paid to you.

The reason to explain this example to such details is to clarify that even though you have control over your funds, you actually cannot control every penny in your account to that exact number that you desire. This is an example of natural data series. Even though you have full control over your transactions, how you account will turn out is driven by certain fundamental rules of debit/ credit and interest. The interactions of these accounting phenomenon are so intertwined that ultimately it becomes difficult to predict down to every last penny.

Rainfall all around the Earth is very difficult to predict to its highest precision due to many intermingling and unpredictable events in nature. So, by default finding trend in the average rainfall happened in given set of places is difficult. But we deep down know that if we know certain things about rainfall in given regions we can make better predictions about other regions in a better way, because there are certain fundamental predictable laws which govern the rainfall.

The GDP of the nations (if reported transparently) is also very difficult to pin down to exact number, we always have an estimate, because there are many factors which affect that final number, same goes for the population, we can only predict how it would grow but it is difficult to pin point the number.

These are all examples of real life data points which are generated randomly during natural activities, natural transactions. We know the reason for these numbers but as the factors involved are so many it is very difficult to find the pattern in this randomness.

I Lied – There is A Pattern in The Natural Randomness!

What if I told you that there is certain trend and reference to the randomness of the numbers generated “naturally”? Be cautious – I am not saying that I can predict the market trend of certain stocks; I am saying that the numbers generated in any natural processes have preference – the pattern is not predictive rather it only reveals when you have certain bunch of data already at hand – it is retrospective.

Even though it is retrospective, it can help us to identify what was manipulated, whether someone tried to tamper with the natural flow of the process, whether there was a mechanical/ instrument bias in data generation, whether there was any human bias in the data generation?

Logarithm and Newcomb

Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) a Canadian-American astronomer once realized that his colleagues are using the initial pages of log table more than the other pages. The starting pages of log tables were more soiled, used than the later pages.

Log tables were instrumental in number crunching before the invention of any type of calculators. The log tables start with 10 and end in 99.

Newcomb felt that the people using log tables for their calculations have more 1’s in their datasets repetitively in early digits that is why the initial pages where the numbers start with 1 are used more. He also knew that the numbers used in such astronomical calculations are the numbers available naturally. These numbers are not generated out randomly, they signify certain quantities attributed to the things available in nature (like diameter of a planet, distance between stars, intensity of light, radius of curvature of certain planet’s orbit). These were not some “cooked up” numbers, even though they were random but they had natural reason to exist in a way.

He published an article about this but it went unnoticed as there was no way to justify this in a mathematical way. His publication lacked that mathematical rigor to justify his intuition.

Newcomb wrote:

“That the ten digits do not occur with equal frequency must be evident to anyone making much use of logarithmic tables, and noticing how much faster the first one wears out than the last ones.”

On superficial inquiry, anyone would feel that this observation is biased. It seemed counterintuitive, also Newcomb just reported the observation and did not explain in detail why it would happen. So, this observation went underground with the flow of time.

Frank Benford and The Law of Anomalous Numbers

Question – for a big enough dataset, how frequently any number would appear in first place? What is the probability of numbers from 1 to 9 to be the leading digit in given dataset?

Intuitively, one would think that any number can happen to be in the leading place for given dataset. If the dataset becomes large enough, all nine numbers will have equal chance to be in first place.

Frank Benford during his tenure in General Electric as a physicist made same observation about the log table as did Newcomb before him. But this time Frank traced back the experiments and hence the datasets from these experiments for which the log table was used and also some other data sets from magazines. He compiled some 20,000 data points from completely unrelated experiments and found one unique pattern!

He realized that even though our intuition says that any number from 1 to 9 could appear as the leading digit with equal chance, “natural data” does not accept that equal chance. The term “Natural data” refers to the data representing any quantifiable attribution of real phenomenon, object around us, it is not a random number created purposefully or mechanically; it has some origin in nature however random it may seem.

Frank Benford thus discovered an anomaly in natural datasets that their leading digit is more 1 or two than the remaining ones (3,4,5,6,7,8,9). In simple words, you will see 1 as leading digit more often in the natural datasets than the rest of the numbers. As we go on with other numbers the chances that other numbers will be frequent in leading position are very less.

In simple words, any naturally occurring entity will have more frequent 1’s in its leading digits that the rest numbers.

Here is the sample of the datasets Frank Benford used to find this pattern:

Dataset used by Frank Benford in his 1938 paper “The Law of Anomalous Numbers”

So, according to Benford’s observations for any given “natural dataset” the chance of 1 being the leading digit (the first digit of the number) is almost 30%. 30% of the digits in given natural dataset will start with 1 and as we go on the chances of other numbers to appear frequent drop drastically. Meaning that very few number in given natural data set will start with 7,8,9.

Thus, the statement of Benford’s law is given as:

The frequency of the first digit in a populations’ numbers decreases with the increasing value of the number in the first digit.

Simply explained, as we go on from 1 to 9 as first digit in given dataset, the possibility of their reappearance goes on reducing.

1 will be the most repeated as the first number then 2 will be frequent but not more than 1 and the frequency of reappearance will reduce and flatten out till 9. 9 will rarely be seen as the leading digit.

The reason why this behavior is called as Benford’s Law (and not Newcomb’s Law) is due to the mathematical equation that Benford established.

Where, P(d) is the probability that a number starts with digit d. Digit d could be anything 1,2,3,4,5,6,8 or 9.

If we see the real-life examples, you will instantly realize how counterintuitive this law is and still nature chooses to follow it.

Here are some examples:

I have also attached an excel sheet for complete datasets and to demonstrate how simply one can calculate and verify Benford’s law.

Population of countries in the world –

The dataset contains population of 234 regions in the world. And you will see that 1 appears the most as first digit in this dataset. Most of the population numbers start with 1 (70 times out of 234) and rarely with 9 (9 times out of 234)

Country-wise average precipitation –

The dataset contains average rainfall from 146 countries in the world. Again, same pattern emerges.

Country wise Gross Domestic Product –

The dataset contains 177 countries’ GDP in USD. See the probability yourself:

Country-wise CO₂emissions:

The data contains 177 entries

Country wise Covid cases:

Here is one more interesting example:

The quarterly revenue of Microsoft since its listing also shows pattern of Benford’s Law!

To generalize we can find the trend of all these data points by averaging as follows:

This is exactly how Benford avearaged his data points to establish a generalized equation.

Theoretical Benford fit is calculated using the Benford equation expressed earlier.

So here is the relationship graphically:

Now, you will appreciate the beauty of Benford’s law and despite seeming counterintuitive, it proves how seemingly random natural dataset has preferences.

Benford’s Law in Fraud Detection

In his 1938 paper “The Law of Anomalous Numbers” Frank Benford beautifully showed the pattern that natural datasets prefer but he did not identify any uses of this phenomena.

1970 – Hal Varian, a Professor in University of California Berkely School of Information explained that this law could be used to detect possible fraud in any presented socioeconomic information.

1988 – Ted Hill, an American mathematician found out that people cannot cook up some numbers and still stick to the Benford’s Law.

When people try to cook up some numbers in big data sets, they reflect certain biases to certain numbers, however random number they may put in the entries there is a reflection of their preference to certain numbers. Forensic accountants are well aware of this fact.

The scene where Christian pinpoints the finance fraud [Warner Bros. – The Accountant (2016)]

1992 – Mark Nigrini, a South African chartered accountant published how Benford’s law could be used for fraud detection in his thesis.

Benford’s Law is allowed as a proof to demonstrate accounts fraud in US courts at all levels and is also used internationally to prove finance frauds.

It is very important to point the human factor, psychological factor of a person who is committing such numbers fraud. People do not naturally assume that some digits occur more frequently while cooking up numbers. Even when we would start generating random numbers in our mind, our subconscious preference to certain numbers gives a pattern. Larger the data size more it will lean to Benford’s behavior and easier will be the fraud detection.

Now, I pose one question here!

If the fraudster understands that there is such thing like Benford’s Law, then wouldn’t he cook up numbers which seem to follow the Benford’s Law? (Don’t doubt my intentions, I am just like a cop thinking like thieves to anticipate their next move!!!)

So, the answer to this doubt is hopeful!

The data generated in account statements is so huge and has multiple magnitudes that it is very difficult for a human mind to cook up numbers artificially and evade from detection.

Also, forensic accountants have showed that Benford’s Law is a partially negative rule; this means that if the law is not followed then it is possible that the dataset was tampered/ manipulated but conversely if the data set fits exactly / snuggly with the Benford’s law then also there is a chance that the data was tampered. Someone made sure that the cooked-up data would fit the Benford’s Law to avoid doubts!

Limitations of Benford’s Law

You must appreciate that nature has its ways to prefer certain digits in its creations. Random numbers generated by computer do not follow Benford’s Law thereby showing their artificiality.

Wherever there is natural dataset, the Benford’ Law will hold true.

1961 – Roger Pinkham established one important observation for any natural dataset thereby Benford’s Law. Pinkham said that for any law to demonstrate the behavior of natural dataset, it must be independent of scale. Meaning that any law showing nature’s pattern must be scale invariant.

In really simple words, if I change the units of given natural dataset, the Benford law will still hold true. If given account transactions in US Dollars for which Benford’s Law is holding true, the same money expressed in Indian Rupees will still abide to the Benford’s Law. Converting Dollars to Rupees is scaling the dataset. That is exactly why Benford’s Law is really robust!

After understanding all these features of Benford’s Law, one must think it like a weapon which holds enormous power! So, let us have some clarity on where it fails.

Benford’s Law is reflected in large datasets. Few entries in a data series will rarely show Benford’s Law. Not just large dataset but the bigger order of magnitude must also be there to be able to apply Benford’s Law effectively.
The data must describe same object. Meaning that the dataset should be of one feature like debit only dataset, credit only dataset, number of unemployed people per 1000 people in population. Mixture of datapoints will not reflect fit to Benford’s Law.
There should not be inherently defined upper and lower bound to the dataset. For example, 1 million datapoints of height of people will not follow Benford’s Law, because human heights do not vary drastically, very few people are exceptionally tall or short. This, also means that any dataset which follows Normal Distribution (Bell Curve behavior) will not follow Benford’s Law.
The numbers should not be defined with certain conscious rules like mobile numbers which compulsorily start with 7,8, or 9; like number plates restricted 4, 8,12 digits only.
Benford’s Law will never pinpoint where exactly fraud has happened. There will always be need for in depth investigation to locate the event and location of the fraud. Benford’s Law only ensures that the big picture is holding true.

Hence, the examples I presented earlier to show the beauty of Benford’s Law are purposefully selected to not have these limitations. These datasets have not bounds, the order of magnitude of data is big, range is really wide compared to the number of observations.

Now, if I try to implement the Benford’s Law to the yearly revenue of Microsoft it reflects something like this:

Don’t freak out as the data does not fully stick to the Benford’s Law, rather notice that for the same time window if my number of datapoints are reduced, the dataset tends to deviate from Benford’ Law theoretically. Please also note that 1 is still appearing as the leading digit very frequently, so good news for MICROSOFT stock holders!!!

In same way, if you see the data points for global average temperatures (in Kelvin) country-wise it will not fit the Benford’s Law; because there is no drastic variation in average temperatures in any given region.

See there are 205 datapoints – big enough, but the temperatures are bound to a narrow range. Order of magnitude is small. Notice that it doesn’t matter if I express temperature in degree Celsius of in Kelvins as Benford’s Law is independent of scale.

Nature Builds Through Compounded Growth, Not Through Linear Growth!

Once you get the hold of Benford’s law, you will appreciate how nature decides its ways of working and creating. The Logarithmic law given by Frank Benford is a special case of compounded growth (formula of compound interest). Even though we are taught growth of numbers in a periodic and linear ways we are masked from the logarithmic nature of the reality. Frank Benford in the conclusion of his 1937 paper mentions that our perception of light, sound is always in logarithmic scale. (any sound engineer or any lighting engineer know this by default) The growth of human population, growth of bacteria, spread of Covid follow this exponential growth. The Fibonacci sequence is an exponential growth series which is observed to be at the heart of nature’s creation. That is why any artificial data set won’t fully stick to logarithmic growth behavior. (You can use this against machine warfare in future!) This also strengthens the belief that nature thinks in mathematics. Despite seemingly random chaos, it holds certain predictive pattern in its heart. Benford’s Law thus is an epitome of nature’s artistic ability to hold harmony in chaos!

You can download this excel file to understand how Benford’s law can be validated in simple excel sheet:

benford-partsperbillion Download

References and further reading:

Cover image – Wassily Kandinsky’s Yellow Point 1924
The Law of Anomalous Numbers, Frank Benford, (1938), Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
On the Distribution of First Significant Digits, RS Pinkham (1961), The Annals of Mathematical Statistics
What Is Benford’s Law? Why This Unexpected Pattern of Numbers Is Everywhere, Jack Murtagh, Scientific American
Using Excel and Benford’s Law to detect fraud, J. Carlton Collins, CPA, Journal of Accountancy
Benford’s Law, Adrian Jamain, DJ Hand, Maryse Bйeguin, (2001), Imperial College London
data source – Microsoft revenue – stockanalysis.com
data source – Population – worldometers.info
data source – Covid cases – tradingeconomics.com
data source – GDP- worldometers.info
data source – CO2 emissions – worldometers.info
data source – unemployment – tradingeconomics.com
data source – temperature – tradingeconomics.com
data source – precipitation – tradingeconomics.com

Dune: Psychology in Science Fiction

Our identity is heavily influenced by the surroundings we live in. A healthy understanding of the gap between ‘labels given to us by our surrounding’ and ‘what we consider ourselves at core’ defines how we perform, how we behave in given situations. Frank Herbert effectively used these ideas of human psyche in his Dune Saga. The antihero story of Paul Atreides indicates psychological ideas of cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and Pygmalion effect. It is interesting to understand how our minds are so sensitive at the levels of self and group simultaneously.

How Frank Herbert used human psyche in the creation of Dune’s antihero?

We saw how some fantastic philosophical ideas come alive in the character arc of Paul Atreides. The discussion hereon is the extension of the previous philosophical one, now we will dive deeper into the psychological aspects of Dune Part Two.

There will be heavy spoilers for Dune Part Two hereon!!!

Existentialism in Dune Part Two

As Paul gets more and more involved in the events on Arrakis with Fremen, he finds out what needs to be done, he finds clarity and purpose. He is renouncing the leadership in the early part because he does not know what to do with it. The moment he decides to become the Lisan al-Gaib, the moment he finds the purpose of his being, he gets the clarity.

According to Existentialism, there is no other meaning to the life but the meaning you give it yourself. Existentialism says that man is born free and can chose any actions to live but in the end he/ she will feel like they lived for nothing. They will remove this ‘existential angst’ only when they decide what they want to do with their life. The moment people consider themselves responsible for the events and consequences in their lives, take deliberate actions to achieve them that is the exact the moment where they find the meaning in life. Then everything, every action every decision starts to make sense. You feel like you exist for something.

This existential journey of self-discovery is exactly what we see in Paul’s journey to become the Mahdi. Avenging his father’s life becomes the ultimate goal of Paul in early moments but later on things take different turn. This is existentialism on personal level.

Fremen of Arrakis are the best example of existentialism in masses. The Fremen people are able to sustain in the hostile environment of Arrakis not because that is the only choice. They also have a strong belief, a hope that someone from outer world will save them one day and make their planet the Paradise, the Lisan al-Gaib will come to save them. Although Paul and Jessica know that it is a story properly planned by Bene Gesserit, although there are also Fremen who oppose this prophecy (Chani is one of them) still it gives them all hope, a reason to live for, a reason to survive for. Everyone makes sense of this prophecy in their own ways, their own belief systems.

Do you see what is happening here?

There is one group who is religiously putting their faith in the hope of the messiah for their survival and on the other hand there is a group who dismisses this idea and think that they themselves have to take care of their survival. The messiah will be one of them, not someone sent from the outer world.

We know what happens in the end. But from an objective point of view we see that people create there own perspective for survival. It doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong in the end. What matters is whether is guaranteed the survival of Fremen. No wonder Jessica considers the artificially planted faith for Lisan al-Gaib among Fremen as an act of giving them a hope.

In either way, some sort of meaning would ensure survival of the Fremen.

The meaning of the life given to us is the meaning we assign to it.

The Prophecy – A Perfect Example of Confirmation Bias

The Prophecy plays key role in deciding the fate of key characters in Dune Part Two. Although we are aware that the prophecy a highly detailed plan to get the hold on Arrakis there are certain moments which fool us in believing that the prophecy might really be true. There is one justification for the correctness and validity for the prophecy. Somehow any powerful member from Bene Gesserit could have unlocked the exact power to see the future like Paul or Lady Jessica this person who could have seen the future and made this prophecy. We get no such signs in the narrative, but the story has enough resources and reasons to make it a valid point.

The event of Paul riding an elder worm, the worm stopping for Paul and Jessica in Dune Part One while crossing the dessert, Chani’s teardrop bringing back Paul alive (although she is manipulated to do that) are such events which confuse us when we try to reject the Prophecy. Either Bene Gesserit were too good to plan the people and resources for making the prophecy a reality or the person who made prophecy also unlocked the powers which Paul unlocked.

It is very interesting when Fremen come in one-to-one contact with Paul and Jessica. They are so influenced by this prophecy that whatever Paul may do, they attribute it to the prophecy. In early part at Sietch Tabr when Stilgar (who is one of the fundamentalists) is having discussion with the Fremen elders, we are given a hint of this strong Confirmatory Bias in Fremen, especially the fundamentalists.

Stilgar – I saw things.
Elder – Stilgar, your faith is playing tricks on you.

This is an indication to how a blind faith could drive people into looking for signs and making sense from anything that supports that faith.

You must understand that, the existentialism makes life as a meaningless affair – we try to calm our mind/ our senses by assigning a meaning, a perspective to make sense out of the creation. Cognitive Bias lies on the negative extreme of such existentialism. An existence where we are only accepting the events, signs which support out beliefs. This also the transition region where spirituality is converted into pure religion. Stilgar is the perfect example of one such religious follower suffering from Cognitive Bias.

It is also very understandable for the people like Fremen who have nothing hopeful to live and nothing to pivot on, the idea of savior from outer world fuels them to continue the fight for survival.

There is subtle hint that Paul may not be the only messiah that Arrakis might have seen. The Emperor in his discussion with Princess Irulan mentions Muad’Dib as “some new Fremen Prophet”.

Confirmation Bias is the prejudice where we try to accept the proofs which support our beliefs and reject those which don’t. Fremen people demonstrate such high levels of confirmation bias because Arrakis is the only reality they live in. People living outside the Arrakis like the emperor, Bene Geserit very well know that this is an intentionally planned act. And they very effectively implant such prophecies over the generations. It also shows how difficult it is to reject and go against the conventional beliefs especially the religious ones.

Did you ever have had an encounter with people who tell that this was already written in the older documents, scriptures? When we made certain scientific breakthroughs only then we are seeing them clearly mentioned in older writings, how is it possible? It feels counterintuitive but I would say going by the data instead of the intuition always helps to break such biases.

It feels against our mind because our mind only accepts that which will support the current beliefs. If the current belief gets falsified then our mind will start looking for another belief system which is much more like an existential angst – the existential confusion and the sadness that comes with it. If one meaning is falsified the mind must stick itself to a newer one otherwise life will feel worthless.

Image source: sketchplanations.com by Jono Hey

Cognitive Dissonance and Identity – What Makes Paul to Seek the Ultimate Power?

The confirmation bias is more powerful when it comes to the questions like ‘who you are?’, ‘what is your identity?’

Generally speaking, you are the best person who knows who you are (except your parents and some people close to you). What would happen if you are presented with the data, proofs which indicate that your parents are not your parents, your friends are not really your friends? They are just some paid actors (just like in the movie Truman Show).

Paul is portrayed as the Prince belonging to the House Atreides which is powerful and believes in fairness, justice, and the truth. The ideas associated with House Atreides support constructiveness, upliftment of those who are getting used for others’ benefits. Paul also strongly associates himself with these ideas even when his house is attacked by Harkonnens. He never tries to take advantage of the Fremen beliefs for personal gains. That can also be explained by one of the reasons he has to reject the Fremen Prophecy.

Then what makes Paul to accept this prophecy even when he knows that there are more proofs to reject the prophecy than to accept it?

It is when he knows the truth about his identity. The moment when he drinks water of life.

Upon understanding the ultimate truth, we come to know that Paul’s mother Lady Jessica is the daughter of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Paul understands that he is as Harkonnen as his villainous cousin Feyd-Rautha.

This is where his identity of Atreides filled with justice clashes with the cruel and much more powerful identity of Harkonnen. You can see him telling his mother that this is the way they survive – by being a Harkonnen.

When a person goes through such uncomfortable events where his/ her beliefs clash it creates a in harmony. These are the events where the person is confused about what exactly he/ she should believe in. As the early beliefs which were true for him, on which the person lived whole life were inherently false what defines him now?

Paul faces this cognitive dissonance about his identity. He himself is a Harkonnes – the Harkonnes whom he was considering the villains of his life and the lives of the Fremens.

What identity would Paul chose makes him the hero or the antihero in the end.

And Paul chooses the Harkonnen identity which make him the antihero. Please understand that he could have chosen a fair Atreides or Fremen ways to fight for the cause. The circumstances created around Paul supported him to become as ruthless as the Harkonnens. The Emperor and the great houses denying his ascension further fuel his wish to remain ruthless to justify the actions. The moment Paul associates himself with the Harkonnens, he justifies his urge for power as a valid one. Paul forgets his Atreides roots which could have made him the hero of the Dune’s story.

The Pygmalion Effect – Is Paul Really the Messiah?

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

One factor in Paul’s journey to become the leader of the Fremen and ultimately the Emperor can be largely credited to the support system created around him. It is clear that he goes through many hardships and sacrifices to achieve his goal but you cannot deny the inherent public support he receives through Fremen. It only because of the support from the Fremen people you will see Paul build the confidence even though in Dune Part One this was the exact person who tried to deny future leadership in front of his father.

How a person refusing leadership of his own house later accepted the leadership of the most controversial group, that to in very adverse conditions? Leading house Atreides was Paul’s birthright, an easy one. But, leading Fremen in clear opposition of the House Harkonnen, the emperor and the great houses was one very daring act to follow. What gave him all this strength?

The answer is – Pygmalion Effect

In psychology, Pygmalion Effect is the effect where high expectation from a person lead them to perform highly and effectively even in adverse condition.

Pygmalion word comes from the story of a Greek sculptor called Pygmalion who falls in love with his sculpture so much that the statue comes to life.

It’s like worshiping the rock can make it a God which could ultimately is believed to fulfill wishes.

The Bene Geserrit propaganda very smartly takes advantage of this idea. They create such support system around Paul which create one powerful leader in the universe who in his early life was not considering himself worthy.

Pygmalion effect highlights how the environments in which we live, how the people around who put their trust in us can boot our performance. According to Pygmalion effect, if a high performing person can deliver poorly if the environment and people are not supportive, it also is true the opposite way, any low performing person would deliver exceptionally when he is trusted by the people and the environment around him.

Pygmalion effect is also known as Rosenthal Effect in psychology. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson conducted a study on classroom students where they found that the students who are inherently reinforced to be the smarter perform better whereas students who are told that they are worthless already show under-performance.

Pygmalion effect shows us that we internalize or identity based on the surroundings we live in. No wonder they say that when you want to be a great man be in the company of great people. This internalization of or beliefs lay the foundation of our performance. That is exactly why so many Fremens believing in Paul gave him the power to stand against the Harkonnens, the Emperor, the Great Houses – entire Universe.

This is exactly why Pygmalion effect is highly associated with the self-fulfilling prophecies. The declaration of such prophecy irrespective of the knowledge of the future conditions people to create ways for such prophesied person; the person who show some signs aligning with the prophecy gets a boost which ultimately follows the prophesied path as the environment now completely supports that path – that is the path of least resistance leading to the glory.

Supporting environment creates high performers

Paul could have chosen another path to fight just like Chani chooses in the end but the Pygmalion effects kicks in, leading him to become the antihero – a high performing powerful antihero.

You should appreciate that Pygmalion effect also shows how the opposite and downgrading environment will create a villain. A famous and itching question can be answered using this explanation. If baby Hitler was killed way before, would it have prevented the occurrence of the future world war? The answer is – NO. The conditions were developed in such way that even after killing baby Hitler someone else would have risen among that much hatred who would have led to the end effect, the name would have been different but the acts would be roughly same and inhumane. That is why our environment is an important part of our identity, even if the environment is hostile, what we consider ourselves at the core is equally important.

Nonsupporting environment creates low performers

(You can see that, even in adverse nonsupporting conditions of cognitive dissonance and identity crisis, a person can chose to remain good, can choose one identity over the other. I have discussed such scenarios in pop culture before. Read more about that here.)

The Prophecy – Does ‘Free Will’ Really Exist in Dune?

The identity which Paul chooses after a cognitive dissonance about his origin and the Pygmalion effect from his environment make his the prophesied Lisan al-Gaib. Now it feels like it truly was the plan all along. This goes against the idea of free will.

Existentialism is based on the idea that as man is born free. It is in his mind, his responsibility to assign the meaning to his/ her own life. The ways and reasons for which Paul consistently rejects the prophecy is because he knows he is not ‘the one’. He knows that he is the son of Leto Atreides and should avenge his father’s death, hence his only purpose was to use the ‘desert power’ to defeat the Harkonnens and the Emperor.

Paul despises everything that is connected to the Prophecy. It is his interest in Fremen people and purpose of completing the vision of his father which drives him into becoming one of the Fremen. You will see Paul rejecting the idea of him being the Messiah in the early discussions with Chani.

The creation of prophecy and instilling the faith into Fremen for Paul indirectly always pushes him into doing what is expected. Paul never makes any decision out of the box. There are chances where he could have created other opportunities but the people around him, his blind followers could never let that happen. Paul is center of attraction for everyone that is why he is always bound to do what they want, otherwise he knows that he will lose that advantage and desert will immediately consume him like any common outsider. The advantage of being the center of attraction of your followers is that your followers will justify your every action; But in the end, you will also be bound to their expectations.

The powers of Bene Gesserit to manipulate people to do what they want, the unfolding of events leading to the war during the Fremen rebellion against the Harkonnen, the necessity to prove injustice with Leto Atreides to the Great Houses ultimately make the realization of prophecy possible.

That is exactly why Paul gets tied up in the expectations of Fremen, his own self-respect and his own duty as a son. He knows he can avoid this path but chooses that path because that is how he will have ultimate power.

On the other side you will see Chani, she is fighting the same war but can chose her own ways to accomplish that goal. Remaining out of the focus of the religious followers gives her more freedom.

Lady Jessica also falls victim to the prophecy. Stilgar informs her in Sietch Tabr that if she doesn’t become the Reverend Mother she would have to die and Fremen people won’t save Paul. Even when she knows that the prophecy is false, she accepts it as a way to get things done according to her wishes. But again, the pressure from the faithful Fremen followers force her to follow the prophecy. Things doesn’t go right for her in the end. Lady Jessica also faces the cognitive dissonance like Paul about her origin as Harkonnen and chooses the predefined path of being the Reverend Mother.

One must appreciate how Frank Herbert created the story of Dune where the psyche of person drives the narrative. Frank Herbert was heavily influenced by Carl Jung’s archetypes and Dune reflects those archetypes. Dune also gives the psychological justifications behind the blind hero worship through some important character arcs.

It becomes very important to notice our end goals and whether our surroundings, our people are supportive of that. We as humans, are the beings of infinite capabilities, what we consider ourselves internally at core becomes very important in the end. Otherwise, the world is already prepared to overwhelm us with its preconceived notions of living a life.

References and further reading:

Dune: Philosophy in Science Fiction

The focus of Dune saga is on the ill-effects of hero worship. Frank Herbert warned his readers about the life altering consequences of granting too much power in the hands of a person who refrains to be questioned by his followers. The character arc of Paul Atreides depicts a moral dilemma. It also shows how power and aesthetics play a vital role when one is justifying actions, character and intent.

Dilemma of morality in the character arc of Paul Atreides

Dune Part Two shows how any person would react when thrown into the events where morals and ethics clash. Dune Part Two is about the creation of the antihero and his blind hero worship. It is important because it breaks down and effectively depicts the stages in which even a humble and good-hearted person can degenerate. Surrounding around such person has big role in it.

The focus of Dune saga is on the ill-effects of hero worship. Frank Herbert warned the readers of Dune about the life altering consequences of granting too much power in the hands of a person who refrains to be questioned by his followers. Superficially, Dune feels like a story where Bene Gesserit – a low lying powerful sisterhood planting an extremely powerful but manipulable Messiah to control the galaxy and how this Messiah ruins that plan. Deep down, Dune successfully amalgamates many philosophical, psychological concepts like Existentialism, Hero worship/ herd mentality, confirmation bias, free will and determinism.

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Part Two has successfully translated the vision of Frank Herbert’s 1965 Sci-Fi which is more relevant than anything in the current times of 21^st century. In Dune Part Two you see the transition of a young, humble, calm boy into an aggressive, extremely powerful leader – a leader who is worshiped like the God by his followers. As a fan of Sci-Fi movies, I would say Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies have made justice with what the source material wanted to convey. (Historically, Dune series is known to be one of the most difficult materials to adapt into visual media)

The discussion hereon is not a movie review rather it is about how some fantastic philosophical, psychological, spiritual, and political ideas are brought together to create a more relevant story which is purely fictional. Despite being a fiction, it successfully depicts some important real-life scenarios and dilemmas we face in our very real lives. This all is credited to Frank Herbert and Denis Villeneuve’s vision.

There will be heavy spoilers for Dune Part Two hereon!!!

After watching Dune Part Two it is obvious that it is all about how an antihero is created. There is a moment in the end when you will lose the sympathy for Paul’s character because of the choices he makes and it is intentional. The movie gives us multiple viewpoints to justify why Paul Atreides becomes who he is. Obviously, his antihero arc creates a deep void in our heart. When I started to understand the narrative from Paul’s perspective, I stumbled upon some of the important ideas we use to justify our actions, decisions.

Boundaries of Right or Wrong – What is Moral? What is Ethical?

Let us understand the stages in which Paul is always rejecting the leadership – the prophecy of Messiah he is offered every time.

Rejection 1 – Paul has not demonstrated any grand act yet. He lacks clarity, vision.

Right from the beginning, Paul knows what it means to become the Lisan al-Gaib – the Messiah. You will see him rejecting the concept of becoming the prophesized leader. In Dune Part One you will see that he asks Leto Atreides, his father – What if he does not want to be the leader, the future of house Atreides? In response, Paul understands from Duke Leto that leadership is not a personal choice and when there will be a moment in which people will choose him as their leader and he will have to answer that call. The fear of leadership in Paul here is created due to very superficial simulation of future possibilities. He hasn’t even landed in Arrakis – the desert Planet. Here, Paul is just a well behaved, properly trained royalty who hasn’t tasted the reality of life yet. He theoretically understands the burden of leadership, the burden of the expectations of the people and that why humbly rejects it – as it is the ‘right’ thing to do. Understand that Paul’s rejection in this instance is because he doesn’t consider himself worthy. It is unethical for him to accept leadership which is granted just from the birthright. Understand that prophecy of Messiah is not apparent here, this is the leadership of his House.

Rejection 2 – The prophecy is just a clever plan. There is clarity on what and how events will happen but no clarity on what will cause them.

When Paul lands with his mother Lady Jessica on Arrakis he looks at the local Fremen people chanting his name as the one who was promised to free them from this exploitation of the foreigners – the Harkonnens for the precious Spice Mélange. Here, Paul understands from his mother that the religious Bene Gesserit sisterhood has planted a very meticulous storyline – a prophecy to ease out their path on Arrakis. The knowledge of ‘the prophecy’ being just a clever plan of Bene Gesserit sisterhood consoles Paul that he will always have the choice to reject the future responsibility of leadership. This rejection of leadership is due to understanding of the underlying truth and how hopeless people are getting fooled. Utilizing such false knowledge for self-benefit makes Paul uncomfortable.

Rejection 3 – Paul has clarity but doesn’t want to take the advantage of the Fremen Faith

After the death of Leto Atreides, Paul escapes to Fremen territory with Lady Jessica. Fremen accept him as he shows his skills in a fair fight. From this moment his goal is to survive with Femen’s to acquire the ‘Desert Power’ as desired by his father Leto Atreides. He still despises the Bene Gesserit Propaganda. He knows he will be fooling the Fremen by following the said prophecy. It is not ethical to utilize others’ faith for the personal benefit. That is why Paul is just trying to learn the ways of Fremen to avenge his father’s unjust murder orchestrated by the Emperor through House Harkonnen.

There is a discussion between Lady Jessica (who is now Reverand Mother) with Paul where she says that the prophecy has given Fremen people something to hope for and to fight for. This is the exact moment when Paul actively and aggressively rejects what she says.

Paul – It’s not prophecy. 
        It’s a story that you keep telling. 
        It’s not their story, it’s yours. 
        They deserve to be led by one of their own.

His rejection to leadership here is because it is unethical to play with other people’s faith.

Rejection 4 – Paul loves Chani. He knows the moment he accepts ‘the prophecy’ he will lose her.

There is a scene where Chani tells Paul that the Fedaykin worship him now, they count his victories. Chani (who doesn’t believe in the prophecy) warns him that people have already started worshiping him and this will not end well. To counter Chani’s fear Paul positively clarifies that he is not the Messiah and will always be a Fremen warrior – the Fedaykin. Paul mentions several times to Chani that he will love her as long as he breaths. As the prophecy goes, he should reserve his hand for the most strategic alliance which is with the Princess Irulan – the daughter of Emperor. Here, the rejection is due to the love he has for Chani.

Rejection 5 – Paul knows that while becoming the Mahdi, he will lose his comfortable connect with Fremen. He will have blood of billions on his hands.

Upon the encounter with Gurney Halleck, Paul clarifies certain important things. Gurney is surprised that even after having following of 200 people and millions more, why isn’t Paul taking advantage of the prophecy to avenge the death of his father? Paul tells Gurney that the moment he becomes the Messiah, he no longer be friends with Fremen, because even his Fremen friends will worship him as the God – Lisan al-Gaib. He considers it unethical to utilize the innocent beliefs and trust of the people for him for his personal benefit.

Gurney Halleck – With thousands of these guys you can take control of the entire planet. It’s your father’s dream. What you are afraid of?
Paul – Worship, Gurney. They used to be friends, now they are followers.

Gurney tells Paul that he holds the ability to avenge his father by accepting the prophecy. Then Paul clarifies that the moment he becomes the Messiah, the galaxy will be thrown into the holy war leading to deaths of billions of people. Paul doesn’t want their blood on his hand.

The rejection of prophecy here is due to fear of losing personal connect with the people who define and respect you. It is also because Paul wants to preserve his character.

At the end of the Dune Part Two, you know what exactly happened!

Are Morality and Ethics Objective?

So, even after having at least 5 concrete reasons to reject the prophecy, why does Paul decide to become the ruthless Messiah, Lisan al-Gaib? What made him lose all the ethical and moral standards he had preserved in him?

Simple and superficial answer to these questions is – the circumstances!

Deep down the answer is totally different. Let us understand what are morals and ethics

Morality is the sense of judging a decision, event or an action being proper or improper. Morality is the sense of what is right and what is wrong.

Ethics are detailed down, systematic small-small actions which show what doing good is. The opposite act of doing a good act will be doing a bad act.

Morality are the universal standards for right and wrong and ethics are the rules to implement this morality in daily practice.

Question – How is it decided whether certain act is good or bad?

This is where the trick starts.

The base line to decide morality or ethics is always changing. It is like deciding ‘What level of big picture are you talking about?’

Frank Herbert was very intentional while creating such moral ethical dilemma through Dune series. As you are introduced to Paul right from the start of his journey, from a kid to the Messiah, you know why he did what he did. His Great House was betrayed by the Emperor and the Harkonnens. They tried to kill him, his pregnant mother, and his people. The responsibility to handle Arrakis was forced down on his house by the Emperor. He had every reason to kill his enemies. Whatever act Paul did to avenge his father/ his house was right and justified.

Does that mean that “whatever” and “everything” that he did and would do is right?

The death of billions of people he would cause (as seen in his visions) will it be justified?

Many Fremens devoted and died to Paul’s cause, will their deaths be justified?

You will see that the moment you shift from Paul’s personal baseline of morality to the baseline of the ‘good for all’, you will appreciate why the same Paul – the Messiah – Lisan al-Gaib – the Savior is also ‘the destroyer’ for remaining others. Thus, it is important to define that baseline while judging his actions.

Philosophy of Morality

There are two ideas on how to decide this baseline for morality of given things.

Immanuel Kant says the duty assigned to you; your obligation decides the morality – The duty-based definition of morality.

John Stuart Mill says that whatever is good for most of all should be good for one – The utilitarian definition of morality.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development give us a structured view about how the baseline to justify morality of anything works. This single image deserves a detailed explanation but it is self explanatory.

Morality needs understanding of “the big picture”

In Dune’s case, it was Paul’s duty to avenge his father’s unjust death hence he was right. Whereas letting his followers kill billions of people belonging to the houses who were not accepting his ascension as the Emperor was wrong – immoral. He commanded to destroy such opposing Great Houses just to establish respect for him out of fear. The intent was not pure.

For Fremen, the act of destroying everyone opposing their leader is way better and important than living a life of slave. At the same time same Fremen killing billions in the name of their Mahdi is bad.

For Jessica, survival of her children was more important than anything. She had also promised Leto Atreides that she will save her children not as Bene Gesserit but as a mother first. That is why she eases out the path laid for Paul which guarantees his and his sister’s survival. You will understand that Jessica fears becoming the Reverand Mother, she knows that she will have to carry the pain and memories of all those who came before her but upon hearing to the clarification from Stilgar, she realizes that it is the only way to ensure the survival of her children. So, she controlling the Fremen and spreading the prophecy of the Messiah (despite knowing it as just a clever plan) feels moral.

Stilgar strengthening the events from the prophecy in the minds of Fremen ensure betterment of his people. If his actions to spread and strengthen the path for Paul would lead Fremens people to a better life then his actions are well justified. But, the moment he blindly follows every order from Paul to obliterate everyone opposing him his actions become wrong.

When it comes to mere survival of Feyd-Rautha, Baron Harkonnen, Rabban, the Emperor, Princess Irulan, Reverend Mother Mohiam someone would feel that their actions are justified. (But, we already have many other reasons to assign them villainy.)

It’s like checking which one is more wrong – Killing an ant or murdering a person!

The moment you favor the life of the person than an ant, you will feel bad for what kind of animal you are. And the moment you favor life of that ant over the person you will feel bad as a human being.

Taking any life is bad in the end, but what if it’s about survival. Then it goes in the direction which poses question – whose life is more precious?

The Trolley Problem – Which lever will you pull?

Do you see how this streak goes on and on! This will not end until the questioner will be satisfied with comfortable answer!

One must appreciate the genius of Frank Herbert’s writing which created such important intersecting points in his story.

Power and Aesthetics

So, final question – what ultimately is the right or wrong?

The answer is how deeply are we able understand the scenario (and we may never understand every aspect most of the times.) Actions are always changing with respect to the circumstances, killing a murderer will always be justified and right at the same time killing a Saint is wrong.

This reminds me of Nietzsche’s quote:

Thus, the dilemma grows bigger.

What is right and what is right is highly dependent on your limits, your capabilities, your ability to reverse the things to exactly how they were before. If you don’t hold that capacity, then you immediately lose the power to justify your actions.

Which is exactly why what Paul believes is completely wrong, it shows how Paul character has made transition…

“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.”

The power will enable him to destroy any given thing; but can he reverse that destruction if things did not turn out the way he intended? The ability to restore the consequences of your decisions decides whether you hold the power to assign good or bad.

If Paul does not bear the capacity to reverse or at least restore the impact of his decisions, then he is wrong to send his followers in that direction.

I think, this is the warning Frank Herbert gives to the real-life leaders and followers among us. This is exactly where powerful people go wrong and take their blind followers with them.

So, even though his intent was to avenge his father by becoming the Messiah, the path he would choose is wrong.

The path Jessica chose to control the Fremen through prophecy is wrong. The plans Bene Gesserit orchestrated to plant a powerful yet manipulatable person on Arrakis just to have control over Spice are wrong. There are always multiple choices,

(The conclusion of the Paul Atreides’s story and ‘Dune: the God Emperor’ will make us change our current opinions. That we will discuss again when the time is right.)

Anyways words fail me when such real-life scenarios are flawlessly presented through fiction. There is no need for anyone to teach us what is right or wrong in such stories. The dynamics of the events and the characters show us the mirror. We always have such inner compass inside ourselves, stories like this are the greatest calibrator of such inner compasses.

The power to restore the consequences of our action is the real power, I think. This idea somewhat frees the justification of our actions from the dilemmas of morality.

There is more to discuss about Dune, find out here….

(Movies Scenes from Warner Brother’s Dune: Part Two)

Motivation and Fulfillment – Sailing Through The OCEAN of Life for Self-Actualization

Abraham Maslow’s ideas of the hierarchy of needs lost its essence due to oversimplification into the famous pyramid of needs. Those who lacked happiness in their lives will prefer to be happy by trading all valuable objects they have, whereas those who never possessed basic things for survival will endure endless pain to get them. This creates a paradox of life. What was lost through Maslow’s pyramid came back into limelight due to modern theories in psychology like the Cybernetic Big Five Theory and Sail-Boat Model. They highlight a very important fact that stability and plasticity both are necessary for a person to become whole – a complete human being.

Abraham Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ for The Modern World

Psychology ~ Study of mental!?!

A big part of psychology is always associated with the mental disorders – a negative aspect of human psyche. It is a common (mis)conception that students of psychology largely associate themselves with the studies and treatments of such mental people. Maybe it is our human tendency (a defensive tendency) to get immediately attracted to negative aspects immediately which creates such conception about psychology. This is not limited to only psychology; it is applicable to everything we have initial opinions about. But this is not true, we are seeing only a half part of the psychology. The other half and the positive part – is more helpful to live a better life.

Talking about good and bad part of human psyche – where would you put a selfish person? For the sake of classification, a selfish person is the one who prioritizes himself/herself first when it comes to anything. He/ she would think of themselves first, for their own benefit first to make the best out of the circumstances. Isn’t that bad?

How could it be bad if survival is the only option in front of such people? Then the roles reverse immediately. When it comes down to survival of a person every virtue falls down. If a person did something for their own betterment and jeopardized others in the process, will they be called selfish? Now the answer to this question becomes subjective and quite tricky. Were the others evil? If yes, then being selfish for self-benefit by belittling the evil others makes you a hero. If the others were good then being selfish makes you the evil one. So, is selfishness subjective?

We will find the answers to this question soon in upcoming parts.

Have you ever felt that feeling of void after achieving something great you’ve been striving for? Have you felt that emotion of not being repaid for the many good you did for others? Have you felt jealous for that simpleton who while being less competent than you got more recognition? Have you felt bad for people who devoted all their life for the betterment of society got disrespected by the society? Do you think that the modern definition of love is closer to formal transaction of things, physical acts and emotions?

Do our answers to all the questions above in a “Yes” mean that we are bad humans?

This is exactly the part where the positive aspect of psychology plays a crucial role.

Humanistic Psychology – What Makes Someone “A Whole Human”?

The humanistic psychology popularized by the ideas of an American Psychologist Abraham Maslow is also coined as the third force in psychology. (After Freud’s Psychoanalysis and Skinner’s Behaviorism)

“It is as if Sigmund Freud supplied us the sick half of psychology and now, we must fill is out with healthy half.”
-Abraham Maslow

So, simply put, Maslow asked opposite question about human psyche. What if things go right? What happens when a human mind is completely healthy? What changes can be seen in a healthy human psyche? What are the characteristics of “a whole human”?

The ideas of humanistic psychology hence bring one spiritual aspect in the understanding of the human psyche. Maslow’s ideas from the Theory of Motivation show us that psychology is also about what good is in humans and how everyone can achieve it.

Self-Actualization – The Classical View on Being the Best Version of You

In 1938 Abraham Maslow spent six weeks with Siksika Blackfoot, the first nation (Indigenous people) in Alberta, Canada. Maslow was trying to understand the social hierarchy and dominance within these people and surprisingly he found something totally different. Siksika people ever fought for dominance or power, the definition of wealth for Siksika was sharing – the more you share the wealthier you are, children were treated same as the adults were – they had chance to put their own opinion in front of others, Siksika people were highly cooperative. Instead of a single dominant person forcing others for power, the Siksika Blackfoot society left no one behind. Even the people who committed wrong work had option to lose that attitude and join back. It was like the Siksika were highly aware of how one should behave for the betterment of everyone without compromising the personal well-being. Maslow realized that this is the highest form of being a human being.

Maslow understood that if certain basic criterion, basic needs are fulfilled for every human being, then they can immediately strive for self-betterment and also for the betterment of society. They will not exploit society for their personal betterment. Such person would be a person who has achieved self-realization where he/ she knows what is good for him/ her and how they can benefit others in the process.

So, Maslow’s Theory of Motivation talks about achieving human potential to it’s fullest. How we can bring about the best of ourselves which will satisfy us and will also benefit others around us thereby uplifting the whole society. This theory of motivation struck hard against the individualistic ideas which were strong in capitalist America.

The (Controversial) Pyramid

We all would have seen the famous pyramid of needs in certain forms somewhere. This pyramid is known to represent Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Although the concept of hierarchy of needs is originated from Abraham Maslow, the pyramid was never drawn by him. A consulting psychologist Charles McDermid came up with this pyramid to oversimplify Maslow’s ideas and this is where the core of Theory of Motivation was lost.

Oversimplification of Maslow’s theory caused the loss of its very fundamental ideas

Theory of Motivation and Self-Actualization

According to this theory, humans need an integrated hierarchy where basic survival needs must be satisfied to realize their full potential – to become a self-actualized being.

Theory of motivation deals with what motivates people to achieve certain goal or expected outcome. The most primary theory here is Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs.

Maslow attributed 5 hierarchies for the any person to achieve their full potential:

Physiological needs – Things required for survival like air, water, food, clothing, and shelter
Safety needs – personal protection from surrounding hostile conditions, a safe society, secure job/ income, health
Belonging needs – people who appreciate your presence in their lives, love, friendship, companionship, sense of connection/ belonging
Esteem needs – respect, loyalty, status, recognition
Self-actualization – the ability to reach the highest potential

Before moving on with the discussion with these hierarchy it is very important that Maslow never intended these to be linear. The mistranslation of the concept of hierarchy into pyramid lost the whole basics of Maslow’s theory of motivation. Maslow always clarified that these are not sequential.

Maslow’s classified the first four needs namely physiological, safety, belonging, and esteem as the existential motivators. These are the necessities for a person to exist in this world and are completely dependent upon external factors.

The last need for self-actualization is completely intrinsic motivator. Unless and until you feel that drive to understand the purpose of you your being, you won’t reach the stage of self-realization. The person who has satisfied all first four but not the self-actualization will feel directionless even after achieving what he/ she desired. That is exactly why doing things to prove your worth to the world mostly ends in existential confusion, such people question the void which is created after achieving everything they wanted.

That is why inner motivation is important for bringing out the best of you. So, the last need namely Self-actualization is attributed as the intrinsic motivator. This intrinsic urge will drive the person to make the sense of his/ her conditions improve further.

In this further improvement the person achieves self-transcendence. This is the purest form of the happiness. Spirituality calls it the enlightenment.

The Characteristics of Self-Actualizers

It is very important to reiterate that Maslow never intended the hierarchy of needs to be linear and always clarified that you can work of these needs simultaneously. It is not like leveling up in a game one by one. The more you satisfy lower needs, the more you are concerned with the higher needs.

Maslow’s studied such people who have achieved self-realization and found some special common traits. Some of them are listed below:

They have high level humor – Low level humor is when you belittle others to create laughter. The self-actualizers will make fun of themselves to create this laughter.
Self-realizers have high sense of reality – Self realizers exhibit a healthy self-esteem. A person with toxic self-esteem will feel jealous for other people’s success. They feel entitled as they were the worthier than others. But the self-actualizers appreciate other people’s success and befriend them to learn the ways to succeed.
Continuous appreciation – Self-realizers are able to find joy in even the routine tasks, mundane activities. Even though they are excited for something new and challenging they equally value the mundane-ness of the events in life. It is because they carry highest sense of gratitude for everything.
Problem centered – Self-actualizers understand that whatever mission they have whatever purpose they have to fulfill must always lie beyond themselves and consider the big picture and long-term vision. They are aware that once the goal is achieved, they will get exposed to that existential confusion, once you have higher and wider sense of goal it is very rare that you will end up in existential angst. These types of people are not building an empire to become billionaire, they are on a mission to contribute to the world. Most importantly this urge to contribute to the society is not to make themselves feel worthy, it is because they understand that it is what the world desperately needs. Thus, self-actualizers select their goals in such ways so that they strengthen the personal skills and contribute to the betterment of the society simultaneously.
Self-realizers enjoy privacy – Solitude resonates more with such people than loneliness.
Self-realizers demonstrate these values: Wholeness, perfection, completion, justice, effortlessness, aliveness, richness, simplicity, beauty, self-sufficiency, goodness, uniqueness, order, playfulness, truth
Self-realizers are accepting towards oneself and others – they know that a perfect human is not the one without flaws. They understand that imperfections, sadness, grief, jealousy are also important aspect of being a human and thus try to uplift others going through same conditions instead of belittling them.
Self-actualizers are more spontaneous and strive to become more natural
Self-actualizers intensely look out for autonomy. It’s like micromanaging will kill their motivation to do the task.
Self-actualizers have more profound relationships. The relationships are not transactional.
Self-actualizers have high sense of Gemeinschaftsgefühl – meaning heightened sense of being connected to humanity.
Self-actualizers always strive to create win-win situations. That is exactly what helps them to find the goals which will benefit them personally and also the society on grand scale.
Self-actualizers have peak experiences. Self-actualizers are not always happy (otherwise one would surely attribute such people mental!) Instead of remaining happy with everything irrespective of is valence – intensity, self-actualizers have these small moments which make them appreciate their purpose on even higher level. They are not always drenched in the rains of happiness instead a small shower of joy elevates their sense of purposeful existence.

After going through such detailed characteristics explained by Maslow, it is tempting to ask one question. Do Self-actualizers settle for what they are given?

Self-actualization is a journey

What majorly got lost in translation due to the creation of this controversial pyramid of hierarchy of needs was Maslow’s attribution to continuous improvement in Self-actualizers.

“It is not a state of being but a process, It’s a direction, not destination. This process won’t always bring the feelings of happiness, contentment, and bliss, and it may even sometimes cause pain and heartache. It’s not for the “faint-hearted”. It requires continually stretching outside your comfort zone. It takes a lot of courage to be the best version of yourself.”

This is the part where the theory of motivation truly becomes humanistic. That is exactly what I love about self-actualization. It is not creating a paradise free from suffering, rather it accepts the presence of negative ideas of humanity at the same level as positive ideas. That is what makes us a complete human. It is sad that in general understanding we miss this part of the theory of motivation.

Maslow’s theory of motivation for the modern world

Scott Barry Kaufman – an American psychologist conducted an experiment to fit Maslow’s theory of motivation which is more relevant in this modern world and also doesn’t mistranslate the original theory during oversimplification. I would say it is not oversimplification of the theory of motivation rather it augments the same theory to remain more relevant in modern times.

Scott Kaufman in his famous paper discusses that the as Abraham Maslow’s ideas go, the lack of satisfaction motivates people to fill that existential i.e., external, and emotional i.e., intrinsic deficiency. This deficiency is primarily about physical existence and then about mental/ emotional existence. It can also be deficient in both aspects (external and internal simultaneously). The people who lack motivation are also very defensive when they feel danger to their basic needs – survival needs.

Scott explains that motivated people are driven more by exploration, creativity and love not for themselves but also for the humankind.

The Cybernetic Big Five Theory

Scott Kaufman bridged the concepts of cybernetic big five theory with the characteristics of self-actualized human beings as explained by Abraham Maslow through an experiment consisting of a psychrometric test. (A psychrometric test is a questionnaire to assess intelligence, abilities, potential and personality.)

The big five theory of cybernetics identifies five factors which helps to define the person’s overall personality. Cybernetics here indicates the study of systems which work with a feedback loop. After all motivation is a type of feedback loop. Any mechanism which changes its response based on the outcome can be studied under cybernetics. So, the cybernetic system we are interested here are human beings. There are five factors which indicate the major habits – traits of the person. The varying contribution from each attribute can help us to understand what motivates, influences the given person and how his/ her life can be improved.

Following are the big five:

Openness to experiences – as the words themselves explains – it’s the way – the trait in which one accepts or molds/ changes to the new experiences. The more open one is to experiences the less they are susceptible to mental disorder
Conscientiousness – it is the ability to care, to take things/ consequences seriously, being diligent. More conscientious a person is more he/ she is reliable; extremes would be attribute to workaholics, perfectionists.
Extraversion/ Extroversion – is related to how a person draws energy to exist. Introverts feel energetic in solitude whereas extroverts seek company to feel energetic. This is inspired from Carl Jung’s ideas.
Agreeableness – it measures how considerate you are. People with low agreeableness are selfish, people with high agreeableness are kinder, sympathetic.
Neuroticism – is related to how one handles negative emotions and stress. More neurotic a person more negatively they behave.

This theory is also commonly known as the OCEAN theory. But, why did we try to understand the cybernetic big five theory? What motivates people is immediately related to how people behave and what are their “traits”; So, understanding the OCEAN aspects of the personality creates a model where you can understand what motivates them.

The Metatraits – Bridging the Classical and Modern Theory of Motivation

Scott Kaufman linked the big five facets of human personality to Maslow’s theory of motivation through the bridge of Metatraits.

The five facets of human psyche – the five traits namely Openness to experiences, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism can be grouped into two major categories. One is Stability and the another is Plasticity.

Stability is defined through the contributions from traits of Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness.

Plasticity is defined through the contributions from the traits of Openness to experiences and Extraversion.

The personality trait hierarchy
(Source: Cybernetic Big Five Theory, Colin G. DeYoung, 2014, Journal of Research in Personality)

Now, the magic starts happening.

It’s Not A Pyramid, Rather It’s A Sail Boat

Remember that the theory of motivation had two aspects. One is the security, safety and the another one is sense of existence, meaning.

Scott Kaufman through his experiment clarified almost all aspects of Maslow’s theory of motivation. Unlike the popular mistranslated pyramidal structure of hierarchy of needs, Scott smartly utilized the fundamental idea of simultaneity of all needs into his new model. According to Scott Kaufmanns model the hierarchy of need is best represented by the Sail Boat.

Scott Barry Kaufman’s Sail Boat Model of Self Actualization

It is very wonderful to appreciate what this Sail Boat model communicates. Its beauty is that is brings the lost ideas from the classical theory of motivation into limelight and at the same time it removes that false linearity from the hierarchy. The word ‘hierarchy’ reflects that interdependence and complementary nature of the needs. The more you satisfy the lower needs, the more you will try to fulfill the higher need.

Scott presents that we are never leveling up from one need to higher one, rather we are trying to fulfill every type of need to certain extent simultaneously. Once we fill like certain need is fulfilled to a safer extent, we can fulfill other multiple need simultaneously.

We are continuously changing our needs based on the experiences we have while fulfilling other needs. Once you achieve certain goal in your life you may feel the need to upgrade you living standards, social status. If you get one life changing spiritual experience you may feel to downgrade your living standards because you feel that this is materialistic obsession.

Scotts Sail Boat model thus can be represented as follows:

The Boat is the security aspect necessary for the survival of a person. It is both physiological and psychological. Safety, Connection and Self-esteem create the boat; once you fulfill these aspects your life will be secured, your physical existence is guaranteed but this will not fill the spiritual existential void, the urge for purpose and meaning in you. You will have to attach a sail of being open to uncertainty, daring to love, daring to find the purpose which will drive that boat into the “OCEAN” of the life. (Look what I did their, actually this is how Scott explains it, you get it!)

Having a boat with holes – the lack of safety, connections, and self esteem will surely jeopardize your materialistic existence. After that having only a boat – fulfillment of safety, connections and self-esteem will give you proper survival. But only survival will instantly demotivate you to even live. Its like a boat which has taken halt, has no purpose and may collapse when a big wave collapses. Basic fulfillment of survival need does not guaranty long term sustenance, any big challenge in life, any negative event will tear down this boat of existence into pieces. You must appreciate that the boat here indicates the metatrait of stability which is supposed to the rigid trait of the personality, rigid int terms of the fundamental support to the whole being.

In order to handle the challenges, the big collapsing waves one need to explore the OCEAN, the challenges for that the motivation will be drawn from the openness to new experiences, learnability, curiosity. This learnability, urge for growth is attributed to the sails of the boat. The sails will ensure that you will move faster when you sense collapsing waves, sails will ensure that your boat will reach the destinations you want, sails will ensure that you have the goal, the purpose, the meaning to your existence. Thus, the sails represent the metatrait of Plasticity.

You must understand that Stability metatrait is how you fulfill your deficiencies in the fundamental needs for existence whereas Plasticity metatrait is about how you make sense of what existence you have established.

How strongly you will live is defined by stability, it is about how you protect your goals, its is about how you handle your impulses, how you strategize and understand the events to remain stable.

How purposeful, focused you will remain will be defined by plasticity. What new goals you create, how you learn new things to achieve these goals, hoe you strategize you r actions to demonstrate understanding, create meaning is what plasticity is.

Conclusion

Life, our existence is always proven to be filled with paradoxes and contradictions. You will see a smiling beggar lying on the roadside – begging for the food of one time and you will also see a billionaire crying in his Lamborghini because he/she lost their loved ones. Different people will weigh out these events based on what type of life they were exposed to. Those who lacked happiness in their lives will prefer to be happy by trading all valuable objects they have, whereas those who never possessed basic things for survival will endure endless pain to get them. These types of paradoxical lives are the origins to a completely different world view and most importantly what motivates human beings.

What was lost through Maslow’s pyramid of hierarchy of needs came back into limelight due to modern theories in psychology like the Cybernetic Big Five Theory and Sail-Boat Model. They highlight a very important fact that stability and plasticity both are necessary for a person to become whole – a complete human being. Scott Barry Kaufmann also found out in his study that self-actualization was more strongly related to plasticity than the mere absence of stability. It shows how intrinsic motivation weighs heavier than the materialistic stability. It is a big concept to grasp but all of us are always passing through this experience but seldom are aware of that. You will realize that this is the theory which could also join the western and eastern concepts of enlightenment and self-transcendence.

P.S. – Iron Man’s character from MCU in every sense is the best pop-cultural representation of both the classical and modern ideas of the theory of motivation.

The most selfish character in a story got motivated to sacrifice himself for the greater good

References and for further reading:

A Theory of Human Motivation, A. H. Maslow (1943), Originally Published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396
Kaufman, Scott Barry. “Self-Actualizing People in the 21st Century: Integration With Contemporary Theory and Research on Personality and Well-Being.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology 63 (2018): 51 – 83.
https://scottbarrykau f man.com/
DeYoung, Colin G. “Cybernetic big five theory.” Journal of research in personality 56 (2015): 33-58.
What Does It Mean to Be Self-Actualized in the 21st Century? – Beautiful Minds – by Scott Barry Kaufman in Scientific American
The Untold Science of Self-Actualization by Marco Sander
Featured image – A man looks at the painting Not to be Reproduced by René Magritte by Daniel Reinhardt

Love is in the Brain

The heart always gets credited for the feelings of love but it is the brain which plays the most significant role. Neuroscientists have made attempts to interpret the emotions of love by closely studying the events in the brains of lovers. A study in neuroscience shows how acts of expressing love through embracing, kissing, and conversing about common experiences positively influences our brains. It also indicates why and how men may feel embraces deeper and more emotional than women, how an emotional speech creates similar neural effects as the neural effects during kissing.

Neuroscience of the languages of love

Kiss, speech and embrace are the most common languages of love

Background – What is love? What is an emotion?

Emotions are one inseparable part of human life rather every living thing. They can be attributed as the response we generate for the interactions we have with our surrounding – a response to various stimuli. Responding to the events/ interactions is one important way of communication for living things. Out of these responses, physical responses are generally very easy to notice and interpret but at the same time the emotional responses are more complicated, sometimes difficult to even notice and interpret. Body language mostly gives away the what’s going in a person’s head, what they are thinking (like most of us have a tell when we are uncomfortable/ nervous or are lying). Understanding body language can give straightforward answers about person’s condition and personality but it is always difficult to gauge what exactly the person is feeling in given condition.

Love is one of the most important and at the same time the most exploited feelings we living things have. Love is the feeling which we can connect with anything real and imaginary that is there in the universe (trust me, this is not inferred from the pop culture philosophy) There are more things to love than to hate for everyone of us. For the sake of generalization, love brings in the comfort, safety and hope for the survival of every species. Love for certain things can push the individual to do something extraordinary – good (because it can create purpose irrespective of the situations and challenges in life) or bad (that is exactly why love is the most exploited emotion, you can make people do wrong things just for the sake of love).

Love language

Even though love is the most general emotion all of us have (like love for something, some person, some song, some place, some season, some animal, love for everything); the love between couples – romantic couples remain always at the focal point. The love between couples is not important because pop culture, poets, painters, singers, saints mentioned it repeatedly everywhere; it is important because it is what makes our lives less artificial. The love romantic couple can have, affects the future of society in every possible and productive way – it also ensures diversity – randomness in species. As we are highly expressive and responsive species, communication is the most important part of our life especially the love life. When two people from different backgrounds come together in the name of love it becomes very important as how they express their love for each other. Today we call it “the love language”. Some couples love to talk a lot with each other, some like to sit in silence together, some always feel cuddly, some would be always staring into each other’s eyes, some would travel together, some like to cook together or for other, some like to eat together, some are always pulling pranks, some would peel orange for the others, some would send flowers, some would be writing poems, singing songs, some would always fight (yes…, you read that and accepted it). You get it; every couple has their own (sometimes weird) love language and communicating in this certain language deepens the relationship.

Brain vs heart – Neuroscience of love

Even though heart has been attributed to the origin of the feeling of love due to various reason, its original job is to just pump the blood. Nothing interesting happens in the heart of a person in love than in their brain. Brain surely is the epicenter for the study of love and how we feel when we are in love. Just like love, our brain is the most complicated thing we are yet to understand fully. Neuroscientists are always trying to figure out what generates certain set of emotions and responses. Love is one such important emotion which is also an attractive subject for them. Its association with every aspect of our life, its complexity and simplicity at the same time has always attracted scientists who are trying to understand human behavior. (love hasn’t spared the brainiacs too.)

Modern neuroscience is blurring the lines between the intangibility of emotions especially love and the tangible – physical parameters like electricity (synapse, wave-forms), chemicals (hormones, neurotransmitters). From providing shock to certain part of the brain to see which muscle it twitches to enabling the paralyzed people to walk again through brain implants, neuroscience has had many quantum leaps.

How does a neuroscientist interpret love?

I think every person who is in love can tell what it is but it will always have a touch of subjectivity, thus a neuroscientist is always the most qualified person to create an objective fact on the emotion of love.

Today we will see an interesting study in neuroscience about the emotions in romantic couples. Before going into the details and the conclusions of the study, it is important to roughly get the hold of some concepts neuroscientists used to interpret their results.

Our brain is made of approximately 100 billion neurons whose network is always firing some electrical signals to generate responses and create memories. The measurement of such electrical signals and their interpretation is important aspect of studying brain.

fMRI – functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

It is found that when there is a neural activation in brain, the blood flow increases in that region. This change in blood flow can be monitored using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

De-oxygenated hemoglobin in blood is paramagnetic (attracted by external magnetic field) and oxygenated hemoglobin in blood is diamagnetic (repelled by external magnetic field). Producing a strong magnetic field around brain and monitoring their interactions with the magnetic fields generated during blood flow are measured in MRI. Such measurements require bulky and specialized instruments with controlled conditions.

fMRI shows what part of brain gets activated from increased blood flow

fMRI machine is huge thus creates limited experimental environments

Electroencephalography (EEG) – it is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. It monitors the electrical signals from brain using electrodes on scalp instead of measuring the changes in magnetic fields. The EEG devices are now very lightweight and portable thus they have less influence on the neural activity of the subject under observation. The portability also widens the test environments for the subjects under observation.

EEG can be used to interpret the signals from the outer surface (cerebral cortex) of the brain as the electrodes are put on the scalp. It is difficult to understand what is happening inside the brain from the signals of EEG although they will always be interfering with the overall signals sensed by the electrode at the scalp.

An EEG system is highly portable to collect neural data

International 10-20 system – It is an internationally accepted template for putting electrodes proportionately on the scalp of head. This ensures homogeneous observations and reproducibility of the results during EEG. 10 and 20 refer to the percentage of the gap between the electrodes meaning the electrodes are placed at 10% or 20% of the total distance between front – back of the skull (called as nasion and inion respectively) or total left-right distance.

International 10-20 system to locate the electrodes of EEG system

A good, healthy person will show waves of certain frequencies according to their conditions. These frequencies are between 1 to 30 Hz and the amplitude varies between 20 to 100 micro volt. The frequencies are divided as follows:

Alpha waves – alpha waves have frequency between 8-12 Hz and are observed when a person is relaxed in a wakeful condition. These are mainly attributed to activity in parietal and occipital lobe of the brain. When a relaxed person opens their eyes, it is observed that their alpha activity reduces and beta activity increases. Alpha waves are produced when you’re awake but your mind is in a resting state.

Beta waves – beta waves have frequency above 12 till 30 Hz. Beta waves are associated with intense mental activity like doing some arithmetic calculations, making inferences from given data, being busy, focused on something. The frontal area of brain shows significant beta activity in such wakeful instances.

Gamma waves – these are the fastest brain waves with frequency between 30-80 Hz. They are attributed to deep thinking and state of high focus. Generally, people with high IQ show more gamma activity; lower gamma activity is attributed to memory and learning problems, short attention span.

Delta waves – delta waves are associated with frequencies between 0.5 – 4 Hz

Theta waves – theta waves are associated with frequencies between 4-7 Hz

Theta and delta waves are not observed in wakeful state. If delta and theta waves are observed in wakefulness then it indicates brain dysfunction.

Output wave-forms from the electrodes of an EEG system

Lateralization of brain – We have come across one misleading fact that we only use certain fraction/ percentage of our brain in routine activities. (the popular number is 5-20%) This popular but wrong fact could be attributed to the idea of lateralization of brain. (Sci-Fi movies have exploited this wrong fact already)

Generally, almost all areas of every healthy person’s brain are always active. But, certain cognitive functions or neural functions (like movement of body parts, thinking, calculating, watching, tasting) are associated to either of the hemisphere of the brain (left or right hemisphere). Although brain as a whole is always active, certain activities/ functions activate one hemisphere more that the another one. Simply put, there is difference in brain signals between right and left hemisphere during a cognitive function. This dominance of brain signal from one “side” shows lateralization of brain. One side will be more activated in brain for given activity.

Asymmetry indices (AI) – So, this heightened activity from one side of brain is measured by taking difference of the signal power of the brain waves from left and right hemisphere.

Increased asymmetry index indicates that the signals in right hemisphere are getting inhibited, restricted. Thus, left hemisphere especially left frontal activity in brain is increased.

Decreased asymmetry index means that the signals in left hemisphere are getting inhibited and thereby right hemisphere is more activated.

Simply put, more the asymmetry index more is the activity in left part of the brain.

There are two main theories on how our brain is lateralized. One is Valence Model (VM) and another is Right Hemisphere Hypothesis (RHH).

VM – According to valence model, every emotion has a valence meaning a tendency to be preferable – positive and rewarding or not preferable – negative and aversion inducing. The positive, rewarding emotions are processed in left hemisphere and negative, punishing emotions are processed in right hemisphere of the brain.

RHH – Right Hemispherical Hypothesis says that whatever may the emotions be – positive or negative, rewarding or punishing – all are processed in right hemisphere of the brain.

Neuroscientists are yet to reach a consensus on which of these two ideas are right. Certain observations are supported by VM and others are supported by RHH. It’s not about what is wrong and what is right, it is about which model explains given dataset better and predicts better.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) – this is one of the chemicals – a neurotransmitter which inhibits/ blocks certain neural signals thereby is responsible for creating calmness. If GABA is released more, we feel calmer and more relaxed. The opposite effect i.e. restlessness, excitement is generated by glutamate. For a healthy brain balance between GABA and Glutamate is important.

*gamma*-aminobutyric acid – neurotransmitter of calmness

Glutamate is the main excitatory and GABA the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian cortex. The prescription drugs for reducing restlessness/ improving calmness ensure high levels of GABA in our central nervous system.

**Glutamic acid aka glutamate** – neurotransmitter of excitement

Now that we have understood certain basic ideas to understand the experiment, let us see how certain languages of love in romantic couples affect their neural responses.

The Experiment

The neuroscientists studied three conditions in romantic couples namely – speech, hug and kiss.

The participating romantic partners were asked to wear the EEG system to record the brain signal during the experiment. Scientists recorded a baseline – a neutral state for speech, hug and kiss. Then the emotional states were recorded through certain assigned tasks.

In neutral state for speech, one of the partners listened to a generic weather report, whereas in the emotional state for speech the partner listened to a recording of their partner reading an emotional shared life experience.

In neutral state for hugging/ embracing the partner hugged a pillow while the another being absent and in emotional embrace, they hugged each other.

In neutral state for kissing one partner kissed their hand and in emotional state the partners kissed each other.

Why this experimental setup is important?

According to the authors of this paper, most of the studies to understand the brain activities are always performed in controlled setup which conditions the brain signals in a set template. The observations may create certain insights but are less close to the reality as they were not observed in real life conditions. Authors claim that this method to actually measure the brain signals in real life scenarios creates more relevant, closer to real life dataset. The responses in such setup are more natural. That is why they claim this experiment having more “ecological validity”

The authors make a great attempt to understand the main and most preferred language of love in romantic couples i.e., kissing, embracing, speaking shared experiences. It will be really interesting to see what “flashes” we have when we are experiencing such events.

Observations – looking from a neuroscientist’s perspective

Following are the key observations authors present in this paper:

Participants were more positive after executing the behavioral tasks.
Brain gets lateralized during emotional processing.
High asymmetry index in front lobe electrodes was found during emotional kissing compared to neutral kissing. Researchers found high alpha AI during emotional (real/ organic) kissing than neutral (artificial) kissing baseline.
Found lower alpha AI during speech.
Higher AI in kissing and emotional speech.
Researchers didn’t find overall effects in alpha or beta for embracing. Only males showed higher beta AI in the embracing condition.

Conclusions

Pardon my oversimplification for the sake of understanding.

The first observation is the easiest to understand. Kissing, hugging, and telling a shared memory/ experience of love surely makes the romance to flourish more (duh!)
The lateralization of brain means that certain emotions are flagged in one of the hemispheres of the brain. It’s not like all the emotions activate only one side of the brain.
This one is interesting. High alpha asymmetry index during kissing means that left brain is more activated during kissing. The authors put forward that this is related to release of GABA molecules in right hemisphere which inhibit the neural signals thereby create a calming effect. Valence model says that left hemisphere processes positive and rewarding emotions. So, this observation shows that kissing surely creates a positive effect in the brain of the romantic couples. Higher left hemispherical activity is attributed to more positivity in a study. It is important observation of high alpha asymmetry because its opposite i.e., lower alpha activity is linked with suicidal tendencies in depression as observed in a study.
The authors found that the VM theory holds best to explain events in frontal part of the brain whereas the RHH theory can explain the posterior events in brain. That is exactly why low alpha AI in romantic/ emotional speech cannot be directly correlated negative emotions which the Valence Model says. Rather according to the RHH theory the speech invokes strong right hemispherical activity. The authors found an observation to link VM and RHH theories according to the regions of brain considered for discussion. Both theories are not completely wrong but are successful when implemented to specific region of the brain. Simply put, it is not just about preference to left or right hemisphere – it is also about whether the activity is in front or back portion of the brain.
High asymmetry indices during kissing and emotional speech show how strongly they affect the lovers. Emotional speech is as effective as kissing. (it’s like kissing your lover’s brain with your emotional words!)
This one is also one more interesting observation. As there are no significant effects in alpha or beta asymmetries during hugging activity, it means the hugging is less effective than kissing or emotional speech. But the authors present a catch here! They found a sex specific observation. It says, high beta AI in males during embracing. High beta AI is linked with increased emotional, cognitive processing. This means that men consider hugging more emotional than women. Women process hugging as a casual act but men consider it more thoughtful especially when they are hugging the existing and well-familiar female partner. Authors attribute this to the fact that women generally hug each other (female-female hug) more than men do (male-male hug).

What does this mean to common person?

The experiment authors performed was really interesting and was closer to the real-life conditions. If you want more interesting details on how what and why the experiment was designed in a certain way and how the results were interpreted, I have provided the link at the end. Going through this article puts front some really deep insights on how love, romance affects our brain. How these languages to express love create a deep connection between lovers.

The authors have tried to remain as objective as possible. But, again pardon my oversimplification, here is what one can understand from this experiment:

Having emotional discussions with your partner is as effective as kissing your partner. No wonder people resort to poetry, music, and literature to express their love. The more you are able to express your love for your partner the more positively it is going to influence your brain thereby you. You also feel better for yourself if you can express your love to your partner. It is like the act loving your partner is providing strength to yourself. Maybe this is how lovers become strong mentally. (No wonder couples madly in love are ready to fight the whole world!) Kissing your romantic partner has calming effect on you mental state. (I think almost no one needs explanation on that! But don’t forget that speech is equally potent)

And finally, men need more hugs compared to women! Although hugging is a common act in society, men are highly emotional when it comes to hugging. So, this is an advice not only for women but also for men and especially for men that you hug your bro, your buddy whenever you feel like expressing your love for them.

Our brain being one of the least understood wonders of the universe has always tricked us in spite of being the most vital part of our existence. The insights from such experiments in neuroscience with this closeness to reality bring more clarity in the ways we handle our relationships. We definitely owe thanks to the authors/ researchers involved in such studies for their valuable insights.

Reference article –

Investigating real-life emotions in romantic couples: a mobile EEG study – Packheiser, J., Berretz, G., Rook, N. et al.

The American Scholar – Man as a University

Part-3 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous speech called “The American Scholar” was delivered in 1837 in front of the American youth. Emerson wanted the youth of that time to understand what it takes to create new knowledge and breakthroughs. The origin and legacy of knowledge, importance of past knowledge through books, importance of bringing and testing ideas into the reality to find the absolute truth, the greatness and vastness of we as a human-beings and the life we live are some important aspects of Emerson’s speech. His sheer vocabulary rather choice of words is more than enough create an impression which will last for thousands of years. Emerson’s ideas in this speech are based on very fundamental ideas of knowledge, biases in human thought processes, loopholes in human psychology which are still relevant with 21st century.
There are Part 1 and Part 2 which have dived deeper into these important parts of The American Scholar.
We will see in this Part 3 what were the closing thoughts and advice, instructions Ralph Waldo Emerson gave in his The American Scholar speech. The closing parts of this speech covered the idea of Man as a University. It is the beauty of Emerson’s thoughts which attributed the vast sources of infinite knowledge to each every person’s life. This not only gave importance to every person as a human being whose soul, mind themselves are the nature but this also brought a sense of responsibility as an original and objective thinker in every person of the nation. The speech truly transcended the eras and generations. The revolution in the field of knowledge by considering Man as a University itself is one of the core idea of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thoughts in his speech The American Scholar.

Objectivity – The Job of A True Scholar

“The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson has simplified the jobs of a true scholar in the last sections of his speech. The only job of a true scholar is to guide the humanity through his observations. Emerson pointed out that during the process of becoming overly attached to their own vocation, people have forgotten, have lost the awareness and greatness of the nature thereby their own souls. A scholar’s job is to observe the nature, put those observations before the humanity and inspire people to continue this pursuit for the absolute truth.
Emerson has attributed this task as “the highest functions of human nature”. But, this task, this journey has its challenges, it demands some sacrifices. One of them is the influence of popular opinion and the expectation of materialistic benefits. For explaining this Emerson gives example of John Flamsteed and William Herschel who incessantly observed the sky for star cataloguing. Their observations proved important for the discovery of planet Uranus. While observing the goal was not to become famous and get rewards and recognition for the discovery; rather the job they were doing was one of the most boring and mundane tasks of humanity. Flamsteed and Herschel were observing the sky and noting down their observations with only goal of understanding what is happening in the universe where they exist. The times of Herschel were the times of debates on the center of the universe. Popular opinion was that the Earth was the center of the universe (Geocentric Model of Universe); another popular opinion was that the sun was at center of the universe with earth revolving around it (Heliocentric Model of Universe). Today we know that we are not even at the center of our own galaxy milky way and it is near to impossible to ever find the center of the universe! The jobs of Flamsteed and Herschel if would have been influenced by the popular opinions surely, they would have received those accolades, prizes, fame from either of the groups promoting their own versions of truth. Instead of having that influence of opinions/ having those biases, they honestly presented themselves to the task of objectively observing the universe. And these objective observations took humanity to completely new understanding of the universe that even they wouldn’t have thought about. (See P.S. for more)

The point is that that most of the times a true scholar will be heavily influenced by biases, popular opinions, expectation of “immediate fame”, money, company of famous and influential people, hero worship; but he has to move away from these pleasures and only commit himself to this highest function which is to objectively observe and interpret the nature. Sometimes poverty and solitude will be his only companions.

“…He is to find consolation in exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one who raises himself from private considerations and breathes and lives on public and illustrious thoughts. He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is one episode (S01E09) in Rick and Morty where Rick’s Dad is getting honored by the high class aliens of Pluto to name Pluto as a Planet so that they can continue their self benefiting activities thereby degrading the Pluto. For the good of Science Rick’s Dad comes out of the bias and the false praise, prizes, popularity from high class and renounces Pluto as a Planet.

Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon’s Rick and Morty (S01E09)

Emerson beautifully told what has to be done but he also told how it is possible.

Confidence and Bravery of Self Expression

For understanding the things ahead, one must not forget that Emerson established an observation that our soul is the impression, the reflection of nature around us. The limitations, boundaries of our soul are the limits of the nature around us – our understanding of it. (Emerson already established that “Know Thyself” and “Study Nature” mean nothing but the same- See in Part 1)
Emerson talks about confidence of a scholar in his job, in himself. When a person will truly engross himself in his own objective studies free from all the influences, then only he will discover that absolute knowledge. Emerson attributed all such influences as mere appearance and tells everyone to look underneath them. When a true scholar will approach this job of observation and study of himself with confidence the nature will reveal itself. When this scholar will discover this truth about himself, he will literally find the truth of all for all nature resides in him.

“He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds. He learns that he who has mastered any law in his private thoughts is master to that extent of all men whose language he speaks, and of all into whose language his own can be translated.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson again highlights that the journey of understanding the universe, the nature is not outwards rather it is inwards. One only has to be confident and honest about his intentions. After conquering this self-doubt, a true scholar will have to dare to present his objective observations to the biased crowd.
The following lines by Emerson are uncountably powerful and very motivational for every person (not only artists) of every generation who has embarked on such journeys in their lives.

“The poet, in utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts and recording them, is found to have recorded that which men in cities vast find true for them also. The orator distrusts at first the fitness of his frank confessions, his want of knowledge of the persons he addresses, until he finds that he is the complement of his hearers; – that they drink his words because he fulfills for them their own nature; the deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his wonder he finds this is the most acceptable, most public and universally true. The people delight in it; the better part of every man feels—This is my music; this is myself.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson informs that the scholar is not inherently protected like women and children. Once he gathers this bravery to challenge the conventions, the people who were resisting him at first will also accept his ideas, the falsehoods they were carrying as their truths will shed down as his ideas are originated from the pure and absolute knowledge; people will find the connect to his communications from his ideas of his soul thereby ultimately the great nature itself.

Fluidity of thoughts

Even though we are unable to understand the whole picture of nature in single glance that should not stop us from updating that picture. Emerson understood that the knowledge which humanity has gained till date is not complete, there will be always something missing hence it cannot be trusted completely but that also should not restrict us from challenging hat has been established already. Emerson is expecting fluidity of thoughts, ideas here as is the nature.

“Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the momentum of figuring out our individual lives, everyone has intentionally ignored this imperfection of knowledge and has forgotten to challenge the conventions. There is no one to blame for this ignorance but a true scholar’s great job becomes important in this situation.
Emerson has also established his worry for conversion of humanity into a herd, a group of blind followers, blind worshipers. In order to simplify our lives, we have chosen to follow the paths created by our ancestors instead of challenging them to refine the knowledge further. This simplification of life is closely related to the search for money and power for they are the most influential means to ease the lives. Emerson here suggests for the revolution through “the Culture”.

“The main enterprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the up-building of a man.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Through culture Emerson actually expected the richness of individual lives. The lives where materialistic means lie to the bottom and the search for knowledge, up-gradation of knowledge, philosophical up-gradation of humanity is at the top. Humanity should not limit its limitless mind, soul to some materialistic thing or a person to worship – history has many examples that we have already done that many times.

“The human mind cannot be enshrined in a person who shall set a barrier on any one side to this unbounded, unboundable empire.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Age of Revolution – Inner Development, Relevance of Knowledge and Man as a University

Emerson is expecting amalgamation of all types of ideas in the current age through the scholars. For that he gives references of the different ages in history like early Classical Greek Era known for developing foundations of knowledge, Romantic ages and Philosophical ages. Here he establishes that even though these ages are independent of each other ad existed in different timelines; according to Emerson they are always getting reflected in different phases of every person. All these eras actually exist in every person. Thus, Emerson wants to bring all the streams of knowledge, all the poles/ the extremes of different streams of knowledge in front of each other.
The aim of bringing everything and everything contradicting on a common table is to create relevance of knowledge for humanity. Through this, the knowledge will serve at its highest capacity for the betterment of humanity. Emerson wants to bring all so called “Hi-Fi” knowledge stream to a simple test of “relevance” because if it is not relevant then what purpose can knowledge serve for the people, for the humanity?

“Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds.”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

These ideas were revolutionary for the times when the pursuit of knowledge was limited to high class people and not to the people working for the soil.
Emerson closes his speech with one important thought of development from inside. He expects every person to play a part in the development of humanity as a whole. All the ideas presented by Emerson represent decentralization of power and involvement of people from grass-root level; it is the only reason for which every life gets uniqueness and importance. Emerson’s important idea of a man as a society and a society as a man gets concluded in the closing sentences of his speech. Emerson expects every person to contribute to the new revolution of the society by starting the inner journey. Patience is the final virtue which he instructs everyone to have to start this journey.

“The world is nothing, the man is all”
The American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson

One has to understand how all the ideas given by Emerson are still relevant today. The ideas to highlight are confidence in self, search for real freedom, bravery to present and interpret the objective observations against the conventions, remaining free from popular and materialistic influences, fluidity of thoughts, importance of inner development, creating knowledge of relevance, and patience.

-The End-

(P.S. – The observations made by William Herschel were majorly intended for mapping the Universe so that its center can be located. Later on, the objective observations led to discovery of Universe. After a century the observations became important when scientists found an irregularity in the orbit of Uranus around the Sun. This irregularity of meant that either Newton’s Law of Gravitation is wrong or there is one more planet whose mass is affecting the orbit of Uranus. After additional observations, a new planet ‘Neptune’ was discovered by scientists thereby proving the indirect and valuable legacy of knowledge created by Herschel and Flamsteed.)

Read Part 1 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

Read Part 2 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

Read Part 3 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World from here.

The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chasing The Hidden Nature of Reality

Bell’s Inequality and The Completeness of Quantum Mechanics

“The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2022 to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, Anton Zeilinger is important in the sense of how we understand the nature. The works of these three Nobel Laureates have confirmed that the fundamental things which make up the whole Universe follow the rules which are not consistent with the reality we experience”

“If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”
Richard Feynman

Ever since that damn apple fell off frw3om the tree on Newton’s head the world of science has exploded and expanded faster than maybe the Universe in which we are continuously questioning the nature of our existence, the nature of reality. Although if one really tries to understand how Newton worked out his ideas on the laws of motion, law of gravity, the calculus, they will know that it surely wasn’t the apple that did all the trick. (Given that “apples” have already contributed to change the course of the humanity in different ways)

Classical Mechanics

Sir Isaac Newton
The discovery of Gravity was not a coincidence

What made Newton’s work great is the predictability, structured-ness of the theories he developed. Newton described gravity as the force of attraction between each and every object in the universe. Higher the masses, closer the objects stronger will be the gravity. These theories make predictions which can be tested and then checked to be right or wrong. And for a long time, they were true. Then there came a time – the time. The time of Albert Einstein, where some people say that he proved Newton wrong. I will say Einstein found more generalized form for Newton’s theory of gravity. The ideas of Newton’s theory of gravity are a chunk of the bigger picture of Einstein’s theory of relativity. The theory of relativity considers the gravity not a force but rather curvature of the fabric of space-time. The mass of the object causes the space-time to curve around it hence causing the nearby objects to fall towards it. It’s like a trampoline where a heavy object is curving the elastic sheet around it wherein if other smaller objects are brought in this elastic sheet, they will be eventually pushed into the heavier objects. Newton thought of gravity as an attraction- a pull, whereas Einstein’s gravity pushes. Like Newton, the Einstein’s theory of general relativity makes predictions which can be tested by doing experiments and are proved to be right. Newton’s gravity could not predict the motion of planet Mercury around the Sun due to its limitations. Einstein’s theory of relativity predicted it accurately. Thereby proving it’s superiority.

Albert Einstein
Gravity is the bending of the fabric of Space-Time

The most important thing about Einstein’s theory of relativity is that it created the awareness of the fourth dimension and made it accessible to humanity in some indirect ways. Although, multiple dimensions are possible in abstract mathematics, but they were never accessible to humanity before the establishment of the theory of relativity. Einstein’s theory of relativity is still standing strong and predicting some of the wonders only universe can manifest.

But you know what, Einstein’s theory of relativity is not the generalized theory of our understanding of the universe. Einstein’s theory of relativity though fits for heavenly bodies, even to the grain of sand but it cannot explain the behavior of the subatomic particles making the atoms of the same grain of the sand. There are still some missing pieces in our understanding of the universe. Meaning that Einstein’s theory of relativity is applicable some special case of the reality we exist.

Rise of Quantum Mechanics and the EPR Paper

Einstein’s attempt to formulate the theory of everything sets the Quantum mechanics in motion. The basic idea is that Newton’s and Einstein’s approaches were top-down approaches to understand the nature whereas the approaches of quantum mechanics are bottom up where the discussion starts from the subatomic particles and the fields responsible for the generation of the fundamental forces (Electromagnetic force, Strong force, Weak force) in nature. One must understand that gravity is still not explained by quantum mechanics. Which is what in a way was the point of concern for Einstein. The theory of relativity breaks at subatomic levels.

This is the part where the EPR paradox comes in picture.

In order to understand the comments in the EPR Paper, one needs to understand some basic ideas in quantum mechanics.

The model of an atom has evolved greatly over time which also showcases how we improved our understanding of the universe.

John Dalton thought that matter on many divisions will end up in its smallest indivisible part called atom. Which established different elements will have their own characteristic atoms. This idea helped to establish the weight of an atom of each element. Combination of elements would give weight of the molecule made from that specific combination of atoms. With this idea one can exactly tell the molecular weight of product formed by the chemical reaction of two reactants.

J J Thomson in his experiments on Cathode Ray tube (exactly similar technology used in our old heavy box TVs) found out that if a high voltage is applied between two metal electrodes in a vacuum there is formation of a ray which gets attracted to the positively charged terminal thereby showing the negatively charged particles in this ray “The Cathode Ray”. Stronger the magnetic field stronger the cathode ray will deflect. And based on the relationship between the strength of magnetic field and the extent of deflection ray, Thomson found out that the weight of the particles in the Cathode Ray is very small compared to the weight the atoms. In this way the Dalton’s atomic model was revised to Plum Pudding. Where the electrons are scattered throughout the positively charged environment (Literally like the plum pieces randomly scattered in the pudding)

On further experimentation, Rutherford found out that there is vastly bigger space between the positively charged nucleus and the negatively charged electrons. This was a sort of weird plum pudding. The atom’s plum pudding has all the dough at center which positively charged and is the heaviest part of the atom. The plum pieces i.e., electrons are actually floating around this nucleus which are negatively charged. This devised the planetary model of an atom.

From here on now the real fun begins,

If the electrons are floating around the nucleus, how do they always remain in contact with their own nucleus. What makes them remain “attached” to their nucleus? If they are remaining attached to their own nucleus and are floating around it, after some time the tired light weight negative electron should get attracted towards the strong and dense positive nucleus, thereby becoming unstable. And this doesn’t happen in reality, otherwise nothing would exist from such atom as it will not hold itself longer. Technically, an accelerated electrically charged particle emits electromagnetic energy thereby losing its energy – getting “tired” and eventually falling into the nucleus.

The Quantum Leap

Niels Bohr further sophisticated the model of Rutherford by assigning circular highways to the electrons around the nucleus. Each highway/freeway (autobahn!) has its speed limit which here in atomic model is the energy level. The difference between energy level of each highway is “quantized”. Meaning that there is no middle lane between each highway, no lane cutting/ lane crossing and no overtaking. The energy gap between each highway i.e., “orbit” is fixed. The change in highway is only possible when the electron gains or losses this fixed “quantized energy”. This jump of electron from on orbit to other coined the term the “Quantum Leap”.

Bohr’s idea was usable for simple atoms like hydrogen but it could not explain the behavior of heavier atoms and hence there was still something missing in the model of atom.

The Wave Particle Duality

Erwin Schrödinger formulated that the electrons don’t actually have discrete highways around the nucleus. Electrons are the particles that behave like a wave around the nucleus. This idea was inspired from the Louis de Broglie’s hypothesis that the subatomic particles like electron actually are the waves around the nucleus. Meaning that you cannot pinpoint the electron around the nucleus. The electron will be anywhere in the space around the nucleus, but it follows certain schedule/ timetable which is the famous Schrödinger Wave Equation.

The schedule of electron is always tightly packed. Electron is not that person who confirms his arrival to a party by immediately saying Yes or No. An electron is that friend in your group who will always has his plans and will ditch you at the last moment. To meet such type of an “electronic friend” i.e., the electron itself you have to study its behavior, its routine which is its waveform. The waveform will give you an idea where your electron hangs out the most. Such hangout places where you have largest chance of finding your electron are the “clouds of high probability” called the orbitals.

This is where the real problems start to happen. You thought you knew everything about your dear “electronic friend”. The whole foundations of quantum mechanics are based on wave particle duality of subatomic particles.

Spin of an electron

Spin of an electron is actually term used to signify the angular momentum of an electron. Please note that spin of electron does establish that an electron is exactly a ball or a top which is spinning around the nucleus. Rather, spin only represents that there is some measurable angular momentum for an electron.

Quantum measurements are never “Gentle”

The first and most important idea in quantum mechanics is that on subatomic levels the measurements disturb the state they are trying to measure.

The Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle tells that if you go for the measurement of the spin of an electron the interaction between your measuring equipment and the electron will change its location. Same thing will happen when you go for the measurement of the position of an electron. The interaction between the equipment measuring the position will change the angular momentum of the electron.

Means, the effects we are trying to measure at such subatomic levels are so interaction sensitive that mere the interaction of measurement will disturb the state of the subatomic particle. Thus, you can either measure the momentum of an electron or position of an electron at a time.

The famous American physicist Leonard Susskind’s own words say,

“You can learn nothing about a quantum system without changing something else”

The quantum measurements are so interaction sensitive that they will change the state of the subatomic particle by merely interacting with the measuring equipment.

It’s like the measuring rotations of a ball in the air where you are physically flying with the ball with tachometer in hand in contact with the ball’s surface. The frictional interaction between tachometer and ball will either change the position or the rotation. Hence, you will only know about either the spin of ball or the position of the ball correctly at once. (I agree that it is one exhausting way to perform such measurements, but it serves the purpose here!)

Interaction during quantum measurements will change the state of the quantum particles

Einstein’s problem with the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics

The wave nature of electron, the so called “fault” to measure the exact conditions of the subatomic particles all at once, the probabilistic nature of the quantum mechanics puzzled Einstein. Please note that the ideas discussed in quantum mechanics are not just some wild thoughts, these are legitimate mathematical proofs which are conceptually established in place. Einstein despised the idea of entanglement, which was not consistent with the reality he had already developed.

The entanglement- the bizarre child of an innocent mother

One bizarre concept born from an innocent concept is entanglement. As far as nature’s fundamental laws go- for creation of anything, something has to be invested in first place. This is called “conservation”. Law of conservation of energy says that the net energy of a system remains same, remains conserved always, it will change its forms but will always remain same in total. Conservation of mass says that one mass can change to other mass with totally different properties but the net mass of the system will always remain the same. Law of conservation of momentum says that if two objects of different momentum come in contact – collide, the total momentum before collision will be equal to the total momentum after collision.

In the same sense, angular momentum is also conserved in the natural phenomena.

So, now consider that two particles are generated from a particle with certain spin. In order to conserve the angular momentum of the system, the two particles will have exactly opposite spin of each other. This nullifying spin with the spin of the object they are created from will give the net constant spin to the system, thereby conserving the angular momentum of the system.

For any system the momentum is conserved

This type of connection between the new two particles from a system is called as the entanglement in quantum mechanics. (This may be, is the exact cinematic love that transcends all the barriers, all the dimensions in your favorite SCI-FI movies and fantasy movies!)

God does not play dice

In quantum mechanics, when one tries to measure the state of a subatomic particle, the act of measurement gives a state of that particle, but this act of measurement for getting the information about that particle also fixes the state of another particle entangled with it.

Meaning that if you separate the two entangled particles at a distance and measure the spin of one particle then spin of another particle gets fixed at the moment of measurement. The question is that, how does the other particle get the information of the first particle being measured and its state? Einstein called this idea as “spooky action at a distance”.

The EPR Paper

Einstein was so sure that there is something lacking in the theory of quantum mechanics that he published his idea about the incompleteness of quantum mechanics today famously known as the EPR Paper. Albert Einstein with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen published the paper to explain why theory of quantum mechanics was still incomplete.

The abstract of this paper itself is intriguing:

Einstein debates that the reality is bound with all variables perfectly known. Hence, for a theory to be complete and to perfectly explain the reality there has to be one variable for each behavior. Hence, according to Einstein, as the quantum theory is completely based on wave function thereby becoming probabilistic (because wave function only gives the probability of measuring the information of the electron and does not pinpoint it) it is not giving the certain, definite, sure answers to the questions thrown at it. In simple words, if you ask a quantum physicist to pinpoint the electron around a nucleus, she/he won’t pinpoint the electron, instead they will tell that in this area there are high chances that you will find electron. As if, the quantum physicists have not studied the system completely, there is some unknown behavior that they haven’t identified yet which will complete the whole theory. Knowing this unknown variable will remove the tolerances in the theory, will remove the probabilistic nature of the theory.

Hence, Einstein puts the argument in two pieces:

First one attacks the lack of awareness of the all the variables in the quantum theory

The second one attacks on the reality, reality implying that the condition of having a definite state.

In short, either we don’t know completely about what is happening in quantum world or the quantum world does not have a real state.

Where the determinism and theory of relativity breaks

You have to understand the implications of the ideas put forth by Einstein and his colleagues in this paper. Einstein debated that the entangled particles when getting entangled secretly decide the state they are going to be. Hence, when one measures the information of the entangled particles, they seem to have been decided already. As if they have conspired about their states and our quantum theory is lacking to explain this conspiracy. The idea of fixing this state already established the concept of determinism. That every behavior in nature is already decided, it is only our lack of knowledge about nature which actually surprised us about the outcomes we experienced. If we have complete model of nature’s behavior we will not be surprised by the outcome, rather we will predict the outcome in advance. This was the heart of Einstein’s debate.

One more reason for Einstein’s debate on incompleteness of quantum mechanics was his own theory of relativity. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light. The clever trick quantum mechanics holds it that even after being separated at larger distance where the light will take significant time to travel from one particle to its entangled counterpart the information of the first particle being measured is instantaneously transferred to the another entangled one. If this is happening instantaneously, then the information of one particle being measured has to travel faster than light to the another entangled one. This was also one point of concern for Einstein.

The concept of locality becomes important here. According to the principle of locality, only the immediate surrounding can affect the state of an object thereby limiting the speed information lesser than the speed of light. But, in quantum mechanics the information transfer is instantaneous irrespective of the distance, meaning that the state of one object even after not being in immediate surrounding is affecting the state of its entangled counterpart. (Park this idea of “locality” for one interesting concept called Quantum Cryptography). This meant that quantum effects if are true then they are non-local. Which established the concept of “non-locality” – challenging and exposing the limits of Einstein’s theory of Relativity. That is why Einstein always argued about the incompleteness of Quantum Mechanics. There were some practical explanations to believe so.

The understanding of Einstein about the incompleteness of quantum mechanics was not just a random philosophical pursuit or some complicated thinking done in the air which was incomprehensible for comparatively dumb people of the times. His idea of reality was influenced by the famous mathematician of his time called Jon von Neumann who was obsessed with structuredness of the fundamental theories. Rather he was the one who defined the standards of a good fundamental theory.

Einstein was unsettled with the idea of the probabilistic nature of the quantum mechanics.

This is the only reason which got Einstein into formulating “The Theory of Everything”. A theory which will combine the gravity from his theory of relativity to the theory of generation of fundamental forces of nature from quantum mechanics (if proven right in his time). Even in his last moments of his life, Einstein was working on “The Theory of Everything”. Today String theory and Loop Quantum Gravity are two strongest contenders for theory of everything. Humanity’s most brilliant minds are working on these theories. The problem is that these theories are completely abstract, conceptual to date and still in incubation mode to design a measurable experiment to check and validate the predictions.

The Nobel Prize in Physics for year 2022 is actually awarded to the contributions made for the real- life experimentation done to prove the completeness of the Quantum Mechanics and its implementation in real world.

The Nobel Pursuit- Bell’s Inequality

The EPR paper went in hibernation for years but, this actually became a reality in near future. The paper attracted the attention of one of the physicists at CERN called John Stewart Bell. Bell formulated a mathematical argument to explain the idea of hidden local variable in system. If this mathematical argument is proved to be right then this would also prove that Einstein was right all the time.

The Bell’s Paper where he established the inequality due to hidden variable

The beauty of Bell’s inequality is that that it gathers the intangible ideas and inspirations from EPR paper and probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, wave function into a one definite, measurable and quantifiable equation. The equation given by Bell was testable in real world so that some concrete conclusions could be drawn about the completeness of quantum mechanics.

Bell developed a mathematical expression which was based on the assumption that the quantum mechanics has to be “Locally Real”. Where, Local means that the phenomena in quantum mechanics are not faster than the speed of light as explained and proven by theory of relativity; Real means that quantum mechanics is actually deterministic meaning that every measurement done in quantum mechanical system will give an exact answer, a definite value, a surety, it is only our lack of understanding of some hidden variables which cause the quantum mechanics to not be real.

Once the hidden variable/s in the quantum mechanics are identified, then theory will become consistent with the Classical Mechanics.

Smart thing about Bell’s equation is that it used the ideas of probability to show that quantum mechanics is not probabilistic.

Here is simplification of the idea explained by Bell:

We will set up an experiment where we will measure the spin of two entangled particles. You have to understand that in quantum mechanics the act of measurement itself changes the state of the quantum particle. So, when you are measuring the spin of a particle in say Z-direction, after measurement it spin value will no longer be the same as the measured value.

Now what we will do is that we will measure Z-direction component of the spin of one particle in Lab 1 and X-directional component of the spin of the another one which is entangled with the previous particle in Lab 2. Please note that the distance can be as large as possible on the condition that both labs receive undisturbed, un-interacted entangled quantum particles. The measurements will be exactly simultaneous.

So, the possible measurements we will get from the experiments where we only measure two variables are as follows:

The set of measurements when there are only two variables will be:

Here, M1, M2, M3, M4 are the measurements taken. Thus, for set of all measurements:

Now, the real game begins. According to EPR paper, if there are additional hidden variable/s in the model of quantum mechanics which we are not considering, the number of possible outcomes from the same experiment will increase. Say, if there is one hidden variable which we had not considered before while devising the Quantum theory called Q1, and now we are measuring this additional variable in the experiment then the number of possible states of entangled particles increase as follows:

When a new hidden variable is present in the system and if we measure that additional measurement as Q the number of possible combinations of measurement will increase. See below:

The set of measurements will be:

So, what will be the probability, the chance of getting Z directional spin positive and X-directional spin positive? i.e., What will be P (Z+, X+)?

Now, if there is one hidden variable and we are measuring that hidden variable then for the person who measures Z and Q the value of P (Z+,Q+) will be:

Similarly, for the person measuring X with hidden variable Q the value of P (X+,Q+) will be:

Now pay attention,

If we combine these three equations to establish the relation between them, the equation will be as follows:

Which is the Bell’s Inequality.

And is true, if we put the exact values,

In simple words, more variables driving the system, more will be the combinations of the measurements and thereby more complex the equation need to be to completely explain the system.

If there is hidden variable in the system, the number of possible combinations of measurements will be more than the system with lesser variables considered in the study. Which in turn will affect the balance of the possibilities of the events.

Now understand where does the quantum mechanics starts playing its tricks.

When we start to put the one-to-one values in this equation, we will realize what probabilistic nature can do. Due to the probabilistic nature of the quantum system, the measurements will not have a discrete value which lies on a straight line, rather it follows a sine wave, and if we substitute the values of the measurements from the sine wave function the inequality actually breaks.

The wave function in quantum mechanics actually tell what value it will have for measurement at certain angle. Which is indicated by the blue line in the graph below. The wave function only tells that what will the possibility that the spin will be +1 or the possibility that the spin will be – 1. The red line indicates that the measurements will be discrete (either up spin (+1) or down spin (-1)).

Wave function does not give discrete values

For our example, if one makes a measurement of so-called hidden variable between Z- component and X-component i.e., along Q axis lying between 45 degrees from both Z and X axes the outcome will break the equality as follows:

The values for the Bell’s Inequality for quantum mechanical measurements is given by using the sine wave given in the graph above:

Hence, from the Wave Function in Quantum Mechanics:

Hence, for Bell’s Theorem in Quantum Mechanical System the inequality breaks as follows:

Which is not possible, indicating that Bell’s inequality does not hold true for quantum mechanics. Proving mathematically that there is no hidden variable in Quantum Mechanics. Quantum measurements are not discrete and give definite values, rather the measurements can take any value until we are measuring them, we can only give the probability of how the measurement will be.

This was a shock for those who considered reality as a very sophisticated and definite. The wave function of quantum mechanics does not follow the Bell’s Inequality. There was a strong need for devising an experiment to check and confirm what actually is true. But you must appreciate the power of mathematics and the intellectual level of human mind which can give such deep insight about the nature of reality.

John Stewart Bell
You can see that he has written the outcomes by classical way as 2 and by quantum way as 2 multiplied by square root of 2

The CHSH inequality

The first person with Nobel Prize in Physics of 2022 called Jon Clauser devised an actual experiment to check the Bell’s Theorem and to confirm whether there is any hidden variable in quantum mechanics. Jon Clauser, Michael Horne, Abner Shimony, and Richard Holt created the experiment and the CHSH inequality for the experiment from the Bell’s inequality.

The setup for experiment is as follows:

Two experimenter Alice and Bob (two important people in quantum cryptography. We will discuss about them in upcoming part) will receive a quantum particle simultaneously. The particles are entangled. Meaning that if Alice measures the Z-directional spin of her particle the spin will change in that direction so Bob again measuring the Z-directional spin of his particle which is entangled with Alice’s particle will give new and changed spin value in Z-direction thereby making the measurement meaningless.

So, what Bob will do is that he will measure the X – directional spin of his particle exactly when Alice measures the Z-directional spin of her particle. As the two particles are entangled with each other, we will know two states of the entangled quantum particles simultaneously (which seems like some type of cheating but is a pure possibility). The CHSH inequality for the system becomes as follows:

For any number of measurements, when spin of Alice’s particle in Z-direction indicates +1 then the Bob’s entangled one will have spin -1 in X-direction and vice versa. So, according the spin measurements, the maximum possible outcome of the equation is 2. When the experiment is repeated multiple times to converge to a fixed value, we get the statistical average of the measurements (remember that the wave function is probabilistic in nature, hence only statistical average of the measurements will yield a definite value for the equation)

Thus, for hidden variable in quantum mechanics,

Where the angular brackets indicate the statistical average of the measurements known as Dirac’s bracket notation.

But, from actual experiments done by John Clauser the CHSH inequality breaks. And the result is:

This proved that quantum mechanics does not follow the local realism as conventional classical mechanics do. Quantum mechanics does not have any hidden variable which are causing its probabilistic nature. Rather the reality is probabilistic instead of deterministic, predefined.

In the experiment done by John Clauser and his colleagues, they measured the polarization of entangled photons in two directions.

There was one loophole in the experiment of John Clauser. The angles of polarizers were preset or fixed before the entangled particles were sent out to observers from the source. This adds additional determinism in the experiment thereby making “Locally Real” to some extent, therefore the observations were to some extent discrete. I simple words, the experiment done by John Clauser and his colleagues proved a special case of for inconsistency of Bell’s inequality in Quantum Mechanics.

What Alain Prospect the second Nobel Laureate for Physics in 2022 did, that he closed this “loophole of locality”. Alain Prospect and his colleagues devised an experiment where it was possible to switch the detector settings after the entangled particles are released from the source. In simple words, Alain Aspect’s experiment increased the randomness of the combinations and the removed deterministic, predefined nature of measurement.

Quantum Teleportation and Quantum Cryptography

So, now know that the quantum entanglement is real phenomena and not only mathematics but the experiments also follow the principles, it demands the value addition to the society. The third Nobel Laureate for Physics in 2022 – Anton Zeilinger used these principles for transfer of encrypted information.

It is now established that if one particle’s state is measured in a setup at that exact moment the state of the particle entangled with it gets fixed irrespective of the distance. It shows that the information of the first particle being measured is transferred with the speed faster than the speed of the light.

But there is one more catch,

If we have to check the state of the second entangled particle to understand how the first particle behaved, we need to understand in what orientation of the equipment the first particle was measured. This information of the orientation of the equipment cannot be shared to the other end beyond the speed of light. But there is still use of this information. If only the people at both the ends measuring the entangled particles know the settings, orientation of measuring equipment, then only they can understand what the states of particle are.

If the entangled particles interact with some other particles or are intercepted by some enemy, there states will no longer remain the same. The information of the orientation of the equipment will show that.

Hence, the orientation of the equipment for measuring the state of entangled particles becomes a secret key for two observers- one of them is sender and another one is the receiver.

And this is exactly called as Quantum Cryptography. Quantum Teleportation refers to the transfer of information irrespective of the distances as the entanglement is instantaneous.

This implementation of quantum teleportation was done Anton Zeilinger and his colleagues using photons.

Alice will decide the equipment orientation while measuring the state

Bob will use the information of Alice’s equipment orientation for decryption

The one where someone tried to intercept

The name Alice and Bob- The “Power-couple of Quantum Cryptography” first appeared in a paper. The Alice and Bob characters were invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in their 1978 paper “A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems”. Instead of using some boring name Machine A and Machine B they used Alice and Bob. (Some say that the secret message is Valentine’s Day Poem). The names became popular in no time and for any experiment in quantum mechanics you need to involve Alice and Bob. (Given that the love they have for each other!)

Philosophical implications of Bell’s inequality

The breaking of Bell’s Inequality shows that the quantum mechanical system has no hidden variables. Please note that the quantum mechanical systems are the most fundamental systems to date for the whole humanity’s understanding of the universe. This implies that even though the fundamental nature our reality is consistently changing, there are ways to completely understand. One can know the complete system without understanding it’s hidden variables.

The breaking of this inequality both theoretically and experimentally proves that the reality is not definite, predefined. This shows that nature is not deterministic. The idea that reality is mere superposition of infinite possibilities and the one of them becomes apparent only when you interact with them measure is really enlightening. The approach of your measuring equipment, the way you approach the things in nature is like the perspective you hold. The things will define their states their nature according to your perspective is such a humbling idea and learning from all these efforts of humanities greatest minds.

References and Further Readings:

Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022
Three scientists share Nobel Prize in Physics for work in quantum mechanics
Quantum Mechanics – The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman
The EPR Paper – Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen Phys. Rev. 47, 777 – Published 15 May 1935
What exactly is the ‘spin’ of subatomic particles such as electrons and protons? – Scientific American
The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It– Scientific American
Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks? Reality and the Quantum Theory – N. David Mermin, Physics Today 38, 4, 38 (1985)
Pioneering Quantum Physicists Win Nobel Prize in Physics – Quanta magazine
Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’ spotted in objects almost big enough to see – Science
How Bell’s Theorem Proved ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ Is Real – Quanta magazine
Bell’s Theorem – Brilliant.org
The EPR Paradox & Bell’s inequality explained simply by Arvin Ash – YouTube
Local Reality and the CHSH Inequality – Qiskit
The Experiment that Disproved Reality by Keystone Science – YouTube
Security’s inseparable couple: Alice & Bob
Poster Image of The History of the Atom – Theories and Models – http://www.compoundchem.com/
Images References: Alain Aspect | John F. Clauser | Anton Zeilinger | Sir Isaac Newton | Albert Einstein | John Stewart Bell

The Cost of An Apology

Rocketry- The Nambi Effect by R. Madhavan

I recently watched a movie by R Madhavan called ‘Rocketry- The Nambi Effect’. The movie is about the ambitions and the hardships of an Indian Aerospace Engineer to put his nation in the front-seat of rocket competition and the struggles faced by him due the false accusation of espionage and defamation caused after that. The movie has made a successful attempt to develop the feeling of proud for Nambi Narayanan in the first half and the feeling of real sorrow in the second half in the heart of every Indian. I think, this magic of creating a roller coaster of emotions, the magic of touching people’s heart is what movies and storytelling is all about. One can see R Madhavan’s sincere efforts, his dedication and the respect for the character in every frame of the movie.

The first half of the movie tells us about the scholastic levels of Mr. Nambi Narayanan, the smart decisions, the boldness of his character which developed the foundations of the ISRO in an aggressive and cost-effective ways. Right from the idea of visionary thinking of Cryogenic rocket engines, to the pointing out an error in the famous author’s books, to completing time-consuming full fledged research work in mere 10 month, to getting hands on French technology, solving the flaws in it, to getting the technology from Russians knowing the high levels of risks associated with it are the highlighted events which show the greatness of Nambi Narayanan’s love for the nation and his genius.

The second half is about the false charges put on Nambi Narayanan on selling secrets to other country for personal gains. Then the mental and physical torture he and his family went through will break your heart. One can only imagine what could have happened in reality with the person and his family. The second half is about the attitude of Mr. Nambi Narayanan’s persistence, the attitude of not giving up, the belief in truth and his unending love for the nation.

The conclusion of the movie is an apology to Nambi Narayanan which is such a smart and humble execution by R Madhavan for which he deserves very special recognition. We are really sorry for failing such ‘heroes of the nation and the society’.

While watching the scene of the interrogation of Nambi, there is this moment where the government officer asks Nambi that why nobody of his acquaintances from ISRO came to visit him when everybody is now aware of the accusations against him. They would have definitely tried to meet him if he was really innocent. Here, Nambi explains one common behavior of scientists- such behavior can be expected from majority of people but not scientists. Majority of people would have had thought of visiting their loved ones or their colleagues when jailed but scientists are somewhat eccentric when it comes to such “social-ideas”. This thing is effectively depicted in mere few seconds of the movie, which struck me.

One important thing that hit me during watching the movie ‘Rocketry’ was that history has similar examples of hardships faced by the flag bearers of science, knowledge and truth. Some notable examples are the Socrates, Alan Turing, Galileo Galilei, Rhazes and even Albert Einstein.

Socrates

One of the greatest philosophers the history has ever known, the founder of western philosophy was also victim of a trial which finally led to a death penalty for him. The trial of Socrates was one of the notable events in the ancient Greek history. The charges laid on Socrates were: corrupting the youth, worshiping false Gods and not worshiping the state religion. Socrates tries to defend himself but was unsuccessful. This was the time when the Athens was strongly under the influence of Sparta which was trying to take down the ancient Greece and taking down the greatest mind in Greece was pivotal move.

Anyways, despite having the chance to flee from Athens, Socrates accepted the death by consuming a poisonous liquid called “Hemlock”, knowing that what was done against him was wrong. Many people think that there were two different intentions – one political and one religious, which caused to this irreparable loss to Greek society then. The only hopeful thing is that his learnings lived forever through his disciples Plato and Xenophon. The ideas of Socrates corrupted (please mind the sarcasm!) great philosophers Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche and today’s youth till date. The famous painting called The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David in 1787 tries to display the emotions at the final moments of Socrates which is a world-famous art.

The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David

Galileo Galilei

The famous astronomer, engineer, physicist who invented the refracting telescopes which are practically in use still today, the ideas of projectile motion, the motions of pendulums, the inventor of an ancestor to the thermometer called thermoscope was also victim of the wrong charges from Catholic Church.

The sad thing about Galileo was he was accused for believing in the right idea which was against the ideas of the church of his time. The idea of “Heliocentrism”- the idea of Sun being the in the center and not the Earth disturbed the Catholic Church at that time. The ideas of Galileo were backed up by his telescope observations of cosmological bodies like The moon, Jupiter and its moons, Venus, Milky Way and The Sun.

Galileo remained under house arrest for the rest of his life for going against the wrong beliefs. His ground-breaking book called “The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” was banned, the publication, future writing was banned. Galileo had to take back his idea and remain in imprisonment for the rest of his life due to the pressure of the catholic church of those times.

On a bittersweet note, after the life of Galileo, the Vatican apologized Galileo for the wrong they had done. On 31st October, 1992 Pope John Paul (II) formally apologized for the case of Galileo and it took 359 years for an apology to such a scholar.

Alan Turing

One of the greatest mathematicians, the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence also had a painful story which should not remain unmentioned here. The Enigma machine – a sophisticated message scrambler- ciphering device’s code was successfully broke by Alan Turing which gave Britain the competitive edge in the second world war. Though his contributions remained unknown to the world during his lifetime due to the “Official Secrets Act”, the works of Alan Turing is influencing our modern lives in almost every possible way.

Alan Turing was prosecuted for being a homosexual which was illegal during those times and has to undergo a hormone treatment to lower his sexual desires which is also known as “Chemical Castration”. This treatment had great impact on Alan Turing. Alan Turing died by cyanide poisoning at the age of 42.

61 years after the prosecution of the homosexual act on Alan Turing, Queen Elizabeth II gave posthumous pardon to Alan Turing in 2013. It took 61 years for an apology to Alan Turing. This too has bittersweet ending like Galileo.

Rhazes

One lesser-known event and a person from history is the person called Abū Bakr al-Rāzī also known as “Rhazes”. Al-Rāzī from Baghdad, Persia is considered as one of the world’s first great medical experts; he is known for the very first diagnosis of Smallpox and Measles where he identified the epidemic nature of the diseases. He is also known for the introduction of psychology and psychotherapy in medical sciences.

Al-Rāzī introduced the ideas of Hippocrates- known as the father of Medicine to the Arab world which led to his arrest on the orders of local Priest. His ‘western’ teachings, his books were abandoned under the claims of heresy. One day, the torturers hit his head with his own manuscript which eventually led to permanent blindness. He couldn’t continue his practice due to blindness and died in poverty.

Today, al-Rāzī is considered as the greatest and the most original of all Muslim physicians by famous historians. He is recognized as the father of pediatrics. Iran celebrates 27 August as ‘Pharmacy Day’ – ‘Razi Day’ in the honor of al-Rāzī as his birthday.

Conclusion

In the movie ‘Rocketry- The Nambi Effect’ the director gives us the idea of the moment when the Nambi Narayanan is officially declared as innocent by the Supreme Court of India. One can see the immediate behavioral changes in people around him. At this moment, Nambi Narayanan tells his wife about how he will be dedicating his whole life only to his family especially her, which is chilling enough to highlight the dedication he had for his nation which had taken his priorities on nation over family. This is the moment when audiences also realize that scientists though eccentric, different in a way are still humans and have families, are father, are husband, are friend to someone.

One cannot compensate for the amount of mental and physical loss such scholars go through when they are charged with such bottomless accusations. This needs specific awareness amongst us as a conscious crowd. It becomes our responsibility as a society to treat the great minds, special minds with the respect and dignity they deserve.

Humans are flawed, people make mistakes. Mistakes can be corrected too. At this point it is also important to weigh out the mistakes, all mistakes cannot be weighed equal in such extremely sensitive cases because there is no turning back once cascade of events starts happening. This requires simple habit of stopping for a moment, responding to the rumors, events rather than reacting to them.

One important thing to highlight is that, “It is only sheer luck of Indians to be able to apologize, to get a chance to say sorry to such a great personality called Nambi Narayanan who sacrificed so much for the nation, personally and professionally”. His belief in the greater good for the nation’s development even after such mistreatment is the proof of his humble, honest and great character. We have R Madhavan to thank for giving every Indian this opportunity. The granter of opportunity to correct the mistake in some way also becomes important in this sense. The movie really proves its point as “Sometimes a man wronged is a nation wronged.” Indians rather every society should be thoughtful about such ill-treatments to their scholars and consider themselves lucky enough to have this chance within time (which is not comparable to the loss happened to them) to apologize such great minds.

I think, an apology is not an event or a moment which separates and erases the ill-happenings from the conditions today and hereon; an apology is an attitude, a process which should get reflected in the behavior of a person, a society for the present and the coming future.

The best apology is changed behavior
anonymous

Dune’s Ornithopters and Biomimicry

I recently watched Denis Villeneuve’s Dune in theater. The movie is a visual masterpiece. I would say it is a dark chocolate for eyes rather than eye candy. The character development is more visual and not just a general exposition. The most fascinating things in the dune universe are the equipment, machinery, tools which do not involve a computer intelligence to control or maneuver. Impressive thing is that the technology shown in the universe of dune, looks futuristic but people, their culture, beliefs, politics, religion remains frozen in the time. It seems the harshness and difficulty of living has made the advanced technology shed its attractive- rather ‘showpiece’ aspects and only the utilitarian aspects of technology are maintained forever. Here, the technology is truly representing as a tool of people.

One of the things from ‘the Duniverse’ that intrigued me is ‘the Ornithopters’. When I saw them taking flight, the only thing that came into my mind was ‘Hummingbird’. Ornithopters are the helicopters equivalents on Arrakis- the desert planet. The ornithopters on Arrakis are six or eight winged flying pods which look like dragonflies, in fact Denis Villeneuve intended their design in that way. They fly by flapping their wings like hummingbird and have far better maneuvering abilities that a normal helicopter. They can glide way better due to their aerodynamic dragonfly-like shape. Here, the technology draws inspiration from the nature. Hummingbirds are the birds which can fly backwards, side-ways and downwards; they can do somersaults and are better in long term hovering compared to other birds.

There are many examples in real life especially in technology, where inspiration is drawn from the nature. Inspirations from nature are taken to solve the design problems and is known as Biomimicry or Biomimetics. The word is self-explanatory- ‘Bio’ means nature and ‘mimicry’ means imitation, enactment, copying.

Popular example of biomimicry is the design of bullet train. The engineers were facing problem of sonic booms when the train entered through a tunnel with high speed. The engineers solved the problem by designing the front end of the train similar to the Kingfisher’s beak. The inspiration was drawn from a picture of kingfisher diving into the pond for fishing. When a kingfisher dives for fish, there is no splashing on the water surface. The picture is captured just at the moment when beak of the bird enters the surface of water. In order to execute a successful fish hunt, the entry through the water must remain swift; For proper target there should not be splashing of water because undisturbed water surface will have more clarity. Same phenomena, functionality was implemented in the design of the bullet train.

Lotus effect is also one good example of bio-mimicry. We all know the water repellent properties of lotus leaves, lily leaves. Two German botanists namely Wilhelm Barthlott and Christoph Neinhuis were studying highly magnified plant leaves. At high magnification of 1-20 nano-meters magnification, even a speck of dust can ruin the image. The botanists realized that there was no special need of sample cleaning for the lotus leaves samples. Upon detailed studies they found out that, there were two features contributing to the cleanliness of the leaves. One was the layer of wax, which is obvious for everyone. The second and the most unexpected feature was the presence of micro bumps on the surface. These small bumps trap air which creates higher contact angle between water and leaf surface. The water drop literally becomes spherical on these bumps as the air trapped between the bumps is pushing the water film inwards and surface tension is helping more and more to the formation of curvature.

This effect was replicated using negative- positive molding processes for the preparation of Self-cleaning surfaces. It is like molding a wax statue but the here the technique is precise to microscopic scale. Self cleaning paints are getting introduced in the market recently.

Main thing to understand is that, not everything we derive from the nature could be called as biomimicry. Biomimicry is more about functionality of the design. Giving wings to a machine to fly won’t be called as a biomimicry, it will be called as a ‘Bio-inspired design’. A Bio-inspired design is more inclusive term which covers Biomimicry (functions like nature), Bio-morphism (as in more similar in looks with nature) and Bio-utilization (uses nature as an agency). In the case of the ornithopters, it is the higher pivot providing design of the wings. The hummingbirds have these wings with highest pivot angle between wings and shoulders which enables them to maneuver exceptionally.

Hummingbird have wings with high pivot angle

There is one organization focusing on the Biomimicry. The ‘Biomimicry Institute’ is a non-profit organization striving for bringing people together to solve the problems using biomimicry. Nature itself is running the largest laboratory for billions of years and we can look for solutions to our problem by just asking one simple question- ‘How would nature solve this?’ Janine Benyus– Cofounder of Biomimicry Institute popularized biomimicry. Her TED talk is available on the institute’s website- biomimicry.org. You should visit the website to explore more.

Biomimicry has made us realize that nature is the largest library that humans can ever have. Its conservation is not just important for the sustenance, but it can highly contribute to the technological advancements of humanity. Whenever we are losing a species, we are losing an immense source of knowledge which was result of millions-billions years of nature’s research. The thought itself can bring us closer to nature- natural resources and its conservation. Biomimicry will create more pro-nature solutions to the problems. Sometimes modern problems require bio-mimicked solutions! (Yes, I did that ;D)

For further explorations just google these:

biomimicry.org
How a steppe eagle’s wingtip solved Airbus A380 Wake Turbulence problem – Richard Hammond’s Engineering Connections- Airbus A380 documentary by National Geographic
Gecko’s feet and surface adhesion
Lotus effect and self-cleaning paints
Invention of Velcro

Jacques Derrida’s philosophy for the better understanding of the reality

Language and its purpose

Logocentrism

Plato’s definition of reality – Platonism and The theory of forms

Semiotics – Language as signs

Aufhebung – the sublation

Deconstruction

What came first – chicken or the egg? meaning or language?

Meaning is relative

Deconstruction

Why the idea of deconstruction felt wrong? And is it really wrong?

Conclusion

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Benford’s Law for natural datasets and financial fraud detection

Is There Any Meaning in Randomness?

Natural Series – Real Life Data

I Lied – There is A Pattern in The Natural Randomness!

Logarithm and Newcomb

Frank Benford and The Law of Anomalous Numbers

Benford’s Law in Fraud Detection

Limitations of Benford’s Law

Nature Builds Through Compounded Growth, Not Through Linear Growth!

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How Frank Herbert used human psyche in the creation of Dune’s antihero?

Existentialism in Dune Part Two

The Prophecy – A Perfect Example of Confirmation Bias

Cognitive Dissonance and Identity – What Makes Paul to Seek the Ultimate Power?

The Pygmalion Effect – Is Paul Really the Messiah?

The Prophecy – Does ‘Free Will’ Really Exist in Dune?

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Dilemma of morality in the character arc of Paul Atreides

Boundaries of Right or Wrong – What is Moral? What is Ethical?

Are Morality and Ethics Objective?

Philosophy of Morality

Power and Aesthetics

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Abraham Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ for The Modern World

Psychology ~ Study of mental!?!

Humanistic Psychology – What Makes Someone “A Whole Human”?

Self-Actualization – The Classical View on Being the Best Version of You

The (Controversial) Pyramid

Theory of Motivation and Self-Actualization

The Characteristics of Self-Actualizers

Self-actualization is a journey

Maslow’s theory of motivation for the modern world

The Cybernetic Big Five Theory

The Metatraits – Bridging the Classical and Modern Theory of Motivation

It’s Not A Pyramid, Rather It’s A Sail Boat

Conclusion

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Neuroscience of the languages of love

Background – What is love? What is an emotion?

Love language

Brain vs heart – Neuroscience of love

How does a neuroscientist interpret love?

The Experiment

Why this experimental setup is important?

Observations – looking from a neuroscientist’s perspective

Conclusions

What does this mean to common person?

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Part-3 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas of a True Scholar for the Modern World

Objectivity – The Job of A True Scholar

Confidence and Bravery of Self Expression

Fluidity of thoughts

Age of Revolution – Inner Development, Relevance of Knowledge and Man as a University

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Bell’s Inequality and The Completeness of Quantum Mechanics

Classical Mechanics

Rise of Quantum Mechanics and the EPR Paper

The Quantum Leap

The Wave Particle Duality

Spin of an electron

Quantum measurements are never “Gentle”

Einstein’s problem with the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics

The entanglement- the bizarre child of an innocent mother

God does not play dice

The EPR Paper

Where the determinism and theory of relativity breaks

The Nobel Pursuit- Bell’s Inequality