It has been two months since I last blogged. Maybe more than that. Blame the exams and my busy life. Leave all that aside for a moment. Let me get to the point. Allow me to make it random. Questions and a stanza or two await you.
This is a quickie. I’m desperate to write. ___________________________________________________________
“You are like a blank paper. Blank.
You speak of nothing, tell no tales.
I would fall for it that you came from a rock.
But then I know, you were once a tree.
Lush and full of life to spare.
Can I ever get you back there?”
Is equality a law of nature? Is the world fair and equal to one and all? One nice quote.
“Being nice to the world and expecting it to treat you the same is like being an vegetarian and expecting a tiger to spare your life for that reason.”
I have conflicts in my mind whether equality truly exists. Billions of people are born in the world. Some die within a year and those who survive, well they just survive. A very few live. Think of those who died before they could even give their parents the joy of hearing their baby’s first word. Or those innocents who were massacred in an act of war. Or swept away in a tsunami. I ask, what was their crime?
Go on. Tell me they committed a sin in their previous lifetime. Go on, invoke rebirth. Tell me that the purpose they served was to highlight the plight of the hungry and the destitute all over the world. I ask, why choose them, these innocent mortals to bring the issue to the attention of fellow humans. Why this inequality in choosing who dies? Sacrifice? For what? A piece of land which you think belongs to you just because it is on paper? Sigh. We are not different, are we? Yet we are not equal. Now blame it on the creator’s plans will you? Spare him. Spare him the blame. You know who is the culprit.
Go on, kill the animals, eat them just because they are tasty. And helpless too! I ask, who has given you the right to kill other living beings if you can survive otherwise? And why shoot a lion if it tries to survive off you, then? Why this inequality? Don’t bother to think, is that your escape? Try.
Who are we? Why do we act like the boss, when we know we are not?
I am not frustrated. I’m simply crying from within. I am just like you. I am guilty. And I’m trying to make you feel the same. No offence.
I think the following piece from my Facebook Timeline speaks volumes about what I consider as the truth. Right click and zoom to read the text comfortably.
Yes, I do believe we are here without a purpose and I build up on the stand I take in the last few lines of my previous post, Being Human. We might be an accident. But how much of an accident are we?
The discussion brings me to another crucial junction but it involves a detour. Are we puppets who are here to enact a story that is already written? Or are we the master of our future? Herein, lies the great free will v/s determinism debate. Let’s see what science has to say. Mind you, I am no expert but I shall try my best to give you a rough idea.
- Determinism
You must have surely heard about Einstein’s theories of relativity. Take the General theory of relativity. What evolved from it is the idea that the universe is like a loaf of bread. Each slice, representing a still of the universe at a given point in time. So, different slices show you how the universe is at different moments of time. This is known as a block universe. This, is where the past, the present and the future all exist. What do I mean by ‘they all exist’? Well, they all are equal. They all ‘exist’ in their own right. It is just that you experience a different slice which you call ‘now’ or ‘present’.
Suppose there eventually is a ‘theory of everything’, that is something like a formula that you chug in all the information about the universe in and given enough computational power, you will be able to see the past or the future as the laws of nature don’t change over time. Well, that means your future is already out there. You are just walking towards it. What is to happen, will happen. And you are already immortal. Death won’t affect your existence as they frames of time you were ‘alive’ in, they all exist!
- And Otherwise
I pretend you must have heard about quantum mechanics too. It is the theory that governs the minute domain. The funniest part with the theory is that is mathematically beautiful, and it is very much true to real world observation but no one knows for sure what the math means! No one knows the physical significance of the math! So, many people came up with different interpretations of a single observation.
The observation is somewhat like this. When a tiny tiny (does that make it cute?) particle goes from a point A to another point B, you just can’t tell what path it took. Straight, curved or maybe around the moon. Suppose a ideal train was to travel from Mumbai to Delhi, knowing its speed you could tell where the train is without actually having any contact with the train. On the contrary, you just can’t say anything about where the particle is until and unless you detect it. That’s nature.
Also, you should know that every particle has something called a ‘wavefunction’ associated with it. A wavefunction is supposed to contain all the information that one has to know about the particle.
The Copenhagen Interpretation says that when an act of ‘observation’ is carried out, the particle is forced to assume a particular position, it is no longer vague. This is known as the wavefunction collapse. That is, the probability of finding the particle at the place it is detected is unity.
Another interpretation, which is steadily gaining steam is the Many Worlds Interpretation. At every event with an inherent uncertainty attached to it, the universe splits or forks into many more universes. Every quantum possibility is realised albeit in a different world. The universe, is not deterministic in a philosophical manner. I won’t go to the length of relating this to free will, though. But I do hope you get the gist of what I am trying to lay before you.
That is, the sort of contrasting views about what exactly is happening. Scientists are yet to figure out what the truth is. Do read up on this from reliable sources if you are interested in knowing more as I am afraid I might have over-simplified it.
But wait.
Wasn’t I supposed to be here doing only a quickie?
Ah, the damned diversions!
Yours,
Thebiggerbang.
