Act 1:
"I don't believe in an interventionist God, but I know that you do;
If I were to see Him I would ask not to intervene when it came to you.
Not to touch a hair upon your head,
and if He was to direct you,
then direct you into my arms..."
Act II:
"A man of sorrows
wrecked
by thoughts that dare not speak their name,
trapped inside a body
made to feel
only guilt and shame..."
I amuse myself here; Your amusement is intended but boundedly so
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
3 most common questions asked of an Indian
(a) how does the caste system work?
(b) you guys are all intelligent, then why are you so poor?
(c) why don't you play soccer/football?
question (c) unlikely to come from an American. Substitute the following for (c): How can you play a game that lasts for five days?
(a) is an irritating question; (b) is harder to answer but an answer can be attempted.
I have no clue why football isn't big in India.
(b) you guys are all intelligent, then why are you so poor?
(c) why don't you play soccer/football?
question (c) unlikely to come from an American. Substitute the following for (c): How can you play a game that lasts for five days?
(a) is an irritating question; (b) is harder to answer but an answer can be attempted.
I have no clue why football isn't big in India.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
why david coverdale was hired by deep purple
you may recognize him from "Still of the Night"; contrast that with the performance on display here
this is one of the most emotionally intense jams I've ever laid my ears on. What a way to start a saturday!
this is one of the most emotionally intense jams I've ever laid my ears on. What a way to start a saturday!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The Cultural Importance of Def Leppard
Who would have thought Def Leppard would inspire
(a) The Offspring (see video 4 seconds in)
(b) Kurt Cobain's suicide letter (see video 19 seconds in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvNOZegkVXo&feature=related
I don't care how silly it looks. It sounds great. The fact that this is all fun and games only adds to the experience. At least there's no "oh my what a source of cultural importance" idolizing that one encounters with say The Beatles or The Stones.
They're just playing rock n'roll and they like it, like it, yes they do.
(a) The Offspring (see video 4 seconds in)
(b) Kurt Cobain's suicide letter (see video 19 seconds in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvNOZegkVXo&feature=related
I don't care how silly it looks. It sounds great. The fact that this is all fun and games only adds to the experience. At least there's no "oh my what a source of cultural importance" idolizing that one encounters with say The Beatles or The Stones.
They're just playing rock n'roll and they like it, like it, yes they do.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Analysis of Conflict
To all those who bleat consistently about the implausibility of the Nash equilibrium, here's some words from Roger Myerson (heavily edited):
"A solution concept can be viewed as a mapping that determines for every game a set of mathematical descriptions of how players should behave...The goal of game theoretic analysis is to generate a solution concept that has the following two properties:
(a) For each prediction in the solution set, there exist environments where this prediction would accurately prescribe how rational, intelligent players would behave.
(b) For any prediction not in the solution set, there is no environment where this prediction would be an accurate description of how rational, intelligent players would behave.
[Note: an environment consists of all those things not modeled in the game.]
Call any solution that satisfies (a) a lower solution, and that satisfies (b) an upper solution. Ideally we want a solution concept to be both an upper and lower solution, i.e. an exact solution.
This is hard to figure out in practice...a lower solution excludes all unreasonable predictions but may include some reasonable predictions, while an upper solution includes all reasonable predictions but may include some unreasonable predictions...it may be best to think of a Nash solution as an upper solution than an exact solution."
This is from Myerson's 1995 book "Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict". Better than any other text I've read by miles.
Incidentally, there's a curious symmetry between the idea of an exact solution as stated above (a) + (b) and the two "fundamental" welfare theorems. It would appear to suggest some deep connection between the "goal of game theoretic analysis" and the goal of resource allocation...I dunno....
"A solution concept can be viewed as a mapping that determines for every game a set of mathematical descriptions of how players should behave...The goal of game theoretic analysis is to generate a solution concept that has the following two properties:
(a) For each prediction in the solution set, there exist environments where this prediction would accurately prescribe how rational, intelligent players would behave.
(b) For any prediction not in the solution set, there is no environment where this prediction would be an accurate description of how rational, intelligent players would behave.
[Note: an environment consists of all those things not modeled in the game.]
Call any solution that satisfies (a) a lower solution, and that satisfies (b) an upper solution. Ideally we want a solution concept to be both an upper and lower solution, i.e. an exact solution.
This is hard to figure out in practice...a lower solution excludes all unreasonable predictions but may include some reasonable predictions, while an upper solution includes all reasonable predictions but may include some unreasonable predictions...it may be best to think of a Nash solution as an upper solution than an exact solution."
This is from Myerson's 1995 book "Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict". Better than any other text I've read by miles.
Incidentally, there's a curious symmetry between the idea of an exact solution as stated above (a) + (b) and the two "fundamental" welfare theorems. It would appear to suggest some deep connection between the "goal of game theoretic analysis" and the goal of resource allocation...I dunno....
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Ant Gods
My friend JC, over at uglybutbearable.blogspot.com has a very interesting post on what God could represent. He takes the example of ants in ant farm will attempt to make their "God" in their image - thus the idea of a God these ants will carry may have nothing to do with their "real" "God" - the owner of the ant farm.
I'm going to try taking this in another direction; to help point out the issues I see with the belief in a God - or at least, the notion of a God as it is popularly believed.
Imagine a 2-d ant, in fact imagine a colony of 2-d ants. Consider the world they live in to be a perfect sphere. Now being 2-d, it is inconceivable for these ants to understand a sphere, since their understanding of the world is going to be limited by the physical characteristics of the world as they see it. Although they live on a sphere, for the 2-d ant a sphere will be nothing but a bunch of circles. They might discover that the circles get smaller as you move up or down - but there is no up or down in their world.
This will become a mystery then, probably a mystery they will be unable to solve. Why do their circles get smaller at some places and larger at others? The change in circle size will probably also affect physical characteristics of their world. Ants that are believers will put this down to a "God" - a mysterious supernatural force that affects their world in innumerable ways.
Now, through a series of scientific advances they may chance upon a mathematical proof that claims a reconciliation of all the phenomena they observe lies upon the existence of a 3rd dimension, in which the sphere exists.
Impossible, most ants will say. "That's ridiculous! A 3rd dimension!" Of course this doesn't mean that it isn't true!
It does not also make it any less revelatory or supernatural than a belief in a God.
There are 2 ways of interpreting the above statement - (a) God is an easy concept that people rely on to escape their non-understanding of the world therefore religion halts science; (b) it does not matter what you call it as long as you seek to understand it.
Being no expert in theology, I have no idea what the consensus among religions is regarding understanding the world but I'd be surprised if the teachings in all the Holy books tell you not to seek understanding. In this way I see religion and science co-existing. It is a narrow view on what religion and science represent that I guess underlies most of the debate between religion and science.
But then again, it's hard to reconcile this with the apparent statement in the Bible that the world is 5000 years old, for example. Or that there were flying saucers during the time Ram was king.
As far as I'm concerned however, as long as you maintain a curiosity about the world and a basic humility regarding the extent of our knowledge, there does not seem to exist any room for a debate. In this light, the problem that I see is not with religion/God per se, it is the interpretation of it - this is our Holy Book, and it is completely correct, so don't challenge it - that is the problem. Of course this is not to say that scientific beliefs are easily challenged either, but rather that they are allowed to be and that too in a systematic fashion, more or less.
The beauty of a logical proof demonstrating an aspect - physical or psychological or both - of the world and that helps generate insight - that beauty you can call God. A God, that works in a less mysterious way.
Of course there is the question - why do we find beauty in a mathematical proof? (Well some of us anyway). Is there is a "understanding the world" gene within us, a la Richard Dawkins' Selfish gene?
I'm going to try taking this in another direction; to help point out the issues I see with the belief in a God - or at least, the notion of a God as it is popularly believed.
Imagine a 2-d ant, in fact imagine a colony of 2-d ants. Consider the world they live in to be a perfect sphere. Now being 2-d, it is inconceivable for these ants to understand a sphere, since their understanding of the world is going to be limited by the physical characteristics of the world as they see it. Although they live on a sphere, for the 2-d ant a sphere will be nothing but a bunch of circles. They might discover that the circles get smaller as you move up or down - but there is no up or down in their world.
This will become a mystery then, probably a mystery they will be unable to solve. Why do their circles get smaller at some places and larger at others? The change in circle size will probably also affect physical characteristics of their world. Ants that are believers will put this down to a "God" - a mysterious supernatural force that affects their world in innumerable ways.
Now, through a series of scientific advances they may chance upon a mathematical proof that claims a reconciliation of all the phenomena they observe lies upon the existence of a 3rd dimension, in which the sphere exists.
Impossible, most ants will say. "That's ridiculous! A 3rd dimension!" Of course this doesn't mean that it isn't true!
It does not also make it any less revelatory or supernatural than a belief in a God.
There are 2 ways of interpreting the above statement - (a) God is an easy concept that people rely on to escape their non-understanding of the world therefore religion halts science; (b) it does not matter what you call it as long as you seek to understand it.
Being no expert in theology, I have no idea what the consensus among religions is regarding understanding the world but I'd be surprised if the teachings in all the Holy books tell you not to seek understanding. In this way I see religion and science co-existing. It is a narrow view on what religion and science represent that I guess underlies most of the debate between religion and science.
But then again, it's hard to reconcile this with the apparent statement in the Bible that the world is 5000 years old, for example. Or that there were flying saucers during the time Ram was king.
As far as I'm concerned however, as long as you maintain a curiosity about the world and a basic humility regarding the extent of our knowledge, there does not seem to exist any room for a debate. In this light, the problem that I see is not with religion/God per se, it is the interpretation of it - this is our Holy Book, and it is completely correct, so don't challenge it - that is the problem. Of course this is not to say that scientific beliefs are easily challenged either, but rather that they are allowed to be and that too in a systematic fashion, more or less.
The beauty of a logical proof demonstrating an aspect - physical or psychological or both - of the world and that helps generate insight - that beauty you can call God. A God, that works in a less mysterious way.
Of course there is the question - why do we find beauty in a mathematical proof? (Well some of us anyway). Is there is a "understanding the world" gene within us, a la Richard Dawkins' Selfish gene?
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