Monday, March 18, 2024

 books for 'modern' folk, to 'get' yoga


The Lotus and the Robot , by Arthur Koestler,  link (available on internet archive, i think0

A search in secret India , by Paul Brunton,  author-wiki. pdfs available online


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

 flexibility is keith

Monday, March 11, 2024

 What if the seven rishis were seven controller key genes , what if we could switch them on and off via chants and poses and ascetic practice ? what if invoking and propitiating then just meant switching them on, and they way was to block energies so that they 'wag-the-dog' so to speak ?


What of karma is nothing more than strange attractors sitting in the neural nets of the brain?

Friday, March 08, 2024

Smarter better faster is an amazing book and should be a must-read when passing out of high school, if not first book on the job. Yet it is so underrated. 

Thursday, March 07, 2024


 *  Often it is means that justify ends: Goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.


 *  Make no mistake about it: Computers process numbers — not symbols. We measure our understanding (and control) by the extent to which we can arithmetize an activity.


---- Alan J Perlis,  Epigrams in Programming

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

"Under what circumstances is it moral for a group to do that which is not moral for a member of that group to do alone ?" 

― Robert A Heinlein


all of society is organised into groups so that _we_ may do in what _i_ can't or won't  do. 

think of the firing squad - why need a firing squad at all ?   one person can just walk up to the condemned, put the barrel of the gun to their head, and  pull the trigger .... 

this is not done because men can't take too much of this, and it destroy's morale; hence the firing squad. 

( in fact, this comes from the files of Eichmann  - the nazis used to do this to the jews at first, but the guns began overheating, and also, morale began to drop, so more impersonal and efficient methods needed to be found..) 

a member of the firing squad  doesn't know if he is given live bullets or not;  and whether one's shot hit the condemned or not.  hence , the firing squad reduces to a bunch of individuals, each firing what _may_be_ real ammunition, towards the condemned 

- and NOT -

"men who shoot and kill the condemned" - because this statement will not be true for each member of the squad. 

hence ,  a group can kill, while an individual does not 

the commanding officer - the one who brings the squad and condemned together, and exercises his authority in making the squad shoot on his command, is not pulling the trigger, and hence is also not 'doing the killing'

//  is this a ship of Theseus problem ? 

// is this a "I was just doing my job" problem ?

can you punish the hand for what the brain asked it to do ? but the hand is not autonomous whereas the individual is (or so we believe for now)

if you were to reverse the moral logic, and insinuate that every person in the group is guilty of killing , then by extension, you and me are also guilty of the same thing by virtue of just existing in the society that employs firing squads 

by extension, you and me are guilty for every deforestation, every bit of polluted soil and air, every death by road accident etc

on a different note - 

when matter compilers and nano assemblers become household items, do we have to carry the karma for ALL those who died before, or do we get a fresh slate ?

ultimately, every aspect of human life is being part of a 'firing squad', and we get by thanks to our addictions, be it sugar, caffeine, alcohol, or digital content. this is the human condition, of man, in society.



Tuesday, March 05, 2024

 Was watching some avatar -last airbender 

Couldnt help notice - the airbenders,  they all have arrows tattoed pointed to the ajna chakra