The Matrix

Reeves plays the perfect robot ! Ever seen him emote in the movie? Or any movie for that matter? Even in "The lake house" which was supposed to be a "romantic comedy" he did not . Anyway who cares about that!! But the story really made me think. Isn't it an awesome idea? That we are all not really living but imagining ! Yeah sure ! I know I am living ! I can see hear feel ! Really? Can I ? The only reason I "know" I am touching the keyboard is because when I touched it the first time, I got a certain signal in my brain which has been registered as "keyboard touching". But what if the first time signal itself was bogus? But have I not "seen" the keyboard and know that my fingers are touching it? But have I really? Even sight is just some arbitrary signal to the brain ! As soon as we were born , we got some signal and assumed it was sight. How do we know if what we see is the same thing someone else sees? We can always point to the object but what is red to you might not be red to me ! And pain is another thing which is even worse because it can't even be pointed at. Only I can feel it! The movie(s) ! Oh yeah . What action sequences ! What graphics . What awesome "acting" . Keanuexperience my pain. When a doctor asks me to describe the pain, I feel like slapping him ! What the hell am i supposed to say? Yet they diagnose based on the patients description of pain. They must really be brilliant then ! How do we really tell if we are really living and are not imagining? This is really a lot worse than Einstein's box. At least there I couldn't tell if I was moving or at rest . This is infinitely worse ! Maybe we are not really seeing or moving or feeling and are just stuck in a box with wires connected out. Or even worse, what if there are no such things as bodies, but just brains , or just minds ! Maybe we are all just brains who have been punished to live in a "world" where we are forced to believe we have bodies , and there are free brains out there somewhere. Out where? Well anywhere for that matter. Wouldn't this thought at least give some purpose to our aimless existences? I mean what are we existing for? We are born, we live we die and the fortunate ones get remembered for something or the other but then you are dead and for you that is the end. Of course the biologists say the aim of life is to proliferate the species! So, sex is the ultimate aim of life huh? Then why do we have to do so much to get it? And once you've actually done "it" isn't life over? Why continue existing?
This is where I suppose religion steps in. Nearly every religion has a theory of what happens after death. Hindu philosophy is very similar to what I have said, as in our "souls" are trapped in the human form and have to be released by attaining "moksha". What then ? No clue.
Of course another theory I can think of is the "Its turtles all the way down". I read something like this in "Surely you're joking Mr.Feynman". A must read if you ask me. The book is just awesome and is non-technical unlike his lecture series which is obvioulsy brilliant . Anyway, in the book, an old lady tells Feynman that the world is supported by a giant turtle. And when he asks what supports this turtle, she says, "Ah you are clever, but its turtles all the way down". So as an analogue, suppose instead of being attached to some big machine , we are all cells of a huge organism, and we each perform what it wants from us, that time for us begins(the big bang if you will ;) ) at the point of conception. Also each cell in our body is similar, all connected yet have no idea they are, because if a nerve cell looks at a red blood cell, I doubt it would recognise it as another cell! I mean obviously to every cell in the body, the first point in time is conception as it has record of nothing else.
Well right now, these thoughts actually make me feel I might have some other purpose in life than to increase the ever growing population and make the rigours of life that much more tolerable cause I might be helping some big all powerful organism ;)

Memory

Well. Long time no see. I really have no idea why I have not posted in such a long time. Guess I forgot about my blog. Memory is such a weird thing. I love this quote "I've had memories for as long as i can remember". I mean , how can one justify the fact that he/she can always remember the exact words that special someone said yet forget where he put the keys. How does that happen? An even worse example- I really don't remember writing what I have written in the past posts! How did i manage to forget? Well that just raises a fundamental question. How does memory work? If we look at the size of the human brain , and the size of the "high-funda" memory devices, and their relative capacities, the difference is phenomenal! But then, does the brain work like conventional storage? Or is it totally different? Remember also that the brain not only stores but processes! How are bits of data connected in the brain? How do chains of thought proceed? How can a smell trigger a memory which triggers another and so on? Another thing to consider, is it really fair to compare the brain to a conventional memory device? Because a conventional device is loss-less. But a brain storage is not. We forget don't we? But do we forget chunks of data or just remember bits of it ? Many a time, something that we seem to have forgotten seems to come back with little effort. Of course, if I really want to remember something I forgot I can guarantee that I just will not remember it and it'll come to mind only a lot later.
So getting back to the point of memory, No one knows how exactly its stored. There are many speculations but nothing concrete. Are there brain cells which can be 1 or 0 ? Or more advanced quantum levels? Hmmm . Why should memory be digitised? Couldn't it be analog? Analog memory? How is that accomplished? How is it used? I can't even begin to imagine the possibilities of what would happen to computations if we had analog memory. But then, nothing in nature is digitised, so why should memory be? Maybe all we really are, are complex video cameras who can add! NO! Wait, that can't be right ! We're much more advanced . We have Emotions! Yet emotions are considered to be a "weakness" and the best is the guy who can "let go" of them and strive to push beyond everything. So the best guy is a robot huh? With digital memory !! So we can never be "The best" if we had an analog memory ! So is that why trying to mime human behaviour is so hard? Cause we are not digitised and everything we use is?
Or is that why robots are one day gonna take over ?? Terminator?? Matrix?? Hmmm.
EEKS. Too many questions ! Where did I start and where am i now? That show how bad memory can be! I forgot about what I was writing about during the post ! Hmmm ! Now if I had a digital memory would I have forgotten? Cause there are only 2 levels. What the topic is and what the topic is not !!!